http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1201/03/ng.01.htmlNANCY GRACE
Missing Police Dispatcher`s Body Just Found; Mom Lying About Missing Infant Son
Aired January 3, 2012 - 20:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Breaking news tonight. Live, Hot Springs. A young mom last seen at a Christmas party. Bombshell tonight. At this hour, we get confirmation the body of missing mom Dawna Natzke has been identified, the young mom`s body found partially submerged in water there in a remote part of a forest about five miles from where Dawna`s station wagon discovered completely burned out. Tonight, yellow crime tape stretched around tall pine trees, blocking access to the area, including a pond, Dawna`s family hearing some of the news off FaceBook rumors.
As we go to air, Dawna`s autopsy still ongoing. Tonight, what happened to young mom of three and police dispatcher Dawna Natzke?
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GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Bombshell tonight. At this hour, confirmation the body of missing mom Dawna Natzke has been identified, the young mom`s body partially submerged in water in a remote part of a forest about five miles from where Dawna`s station wagon discovered completely burned out.
Tonight, crime scene tape stretched around tall pine trees, blocking access to the area, including a pond, her family hearing some of the news from rumors off FaceBook. As we go to air, the autopsy still ongoing.
We are taking your calls. Straight out to Olivia Deas, KARN. Olivia, what can you tell us?
OLIVIA DEAS, KARN NEWS RADIO (via telephone): I can tell you that she was found -- her car was burned in the Ouachita National Forest about five miles from her home, and the body`s partially submerged. And they are questioning people and they have no suspects at this time.
GRACE: OK, that much I know, Olivia. Why don`t we try taking it from the very beginning. Where was she last seen? What do you know, Ms. Deas?
DEAS: She was last seen at a Christmas party. One of her friends we had talked to that she was not doing very well that night, had been upset about something. We were told she left with her boyfriend, and he was the last one to see her. There`s some allegations that she had dropped him off at his house. And police were contacted on the 23rd. When she didn`t show up to work, her son contacted police.
GRACE: We are taking your calls now, live in Hot Springs. The body of a young mom and police dispatcher confirmed to have been found tonight partially submerged in water, last seen at a Christmas party.
There you`re seeing shots of the young mom, Dawna Natzke. No one knew her whereabouts. And stunningly, her family finds out details regarding her disappearance on FaceBook rumors.
Now, how did that happen, Alexis Weed?
ALEXIS WEED, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Nancy, yes, the family is getting a lot of their information, so they`re telling us, through the media, unfortunately. For example, they were told that Dawna`s car was found in this remote forest about 10 miles away from her home. Her car was found, Nancy, completely charred. The family found that out on Christmas Eve through the news.
GRACE: You know, it`s stunning to me that the family is finding things out from rumors on FaceBook. So Joe Gomez, senior investigative reporter, KTRH, how is the information being leaked onto FaceBook? It`s hard enough to get information on this case, from police, but yet it`s making its way to FaceBook?
JOE GOMEZ, KTRH: Well, you know, Nancy, they had 400 volunteers out there searching for young Dawna Natzke. It`s possible that one of these volunteers, you know, might have leaked some information onto the Internet.
You know, police have also been coming under a lot of criticism because they were dragging their feet, Nancy, and using search dogs to look for Dawna Natzke. So this whole search operation to try to find this beautiful mother has somewhat been botched.
GRACE: Well, what do you mean by botched?
GOMEZ: Well, I mean, they didn`t issue search dogs as soon as they should have, Nancy. It took them a couple of days after they discovered Dawna Natzke`s charred car. Now, when they found this car burned, they probably should have known something was wrong. They could have sent the dogs to look for Dawna earlier. They could have sent out crews to this...
GRACE: Well, wait a minute! Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Whoa, whoa! Gomez, isn`t it true that forest rangers were the ones that found the car burned out? It`s a station wagon, right?
GOMEZ: That`s right. Yes.
GRACE: So forest rangers find it. It sounds to me like they did not communicate with local police. Did they consider this, I guess, just their forest jurisdiction? What is it, a national park?
GOMEZ: It`s a national park, that`s right, Nancy. Yes.
GRACE: What park is that?
GOMEZ: Ouachita National Forest, Nancy. It`s one of the biggest parks in Arkansas.
GRACE: So the Ouachita forest rangers find a burned-out car and don`t report it to anybody? OK. I`ll scratch my head about that for a little while.
All the while, about five miles later (SIC) is a body submerged in water, we`re hearing tonight. And nobody thought to send a search team out at that point, when you find a burned-out car? Another thing, Gomez, do you know if they brought in an accelerant dog to determine was the car a victim of arson?
