- 7 hours ago
Philly Homicide - Season 2 Episode 5 - Deadly Drive-Thru
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00:10she really was a light to be around Rachel taught elementary and middle school as her
00:17students were navigating life they knew they could go to her she was in line to order food
00:26when somebody came up and fired shots into the car this beautiful school teacher from philadelphia
00:31who would want to go after this woman and why i wondered why he had this deep sense of guilt
00:38this case it was a conspiracy i want you to be honest you had nothing to do with this i
00:45had
00:45nothing to do with this this was not a carjacking we don't believe it's a robbery someone actually
00:51meant to kill rachel king in 2023 philadelphia is rocked by the shooting of a beloved school teacher
01:16caught on camera in homicide cases video evidence can be a gold mine but it doesn't always give you
01:23the full story of what happened and why as detectives look into the footage they discover
01:29the motive behind the killing is every bit as cold-blooded as the murder itself
01:41it's the morning rush in elkins park kids are going to school and two philadelphia police officers
01:49were coming across the street to grab some breakfast the officers are approached by this woman and she
01:57says there's been a shooting in the parking lot of the dunkin donuts the officers go to check out this
02:03car that was seemingly in the line of the dunkin donuts drive-through as they approach the car
02:13they see that a woman was shot the woman's dead and very quickly they realize there's an 11 year
02:20old boy in the back seat and they pull him out and get him away and he's hysterical because his
02:27mother had just been shot very kind of uh we have a priority of the 57 of us the boy
02:32tells police his
02:33mother is 35 year old rachel king
02:42that tuesday i'm in south philadelphia just on my morning walk and my phone rings it was my nephew he
02:54said mommy's been shot and he's crying the next voice that i hear is the police officers then they said
03:03rachel has been shot and she is not responsive the police said we're taking your nephew we're going
03:10to the station i just am feeling very overwhelmed i'm just like someone needs to get to this child
03:18and in those next couple of moments i call it my parents ayana said rachel been shot she's
03:26unresponsive so i pop in the car as i'm driving i am praying i wasn't even allowing myself to believe
03:37she was gone
03:44as rachel's family rushes to the police station detectives gregory henry and ryan murray head to
03:50the crime scene in elkins park the information man was very limited this said that there was a
04:00homicide when we got there numerous officers from both philadelphia and shelton hammer on the scene
04:06we could see the victim's car a black ford edge at the back where you're pulling to the drive-through
04:12lane did it come to rest on a concrete and landscape median i could see several bullet holes in the
04:20driver's
04:22side the female was deceased inside the car there were six fire cartridge casings that had already
04:31been marked that were on the driver's side
04:37dunkin donuts is in the middle of the shopping center on cheltenham avenue it's quite busy there
04:43it was a rush hour so one of our first thoughts was it could have been a road rage incident
04:49could
04:50this been a carjacking that went wrong was it a robbery that went wrong
04:57it was still too early and we didn't want to rule anything out
05:02as rachel's body is removed from the scene and taken to the medical examiner's office
05:07detectives speak with witnesses from the information we gathered she was in line to order food when
05:14somebody came up and fired shots into the car the shooter then ran back to a silver sedan got into
05:21the driver's seat and then exited the shopping center onto cheltenham avenue
05:28in talking with the eyewitnesses they provided a description of a black male he was thin maybe between
05:36five nine and six foot and he had a hooded sweatshirt pulled over his head
05:41the hoodie was enough to cover his face so nobody really got a good look at this guy
05:49but there are traffic cameras along cheltenham avenue
05:55there are numerous businesses so we sent officers to all the shopping centers to get the video from
06:02the dunkin donuts all the other business open the decision was made at that point that i would meet
06:08with the family at the station rachel's family tries to maintain a strong front for her son at this
06:17point in time we still don't know the details other than she's shot and she's dead we hadn't told him
06:24that his mother had passed
06:27i just scoop him up and just you know put him in my lap and i just hold him
06:34detective henry was the first member of law enforcement that i had genuine conversation with
06:42during this time road rage was happening more and more and i said this is what it had to be
06:50you couldn't know rachel and do that
07:01rachel was one of five children and she was my little lamb
07:09she was the smallest but big personality very loud voice
07:15she really was a light to be around on those days where things were really hard she was like
07:23you can do this like you got this get back out there
07:29rachel taught elementary and middle school i think rachel's passion for teaching came from
