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He was a full-fledged alcoholic. He said, "I'm ready." He says, "I'm done with all that." He loved going to church. He was like a different person. He came back here and opened up his own mechanic shop. And he was a really good father. But his efforts are cut short one September evening in a peaceful roadside park. The body was still warm. When you have a lot of stab wounds, it's something very personal. Why was he there?
Investigators suspect that a complicated love life led to bloodshed. He always had a girlfriend. Those relationships that go south, people make poor decisions, and bad things happen. Ultimately, investigators find one ex-lover with a wicked plot no one saw coming. I didn't even know she had a girlfriend. It was new news.
And they had to formulate a plan to keep from disrupting the family that they built. I never dreamed they was capable of what they'd done.
Ava, Missouri, a tiny town of just under 3,000 nestled in the picturesque Ozark Mountains. It's very rural and it's a tight-knit community. It's very common to walk into all the stores and people see you and speak to you. On September 10, 2010, a call comes in to the Douglas County Sheriff's Department just after 10.30 p.m. from a roadside park north of town.
It's a very pretty little roadside park on Highway 5. It's very undeveloped. It's just a couple picnic tables and things like that. There was just two random people that had driven through the roadside park. They had stopped by not to rest. As they were leaving, they were driving out and they observed a body lying in the road. Within minutes, deputies arrived to find a man face down in the road in a pool of blood. The first thing that was obvious to me was a gunshot wound to his left temple.
The body was still warm when we first arrived, so we were quite confident that he hadn't been laying there very long. Deputies questioned the two people who called 911. They were searched, and there was no firearms. There was no knives that were found in their vehicle or on their person. We were able to talk to them and find out why they were there, and we were just essentially able to rule them out. They were purely witnesses that had driven upon this scene and called it in out of concern.
Police check the man's wallet for an ID and run the tags on the pickup truck parked nearby. Both belong to 43-year-old Philip Taylor. He lived in an adjoining county. I contacted the sheriff in Wright County and asked him if he was familiar with him, and he was. The sheriff was able to come down and confirm, look at him and say, yes, that is Philip Taylor. Without a doubt, he knew him. Born in 1966, Phil Taylor was raised in Florida.
He grew up close with his brothers and sister, but there was a hole in Phil's life he could never get past. His dad passed away when he was really young, and that really, you know, bothered him a lot, and he had a lot of trouble with that. His brothers were real close, and he had a sister, too. You could tell the way they—there was a real good family togetherness there with them.
When Phil was a teenager, he developed a love of cars and a passion for learning how they worked. He dropped out of high school to pursue his dream. One of his first jobs was working at a Ford dealership in Florida. The big motor companies will send you through school as long as you work for them, see? And that's where he got a lot of his training.
By his mid-20s, Phil was looking for a change. He left the sunshine and salty air of Florida for the lush, green Ozarks. There, he met Marvin Elliott. I had a shop in Norwood, Missouri. We became friends, and he went to work for me. Easy to talk to, and just a nice guy. I knew he was a good mechanic, and that's how it started.
While in Norwood, he found himself drawn to a down-to-earth single mother and waitress, Melina Cooley. I was working at a little place, it was a little restaurant in town, and he was working at a tire shop behind it. And he came up there and got food, drinks, whatever. That's how we met.
In 1994, Phil married Melina. He moved in with her and her three-year-old daughter, Ashley. I was single for a long time, a single mother, and he said a lot of the right things, kind, and I guess just gentleman toward me. About a year later, Phil and Melina welcomed a daughter of their own, Shelby. He was good with the kids to take them fishing and
He was always coming up with a four-wheeler or a dune buggy that they would have a lot of fun on. He was a good guy, hardworking, cared a lot for us kids. He would do anything for them. After a couple of years of playing house with Melina and the girls, Phil grew restless. He started spending time with a younger, faster crowd.
While hanging with his new friends, an attractive young woman caught his eye. That's how we met April. He got mixed up with the wrong crowd and they just kept coming around, kept wanting him to come out, come out and join the party. And he was a little older than them and he got to partying, drinking. And then the crowd he was hanging around were all, they were friends with April.