GOMEZ: I`m not clear. (INAUDIBLE) yes, Nancy. No, I`m not sure. But that`s a good question. If the car was burned...
GRACE: All right, Gomez -- put him up, please! Gomez, I don`t get what`s going on. She goes to a Christmas party. Nobody sees her after that. She`s not reported missing. Her car is found by rangers completely burned to a crisp. Nobody thinks, Gee was somebody in the car? Is there a human victim somewhere, not just a burned-out car? And now I`m hearing you say they put out a BOLO -- "be on the lookout" -- instead of a missing person? Do I have these facts wrong? Help me out here, Gomez.
GOMEZ: No, you`re absolutely right, Nancy. No, you`re right. I mean, Dawna went missing, and her boyfriend didn`t call police. Nancy, it was her son that had to call police two days afterwards to report that his mother was missing. Then they discovered this burned, charred vehicle. Then we find Dawna`s body not five miles away. I don`t know, Nancy. Can you connect the dots here? Because something isn`t sitting right (INAUDIBLE)
GRACE: Well, this is what I know. This is what I know. We don`t have a suspect tonight. We don`t even have a person of interest. But I know that Dawna`s having problems with the boyfriend. I know that she is separated from her husband. They`re in the midst of that ongoing drama. I know that that night at a Christmas party, was having problems with the boyfriend, according to one of her friends, one of her girlfriends.
You`re seeing shots right now of Dawna Natzke. She`s a gorgeous young girl, mother of three, a police dispatcher, last seen at a Christmas party, never seen alive again, her burned-out station wagon found in a remote area of a national forest.
We`re taking your calls. Out to Stephanie in Washington. Hi, dear. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello?
GRACE: Hi, dear. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. Hi. Absolutely love those kids of yours, Nancy. Thank you so much for (INAUDIBLE)
GRACE: Thank you. Thank you so much.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The vehicle -- typically, when anyone is found in a vehicle, a burned vehicle, that`s somebody trying to cover up forensic evidence.
And you know, my -- you know, dealing with, you know, guys and girls and all those relationships, you know, I kind of can see a little thing going on here where she`s maybe having some trouble with this boyfriend, as was indicated, but then this husband maybe that she`s trying to leave -- maybe they`re trying to work it out, the boyfriend gets jealous, upset, enraged, and then all this stuff happens.
That is -- I mean, I`m just speculating, but you know what? I can`t believe that the police wouldn`t subpoena or get a warrant for both men involved because it -- it has to stem from them. I mean, that`s just the odds. And the warrants...
GRACE: Stephanie in Washington, are your a cop or an investigator?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, but I -- I -- no, I just...
GRACE: Because you`re absolutely right on every single thing you said. And just to put the icing on the cake, Stephanie in Washington -- back to you Alexis Weed. In a nutshell, what do you know about this boyfriend?
WEED: Nancy, his name is Kevin Duck. He`s 28 years old. He does have a criminal history. It includes no contest plea to domestic battery. That`s in 2008 and 2009. He was convicted, Nancy, of aggravated assault. He was sentenced to three years probation in 2010. A not guilty plea dismissed for harassing communication.
And most notably, Nancy, in 2010, his former wife, who he`s now divorced from, alleged in divorce documents that he had abused one of the couple`s minor children.
GRACE: All right, let`s back it up to the aggravated assault. That`s a conviction in 2010. What happened in that case?
WEED: Right. That was -- his then wife -- the boyfriend of the wife at that time, Nancy, alleged that her boyfriend...
GRACE: Why do you keep saying "alleged"? It`s a conviction, Alexis!
WEED: Right. Right. We don`t have the details of what -- whether or not the allegations were all proven up in that case, Nancy.
GRACE: OK, wait! Wa-wait! Wa-wait! Stop a minute! Unleash the lawyers, John Manuelian, Lorna Owens, Lorna Miami, Manuelian LA. OK, neither one of you -- don`t launch into a manifesto. But Lorna, when you have a guilty plea, it`s not an allegation anymore. The person -- it`s either a guilty conviction, which means they went to trial or a bench trial, or it`s a guilty plea. You pled guilty to it. There`s not a question as to whether it happened anymore. Is that right, Lorna?
LORNA OWENS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes, that is correct. I`ll concede that, Nancy, as it relates to that case in...
GRACE: 2010.
OWENS: ... 2010. It`s not an allegation anymore, it is conceded by the defendant.
