Cold and Missing: Larissa Sam

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The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts.

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All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

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Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages.

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Listener discretion is advised.

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I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski.

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And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski.

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And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases.

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And missing person cases.

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Hello everyone and welcome back to Cold and Missing.

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I'm Ali.

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And I'm Eli.

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Welcome back everyone.

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And welcome back to me.

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Because I was gone last week, but feeling much better this week and very happy to be

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back.

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Back for our 100th episode officially.

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I can't believe that we've been doing this for as long as we have.

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It's kind of wild to look back on all of the work that has gone into doing this podcast

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and to see how many people it has reached.

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That it truly, you know, each time we release an episode, the podcast is doing exactly what

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it's supposed to be doing.

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And that feels good and right.

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And I'm just so proud of you.

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Thanks.

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Just thank you to everyone who has been with us since the beginning or if you're just joining

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us.

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Thank you to everyone who's reviewed us recently.

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We've gotten like a big influx of reviews.

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So thank you, thank you, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day just to

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write us a couple of sentences or in some cases, long thoughtful paragraphs.

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Like so humbling.

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So thank you so much.

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Like, it's so cool to hear from you all.

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So thank you.

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All right.

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Well, for the 100th episode, I think we should just jump into it.

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Let's do it.

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Today we are talking about the missing person case of Larissa Sam.

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And this takes place in June of 2015 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

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But first a little bit about Larissa.

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Larissa is 22 years old in 2015.

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According to her family and friends, she is a devoted mother to her four year old son.

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Larissa is smart.

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When researching her case, she was in the newspaper a lot as a child for academic achievements.

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At this point in Larissa's life, she's a dancer at a club called the Classy Chassis

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in South Indianapolis.

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But she has dreams of leaving this job.

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She has her sights set on American Idol.

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She was headed to an audition for the show in just a few short days and was practicing

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singing and playing the guitar.

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Larissa actually uploaded some of her singing to YouTube and she's really talented.

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I'll link Larissa's YouTube in the show notes so you can check it out for yourself.

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You'll be able to see her and hear her beautiful voice.

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Larissa has several notable tattoos.

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One of them being a very noticeable chest piece with candy and ice cream cones.

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The word princess is also worked into the piece and it goes shoulder to shoulder and

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is bright pink.

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And now, a timeline of events.

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On Sunday, June 21st, 2015.

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Larissa is working the late Saturday night to early Sunday morning shift at the Classy

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Chassis.

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She left work around 1.30am Sunday morning and headed to her uncle's house to have a

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drink after work and practice playing the guitar and singing for her American Idol audition.

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The audition was scheduled in just two days on June 23rd.

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She was really looking forward to it and thought she had a really good shot.

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At around 2.30am, Larissa posted on her Facebook, quote, I want to text someone.

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Texting buddy?

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And then she posted her phone number.

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According to her uncle, he fell asleep but when he woke up she had left the house already.

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She estimates that she left his house around 4.30am in the morning.

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She had been driving her 2006 gold Dodge Stratus.

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Larissa was supposed to pick up her son that morning from her grandmother's house.

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When Larissa fails to show up, the family is immediately worried.

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It wasn't like her to not pick up her son when she said she would.

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She might be a few minutes late, but she was never a no-show.

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The family starts to call to hospitals to see if anyone matching her name or description

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was there.

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When that didn't turn up anything, they start calling around to jails to make sure

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she wasn't there either.

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That turned into a dead end as well.

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When no one in the family had still not heard from Larissa, the family decides to call the

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police and report her missing.

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Police put out a bee on the lookout for Larissa and her gold 2006 Dodge Stratus.

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Within hours, her car is found.

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The car had been backed into the driveway of an abandoned house in the Mars Hill neighborhood.

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The car is found on the 2700 block of South Lyons Avenue.

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This is less than four miles from her uncle's house.

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As police began to look at the car, they noticed several things right off the bat.

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The car has a flat tire, and the front window is rolled down.

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Inside the car, her keys are still in the ignition.

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It's also reported that at least one of Larissa's shoes was in the car, but possibly both of

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them.

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Larissa's wallet with her credit cards and the cash from her most recent shift were all

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found in the car untouched.

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Her cell phone was also there, but the SIM card was missing.

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Pretty quickly, police rule out robbery, since all of her cash and credit cards are found

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with her vehicle.

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Police fan out through the neighborhood to look for clues, and the family also help in

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searching for any sign of Larissa.

