True Crime with Kendall Rae - Who Killed Elizabeth Barraza?! Murdered In Her Driveway By Someone In A Costume | Unsolved Case
Episode Date: May 3, 2022If you have any information about the murder of Elizabeth Barraza, you can anonymously report a tip by calling 713-222-TIPS or visiting https://crime-stoppers.org/ You can also call the Harris Cou...nty Sheriff’s Department Information Line at +1 346-286-1600 Website setup by parents: www.whokilledlizbarraza.com Ring doorbell footage: https://bit.ly/3y0MgN3 This episode is sponsored by: Apostrophe - promo code: kendallrae Graphic Designer Application: https://forms.gle/bMedRm6DcFiraWp88 Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - kendall@INFAgency.com
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Hello everyone, welcome back to my channel.
So happy to have you here.
If you are new, welcome.
So today we're talking about a more recent case.
This occurred in 2019 in Texas,
and it is truly baffling.
Today we are gonna be talking about Elizabeth Baraza.
I actually first heard about this case through TikTok,
which is interesting because Elizabeth's family
has asked for people in the true crime community
from podcasts to YouTube to TikTok to
cover this case and help spread awareness. And for this case TikTok has actually
been incredibly helpful. We have a very busy 2022 planned. We're gonna spread
the call for justice to several national crime shows, the local media,
and we're starting an outreach to the community
of people who discuss and debate the case
in various forums, podcasts, YouTube channels,
and now in TikTok.
This case is very frustrating.
It's still unsolved, and I know their family
is looking for answers desperately.
So let's go ahead and get into it.
Elizabeth newly baraza was born on June 26th, 1989 to her parents Bob and Rosemary and
she grew up in southeast Texas.
Elizabeth mainly went by her nickname which was Liz and Liz was a self-proclaimed lover
of all things geeky. When Liz was growing up, she just fell in love
with Star Wars and Harry Potter, and her dad actually really introduced her to those things,
and she became very passionate about them over the years. She loved science fiction, and especially
loved comic books, and as she got older, she really enjoyed making costumes. It was a real passion of hers, and so, of course, she got into Comic-Con,
which if you don't know, Comic-Con is a comic book convention that has been held in San Diego since 1970,
and now it's all over the country.
And it's a great way for like-minded people to meet, and that's exactly what happened to Liz.
She ended up meeting her future husband at a Comic Con, and his name is Sergio Baraza.
Both of them loved cosplay, and they loved Star Wars.
It was a really big part of their relationship,
and Liz really had the talent for costume design.
It was a great outlet for expressing her creativity,
and Liz was also a very kind person
who wanted to help others as much as she could.
Eventually, Sergio and Liz found this group called the 501st Legion.
And it's actually an international organization which is made of fans who are dedicated to creating and dressing up in life like replicas of Stormtrooper.
But they do a lot more than just recreate costumes. The three pillars of 501st Legion are costuming, camaraderie, and charity.
People who are part of 501st Legion contribute to their community by fundraising, volunteering, and doing charity work.
501st Legion is filled with members worldwide that are, I think, it's fair to say, at some level, obsessed with Star Wars.
We're the world's largest costuming organization. We have 10,000 members worldwide.
You can simplify it to the three C's
costuming camaraderie and charity.
We are putting our love of Star Wars to good use.
And one thing that members of 501st Legion do in particular
is spend time in hospitals.
They dress up in their stormtrooper gear and they go and
cheer up children who are sick,
and Elizabeth loved doing that. She was heavily involved in the charity portion of 501st Legion.
In fact, she was actually the event coordinator for her community legion. She had a real passion
for helping sick children and trying to cheer them up. In fact, she also got involved with the
Make-A-Wish Foundation. Liz spent a lot of time at her community hospital, which is called Memorial Hermann.
She would dress up in her stormtrooper gear in hopes that it would make kids happy, even
if it was just for a moment.
And like I said, Liz was just a good person by nature, so it was no surprise to her friends
and family that she got so involved in these types of organizations.
