Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Deblina Chocolate Boardy and I'm Fair Dowdy. And in
Speaker 1: our recent episode about Mob Barker, we talked a fair
Speaker 1: bit about Alvin Carpas, who many believe was the true
Speaker 1: mastermind behind the Barker Carpass gang, and we talked about
Speaker 1: how he was the last of the four original criminals
Speaker 1: to where the title public Enemy number one to be caught.
Speaker 1: So with this fun fact, I realized that we had
Speaker 1: covered three of those original four over the past couple
Speaker 1: of years, Dillinger, baby Face, Nelson and Carpus, and that
Speaker 1: of course left only one the subject of this podcast,
Speaker 1: Pretty Boy Floyd. We've done a series and not even
Speaker 1: realized it. So Floyd wasn't as famous as some of
Speaker 1: those other gangsters during his lifetime, and he was often
Speaker 1: overshadowed by what was going on with Dillinger and some
Speaker 1: of the others two, but he's still a really interesting character,
Speaker 1: if only for this sort of Robin Hood like reputation
Speaker 1: that he earned along the way, which might remind a
Speaker 1: few you guys of the Australian Bushrangers that we've covered
Speaker 1: in the past. They also had these steal from the rich,
Speaker 1: give to the poor kind of reputations about them. But
Speaker 1: even though Floyd wasn't as well known during his lifetime,
Speaker 1: he did become a lot more famous toward the end
Speaker 1: of his life and after his lifetime for his supposed
Speaker 1: involvement in one of the most pivotal crimes in the
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties, at least as far as the FBI is concerned,
Speaker 1: and that was the Kansas City massacre. It was a
Speaker 1: crime that resulted in the deaths of several men, mostly
Speaker 1: peace officers such as policemen and FBI and one criminal,
Speaker 1: Frank Nash. According to Brian Burrow's book Public Enemies, America's
Speaker 1: greatest crime wave in the birth of the FBI, it
Speaker 1: was quote at the time, the second deadliest murder of
Speaker 1: law enforcement officers in American history, and it officially kicked
Speaker 1: off j Edgar who or his war on crime, which
Speaker 1: we've talked about quite a bit. But how much did
Speaker 1: pretty Boy Floyd actually have to do with it? And
Speaker 1: that's a question that people have been asking since this
Speaker 1: massacre happened, and it's part of what we're going to
Speaker 1: take a look into today. Yeah, But first, of course,
Speaker 1: as always, we want to take a look at how
Speaker 1: Floyd got his start in crime, because at first he
Speaker 1: seemed to be kind of an okay kid. At least
Speaker 1: he wasn't as bad as the Barker boys were at
Speaker 1: a very early age. So Floyd was born Charles Arthur
Speaker 1: Floyd on February third, nineteen o four, in Bartow County, Georgia,
Speaker 1: where he helped pick cotton as a boy and helped
Speaker 1: earn money for his family. I always think of Bartow
Speaker 1: County is where our thunderstorms come from from the from
Speaker 1: the weather maps. But Floyd was one of six surviving
Speaker 1: kids of Walter Lee and Mamie Floyd, and in nineteen
Speaker 1: eleven his parents decided to get out of Bartow County
Speaker 1: and try their luck out west. They moved out to
Speaker 1: Cookson Hills outside of Hanson, Oklahoma, where his father worked
Speaker 1: as a tenant farmer and probably also a bootlegger, which
Speaker 1: in retrospect might not have helped his son stay out
Speaker 1: of trouble. So early on, Floyd worked in the fields
Speaker 1: with the rest of his family, but according to the
Speaker 1: Oklahoma Historical Society, he was a bright and somewhat mischievous kid,
Speaker 1: and so he got bored with farm work pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: He liked to escape from his um more boring duties
Speaker 1: and stories of outlaws like Jesse James, which I feel
Speaker 1: is kind of a recurring theme we see with a
Speaker 1: lot of Barker. Yeah, exactly like mob Barker, like so
Speaker 1: many of the outlaws that we cover. But by the
Speaker 1: time he was in his teens, Floyd had learned to
Speaker 1: make a moonshine and he'd earned his first nickname, which
Speaker 1: was Chalk because he really liked to kind of homebrew
Speaker 1: beer known as Choctaw. He got into a few scrapes
Speaker 1: with the law and his teen years, but nothing too serious. Though.