GRACE: And you made a good point in the way you answered that, Lorna. John Manuelian, that was the 2010 case, not the current case. But what`s interesting, John Manuelian, is that in the 2010 aggravated assault conviction, it was domestic-related. It was his ex-wife`s boyfriend that was the victim, Manuelian.
JOHN MANUELIAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes. It looks like that`s the case, and that may be used for the investigators as a part of this investigation.
GRACE: Tonight, this woman`s family hearing details of her disappearance on FaceBook, her body discovered, we believe, partially submerged in a remote area of a forest, her car five miles away completely burned out, leaving behind three children.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All over Garland (ph) County showed up to search.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mother of three and police dispatcher Dawna Natzke.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police investigators believe they found what they feared.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The effort ended early when one searcher found a body.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You literally have to fight through it to get to the area where the body was.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When searchers found the body, the word spread quickly.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who would do something like this?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A mean, vicious, psycho.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did locate a deceased person.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Reported a burned car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The car belongs to Natzke.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She would never burn her own car. This girl would call me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Criminal aspect of this investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Missing co-worker Dawna.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was very loving.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Authorities are not saying it`s the body of Dawna Natzke, but they do say the body is female.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They`re awaiting a positive ID.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The body will be sent to a state crime lab to be identified.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. The body of this woman we believe to have been found partially submerged in a pond, in a remote area of a national forest there near Hot Springs. What`s amazing is that authorities, the park rangers, found her burned-out car, her station wagon, days before the body was found. They didn`t even bother to call cops. Was she still alive at the time her body (SIC) was found? This mom and police dispatcher last seen at a Christmas party, never seen again. Even after finding her cremated car, forest police not calling local authorities. Could it have saved the life of mom of three Dawna Natzke?
We`re taking your calls. Out to Joe in Florida. Hi, dear. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Nancy. You know, it`s so obvious that the last person that she saw was her boyfriend, so-called. And I don`t mean to blame the victim, but do you think she had any idea of his history, his police record?
GRACE: You know, Joe in Florida, stay right there. I`ve got a feeling she didn`t know anything about it. But let`s go to Hot Springs now. Joining me is Vicki Hegyi. This is Dawna`s sister. Vicki, thank you for being with us.
VICKI HEGYI, SISTER (via telephone): Thank you, Nancy.
GRACE: I know that you guys must be on pins and needles now, waiting to hear the next discovery in the case of your sister. Did she have any idea about this boyfriend`s rap sheet?
HEGYI: You know, I don`t know nothing about her boyfriend. And she did not relay any negative information about her boyfriend. And that is just Dawna`s way. You never hear a negative word out of her. And she always gives people the benefit of the doubt.
GRACE: You know, Vicki, it`s my understanding this was a new boyfriend?
HEGYI: Yes.
GRACE: How long had she been dating him.
HEGYI: I believe just as of February of this year -- of last year, rather.
GRACE: So you know, almost a year. Almost a year.
HEGYI: Yes.
GRACE: You`re seeing shots right now of Dawna Natzke, young mom of three, also a police dispatcher. Vicki, when exactly did the forest police find her burned-out station wagon?
HEGYI: They found it Thursday. And see, the BOLO wasn`t issued until Friday at 6:38 AM, when she was determined a missing person. So they issued it right away. The police did not botch this. They were looking for her. They love her. That`s what is so aggravating in all this. We -- this police department come to our house and give us reports all the time.
GRACE: You know what? I`m glad to hear that, Vicki. I am really glad to hear that the local police are all over it.
HEGYI: They have been from the get-go.
GRACE: I hate that the hours were missed from the discovery of the vehicle...
HEGYI: No.
GRACE: ... until the search began for her. But that`s not the local police`s fault.
HEGYI: No.
GRACE: How did you guys find out about the car being burned out, discovery?
HEGYI: It was rumors that -- because I was so -- I was in Indiana. I didn`t find out she was even missing until Friday morning and...
GRACE: How did your family find out about the car being burned?
HEGYI: Through me, through me because I was searching, searching, searching for any information. I was clicking on Dawna`s FaceBook because we -- she recently friended me. I`m the only family member she had that was -- because she...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: So did you find out about the car on FaceBook?
HEGYI: Yes. Yes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The body was about 200 yards off of West Hall Road nearly Highway 298 in Jesseville (ph). Garland County officials say the body will be sent to a state crime lab to be identified.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A U.S. Forest Service worker reported a burned car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The U.S. Forest Service found it in these woods off highway 298 burned. It belonged to Natzke.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Natzke has been missing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Last seen by her boyfriend.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Criminal aspect of this investigation started when family members reported Natzke missing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come up in this area to search for Dawna, did locate a deceased person.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. Take a look at this woman, Dawna Natzke, a young mother of three. Also, she`s a police dispatcher. Her family learning news of her car, her station wagon, found completely charred, on FaceBook.