Liz's family describes her as simple,
kind, generous, and living an amazing life of service. They also say that she was wildly creative
and a very resourceful person. Liz's best friend said that she was the kind of person to make
everyone feel welcome. So eventually Liz and Sergio decided they wanted to spend their lives
together, so they tied the knot in winter of 2014,
and everyone who knew them describes them as the perfect match.
They had super similar interests, they had very kind hearts, and of course having a passion
for the same things is always helpful in a relationship.
And for them, like I said earlier, they really connected on Star Wars and Harry Potter.
And I know it might sound cliché, but the two of them were really best friends. They really complimented each other and their love of cosplay was something that
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They lived a pretty simple life. They adopted a dog together at one point
and they loved this dog so much.
And in 2017, they bought a home on Cedar Walk Drive
in Tomball, Texas, which is a suburb
right outside of Houston.
It's a relatively small town.
It has a population of 12,000 people.
And at the time time it was considered
a nice place to live, a safe place to live, and a great place to start a future family.
They were very proud of their home, and life was good.
They both had full-time jobs, they were very busy, but they always made time for each other
and time for their fanfiction hobbies.
So in early 2019, Liz was working as a data reporter for a pipeline inspection company called the Rosen Group and Sergio was working in construction.
By this time, they had almost been married for five years and they really wanted to celebrate that five years of marriage with something special.
So they planned a trip to Orlando mainly to check out Universal Studios and Harry Potter World.
Harry Potter World is such a cool experience even if you're not really that big of a Harry Potter World. Harry Potter World is such a cool experience even if you're not
really that big of a Harry Potter fan. It's just really fun. And at the time there were some new
interactive exhibits so they were very excited to see those for the first time and they planned
to leave for this trip on January 27th 2019. And Liz was so, so pumped for this trip. She actually packed
her suitcase days before they were even gonna leave And her suitcase was a replica of the one that Harry Potter took to Hogwarts. And she even made these custom
Harry Potter shoes that she planned to wear the entire trip. And not only was she packed early
and super excited for the trip, she also decided to have a garage sale so that they would have extra
cash and could really just do everything
they want to do in this trip because Universal is expensive. I mean, all the theme parks
are expensive, but just the amount of money that you have to pay for things in the park,
food, drink, experiences, souvenirs, you know, she wanted to be able to do the works and
just really go all out for this five-year anniversary trip. So like I said, she decides
to have a garage sale
and garage sales were something that Liz did somewhat frequently.
In the three years that she had already been living in Tom Ball,
she had already had a handful of successful garage sales
and she knew how to advertise for them.
She would post them on Facebook
and put up posters in her town to get the word out
and draw a big crowd.
And there was quite a bit of planning
that she would put into these events.
But this time was a little different
because she didn't have as much of that pre-planning time.
She decided to have this garage sale the night before
she was going to do it.
She decided on January 24th
that she was going to have a garage sale the next morning.
The garage sale would be on Friday, January 25th,
and some reports say that she already had the day off of work. Some reports say that
she called in sick that morning because she decided to have the garage sale
last minute. I'm not really sure. But either way, she didn't have work that day
and on the 25th, her and Sergio got up early, he had work that day. And it's
important to note that because this was so last minute, none of her friends and
family actually knew about this garage sale.
And one of the things that she actually decided to sell was a stormtrooper helmet which
she had been hoping to get good money for.
So at 6.48am Sergio had to leave her work and he kisses Liz.
Goodbyin says I love you.
As soon as he left she heads out to the driveway and starts setting up the garage sale. But only five minutes after Sergio left, something terrible happened.
At 6.52am, a neighbor's surveillance camera picks up footage of Liz standing at the top of
her driveway. Just seconds later, a dark truck drives up their street and it's caught on the
surveillance footage. And Liz is just continuing to set up.
It was still pretty dark out so they had their lights on and then just seconds after they drive up, someone actually exits the truck.
This person then walks up the driveway and just beat in front of Liz, they stop and Liz takes a cautionary step back as this person pulls out a gun.