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Police are able to get a break in the case.

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The house across the street from where Larissa's car was abandoned had security cameras that

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caught the car being dropped there.

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At around 5.01 a.m., the day that Larissa went missing, Larissa's car pulls into the

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driveway, then the car reverses, pulls forward, and then backs into the driveway.

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Personally, I believe this was done to conceal the license plate.

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In Indiana, you don't need front plates on your vehicle.

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Once the car is parked, a man is seen running from the car.

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Family and friends of Larissa spend the next few days searching the neighborhood themselves,

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hanging missing person flyers and fielding tips.

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Her friend Savannah says, quote, She would never leave her son.

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People keep saying they've seen her.

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We don't know what's real and what's not.

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We just want her back.

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End quote.

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Larissa's mother, Rebecca, spends her time helping the police.

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She fears for her daughter.

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Quote, I believe someone has kidnapped her.

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I do believe it's potentially someone she knows.

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I believe they have her drugged and my fear is they are using her to prostitution out

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for sex.

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End quote.

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She believes that whoever has her daughter is keeping her drugs because she would fight

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back to get to her family and son.

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The family begs for anyone with information to come forward.

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Her mother says, quote, I just need her alive.

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Her son needs her alive.

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Just please someone if you know her whereabouts, please let us know.

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End quote.

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In late July of 2015, so Larissa has been missing for a month at this point.

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Her family holds a vigil to keep her name in the media and pleads to the public for

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information.

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A few weeks before Larissa disappeared, she started going to church and the pastor of

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that church came to the vigil to lead everyone in prayer and encourage them not to give up

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hope.

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Larissa's family have been taking care of her son.

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They say that he knows his mom is lost, but there's lots and lots of people looking

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for her.

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It's unclear exactly when in the timeline, but the FBI do get involved in Larissa's

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case.

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They get involved after someone on Facebook posted a demand suggesting that Larissa had

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been kidnapped and taken to another country.

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The FBI are able to run this lead down and according to agent Rothermitch, quote, we

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ran down all leads possible as far as the allegations we were receiving and determined

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it to be a fake lead.

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That it was an extortion attempt on the family.

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End quote.

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Tips do seem to be coming into police, but there are no updates on what specifically

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they're doing in Larissa's case.

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It takes almost six months for her name to appear in the paper again, but it happens

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in December of 2015.

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So Larissa has been missing for six months and on what should have been her 23rd birthday,

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friends and family gathered to remember her and celebrate her.

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Her mother has been doing everything to keep her daughter's face and name in front of

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the public, hanging flyers, starting a Facebook page.

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Her mother firmly believes that she is alive.

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It does seem that police are asking the family and friends for help.

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When newspaper reports that the family and friends of Larissa had sifted through police

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reports, anonymous tips and leads from strangers, all in an effort to help police.

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After this, however, the case appears to go cold.

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The next update comes in December of 2016, near what should have been her 24th birthday

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and Larissa has been missing for a year and a half.

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Police reveal that they were able to get DNA evidence from her vehicle.

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It appears that police are going back to some of the people they originally interviewed

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and asked for DNA samples to compare.

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It's unclear if everyone complies and gives DNA or if police are able to get the DNA through

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warrants, but no results from that DNA testing and comparison have ever been revealed.

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Police remain hopeful that Larissa is still alive.

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They point to the fact that they have no evidence that she's dead, but police also do not believe

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that this was a stranger abduction.

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In April of 2017, so it's been almost two years since Larissa vanished, and her mother

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hangs on to hope.

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She says, quote, I'll never give up hope.

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To give up hope would just be to give up on everything.

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I'll look until my last dying breath, end quote.

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We do know that as of 2017, the FBI are still involved in Larissa's case.

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A special agent assigned to the case says, quote, we've talked to many people and many

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different leads, but still at this point, no resolution as far as what happened that

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night, end quote.

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The FBI do say that they have ruled out several possibilities in the case.

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They say there is no evidence that anyone she met at the classy chassis could have been

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involved in her disappearance, and no one that responded to her Facebook post about

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wanting a texting buddy was involved either.

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The FBI also say that they have ruled out the possibility that Larissa was taken into

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a sex trafficking operation and ruled out several suspects from her personal life.

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The FBI says, quote, we're involving Quantico in a lot of evidence we've since recovered

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as well as interview and searches.

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I hope she's still alive, end quote.

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But that is all we know about the disappearance of Larissa Sam.