You know, I don`t understand that. Back to her sister. Vicki Hegyi is with us. What was it on FaceBook that alerted you to the condition of her car?
HEGYI: What I was doing, I was clicking on various friends in her FaceBook account, just clicking on every profile I could find that was still public -- and because you can be private or public -- and I would find comments -- I heard they found her car, and this, I will try and find out information, I will get back to you.
And I`m -- so I called my mom, you know, saying, Mom, did you hear anything about them finding her car? And she was very, very upset. She goes, No. How did you find out? And I said, Well, Mom, it`s just a rumor right now, you know? But -- so Mom went to the police, you know, and asked them, did they find her car. And then that night, that`s when it hit the local news that her car was found.
GRACE: Well, did the police know at that juncture that her car had been found?
HEGYI: Well, from what I gather, they didn`t find out until Saturday.
GRACE: So that would be, I think, a no.
HEGYI: Yes.
GRACE: So the forest police had not told local authorities her burned-out car had been found. That`s hours and hours lost...
HEGYI: Right.
GRACE: ... in the search of -- for Dawna Natzke.
We are taking your calls. To Lisa Lockwood, former police detective, author of "Undercover Angel." Lisa, thanks for being with us. Lisa, weigh in.
LISA LOCKWOOD, FORMER POLICE DETECTIVE: Well, where there`s smoke, there`s fire. Bottom line is that. You`ve got a man who`s got a criminal history with domestic violence. He was the last person seen with her. And that needs to be investigated very deeply.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The search of Dawna Natzke has ended.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No one had seen her since leaving a Christmas party.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very loving.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Individual searchers did locate a deceased person.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to see justice!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The Garland County Mountain Unit saddles up while the State Police Air Unit takes off, all to search for mother of three and police dispatcher, Dawna Natzke.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: But the effort ended early when one searcher found a body.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A body found in an Arkansas pond.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Grown up with underbrush and briars and -- you literally have to fight your way through it to get to the area where the -- where the body was.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Family members reported Natzke missing the same day she didn`t show up for work. No one had seen her since leaving the Christmas party --
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Last seen by her boyfriend. A U.S. Forest Service worker found her car burnt last week.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: There have been reports of conflicting stories from her boyfriend. But police say there are no official suspects in the case.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY GRACE, HLN HOST: Welcome back. For those of you just joining us we can confirm tonight the body of this young mom of three, also a police dispatcher, has been found about five miles from where her burned out station wagon was discovered in a national park there in Arkansas.
But for some reason the Forest Police didn`t bother to call local police. We don`t know. We can`t estimate how many hours were lost in the search for Dawna or whether her life could have been saved.
Joining us taking your calls, her sister.
To Joe Gomez, KTRH, I want to go back to the night she was last seen alive, the night of the Christmas party. Give me the details of what happened that night, Joe.
JOE GOMEZ, REPORTER, KTRH RADIO: Well, apparently Dawna and her boyfriend had returned back home. She was watching TV so her boyfriend says. And when her boyfriend woke up the next morning she was gone without a trace. He thought she went to go to work but apparently she had the day scheduled off.
GRACE: Put Gomez up, please.
GOMEZ: And then the next --
GRACE: Gomez.
GOMEZ: Yes.
GRACE: I just wanted to make sure that you`re reporting that with a straight face. I repeat. I want to look at Gomez.
So, Gomez, once again we have the story that hey, we went to sleep and the next morning she just vanished from the bed, right? That`s what you`re telling me.
GOMEZ: That`s --
GRACE: Yes. All right. Obviously I need to go back a little bit further.
OK, Alexis Weed, what happened at the Christmas party itself?
ALEXIS WEED, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Nancy, they go to this Christmas party around 7:00 in the evening. They go together and as far as we`re hearing from the family they also brought Dawna`s mother to the party but didn`t leave with her. They then leave the party all alone at about 11:00.
GRACE: OK, you know what? I -- let me repeat to everybody on the panel. I`m just a JD. I`m not a DDS. I don`t know how to pull teeth.
WEEDS: So, Nancy, a friend of Dawna`s tells us that she was at this Christmas party with the couple and she saw that this Kevin Duck was being aggressive with Dawna, that he had grabbed her by the arm at some point. She also says that at one point he barged in on the two women while they were using the bathroom at the same time.