They end up talking for about eight seconds. No one knows exactly what is said.
We will get to that in a second. But then this person shoots Liz at 6.53 a.m.
four times, three times in the chest and one time in the head.
Then this person sprints back to their car and leaves the scene.
But then just two minutes later, the same surveillance camera catches this person driving back around
to Liz's house and taking a look at the scene and then they just drive off.
So one of their neighbors, Candy Ellis, here's all four gunshots and immediately calls 911. It was three gunshots real fast one after the other.
Then a wait a couple seconds and then it was another gun shot.
EMS rushes out to the scene and by the time paramedics get there,
Liz is actually still alive, but she's in terrible condition.
I mean, the fact that she was even still alive at that point is shocking.
And then she was taken to Memorial Hermann Hospital, the hospital that she
had visited so many times to cheer up sick children.
But now she was there for emergency surgery.
A second neighbor also heard the gunshots and her name is Cynthia Greist.
She calls up Sergio and tells him that his wife has been shot.
So Sergio, of course, rushes right to the hospital,
just hoping that Liz will pull through. And she was in really bad condition when she arrived.
So the chances of her surviving were extremely slim. And unfortunately, Liz's injuries were just
too severe, and she passed away with her husband by her side at just 29 years old.
Sergio says that he told her he loved her and he would never forget her. But Liz,
being the person that she was, continued to give even after she passed. She was an organ donor
and she was able to help four strangers with the donation of her heart, her liver,
her kidneys, and her corneas. All of Liz's family and friends were totally shocked
and extremely confused.
I'm Cole, my son on the phone, and I as well happened with Liz,
so with you, he just told me something happened in my house,
so I have to go back and see what's going on.
So Harris County police began their investigation
into Liz's murder immediately.
After they got a hold of all that surveillance footage, investigators described this shooter
as someone wearing what appeared to be tall white boots, a long white dress, bathrobe,
or maybe a costume, and either had long hair or had been wearing some type of wig.
And by the way, that this person walked, Harris County investigators initially believed that this person was female. And height was a big factor in that. Liz was only 52 and in the surveillance
footage, the shooter was not significantly taller than she was, even with the boots on. This is not
to say, of course, that male killers can't be short, but the height coupled with what they were
wearing and the long hair did make police think they were looking for a woman.
At the scene, there were actually no shell casing, so that leaves investigators to believe
that this person used a revolver.
And based on the footage, they believe that the car was a 2013 or newer Nissan Frontier
Pro 4X crew cat.
And they've also noted that the truck had a Pro 4X sticker on the rear side.
Of course, right away, they blocked off the scene and they began canvassing the neighborhood
and asking neighbors what they knew, or if they saw anything.
But everyone in the neighborhood pretty much said the same thing.
They were absolutely shocked that anyone would do this to Liz and they had no idea who
could have possibly done this.
I mean, to her neighbor's knowledge, she was a very low-key person.
She was very friendly.
She wasn't involved in anything bad or dangerous.
There's not one person that has any bad thing to say about Liz, nothing.
And that's what makes this so perplexing.
That same neighbor who heard the gunshots and called Sergio said she remembers how kind
they were to her when she first moved to the neighborhood.
Very cordial people, very, very nice, I said hi all the time, one of those wave kind of
things, kind of shocked.
And when it came to this mystery Nissan, all of the neighbors said that they hadn't seen
that truck around.
And no one in the neighborhood had that truck.
And no one could really make sense of this.
And at first, most people, including Sergio, believed that this was some type of robbery gone wrong.
Because she was having this garage sale, Sergio thought that, you know, maybe someone pulled up,
and they wanted something of theirs, and there was an argument.
And when Liz said no, this person shot her.
But investigators explained that this was unlikely because nothing was actually stolen.
Liz even had a cash box set up or, you know, people who had higher bills that needed to be broken down
and she had a hundred bucks in there and even that was still there. Plus, they ended up finding surveillance footage that showed the Nissan driving through the
neighborhood right past the Buraza home just one day before the shooting.