07:36the part of her that just desires to help people and see people be and do well
07:44as her students were navigating life and needed any number of things they knew they could go to her
07:52she had a particular student whose family was struggling mightily
07:58financially and rachel began to purchase things for this student and the family her willingness to put
08:05herself out there for the kids that she cared about made her loom large in my eyes
08:13it's clear rachel was loved by everyone which presents detectives with a puzzle
08:18it didn't appear rachel had any enemies didn't seem like anybody who wanted to hurt her everybody was
08:24asking that question why
08:30who we also had an eyewitness who was right there who was in the car unfortunately it was
08:36an 11 year old who had just watched his mom be killed he said that it happened really fast
08:43his ears are still ringing from the gunshots i've been in situations like this before whenever
08:50a child is your primary witness it's tough the last thing you want to do is re-traumatize them by
08:56repeatedly asking them what happened so detectives are going to proceed with as much sensitivity as
09:02they possibly can it was decided to take rachel's son to mission kids to get any further details that he
09:10might have witnessed or knew about mission kids is a child advocacy center and that's where
09:18children who are victims of crimes or witnesses to crimes will be interviewed
09:23when they do the interviews they're forensic interviewers handling that and forensic interviewers
09:29are trained in how to talk to kids in age-appropriate ways and it's a safe space for a child
09:38the interview at mission kids is scheduled for later that afternoon
09:42as rachel's family leaves the station new evidence comes in at this point we have some preliminary
09:50video of the actual crime happening as well as the moments after it we watched the video from the
09:57dunkin donuts at that point we could see what appeared to be a mercury sable right through the
10:03shopping center and had parked maybe 50 to 70 yards behind rachel king's car
10:09it appeared that our shooter had followed the victim into the shopping center we could see a person
10:17walk up and approach rachel king's car from behind raise his right hand and fire several shots into the car
10:27there was no argument no attempt to get in the car he just walked right up fired
10:34and then ran back to his car he appeared to be the only person in his car there wasn't a
10:40getaway
10:41drive or anything like that this was not a carjacking we don't believe it's a robbery
10:45we believe it was a targeted homicide someone actually meant to kill rachel king
10:51who could possibly want to hurt the school teacher who would want to go after this woman and why
10:59coming up not too long before rachel's death there was an argument could either one of these men
11:08have an interest in seeing rachel dead i didn't do it once we saw the car receipt that painted the
11:16picture that maybe we had a conspiracy here
11:30after rachel king is shot to death while waiting in line at a dunkin donuts drive-thru
11:35detectives review surveillance footage of the crime what they see convinces them her murder
11:41wasn't a random act of violence she was the target she was shot and killed on purpose
11:51we had the shooting on film so we know the person driving that car is our murderer and we knew
11:57the
11:58car involved but most of the video angles were from a distance they weren't close enough to capture a
12:06license plate we had great shots at the front of the car but in pennsylvania only required to have
12:12license plates on the back of the car so that that was not helpful in the video we noticed that
12:18the
12:18car had passed several school buses the school buses now have cameras on them specifically to watch for
12:24people who are running the stop sign at the school bus detectives are hoping one of those school bus
12:30cameras got a clear shot of the shooter's license plate if we get the full plate we can run the
12:37tag see
12:38who the owner of the car is and go from there so now it's a matter of locating the right
12:42bus and get
12:43the camera and information from that bus also we were trying to find out why this happened trying to
12:49get a motive at that point me and ryan started doing interviews to try to gather more information
12:55about who rachel was and who any possible suspects may be detectives henry and murray head to rachel's
13:02apartment in linwood gardens to meet with her family they need to find out more about her personal
13:08life after speaking with some of the family we learned that rachel's son's father and rachel had a
13:16difficult relationship in relationship to rondo hunt family members said there was some bad blood
13:25she met her son's father in undergrad and they did not end up staying together
13:31i didn't particularly care for him he seemed moody and aloof i remember when rachel first told me she
13:39was pregnant she was excited she loved being a mom but rondell wasn't faithful in executing his duties and
13:49taking care of child care and that was disappointing for rachel for several years he was completely absent
13:58from his son's life like nothing didn't show up at all