Speaker 1: He did go on the road as a hired hand
Speaker 1: for a little while when he was sixteen, and he
Speaker 1: got involved in some bootlegging and other illegal activities before
Speaker 1: he returned to Oklahoma again. He was a good looking
Speaker 1: kid too, He was about six ft two. He was
Speaker 1: really popular with women, though. He settled down in when
Speaker 1: he married Ruby Hardgraves, who was the daughter of a
Speaker 1: tenant farmer, and they had one son together. So Floyd
Speaker 1: really seemed to care a lot about his new wife
Speaker 1: his little son, but it didn't take long again for
Speaker 1: him to get tired of farm life, another recurring theme
Speaker 1: with a lot of these a lot of these folks,
Speaker 1: And by in n he partnered up with John Hildebrand,
Speaker 1: who was more seasoned in the criminal lifestyle than Floyd was,
Speaker 1: and together they went off to Missouri, where, according to
Speaker 1: Mike Mayo's book American Murder, they pulled off a few
Speaker 1: small time robberies. But that September, though, Floyd decided to
Speaker 1: set his his sights a little bit higher and took
Speaker 1: part in a payroll robbery at Kroger's food store, which
Speaker 1: brought in eleven thousand, nine and twenty nine dollars. And
Speaker 1: after that, you know, feeling pretty pretty comfortable, suddenly he
Speaker 1: had a big time. He bought a flat she knew car.
Speaker 1: He went off to Arkansas to celebrate with his wife,
Speaker 1: but it didn't take long for the cops to track
Speaker 1: him down, and by that November he had been sentenced
Speaker 1: to five years in the Missouri State Penitentiary. His wife, Ruby,
Speaker 1: divorced him while he was locked up in January of
Speaker 1: nine and got full custody of their son, and she
Speaker 1: decited neglect for the reason behind the divorce. But Floyd
Speaker 1: was released in prison not too long after that, actually,
Speaker 1: March of nine, and like a lot of criminals we've discussed,
Speaker 1: he left this period of incarceration much better prepared for
Speaker 1: a life of crime than when he entered it. He'd
Speaker 1: picked up some tips while he was locked up, and
Speaker 1: he made some friends in there, including the bank robber
Speaker 1: Red Lovett, who was his first partner in crime when
Speaker 1: he was released. In his book, Burrow actually says that
Speaker 1: Floyd tried to quote go straight for a while after
Speaker 1: he was released from prison, but that the police hounded
Speaker 1: him so much he felt persecuted and decided to jump
Speaker 1: back into the game. Whether or not that happened, we
Speaker 1: do know for sure that he did get back into crime.
Speaker 1: He hooked up with Red and other gangsters in Kansas City,
Speaker 1: and this is also where he learned to use a
Speaker 1: tommy gun, had another recurring theme in a lot of
Speaker 1: these gangster episodes, but according to Encyclopedia Britannica, the tommy
Speaker 1: gun really became his professional trademark, and he also started
Speaker 1: up a new relationship, this time with his future girlfriend,
Speaker 1: Juanita Baird, who was a prostitute and was married at
Speaker 1: the time too. So soon enough, with Tommy gun and Toe,
Speaker 1: he pulled off several bank robberies in Ohio. He worked
Speaker 1: with various accomplices, but again it wasn't long before he
Speaker 1: got caught, this time in Akron after a shootout with
Speaker 1: the police. This time he got a heavier sentence too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. But while
Speaker 1: he was being transported to the Ohio penitentiary by train,
Speaker 1: he busted out of the bathroom window and jumped out,
Speaker 1: still shackle with the train still moving. After this, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean determined, and yeah it's shuic idle true too.
Speaker 1: But to some people that's probably seemed pretty impressive, right.
Speaker 1: So after this, Floyd's name began to be better known,
Speaker 1: of course, but he was also a fugitive, so he
Speaker 1: was pretty much on the run from this point on.