It was clear that whoever shot Liz had been planning this.
They were canvassing the area not long before they returned to kill her.
And because of the fact that this person drove back around and checked out the scene making
sure that Elizabeth was down, it seemed that this was a planned hit.
They also said that because she was shot in the head, it seemed very personal, and like
they just wanted to get this job done.
And even though there was footage of the attack, this investigation was very difficult, given
that there was no DNA
left at the scene, and the fact that no license plate was actually picked up by the camera.
And of course, Sergio was questioned by the police because statistically,
people's partners are often involved in their murders. And if he were involved, investigators
believed he would have had to be working with someone else because obviously he was not the person seen on surveillance cameras, but they have found no reason to believe that
he had anything to do with the murder of his wife.
And he was very cooperative from the beginning.
Right away he handed over his cell phone and Liz's cell phones that they could go through
everything and see if maybe there was something going on in the marriage that they didn't
know about. Maybe things were rocky, but they absolutely weren't. They weren't
experiencing any marital problems, any financial problems, they weren't fighting, their relationship
was happy and healthy, and there was no evidence of either person having enough fare or doing
anything remotely shady. Of course, they're going to continue to look into Liz's life,
who is she friends with, who is she spending time with, what is she doing, and none of that brought
up anything. No one could explain why someone would want Liz Brasadead.
I think that's the hardest part. Not knowing why someone would want to do this.
So just a few days after her death on what would have been her and Sergio's fifth wedding
anniversary, a vigil was held instead.
Her friends, family, and neighbors and just people in the community gathered on the very
driveway where she was shot.
And this is very emotional, but they also held up lightsabers to the sky and spoke about
what an amazing woman at Liz was.
I love you Liz, with all my heart, we lost a daughter, a sister and a hand.
You can help us be sure that the assailant never takes another innocent wife.
So crime stoppers of Houston and the Harris County Sheriff's Department initially announced
a $5,000 reward for information, but a donation came in from the Peter May Hughes
foundation and they were able to increase the funds by $15,000. Peter Mayhew, who for any non-Star
Wars fan, is the British actor who played Chubaka. So that was really special and meant a lot to
Sergio and to Liz's family. Liz and Sergio were actually heavily involved in Peter Mayhew's
2018 campaign to raise money for Venezuela's
poorest communities. So when Peter learned about what happened to Liz, he immediately
wanted to help contribute to the reward for information. And members of the 501st Legion
were devastated by Liz's death and they also wanted to help. They raised funds as well,
and they were able to bring the reward up to $20,000. And police were confident that this
would bring in something. But police were really struggling. The initial investigation just didn't really
bring in any leads. In August of 2019, it was reported that Harris County investigators
were waiting on the results of a warrant, but by the first anniversary of her death, the
results were still pending. And the details about this warrant have never been publicly shared
or confirmed, but
a lot of people think that it had something to do with cell phone location data. But now it's been
more than two years since that warrant was issued and there's still no information about it, so most
people think it never panned out. And there just hasn't been anything solid that has come out
of the investigation as far as we know. Not even a motive. It's been incredibly difficult to come up with theories for a potential motive.
Like I said, Liz was such an outstanding person. She wasn't involved in anything remotely sketchy, and
no one could figure out why anyone would want to harm her.
But police truly feel that this was a professional hit, especially because this person was canvassing
the house before the murder, and because they swung back around and potentially could
have taken a picture to prove that the job was done.
So around the one year anniversary of her passing, Sergio held a second memorial to honor
Liz.
Her friends and family gathered to paint rocks with messages to Liz
and it was very clear that she was incredibly loved by those who attended. So that brings us to
January 21, 2021. Police actually released a second set of surveillance footage for the public to see.
This footage actually comes from the Baraza's Ring Doorbell camera and even though it doesn't show
another angle
of the shooter, it does pick up footage
of the car going by,
and it has some potentially useful audio,
which I mentioned earlier, so let's talk about it.