14:07around 2021 when their son was nine years old rondell suddenly re-entered the picture
14:13rachel called me and just said that he had reached out to her and was just like i want to
14:19be more involved
14:20in our son's life i think rachel tried for the sake of their son but he was not very respectful
14:32of rachel
14:36not too long before rachel's death there was an argument to the point where if she discontinued a phone call
14:45and he continued to message her via text their son saw one of the texts and he messaged his father
14:56on his
14:56own phone do not disrespect my mom like that
15:03as we're learning more about rondell it certainly became apparent that he was a person we were going to
15:09need to speak with sooner rather than later as cops discover more details about rachel's private life
15:16another potential suspect emerges we also found out she had been in a relationship with william hayes for
15:24several years william hayes was 37 years old he worked with kids that needed educational support
15:33and he also lived in the linwood gardens apartment complex
15:40he seemed like a very polite young man very respectful both to rachel and to me after the family
15:49notified william about her death william rushed over to console them it was difficult to fathom william
15:57hayes having anything to do with this even remotely but he kept talking about feeling like in some way
16:06that he was responsible and i didn't understand that i wondered why he had this deep sense of guilt
16:15a lot of times cases like these are domestic in nature so police had to figure out could either one
16:21of these men have an interest in seeing rachel death when we met william he was very distraught
16:31about rachel during that interview he explained his relationship with rachel it was good now but it
16:38was a little rocky at some point uh they had broken up got back together a couple times william hayes
16:47did tell police about a woman that he had been seeing in addition to rachel her name was julie gene
16:56they all lived in the same apartment complex and william did admit to going out with both julie
17:02and rachel at the same time his explanation his relationship with julie was uh strictly sexual
17:10in december of 2022 he had broken it off with julie gene told her he was committed to rachel
17:16he wanted to make that work and she did not take it well
17:36hours after rachel king is murdered her boyfriend william hayes makes a confession to police
17:44he had had a 10 months long sexual affair with julie gene and it was overlapping the time that he
17:52was
17:52dating rachel king
17:55in december of 2022 he decided that it's time to cut julie loose and stay with rachel
18:04julie did not take that well in his opinion we take all the notes but in our mind we're thinking
18:13we
18:13know it's a male shooter and there's nothing at the scene to indicate that there was a second person
18:20involved william provided an alibi that he went to work that morning the cell phone records actually
18:29verified he was where he told us he was detectives turned their focus to rachel's ex rondell that day
18:38we were able to get in touch with rondell and he did agree to come into our police station they
18:45seem
18:45annoyed about having to sit down and talk with us he did admit to having a a strained or a
18:52difficult
18:52relationship with rachel there did seem to be some anger issues but mostly over rachel wanted him to
19:00step up more and i believe rondell thought he was doing the best he could do even though they weren't
19:06on good terms rondell insists he had nothing to do with rachel's murder he was employed as a ride
19:13share driver with a couple companies we were able to confirm that he was working at the time of the
19:21shooting and that he was not anywhere in the area so both men in the life of rachel king were
19:29cleared
19:29pretty quickly looking into rachel's background she didn't know any money no criminal history nothing
19:38in her background stood out as like someone would want this person dead
19:44detectives are hoping rachel's son might be able to provide some more leads
19:48we wanted to find out what he witnessed if he recognized the person and anything that was
19:53pertinent to this case but mission kids were not in the room with the child being interviewed
20:00or with the forensic interviewer but detective henry and i were able to be there by zoom we can ask
20:06the
20:06interviewer to ask additional questions but the whole idea is to not influence what he saw one way or the
20:13other tell me everything that you could see of this man he was wearing all black he was wearing a
20:23hood
20:24he was able to provide a description of the shooter which was consistent with the witnesses and
20:30the video that we've collected and i looked up and i saw him and he was holding the den of
20:36his left hand
20:37he did not recognize the person who shot his mother so again we're focusing on the person driving that car
20:47after his interview was over rachel's family takes her son home and finally breaks the devastating news
20:55he was in his bedroom lying on his bed and we told him that his mother didn't make it
21:04and of course he cried and he kept saying but why why why did he do this to my mommy
21:15and it it ripped my heart even further
21:24because i couldn't give
21:28this 11 year old boy an answer