She was really young. I think he's close to 10 years older than her. It was clear to Phil that 17-year-old April had a crush on him. But it didn't take long for Phil to feel the same, and their affair began. She would sit and wait at the convenience stores, hoping he would come through town just so she could see him. She just kept chasing him until she got what she wanted. She was adamant on getting him.
getting him away from me. We'd try to get back together and then she would be coming around. April Quick was an affair that he was having on the side. He even got her a place to live in Mansfield, basically for his side chick. Before long, April was more than Phil's side chick. He was in love with her. I got where I didn't trust him because she was always coming around and
So I was just about a year and a half out of their relationship. I was like, that's enough. I was just like, okay, this is not good for my kids. So I eventually filed for divorce. In 1998, after a year and a half of Phil being unfaithful, Phil and Melina finalized their divorce. And Phil and April moved to Florida on a whim, leaving his family behind in Missouri.
There, 18-year-old April became pregnant almost immediately. Phil struggled to transition from party life back to family life. He was a full-fledged alcoholic. I mean, he had to drink all the time. You know, when you become an alcoholic, your priorities are not your family, most of them. They're getting that next drink, see?
Not long after their first child was born, April became pregnant again. But as their family continued to grow, so did Phil's addiction. And by early 2001, it was worse than ever. He began to abuse drugs and alcohol again, and the relationship really went bad. He got so bad that he had to do a major surgery, and it almost killed him. Eventually, they had both moved back to Missouri, and he had gone into rehab.
When he got out of rehab, they moved into her parents' house, and she became pregnant with their third child. But once they moved out of there into another place, he began to abuse drugs and alcohol again. Eventually, Phillip moved back to Florida, and she stayed in Missouri with the kids. After moving back to Florida, Phil spiraled. And in 2007, he missed child support payments, and it landed him in a Florida jail cell. After he'd been arrested and put in jail, it's like it...
dried him up, got drug-free, and he was like a different person. And that's when he came back here. A newly clean and sober Phil vowed to Melina and April that he was ready to be the father his five children needed him to be. He had tunnel vision of what he was going to do, and it was for his kids. He had his mind right on track. He's just concentrated on working and doing good things. He loved going to church.
He reached out to my mother and wanted to try to build a relationship with me again. And so he started emailing me and it just kind of grew from there. He tried to make up for lost time and tried to get close to Shelby. And he was like a different person. He came to open up his own mechanic shop and was doing really good.
But five months after his move back to Missouri, Phil's fresh start comes to a tragic end at a remote roadside park. His wallet had been taken out of his pocket. There was blood transfer on his pocket, and the wallet was laying between his legs. So it appeared that somebody had robbed him. But when investigators take a closer look at Phil's body, they make a disturbing discovery.
You seen the gunshot wound to the head. Then as we started examining and looking at things closer, there were stab wounds to the back of the head. It was obvious he was attacked from behind, which kind of led me to believe that there was two people. You know, maybe he was talking to someone and then someone jumped out from hiding and attacked him from behind. Was the robbery a cover-up to hide a more cold-blooded motive? There was two stab wounds to the chest. There were several to the back, several to the back of the head.
One of his elbows, one of his forearms. Generally, when you see that type of aggression, you have some type of personal connection. Coming up, had Phil gotten mixed up with the wrong woman? He had a new girlfriend. Her name was Tammy. She was still married at that time. And investigators discover that a dead man's cell phone is still on the move.
It was hitting towers. We were able to see that phone definitely tracking south. More than likely, whoever has this phone was involved in the murder. On September 10, 2010, authorities are trying to determine who stabbed and shot local mechanic Phil Taylor at a roadside park in the Ozarks. It appeared that he was attacked initially from behind with a knife.
And at some point, you know, it was on the ground and someone came up and shot him. The single gunshot wound went directly into Phil's left temple. It appeared to be a close contact type wound. As you can tell that from looking at the wounds from the stifling and different things around it, the powder burns. So it appeared to be a close, up close and personal wound.
The location of the stab wounds on Phil's head and torso indicate they probably came before the gunshot, likely in an attempt to incapacitate him. Whoever killed Phil left only one clue behind. One of the main things that we found was a .22 caliber brass that was near the body. So we're looking at some type of semi-automatic weapon. Other than that, the remote crime scene yields little information.