First of all, you can see that the Nissan truck
passes their home like we saw in the original footage,
but this audio that's picked up is incredibly muffled
and very difficult to hear.
Now, I'm going to link this below because I think it could be incredibly disturbing to
some to actually hear it.
You can hear the gunshots you can hear, Liz, and it's scary.
But I know it's very important for people to have access to it, so it is linked below
if you want to check it out.
So of course, people on the internet
and the police have theorized about what is being said
in the audio and the only thing that has been confirmed
is that when the shooter approaches Liz,
we hear Liz say, good morning.
Now, it may not be much, but this good morning
does kind of tell us a lot.
By the tone of her voice, most people believe that this person was a stranger to Liz.
It didn't sound like she was saying hello to an acquaintance, a neighbor, or a close friend.
Sounded like she was saying hi to someone she did not know.
If it was someone she knew, she probably would have said like, oh hey, or what's up?
Something a little more
friendly. But this is the type of, you know, good morning that you would say to someone you don't know who's walking by or someone who's approaching your garage sale, for example. So, of course,
there are a lot of videos speculating about what else could be said in the audio. And of course,
it's very difficult to have your own opinion if someone tells you what they think is being said first. So I'm going to play the
audio clip up until the point where the gun goes off. I don't want to include
that. Like I said, the full version will be linked below, but this initial part I
did want to include. So I'm going to play it. I'm going to play it twice. And I want
you to think about what you hear, if you hear anything.
It's possible you won't be able to make anything out of it.
The audio is going to be a little different depending on what device you are listening on,
but I want to give you a warning if you're wearing headphones.
It might be a little abrasive.スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッフの方が、スタッ ... ... ...
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In the enhanced version of the audio, a lot of people think that they hear someone say
it's 10 to 7.
And then about 20 seconds later, people think that they
hear Liz saying, please, after that a lot of people think they hear someone's
gonna kill your neighbor. And then that's followed by please, it's not true.
Again, this is incredibly difficult to hear. Those are only guesses, so if you
don't hear anything, you're not the only one. But what's interesting about this audio footage is many people actually believe that the person
who shot Liz was a male, even though the police initially said they believed that the person was
a female, which has made investigators kind of go back to the drawing board. When it comes to the
gender of this person, they don't know if the person was male or female
and they believe that this person
could have been wearing a disguise to look female.
But the main thing that everyone is really taken
from the audio is the good morning.
It sounds like she is talking to someone that she doesn't know.
But I will say, and this is not coming from police,
but a lot of people believe that it could have been
someone from her inner circle,
maybe someone in the cosplay world because of the costume.
And another reason that people believe this is because the time that she was shot was
right around the time that she was out the door for work.
So someone could have easily known her schedule, even if they didn't know that she was having
a garage sale that day.
So could it have been a friend, a co-worker,
someone who knew what time Liz normally left in the morning
plus they left, you know, just minutes,
four minutes after Sergio left the house.
So it's possible they knew his schedule as well.
How did they know that she would be standing
on that driveway alone at 6.50 in the morning
on Friday, January 25th?
That to me is like, really, I think that might be the key.
Some people believe that it was someone from the 501st Legion.
And that is kind of backed up because of the outfit that they were wearing.
A lot of people think that it was similar to a Princess Leia costume.
I mean, the long white robe or dress, whatever it was, feels kind of odd to be a coincidence.
You know, often you see someone dress like that.
And even Princess Leia's weapon looks similar to a revolver.
In the surveillance video, it does appear
that this person had long hair,
but if they were wearing a costume,
it's not a stretch to assume
that this person may have also been wearing a wig.