21:34to the worst thing he had ever experienced
21:39all i could do was hold him
21:46while the shooter's identity remains unknown more information comes in on the car involved
21:52the school district was able to go back and pull video from the
21:56buses that were on chelton m avenue one of those buses was able to capture
22:07some images of the shooter's license plate not the full license plate but we had a couple digits
22:14it was decided that we would release some still photographs of the car
22:17to all the news agencies in the area maybe get somebody from the public's help that they knew the
22:22car maybe they knew the person police found these images of that car they think the killer was in
22:27the da says king was targeted news traveled on this one pretty quickly
22:32by late afternoon they got that image out pretty fast if you know anything about this case maybe
22:37you were here in the melrose shopping center early this morning around 7 40 you may have information
22:43that can help police and find king's killer they're on the five o'clock news within an hour or so
22:52we got a phone call from the philadelphia homicide detective
22:55he told us that he was investigating a homicide that occurred in philadelphia
22:59on april 7th and their suspect had a car that was very similar to the car we were looking for
23:08philadelphia investigators said there was some type of argument around this bar called old york cold beer
23:14that spilled out into the street their suspect ended up pulling out a gun and shooting this guy and
23:21killing him and then jumping into a silver sedan and uh taken off
23:28the philadelphia police department had been looking for that car since the 7th of april
23:34they provided us with the tag and it was matching up with like the partial
23:38tag that we had been able to pull from the video so far and philadelphia police were able to
23:44provide the name of their suspect it's the key alakim
23:55at that point we started doing our homework doing a work up on who was the key alakim
24:01and to find out what we could know about him
24:04the key alakim the 34 year old black male physically he did fit the description of the person we were
24:10looking for he didn't have a permanent address at least that we knew of no close family
24:18we learned he had extensive criminal history drug dealing some theft but nothing
24:24overly violent he already killed somebody else so now we're thinking is he just a hitman like or is
24:31he a psychopath what is his link to rachel king this beautiful school teacher from philadelphia
24:38why would he want to go up to her car and shoot her
24:53by early evening on the day of rachel king's murder detectives are eyeing a suspect in her death zaki
25:00alakim
25:02it's a new name to us we don't see anything connecting him to our victim so we're anxious
25:11to interview him to find out what may have been the link
25:15that evening zakin's car gets spotted by a police officer in philadelphia and he tries to take off
25:24hits a pole crashes the car
25:26hands up hands up out of the car hands up we were subsequently notified by a fellow for homicide
25:35that he was in custody all right you gotta go on you know i don't and that they were going
25:41to
25:41interview him first thing in the morning april 12th and that we will be able to interview him
25:45after that so we were ecstatic that we think we got our guy
25:56so that morning we knew that we had to wait probably till at least afternoon to interview
26:01zaki alakim ryan murray and i decided to run down this license plate we had
26:07we were trying to figure out who owns the car how did it end up in zaki's hands
26:14it had come back to a elder gentleman who lived in cheltenham township he told us that he had
26:20sold the car traded it in at a local dealership the dealership had sold it at an auction and so
26:27detectives were able to find the person who bought it at that auction and it took them back to a
26:32place
26:32called larry's lineman the owner said he sold the mercury for 1500 dollars on march 30th i asked him
26:39if he could produce the receipt for us but the owner doesn't really have any computers he's got
26:46everything written down on on paper receipts as the owner searches for the receipt detectives get
26:54word that philadelphia police are wrapping up their interview with zaki i called my boss and said then
27:00someone to this address to get the receipt in any video so at that point ryan murray and myself
27:06continue to fill up your homicide to interview zaki alakim
27:09is it okay we call you zaki okay we want to talk to you about a shooting that occurred
27:18in cheltenham yesterday the duncan denowitz he didn't seem overly concerned um he wasn't
27:27upset he wasn't angry he had kind of a very flat demeanor do you know a person by the name
27:33of rachel king
27:35no were you anywhere near cheltenham yesterday no his story was that he was at his cousin prairie
27:42madison's that morning and he took the train up to kensington to sell drugs and he was there until 12
27:49o'clock while we're doing the interview we're getting information from the other detectives who were at
27:57that larry's aligning they had watched video from march 30th and they could see a white audi suv pull
28:04up a female and a male get up they talk to the owner of the car they then go and