You're out in the middle of nowhere. There's no surveillance systems. There's, at that point, you know, initially no suspects. You're starting from scratch. But we're in rural communities where the sheriffs and the police officers know a lot of the people in that area. And the sheriff had dealings with them in the past. And so we knew he was from Wright County, had a repair shop up there that he was running.
Early the next morning, investigators head to Phil's auto repair shop and meet with Marvin Elliott, Phil's friend and landlord. Marvin owns a mechanic shop, and Philip had a little shop to the side that he rented out and did his mechanic work. Marvin tells detectives while Phil had his struggles in the past, he was currently devoted to two things, his children and his sobriety.
He was trying to make things right in his life. He'd started paying child support and basically was trying to turn his life around and start doing the right things. When he came back, he was like his old self. He had his life in line. He was all lined up. He knew what he had to do and wanted to do. Phil had been living in a trailer on his property, but was in the process of buying his own home. He'd just been approved. Phil got the loan. And so he was tickled about that.
Marvin says he last saw Phil yesterday at around 6 p.m. as he was leaving the shop. He'd worked all day that day and had been tired, didn't feel like going out that evening, and had a lot of work to do the following day. As far as a social life goes, Marvin admits that Phil did like to have a lady by his side. He always had a girlfriend, you know what I mean? He didn't get serious very much.
In fact, he shares that Phil had just met someone new online. Marvin had indicated to us that he had a new girlfriend. Her name was Tammy. I'd heard about her, but he wasn't serious or nothing about her. Rumor had it that Phil had recently taken Tammy on a date that had gone sideways. Everybody knew that he had been seeing her and had taken her to the river and there had been a confrontation there.
They were having a nice day, kind of hanging out, and while they were there, they'd ran into a previous girlfriend of Phil's. And there'd been a little bit of a heated exchange between this previous girlfriend and his current girlfriend. What's more, Phil's new love interest, Tammy, was still married. She was in the process of going through a divorce, but she was still married at that time.
With relationship drama becoming a consistent trend in Phil's life, detectives are left to consider if this led to Phil's murder. In almost all homicides that I've worked, it's been somebody that's close to the victim. So you're looking for those relationships that go south. People make poor decisions at the time and bad things happen. Marvin agrees to let investigators into Phil's trailer.
We went into the trailer after Marvin opened it up and it was small. You know, you could obviously tell that a single guy was living there. Inside, they find an empty cell phone box. Only investigators note they didn't find a cell phone at the crime scene. We were able to find out that he had recently purchased a cell phone. So with that, we were able to obtain a cell phone number for him from that cell phone box.
We're able to do an emergency circumstance ping, and that allows us to get limited information off of that phone in order to be able to track it. As investigators continue to search the trailer, they discover another clue, a Post-it note with the name Tammy written on it. It had her name on it, then there were handwritten directions to her house in Marshfield. Just before they leave, investigators find something else.
We also located a certified letter to an April Quick. She lived in Mountain Home, Arkansas. There was an actual copy of a letter that he sent her indicating that he wanted to spend more time with his children and kind of get back involved in his children's lives. The letter said that he had previously sent another letter to her that she had never responded to. So he had stated that he'd been paying child support for two years and that if he wasn't allowed to see his children, he was going to take her to court.
The letter is dated just two days prior, and it demands a response from April by September 18th, just a week after Phil's murder. This letter was absolutely a red flag. It said Phil had planned on getting an attorney and wanted to see his children. Investigators leave the trailer with not one, but two potential leads. We had the girlfriend in Marshfield, or we had April Quick in Mountain Home, Arkansas.
Both women are located about an hour away in opposite directions. Initially, we were focused on Tammy. With the information that we had, we felt that we needed to start towards Marshfield. Investigators start the drive 40 miles north towards Tammy's house in Marshfield, Missouri. But just as they reach the county line, they get a call from the phone company, and it's a game changer. Phil's cell phone is still powered on.
More than likely, whoever has his phone was involved in the murder, was there when it happened. It was hitting towers. We were able to see that phone definitely tracking south towards Arkansas. This information came through, and then we immediately turned from there and headed back in the direction that we came. We had two things to go on at that point. We were following the evidence that we had in hand. Coming up, investigators confront their two suspects. It was still a fairly new relationship, but she seemed upset.