Speaker 1: He didn't exactly lay low because of that, though. He
Speaker 1: robbed several banks throughout the Midwest and even murdered a
Speaker 1: few people along the way, so adding some more crime,
Speaker 1: some more offenses to his rap sheet, including he killed
Speaker 1: a police officer in Bowling Green, Kentucky. That was one
Speaker 1: of his murders that's credited to him and Offo. During
Speaker 1: this time, somewhere along the way, he picked up that
Speaker 1: nickname pretty Boy, which he apparently did not like. He
Speaker 1: preferred chalk. And according to an article by Mary Jane
Speaker 1: Porter in the Pueblo Chieftain, there's some debate over where
Speaker 1: the moniker pretty boy really came from. So some possibilities
Speaker 1: it could have been from a Kansas City madam. I
Speaker 1: really like this possibility, who apparently said quote, I'll take
Speaker 1: you from myself, pretty boy. Other people claim that he
Speaker 1: was called pretty boy behind his back. That would partly
Speaker 1: explain why he didn't really like the nickname. But he
Speaker 1: was called this because he used to preen in front
Speaker 1: of mirrors, and because he was such a ladies man,
Speaker 1: so cute nicknames aside. As well known as he was,
Speaker 1: Floyd nearly got caught by police in nineteen thirty one,
Speaker 1: and after that he decided to return to Oklahoma, where
Speaker 1: he picked up other accomplices and started robbing local banks.
Speaker 1: And this is where that Robin Hood, the Robin Hood
Speaker 1: stories about him really started to pop up. It said
Speaker 1: that Floyd would tear up mortgage papers during his bank robbery,
Speaker 1: so This is very reminiscent of the Ned Kelly story.
Speaker 1: Um that we we mentioned bush Rangers in the beginning
Speaker 1: of the podcast. So the working class loved him because
Speaker 1: he was basically liberating them from their obligation to these institutions,
Speaker 1: and Mayo writes that he'd also give some stolen money
Speaker 1: to the poor people that he met. This was a
Speaker 1: smart business move too, though it wasn't just generosity because
Speaker 1: according to Encyclopaedia Britannica, this giving to the poor folks
Speaker 1: made locals loyal enough to him that they could actually
Speaker 1: protect him, or they would protect him, making it a
Speaker 1: lot harder for law enforcement to get a hold of him.
Speaker 1: So he became known in Oklahoma as the robin Hood
Speaker 1: of Cooks and Hills. He became known as the Phantom
Speaker 1: of the Ozarks. Really, these mythological sort of names for
Speaker 1: him a lot different from pretty Boy with the Tommy
Speaker 1: gun robbing bank, so he was kind of a folk
Speaker 1: hero at that point in a way. At first, this
Speaker 1: probably seems like a pretty sweet set up for him,
Speaker 1: but gradually Floyd's fame began to grow, especially after he
Speaker 1: survived a couple of shootouts with police and he was
Speaker 1: implicated in the ambustion killing of six law enforcement officers
Speaker 1: in early nineteen thirty two, which incidentally did not make
Speaker 1: him very popular with to the general public. According to
Speaker 1: Burrow's book, Floyd actually didn't have anything to do with
Speaker 1: that nineteen thirty two ambush, though. He was actually getting
Speaker 1: tired of life on the run and by ninety three
Speaker 1: had stopped robbing banks, choosing instead to hide out with
Speaker 1: his relatives if he was hoping for some relaxing time
Speaker 1: with relatives, though that didn't happen because several of his
Speaker 1: relatives started being hassled and arrested, and so Floyd decided
Speaker 1: to skip town for a bit and headed to Kansas
Speaker 1: City with another criminal named Adam Ricketty, who's less experienced
Speaker 1: gang Floyd had been mentoring in a sense those sort
Speaker 1: of his retirement plan. He was like, well, I won't
Speaker 1: rob banks anymore, but I'll kind of supervise you guys
Speaker 1: and help you out. But they were very good at
Speaker 1: kind of take on an Adam Worth sort of role
Speaker 1: on not quite as successfully though, right The problem was
Speaker 1: if Floyd truly wanted to lay low, that is, if
Speaker 1: we're going with that theory, his arrival in Kansas City
Speaker 1: was pretty ill timed to the arrival of another well
Speaker 1: known and wanted gangster, Frank Jelly Nash. Nash was another
Speaker 1: career criminal we mentioned him in the Barker episode you
Speaker 1: may remember as an accomplice and at least one of
Speaker 1: their crimes, and he'd robbed stage coaches, committed murder, probably
Speaker 1: worked with al Capone at some point, and Nash had
Speaker 1: gone to prison a couple of times and been pardoned,