28:11complete the sales of
28:12the car the male his description was very similar to zaki alakim
28:39the name of the buyer
28:49was julie jean
28:53that to me was our big aha moment that was now the length of rachel king
29:01william hayes is how julie jean and rachel king came to know each other william hayes was dating
29:09rachel king he was also having an affair with julie jean when william spoke with police he mentioned
29:17julie jean and the affair but at the time police were looking for a male but just because julie jean
29:26wasn't there at the crime scene that day doesn't mean she didn't have a role in carrying out rachel's
29:32death and so now police have to figure out what that role was how did she know this man did
29:39she pay him
29:40this is a mother who was murdered you want to make sure that you don't mess up that case
29:45because you only get one shot at a homicide conviction
30:01with zaki alakim in custody new evidence suggests he didn't act alone he's part of
30:07a murder plot to kill rachel king we're pretty confident that zaki alakim's the shooter and we
30:13now believe that julie jean has maybe set this in motion so we have to prove that
30:21detectives dispatch colleagues to locate julie
30:23and they cut right to the chase which is the key so because this is what we do
30:28let me show you when i pull there's the receipt
30:36we showed him the sales receipt at that point he admitted he knew julie jean
30:45he said he ran into her and she offered to buy the car for him because he couldn't
30:50legally get it titled because he didn't have a driver's license did she ask for anything in
30:54return to ask you to help her out with anything no we did try to get him to admit that
30:59he was involved
31:00in the murder but he was still claiming he was nowhere near the scene of the shooting
31:04on the morning of the 11th detectives don't have enough to charge zaki with rachel's murder
31:15but philadelphia police are able to take a step forward in their investigation
31:19his phone was collected by the philadelphia police department after his arrest
31:23and they were going to do the download and get the information to their investigation
31:30once they were finished with that we can do our forensic examination of the phone for our job
31:38as they wrap up their interrogation with zaki
31:41detectives get word that julie jean has been brought in for questioning
31:45i'm sorry what is this in reference to this is in reference to a homicide
31:49that occurred a homicide yes so immediately after when we were done with the interview
31:55lala keem he went back to the cheltenham pd
31:58hear from the other detective that interviewed julie jean to which he had to say
32:07so we're just going to cut to the chase rachel was murdered when was it today yesterday morning
32:15she said she did not know that rachel had died that she was unaware of that
32:20when she was asked if she knew zaki she admitted to knowing zaki as a friend of her children's
32:29father perry madison what is his phone number i don't have his number did you guys buy the car
32:36i didn't buy the car so you are saying that you weren't there when you purchased the car and drove
32:42a lot no you're telling me i want you to be honest you had nothing to do i had nothing
32:47to do with this okay
32:51detectives don't have enough information to charge julie with a crime so they release her
32:57but she did provide her phone to the detectives it was downloaded for examination and we did a little
33:06digging into julie jean julie jean was a mom of three in her mid-30s single mom lived originally in
33:15philadelphia moved to lynwood gardens she was working at temple university hospital she was an lpn there
33:25there's nothing really particularly outrageous in julie's background self julie jean assisted in this
33:31what made this seemingly normal everyday person capable of this type of crime that was our job to
33:41figure it out detectives re-interview william hayes and he reveals new details about his affair with julie
33:49after they broke up he said she would show up outside his apartment block his car in things along those
33:55lines and she began to text rachel and she kind of outed him about the relationship he had taken out
34:02not long before the murder a protection from abuse order against julie jean that would keep her away
34:09from him and from rachel that to me was our big aha mo the key had no motive to directly
34:16kill rachel
34:17king julie jean did she decided if she couldn't have william hayes somebody had to pay for this that
34:28somebody was rachel king so that was our theory when you do homicides you only get one crack so you
34:36got
34:36to be sure you have to have everything lined up once the key was arrested and charged for a homicide
34:42in philadelphia we knew there's no bail in pennsylvania for first-degree murder so we didn't have
34:48to rush our arrest warrant let's get their call detail records back let's go through both their cell
34:54phone analysis it's about building it to the point that we're satisfied and that we can arrest both of
35:03them we knew there's other things we could work on we were hoping to find the murder weapon philadelphia
35:10did searches for it also but unfortunately we didn't have it
35:19but we knew philadelphia had numerous fired cartridge cations from nursing and we had six