GRACE: To Wendy Walsh, psychologist, co-host of "The Doctors." Wendy, thanks for being with us. What is -- what do you make of that?
WENDY WALSH, PH.D., PSYCHOLOGIST, EXPERT ON MOMLOGIC.COM: I make of this as a major potential crime of passion, Nancy. OK. Here we`re talking about a guy who has a history of sort of -- they call it harassing communication, what is that? Like stalking? So you know he has sort of an anxious attachment disorder. OK, that just means, he thinks his love is his love line and if she`s not going to be loving him back it`s going to be a problem.
So now we`re seeing violence exhibited in public? Well, if he does this public imagine what does in private, Nancy?
GRACE: And another thing, Wendy, of course, he`s not a suspect, not even a person of interest, but you and I both know, all right, and I don`t know if this is the advice you give your clients, but as my mom says to me, it`s not going to get better, OK. They start -- men start off -- don`t take any offense because women are the same way, we`re all the same.
You start off putting your best foot forward. You know? At the beginning in a relationship, women fix their hair, they put on hair makeup, they dress up, you know, they cook dinner, blah, blah, blah. After a year or two that`s out the window, OK. That`s not going to happen anymore, right?
WALSH: Nancy, so true.
GRACE: And here, if all this is happening in the first year of the relationship what`s going happen next? So, of course, that`s not a crime, that`s just an anecdotal reality.
Back to Joe in Florida. What was your second question, Joe?
JOE, CALLER FROM FLORIDA: Questioning this guy, obviously they`ve questioned him already, but how can they get him back as developments proceed to question him again? Can he refuse? I mean --
GRACE: Good question. Good question, Joe in Florida.
John Manuelian, L.A., Lorna Owens, Miami. You know, at this point you really think this guy is going to answer questions? To you, Manuelian?
JOHN MANUELIAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I would advise him highly not to speak to the police because obviously he may be connected somehow indirectly or directly and even if he wasn`t the police officers could interpret his version of the story differently or he could actually give inconsistent statements. So it`s not in his interest to speak to the police in my opinion.
GRACE: What about it, Lorna?
LORNA OWENS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I would advise him to get a lawyer and not speak to the police. We already know of his background. We already know that there was some argument that evening. And we know that the police is going to come to this investigation with that kind of baggage, that kind of background. It behooves him to speak to an attorney and then work through this with his attorney.
GRACE: I think at this juncture no way is this guy going to cooperate.
To Dr. Vincent Dimaio, former chief medical examiner, Bexar County, forensic pathologist, joining us tonight.
Dr. Dimaio, thanks so much for being with us. This body partially submerged in water from what we are being told. What will cops be looking for and what will the medical examiner be looking for? The autopsy still ongoing. What will they be looking for? Why is the autopsy taking so long? How does water complicate that?
DR. VINCENT DIMAIO, M.D., FORMER CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER, BEXAR COUNTY, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: That`s a lot of questions. Water actually will cool the body quick or is it will preserve it. It looks like that the crime lab there doesn`t work weekends and they just put off the whole handling of the body for -- you know, for a couple of days until they got around to it.
GRACE: And so you think that it didn`t have anything to do with the condition of the body that had to do with being off?
DIMAIO: Oh, no. I mean you can get a markedly decomposed body in autopsy immediately if you want. There`s no problem about doing the autopsies, just having somebody there to do the autopsy. They probably were off for the weekend.
GRACE: You think so?
DIMAIO: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
GRACE: And another thing, Dr. Dimaio, what do you think about the car? What can we learn from the car?
DIMAIO: Well, actually it`s a good -- if you want to destroy trace evidence you burn it. It actually was in that picture about bank robbers in Boston. If you have a vehicle where you committed a crime in or transported a body and you wanted to break the chain of evidence, burn it up. Because, you know, maybe she had been murdered in the car. Maybe the car was a transport mechanism. Maybe there`s trace evidence of the perpetrator in the car. Burn it. It`s gone.
GRACE: We are taking your calls. To Jared in North Dakota. Hi, dear, what`s your question?
JARED, CALLER FROM NORTH DAKOTA: Yes, I`m confused why you all are saying crime of passion or the boyfriend did it. How do we know she just didn`t run away and she just wanted to be alone and she burnt her own car?
GRACE: Jared, did you just say -- are you from North Dakota?
JARED: Yes.
GRACE: Planet earth, right?
JARED: Yes.
GRACE: All right. I don`t mean to be rude in any way but Jared, you`re suggesting that she burned her own car, hiked five miles, and threw herself in the water, and drowned to death. Yes. Not feasible.
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