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So if you know anything about the disappearance of Larissa Sam in June of 2015 or her whereabouts

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today, please call the FBI Indianapolis office at 317-595-400 or the Indianapolis Metropolitan

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Police Department Missing Persons Unit at 317-327-6160.

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So that is the case of Larissa Sam.

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I found myself immediately gravitating towards her story, mostly because she's a young artist

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and was working really hard to make her dreams come true.

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And also when you started speaking about her tattoos, something that I just immediately

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wrote down was tattoos tell stories and she should get to continue to tell hers, alongside

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them being, you know, forms of self-expression.

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And I don't know, immediately I just could really see who she was and felt for what she

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was trying to do with her life.

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Yeah.

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She was getting ready to audition for American Idol, which in 2015 was still going really

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strong.

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And after hearing her sing, I'm like, she definitely had a shot at it, I think for sure.

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I know there's hundreds, if not thousands of really good singers that never made it

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on American Idol for one reason or the other, but she wasn't lacking in the talent department.

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So that wasn't holding her back.

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She's very good.

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That was the second thing that I wrote down was she did have a shot.

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I know I've only heard just a little bit of her singing kind of in the background while

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you were doing research, but I remember that moment with you and, you know, asking who's

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singing right now.

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She absolutely had a shot and I think, you know, I think she still does, especially if

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she's still out there, which I'm really hoping is the case.

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Yeah, that kind of brings us into her disappearance overall.

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It's the case, like there's so many details, like, and we have the surveillance footage,

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but police have never released images from that surveillance footage, so we never see

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the guy running away, but they've always been very clear that it is a man running away from

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the car.

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So, but there's no descriptors beyond that, no hair color, no height, no clothing description.

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So that's like one thing that's a big mystery, but it seems like police do have that information.

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A question that I asked myself and wrote down was, was it someone she knew?

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And I know that they have done quite a bit of ruling out of suspects, but that still

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doesn't mean that it wasn't someone that she knew.

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Yeah, the FBI and the police have said that they do not believe it's a stranger abduction

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here, that it would be somebody who knew Larissa in her day to day.

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But yeah, like you said, a lot has been ruled out, like none of the, like people, like the

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patrons at the club she worked at, like none of them seemed to be involved ruling out lots

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of people in her personal life, nobody that responded or interacted with her Facebook

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message that night, but the flat tire is a big question on the car.

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Is that an accident that happens?

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Sometimes you get a flat tire or was that something that was done on purpose to her

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car to make her have to pull over?

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I would be interested as to what caused the flat, like, because you can tell if someone

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slashes your tire versus you run over a nail.

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I'd be curious what the result of that was, what made the tire flat.

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More about the car, I also wrote down, even though we don't have a visual of the footage,

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to me it seems like the decision to do that was made in the moment.

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So it wasn't, to me it seems like it wasn't someone who was very practiced in doing something

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like this and also someone running from the car afterwards.

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It doesn't seem super planned out to me.

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Yeah, according to those who have seen the security footage, the car pulls in, then pulls

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out and then backs in to the driveway.

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So there's definitely like a thought process there happening to that person that's driving

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it of like, you know, you're right there, you got the car pulled in, he could get out

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and run, but he takes, you know, that extra few seconds, minute to back the car in.

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So it does seem like something that's made in the moment or was thought about, but like,

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you're fumbling and you're like, oh, shit, I need to reverse it.

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I was going to reverse the car.

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So yeah, lots of questions.

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And then the front window was also rolled down as well.

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And I wonder if that was Larissa who rolled it down?

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Like she got a flat tire.

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Did somebody drive up and she rolled down the window to talk to them?

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Like there's questions like who rolled down the window?

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Why did they roll it down?

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You know, was the seat moved from where Larissa would normally have it?

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You know, those are all questions that I'm sure police do have answers since, you know,

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they found the car pretty quickly.

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But yeah, I would really love to know those additional details about the car.

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I know you said the area where she was from, but I didn't, I guess I would like to know

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was this a small townish area within Indianapolis, like a, just a, you know, small pocket of an

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area.

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I'm also interested to know because how the family was canvassing the area and searching

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on their own.

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I just wanted to get a better mindset of where and how they were looking.

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Yeah.

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The Mars Hill neighborhood is on the southwest side of Indianapolis, if you're kind of looking

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at it on a map.

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And it's a really residential part of the city.

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So it's just like street after street of houses.

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And for the most part, like all the houses have yards.