And later, could supermarket surveillance footage hold the key to finding Phil's killer? - The woman on video was a fairly short, stocky lady with short hair, from what we could tell. Obviously it was not April.
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Missouri investigators looking into the murder of Phil Taylor are following two leads. Phil's current love interest, Tammy, and his ex-girlfriend, April Quick. But the investigation takes a sharp turn when they discover Phil's cell phone is powered on and moving south towards Arkansas. April Quick lived in Mountain Home, Arkansas.
While Missouri detectives have yet to rule Tammy out as a person of interest, they also put out a bolo for April Quick. In the meantime, they contact Phil's first wife, Melina. It was hard to believe that it happened. I just hate it for the girls, you know, sad. The sea, the pain, you know, from him basically leaving their life twice, last time, you know, permanently.
She was, you know, in a decent relationship with him, and they talked occasionally, and she was fine with him seeing her daughter. Phil had confided in Melina that April Quick was less willing to let him back into her life. He had been trying to see his kids and told her he was back in Missouri and wanted to, you know, try to make up for last time. He'd been out of her life for years and was trying to basically get back into her life and the children's life, and she didn't want him there.
Phil told me he finally decided to send a certified letter. If she didn't respond to him, he was contacting an attorney to start the process of getting custody of the children. Did the letter push April over the edge? Before investigators explore that question, they need to rule out their other lead, Phil's online love interest, Tammy. Tammy voluntarily came in to talk to us.
I mean, it was still a fairly new relationship, but she seemed upset that he was gone and the relationship had been good. There was no problems. They had plans for the weekend after he was killed and she'd been trying to call him and he hadn't contacted her back and she was worried about him.
But detectives' previous suspicions about Tammy subside when she explains her whereabouts the night of the murder. I think she had an alibi for where she was that night that we were able to check out. There was no red flags at all during her interview, nothing that caused me to think that she had anything to do with it. Investigators receive Phil's phone records for September 10th, the night of his murder, and immediately notice two incoming calls at around 9.30 p.m.
There were two phone calls from an 870 number. That was an Arkansas number. So we wrote a search warrant to obtain the information on the phone. We learned that phone was a track phone out of Arkansas that was bought at a Walmart. The Walmart is just minutes from the home of April Quick.
So we sent officers to that Walmart to try to identify who had purchased the phone. They were able to obtain video surveillance of the lady that had put those minutes on the phone. The woman on the video was a fairly short, stocky lady with short hair. When investigators compare the woman in the footage with April Quick's driver's license photo, they are in for a surprise. We could tell it obviously was not April, so we need to identify who this person is. April, of course, is on the radar.
She's moving towards the front of the list, but we still need to figure out who this other woman is and what relationship she had with Philip Taylor and why she's contacting him. Hoping to catch a break, the investigators send a still from the surveillance video to the Mountain Home Police Department. It didn't take long before an officer looked at it and he said, that is Amy Harry. In fact, I was just called to her house where they reported some money and jewelry and a .22 caliber pistol stolen from the residence on Friday night.
The same night that Phil was murdered. We had a .22 casing at the scene, and now we have a person the same night of a murder reporting a .22 pistol stolen. The officer has more to share. That officer also knew that Amy Herring was in a relationship with April Quick. That residence was April Quick and her children that she had with Philip Taylor and Amy Herring.
That kind of helped tie a lot of things together as far as what the relationship is and why she would be having contact with Philip Taylor. Between the phone evidence and the stolen .22, investigators feel they have enough to pay a visit to April Quick. At this point, we've been able to rule out any other names that have came up. And right now, I think that the evidence is 100% leading towards April Quick and Amy Herring.
On September 14th, four days after the murder, investigators contact April Quick for an interview. April voluntarily came to the sheriff's department. We were following up on Philip Taylor's death, which, of course, she had heard about. When they sit down with April, she is eager to talk about her relationship with Phil, one that she says began when she was only 17. She started in a relationship with him, unaware that he was married to Melina Taylor at the time, is what she said.
but that he'd gotten her a place to live in Mansfield and that they continued their relationship for quite some time. Was he dope back then, pretty heavy? He wasn't when we first met there. Okay. He was just totally alcoholic. Totally alcoholic. April claims that after they moved to Florida, Phil's drug use escalated and he became abusive. He would smack me, hit me, shove me on the wall. He threw me into the big wall and fractured my hip.