But what makes this theory really difficult
is you would think that if Liz had
some type of, you know, ongoing feud with someone or someone didn't like her that there would be
some evidence of this. That someone in 501st Legion would be like, hey, you know, she didn't get
along with this person. Or maybe there would be text messages or emails or something that would
back this theory up. But as far as we know, there's nothing like that. It has also been speculated that maybe Liz knew too much about something. Maybe she saw something
possibly at work, but again, there is no evidence for this. Lastly, of course, a lot of people
suspect that there was some type of affair going on, and like I said earlier, there is no evidence
for this. But of course, people speculate, and it's possible. If Sergio was having
an affair, some people think that the other woman may have wanted Liz Dead's that she could
have him all to herself. The only thing that gave people a reason to suspect that he may have
done something like this is because of the fact he sold their home and remarried in 2021, but he
insists that he didn't meet his new wife until mid 2020. And I mean, I get where people are coming from,
but he is young.
He is allowed to move on.
Of course, people have brought up the idea
that maybe Liz was the one having an affair
that maybe Sergio found out and was angry
about it and contracted someone to kill her.
But again, there is zero evidence for this
or anything like this.
It's just hard to believe
because their marriage was so strong. I mean,
investigators comed through their phones. They were close. Things were going well for them.
It's also been brought up that maybe this was a case of mistaken identity, that the person who
killed Liz was actually supposed to kill someone else and they got confused. But it doesn't seem
likely. It doesn't seem like the investigators believe that Robert Elizabeth's dad thinks that whoever did this
target Liz and did so deliberately.
This person that did this was very deliberate.
They knew what they were doing.
They knew why they were there and they knew who she was.
So it's now been more than three years
since Elizabeth was shot.
And there have not been any solid leads as far as we know,
and please have not made an arrest.
And even though it feels like the case is kind of slowed down,
the detectives have made it clear that this is not a cold case,
and they are still working on it.
And they have noted that investigators have traveled down to Miami
to interview a person of interest,
which we don't know much about that at this point,
but they are still following every lead it seems. Elizabeth's family and Sergio have not lost hope.
They believe that 2022 will be a year with a lot of progress, and I really hope they're right.
And Crime Stoppers has been able to raise the reward to $50,000, which is great. And police and the family believe that this could really help.
We need to bring this investigation to the next stage.
That's our goal.
Rosemary and I, after much thought,
we decided to raise the reward.
To make that happen, we just concluded a strong effort
to get that reward raised.
And thanks to this press conference, we're going to get that reward raised.
And thanks to this press conference,
we're gonna let the world know.
The result of those efforts is that over 145 people,
many of them complete strangers joined our cause
and together we raised an additional $30,000.
To be clear, this reward now stands at $50,000.
Investigators believe that this
amount of money, you know, the higher it goes,
will encourage whoever does have information
if anyone does, which obviously someone knows something.
Maybe it will make them reconsider coming forward.
We're hoping that someone will see this.
They hopefully they have a heavy heart and they know something. They want to come back and tell us what happened. What they know. All I know is that
Elizabeth was an incredibly kind and generous woman who did not deserve what happened to her.
I feel so badly for her friends and family that not only did they have to go through this and
feel the pain of losing her, but to not have answers. That's just a whole
different thing. Imagine the sleepless nights just wondering what could have happened, because this
makes absolutely no sense. So please, if you have any information that could help this family
finally get the answers they deserve, please get that to the right people. You can even anonymously report a tip by calling 713-222 tips or visiting crimestoppers.org. You can also call the Harris County Sheriff's
Department Information Line at 346-286-1600. Liz's parents have also set up a website under
who killed LizBeraza.com and they have a bunch of information there
for anyone interested in the case.
Again, my thoughts truly go out to this family.
I can't imagine being in that position.
It's just horrible to think about.
I definitely wanna know what you guys think,
but please be cautious when theorizing
you never want to make up something about someone.
You don't want your theories and ideas to turn into something salacious.
That could be potentially hurtful to this family who's already been through so much.
But talking about it and theorizing is important and can be helpful.
So, you know, leave a comment.
Let me know your thoughts.
I definitely want to hear if you have any ideas.
That is going to be it for me today, guys.
Thank you for joining me for another episode
and make sure you follow the show
on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
It really does help me out.
If you wanna watch the video version of this show,
you can find it on my YouTube channel,
which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray.
I will be back with another episode soon,
but until then, stay safe out there.
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