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Hello. I'm Keith Morrison from Dateline NBC.

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Here's a special preview of our new podcast.

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The Girl in the Blue Mustang. It

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was a pitch black night in the high desert,

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Adelaide, up the

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Grapevine Highway, north of LA. It

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was late February. The year

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was two thousand. Sheriff's

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Deputy Billy Cox stepped out of his patrol

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car and braced himself against a

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cold wind howling down from the San Gabriel

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mountains. Wind show was in

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the low thirties. Rain coming

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in. Hard to believe

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in just a few weeks a sea of blood red

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poppies would begin to bloom in the surrounding

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Mojave Desert. Cox

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was responding to a call of shots fired

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at the parking lot at OpEx at five

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on Highway fourteen in Palmdale. It

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was nine forty nine PM. The

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lot had about emptied out by the time

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he arrived. Daily commuters home

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safe in their beds, and

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then There he was, the

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collar, security guard

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by the look of it, waving at him about a hundred

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yards away, Cox drove

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over there and rolled down his window. The

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guard seemed agitated, told

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him somebody had been shot look

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bad. Over there, he pointed

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over in the west end of the lot. So

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then Cox crews slowly through the darkened

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lot. And there it was.

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Something very wrong around that

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bright blue Mustang, all a skew

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between the long rows of parking spaces.

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Cox, slowly eased out of his squad

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car and approached. The

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driver's side door was open. The

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window rolled down about four inches.

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A woman's left leg and barefoot were

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hanging out of the door. Weird

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angle, dead still,

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the engine was running, keys

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in the ignition, headlights

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on, but

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she was dead. No doubt

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about that. Barely

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more than a kid by the look of her.

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Cocks reached into the car fished out

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what must have been her purse. Inside

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was a California driver's license. She

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was young, alright, eighteen years

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old. Her name was Michelle

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O'Keefe. Cox followed

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procedure Call for paramedics though,

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she was long past saving. Also,

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additional deputies, but

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it didn't take long to realize This

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was gonna go way above his pay grade.

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LA County homicide to active Richard

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Longshore was sound asleep

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and two counties away when he got

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the

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call. You're waking up another night,

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you're rolling out. Your thinking for the minute

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the phone rings as to what kind of

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scene is gonna be, actually look forward to

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it. That's that's the adrenaline

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rush. Is a new case. Longshore

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was a prose pro eighteen

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years at LA County homicide, so

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I'm not sure he's adrenaline urged in

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that old familiar way as you roared up

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the 405. But

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what did he know? It

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wasn't going to be adrenaline that would crack

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this

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one. It takes a lot of a

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lot of confidence. Certain IV Go to

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to work these cases. There are cases you

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will take home with you at night and that

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will last till the end of your life.

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This is a story about a family,

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about a mother's premonition.

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I don't know if it was her spirit that just came over

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me or something just

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felt like she was gone. It's a

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story about circumstantial evidence

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as tricky to read as a mirage

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on the high desert. It's

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about accounts that might be fact

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and might be fiction

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and seemed to shift like sand

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and a desert wind. It is

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funny how people react to different situations

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when it's trauma involved. You and I can

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look the same

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thing. And you can see something totally

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different than what I see. Why

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was an innocent young woman shot to

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death in a guarded suburban parking

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lot? What happened to Michelle

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O'Keefe in her final moments? And

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who did it? In

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the hard world where spirits do

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not roam. There would be

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no preparing for the wild gyrations

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to come. Things that were

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as true as can be and then may be

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not true at all, and

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then something else

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altogether. Thank you

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for listening. Search for

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the girl in the Blue Mustang to listen

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