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So it's not as jam packed as, you know, a New York or Chicago where the houses are kind

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of right on top of each other, but everyone has a lawn, a front lawn, a back lawn, like

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a little bit of room to the side.

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So it's a nice neighborhood spread.

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One thing that you said in the middle of telling us her story was that she had joined a church

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or a place of worship just a couple of weeks before her disappearance.

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And I'm just interested to know what the crowd is like in that place, who were some of the

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new people that met her.

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It's an interesting step to take in your life and then for you to disappear right after.

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I could just be looking for ways to correlate the story.

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But I don't know.

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I was interested when you, my ears perked up even more.

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I was curious about her relationship with this new place and the people there.

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Yeah, I don't have too many details about the church or like what brought Larissa to

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the church.

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But I also thought that her kind of making this change in her life just a few weeks before

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she disappeared.

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I mean, that's something to always take note of for missing people.

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Changes happening in the weeks leading up to it could be clues, could be signals, could

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tell you something.

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So I think it is noticeable, you know, starting to go to a new church, possibly even bringing

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her son with her.

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So it's all part of the puzzle, but you never know exactly what pieces you need in the puzzle

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until you kind of know the end game.

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Yeah, her, her son.

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I know we haven't talked about him much and I don't really want to mostly just with respect

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to him and to the family, but my heart just really feels for him.

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He deserves to have memories of his mother.

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Yeah, he is a victim in this as well.

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Missing his mother and not having those answers and not knowing what happened, like that's

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trauma and yeah, my heart really goes out to him.

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To Larissa's entire family who have to carry this and have it be part of the reality.

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It's not fair.

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It's not fair to any of them that this is part of the reality and it's not fair that

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somebody like caused this.

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Larissa didn't pick up and go by her own choice.

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That much like also seems pretty clear too, based off of everything that the FBI has said.

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So somebody did this to not only Larissa, but her whole family.

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And hopefully by talking about her, getting her name out there, somebody just remember

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something or has heard something over the years and they're ready to come forward and

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get it off their chest and help Larissa's family find peace and answers that they're

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looking for.

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I think that it's very beautiful and also, you know, just heartbreaking that her mother

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refuses to let her hope dwindle.

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She deserves to feel all of that love that her family, that these people have for her.

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I really hope that they find her.

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Yeah, I hope Larissa gets to come home and the family gets a happy reunion.

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And I think it's also really hopeful that like, we'll get answers in this case, specifically

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because the FBI, they have the DNA.

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So they have the DNA of someone and whether they've been able to match that to somebody

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and they just need a little bit more evidence to bring a case or if once that match hits

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in CODIS or wherever, whenever it does, like Larissa's family will get answers and we'll

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get to bring her home.

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So with that, again, if you know anything about the disappearance of Larissa Sam in

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June of 2015 or her whereabouts today, please call the FBI Indianapolis office at 317-595-400

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or the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Missing Person Unit at 317-327-6160.

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And again, in our show notes, we'll have the link to Larissa's YouTube so you all can hear

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what we've heard and hear her beautiful voice and just kind of get to sit with her this

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week.

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I hope you check it out.

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We'll also have pictures of her on our Instagram at Cold and Missing.

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Please follow us there if you're not already.

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We always post updates about the podcast, about other cases, current cases happening

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that we're not covering.

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So it's a really good true crime, missing person, cold case updates profile to just

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kind of like add to your feed.

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And I know I said it at the top, but thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who

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rated and reviewed us this week.

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00:24:58,580 --> 00:25:04,020
It was so cool to like see someone following us on Instagram and then leaving a review.

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Like it's really cool to see those connections.

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So thank you for doing that.

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Thank you for the kind words and the encouragement.

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And also on our YouTube, thank you so much to everyone who comments and discusses the

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case in the comments.

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It's always really cool to like read and listen to the conversations happening.

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So thank you.

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And if you or someone you love is hard of hearing, we have transcripts on our website,

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www.coldandmissing.com where you can find this episode and the 99 others that we've

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done so far.

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They're all up there.

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They can, you can sort them by state.

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You can find what you're looking for.

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So be sure to check it out there.

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But that is all I have.

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Thank you so much for being with Cold and Missing for 100 episodes.

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Thank you for being here for the 100th episode.

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Whether you listen when we drop it or you find it later, you're listening at the right

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time.

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So thank you.

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I'm your host, Allie.

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And I'm your cohost, Eli.

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Have a good week and stay safe, y'all.

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Stay safe, y'all.