Speaker 1: but when he was sentenced to five years and eleven
Speaker 1: worth in nine four, he later escaped in nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: and the FBI had been searching for him intensely for
Speaker 1: quite some time. Agents finally caught up with Nash in
Speaker 1: Hot Springs, Arkansas on June sixteenth, nineteen thirty three. And
Speaker 1: Hot Springs was another kind of hot bed for criminals,
Speaker 1: much like St. Paul, Minnesota, which we mentioned in the
Speaker 1: Barker episode. Again to agents and a police chief from
Speaker 1: Oklahoma who had previous experience with Nash and could recognize
Speaker 1: him on site, arrested Nash and took him to Fort
Speaker 1: Smith and it was kind of a perilous journey because
Speaker 1: the Hot Springs East Department was corrupt again the criminals
Speaker 1: kind of ran the city and they had infiltrated the
Speaker 1: police department, so they were the agents who had exactly
Speaker 1: They were actually afraid that they wouldn't make it out
Speaker 1: of the state without getting shot. So they came up
Speaker 1: with this very carefully thought out plan to transport Nash
Speaker 1: to Kansas City and not get shot in the process.
Speaker 1: And because it was risky to wait in Kansas City
Speaker 1: for a connecting train because Kansas City, again was also
Speaker 1: basically run by criminals, they were planning to meet up
Speaker 1: with two more agents in town and a police escort
Speaker 1: that would drive them the rest of the way to
Speaker 1: leave and Worth. But when they got to Union Station
Speaker 1: in Kansas City the morning of June sev someone was
Speaker 1: waiting for them there, and as the agents and the
Speaker 1: cops and Nash we're all getting into their cars, they
Speaker 1: heard somebody shout up up, get your hands up, and
Speaker 1: then somebody said let them have it. Suddenly they were
Speaker 1: under heavy machine gun fire, and when all of it
Speaker 1: was over, there were three cops, one FBI agent, and
Speaker 1: Nash all dead. Um. So, as we mentioned earlier, this
Speaker 1: incident really kicked off the war on crime, and whoever
Speaker 1: immediately launched an investigation. He said, quote, whoever did this
Speaker 1: must be exterminated, and they must be exterminated by us.
Speaker 1: But another immediate result of the crime is that the
Speaker 1: FBI ended its official ban on weapons. It's hard to
Speaker 1: believe that there ever was one, right, Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that before researching this. But before this time, agents
Speaker 1: weren't really supposed to carry guns. Afterwards, though, they had
Speaker 1: machine guns on hand at their disposal to help them
Speaker 1: hunt down the assassins of the massacre. So where does
Speaker 1: Floyd come into all of us, Because we've kind of
Speaker 1: gotten away from him for a couple of minutes, and
Speaker 1: you're probably thinking, well, obviously he must have been one
Speaker 1: of the gunmen. After all, he did arrive in Kansas
Speaker 1: City the night before June six, and people were aware
Speaker 1: that he was in town him because of a run
Speaker 1: in that he had had with the law a couple
Speaker 1: of days earlier elsewhere in Missouri. So Floyd did make
Speaker 1: it on the suspect list right away, But according to Burrow,
Speaker 1: he wasn't considered a serious suspect of at first because,
Speaker 1: out of the dozens of witnesses who were interviewed right
Speaker 1: after the massacre, only one woman identified him as one
Speaker 1: of the gunmen, and the agents were having a hard
Speaker 1: time really connecting him to others that they knew were
Speaker 1: sort of involved in the situation, and they didn't have
Speaker 1: too many concrete details anyway. The one person that they
Speaker 1: determined was definitely involved was the ex sheriff turned criminal
Speaker 1: named Verne Miller, but at first they thought his two
Speaker 1: accomplices were two of the seven prisoners who Nash had
Speaker 1: helped to bust out of prison before. And I think
Speaker 1: here it's worth talking about, like what exactly went down
Speaker 1: with this Nash FBI police shootout. Was it some kind
Speaker 1: of rescue attempt and Nash justs wound up Dad too,
Speaker 1: or was it something else? Well, it's unclear, and it's
Speaker 1: interesting because it is murky. Also, the purpose behind the
Speaker 1: shooting is murky, and the people who were involved is
Speaker 1: also a situation that we're still questioning today, or some
Speaker 1: people still question today. I mean there are people, you know,
Speaker 1: the FBI, for example, definitely thinks it was a rescue
Speaker 1: attempt and it seems to have definitely started out that way.