35:25fired in our scene so we asked philadelphia if we could run through the national integrated ballistics
35:32information network it's run by the atf and they matched which leads us to believe the same gun was
35:42used in both crimes as we're looking at the key we're feeling very confident that this father links to
35:50bury him now we have to prove that julie jean assisted in this
36:02ensuing days we get the cell phone records so while going through both their cell phones
36:08along with their cell phone records we found that on february 14th valentine's day julie jean
36:14contacted prairie madison and he provided her the keys contact information on that day she talked
36:22to sakiela keen for 14 minutes it seemed like valentine's day was a trigger
36:29days after that the keys phone had a screenshot of lynwood gardens with a red line and an x at
36:41rachel's
36:43apartment on february 25th zaki sent her a location and her phone moved to that same area so we figured
36:52this was their first meeting there was a picture that was taken with zaki's phone a female's hand
36:58holding a cell phone with a picture of rachel king on the screen of the phone we believe that's julie
37:04jean
37:05holding her phone the covering and everything was consistent with her phone
37:09so julie's giving him the target
37:15there's a photo of a gun we find on his phone that was taken on march 16th
37:22that day it appears that he and julie met up on h street in philadelphia her bank records
37:29indicated that she took 500 out from the atm
37:33that led us to believe that julie had gone with sakie and helped him purchase that gun at that location
37:43on march 30th both her cell phones then traveled to west philly where this car is purchased
37:51on the day of the murder sakie's phone set was in the linwood gardens apartments and he begins
37:57following rachel king from there when she pulled into the dunkin donuts she was in line this is when
38:03he took the opportunity to park his car run up on her and ambush her
38:12and that's how the pieces all start coming together because while julie did not physically commit the
38:18murder she is just as responsible she planned it with him this was a jealous jilted ex-lover
38:28and she hired somebody to take out the woman that was in her way
38:34based on looking at their phones and their phone records we think we have enough to charge them both
38:40with conspiracy and murder
38:5513 days after rachel king's murder detectives have the proof they need to arrest both her killers
39:03julie gene and zaki alakim were charged with first degree murder third degree murder
39:10and a conspiracy to commit first and third degree murder additionally zaki was charged with weapons
39:18offenses as well with alakim is a formality he was already in custody in philadelphia
39:25and julie gene was arrested coming out of her sister's house for rachel's family it's the moment
39:31they've been waiting for i was not aware of this other woman there was that part of me that was
39:38annoyed
39:38and also wondering why william had not said anything but knowing that the arrests were made and that
39:45there was no bail was a huge relief julie gene and zaki alakim both plead not guilty to the charges
39:56and the case heads to trial with any case with more than one defendant we have the option you can
40:02try
40:03try it together try them separately this case it was a conspiracy it was a team effort trying them
40:11separately wouldn't have made sense
40:16but julie gene and zaki alakim they didn't ever appear to talk to each other julie especially offered no emotion
40:27juries want to hear from every witness and we were fortunate that at trial rachel's son's testimony
40:35came in through an interviewer from mission kids instead of having him testify because even though
40:41he had been there i can't imagine having put him on the stand having to relive watching his mom be
40:50killed
40:53on march 21st 2024 the jury begins deliberations in less than an hour they return with a verdict
41:00zaki alakim and julie gene are both found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder
41:08they're each sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole
41:13when that verdict came i began to weep it felt like they had lifted the courthouse off of me
41:22it was this part of the nightmare has ended i know we couldn't bring rachel back but i thought
41:32we got a measure of justice for them that maybe they could start filling in the hole that was left
41:36i cannot wait to hold that little boy and tell him that the people who murdered his mother have been
41:42held
41:42accountable rachel left a legacy of love and of kindness her son he's doing remarkably well he is
41:56continually kind and thoughtful and he is deeply loved
42:06when rachel passed away she was teaching seventh and eighth grade
42:11so we are beginning this scholarship fundraising now in 2025 because her last eighth grade class
42:19they will be the first to graduate and that will be in 2027 and we want to raise money to
42:26be able to provide
42:27as many scholarships as we can to help them that will make a difference in their families
42:38in their neighborhood in their city in their world
42:48and rachel king will have had a hand in them
42:53you
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