Speaker 1: But you know, there are others now who say, well,
Speaker 1: these were experienced gangsters and if it was really a
Speaker 1: rescue attempt, then why did they kill Nash too with
Speaker 1: just random machine gun fire? It doesn't seem like the
Speaker 1: most precise way to go about saving your buddy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't really seem like the most precise way,
Speaker 1: as you pointed out before, to to just kill someone either,
Speaker 1: because why would they have killed FBI agents in the
Speaker 1: process of knowing that the heat would have been You're
Speaker 1: going to bring down a whole lot of heat if
Speaker 1: you get in that deep by um. Yeah, killing police
Speaker 1: officers and an FBI agent. But so a lot of
Speaker 1: uncertainty there what really was going on it. Floyd himself
Speaker 1: always denied that he had anything to do with this shooting,
Speaker 1: but the heat was still on him because, as you said,
Speaker 1: you know, he was known to have been in town.
Speaker 1: So he went to hide out in Buffalo, New York
Speaker 1: for a little bit. Eventually, though, he and Ricketty were
Speaker 1: accused of being gunmen in the massacre, and Floyd made
Speaker 1: his way on up to the public enemy's list. That's
Speaker 1: how he got there. On October twenty two four, Floyd
Speaker 1: and Ricketty were making their way back toward Oklahoma. Floyd
Speaker 1: was headed home again with Juanita and her sister. When
Speaker 1: Floyd ran the car off the road in Ohio, the
Speaker 1: women went to get the car fixed, and in the meantime,
Speaker 1: the men were spotted and they were recognized, so law
Speaker 1: enforcement officials obviously got on this right away and Ricketty
Speaker 1: was captured, but Floyd managed to escape into the woods
Speaker 1: and he made it to a farm. At this point, though,
Speaker 1: the man hunt was officially on and it was actually
Speaker 1: led by g Man Melvin Purvis, whom we've discussed before
Speaker 1: in previous Gangster episodes. He happened to be in Ohio
Speaker 1: at the time, and agents eventually did catch up with
Speaker 1: Floyd too while he was trying to get a ride
Speaker 1: with a farmer, and when he saw them, he jumped
Speaker 1: out of the car, maybe kind of trying to recreate
Speaker 1: his train experience, jumped out of the car, tried to
Speaker 1: escape into the woods on foot, but they shot at
Speaker 1: him and he was taken down, and as the agents
Speaker 1: approached him, he said, quote, I'm done for You've hit
Speaker 1: me twice, and they tried to question him while he
Speaker 1: was dying, and he did admit he was pretty boy Floyd,
Speaker 1: but he refused to admit involvement in the massacre. So
Speaker 1: there you have it right up unto the end, Floyd
Speaker 1: maintaining his innocence with the massacre. On their website, the
Speaker 1: FBI called his death quote another key victory in the
Speaker 1: war against the gangsters. Incidentally, Ricketty later got the death
Speaker 1: sentence he was executed. Um. But what's interesting, though, is
Speaker 1: because well, the FBI seems to accept without question that
Speaker 1: Floyd was a gunman in the masacre, at least according
Speaker 1: to the articles about the incident on their website. Plenty
Speaker 1: of other sources, including Burrows and Mayo's book, Porter's article,
Speaker 1: even Floyd's Encyclopedia Britannica entry seemed to be kind of doubtful,
Speaker 1: as his deathbed words might not deathbed but death field
Speaker 1: words might indicate, or at least they're not as definitive
Speaker 1: about it about resolving the question. The Oklahoma Historical Society
Speaker 1: those does say definitively that newer evidence shows that Floyd
Speaker 1: definitely wasn't involved in this crime. So it's interesting just
Speaker 1: to see how different people handle it. One definitely paints
Speaker 1: him as guilty and others say on. Another fun thing
Speaker 1: of looking at some of these gangster episodes, seeing how
Speaker 1: the FBI reflects on these cases with mob Barker, it
Speaker 1: was a little bit of a surprise to me that
Speaker 1: they were saying, yeah, she might not have really done
Speaker 1: any of these crimes, whereas this one, it's still pretty firm. Yes,
Speaker 1: Floyd participated in this. Yeah, so to them it's case closed.
Speaker 1: To others it's not so much. But even the FBI
Speaker 1: points out that after his death, the legend of pretty
Speaker 1: Boy Floyd and even his Robin Hood reputation continued to flourish. Uh.
Speaker 1: You could see references to this effect pop up kind
Speaker 1: of all over the place. For example, Grapes of Wrath.
Speaker 1: I didn't remember this, but he's mentioned in there as
Speaker 1: a tragic figure who was kind of forced into his
Speaker 1: fate by the economic circumstances surrounding him. And one thing
Speaker 1: that's mentioned a lot as folk singer Woody Guthrie famously
Speaker 1: wrote a ballot about him, and it ends like this,
Speaker 1: It goes, Yes, as through this world I've wandered, I've
Speaker 1: seen lots of funny men. Some will rob you with
Speaker 1: a six gun and some with a fountain pen. And
Speaker 1: as through your life you travel, yes, as through your
Speaker 1: life you roam, you won't never see an outlaw drive
Speaker 1: a family from their home. Robin Hood indeed brings to
Speaker 1: mind sharing at the mortgage papers and giving some of
Speaker 1: the spoils to people he encountered. I think it's so
Speaker 1: interesting with these gangsters, how there are different pictures of them,
Speaker 1: whether they're murdering people something most folks can agree is
Speaker 1: not a nice thing to do, or possibly giving back
Speaker 1: a little bit. There are other ways to be charitable,
Speaker 1: of course. Yeah, it just seems like these two images
Speaker 1: Floyd are so far apart. You know, the victim who
Speaker 1: wanted to help people, wanted to get out of yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be a gangster anymore, didn't want
Speaker 1: to rob banks. And then there's the other side, the
Speaker 1: ruthless gangster who was violent and yes he did kill people,
Speaker 1: maybe ten, maybe more, and you know, didn't have any
Speaker 1: remorse for these things that he did. So you know,
Speaker 1: as we usually say, the truth is probably somewhere in
Speaker 1: the middle. But we can speculate about that and that's
Speaker 1: kind of fun. So in the meantime, I think we
Speaker 1: can talk about some listener mail too. We have a
Speaker 1: postcard here from Lister Karen, and you know how we
Speaker 1: love postcards. So we wanted to share it. So we
Speaker 1: always pick up in the summer too. Everybody starts traveling,
Speaker 1: they do, we get where you all go, and it's
Speaker 1: fun because we have new decorations for our cubes. So
Speaker 1: Karen says, I just completed the Communo to Santiago, where
Speaker 1: I had been carefully saving your podcast to listen to
Speaker 1: along the way. The walk was both a challenging journey,
Speaker 1: both physically and spiritually, and I appreciate your company along
Speaker 1: the way. She also says that the Communo would be,
Speaker 1: of course an interesting topics thousands of years old and
Speaker 1: has every kind of adventure you can think of. So
Speaker 1: and that's a suggestion we've first see before, as well
Speaker 1: as other famous walks and pilgrimages. And alright, maybe a
Speaker 1: list or something on some of it. I was just
Speaker 1: about to say, maybe a little list doesn't order. So
Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions for us for any walks
Speaker 1: that you might like to see included on that list,
Speaker 1: or other adventures that you'd like us to cover, please
Speaker 1: write us. Where a history podcast at Discovery dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find us on Facebook and we're on Twitter.
Speaker 1: In this in history and if you want to learn
Speaker 1: a little bit more about other folks like pretty Boy.
Speaker 1: We do have an article or of image gallery rather
Speaker 1: called Public Enemies Gallery, and you can search for that
Speaker 1: on our homepage at www. Dot how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com MM for more on this and thousands of other topics.
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