And then somehow he managed to make me feel like I was, you know, it was my fault. Once she became pregnant for the third time, April dumped Phil and headed back home. Just let me raise my children. I said, unless you can straighten your ways and be a father, just give us a mom.
Once back in Missouri, April found love in the arms of a woman, Amy Herring. For the past three years, she and Amy have been in a relationship co-parenting April's three kids. So those kids are almost like her own two, aren't they? Oh, yeah. She pretty good with them? She is pretty good with them.
Investigators ask April about the letters Phil sent requesting to see his kids again. She really basically had no contact with him. And she thought he was on probation or parole. So she really wasn't too concerned about it. And she pretty much just ignored that letter. And then she told me that she'd gotten another letter on Friday the 10th. And I get a letter last week, Friday, that states that he is living in Missouri, maybe owns his own shop, and that he wants to see his kids again.
April says before she could respond, she got the news that Phil had been murdered. News that was sad, but not unexpected. When investigators question April on her whereabouts the night of the murder, April states that she and Amy dropped the kids off with her mom so they could go on a date to the movies.
And she said they went to a movie at 9 o'clock and got home about midnight, and they noticed that their place had been broken into. That's when they called police and reported some stolen jewelry, money, and a .22 caliber pistol. Investigators seized the opportunity. April, I know without a doubt that quite a bit of what you told us is a lie, okay? I've got a lot of evidence that's stacked up against you.
But instead of changing her tune, April shuts down the interview. Would you agree? I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. I'll get a lawyer. I'm done. Coming up, April drops a hint. Nothing's communicated. And a search warrant causes a change of heart. We were able to locate some burnt items in the backyard. You could tell it was a cell phone. How did you decide where you were meeting?
Investigators are interviewing April Quick about the murder of her ex, Phil Taylor, when she suddenly asks for an attorney. Right before she leaves the room, April makes an offhand but revealing comment. I'll say nothing's premeditated, but I want to know.
It was a very weird statement. I mean, if she's trying to pass blame that it was somebody else that murdered Philip, why would she essentially confess to murdering but say it wasn't premeditated? April's girlfriend, Amy Herring, also requests an attorney. Ultimately, both women are charged with Phil's murder, and investigators head to their home to gather more evidence.
We were able to search and locate some burnt items in the backyard in a bag. Initially looking at it, you could tell it was a cell phone. It was burned beyond the point where we could positively identify it as Phil's phone, but what we believe was his cell phone. There was clothing in there that was partially burnt and then the knife. We believe that he used in the murder as well. So we photograph it, we seize it.
Before heading back to the station armed with even more evidence, investigators do a quick check on April and Amy's alibi. We went and obtained a video surveillance from the movie theater, and they were not at the movie. Before investigators can make their next move, they learn that April is ready to talk. If you want to talk to us about what happened, we're here to listen. What am I supposed to do?
I advised her of her rights. I again told her, I respect your rights as an attorney, and the only reason you're here is because you want to talk to me. I think at that point, she kind of knew the gig was up, knew that we knew that they had done it, and wanted to explain her side of the story. April tells detectives that she called Phil after receiving the second letter. He asked how the kids were. I told him how the kids were. And he said, he wanted to see me. He said, we can discuss that later.
She stated that she set up the meeting at Roadside Park to talk to him about the kids. Given her past with Phil, April brought Amy and the 22 for protection. Because she said she was scared of Philip Taylor, that he had been very violent in the past.
The women arrived at the park first. April asked Amy to hang back and stay hidden. A little later, Phillip had arrived. He had parked and gotten out, and they were talking between the vehicles.
I said, "You expect me to want you to see the children?" And I said, "They don't even know who you are." And then he said, "You're not gonna keep my children away from me, you bitch." And he grabbed me and it just started. So you were there about a minute or less? Yes. And it was just out of control. He pulled me back of my hair, telling me I wasn't gonna keep him away from his kids. Going off like he always did.
She stated at that point that Amy jumped out from her hiding spot and began stabbing Philip in the back to get him off of her. April says that Amy yelled for her to get the gun. Fearful now for her lover's safety, April did just that. I knew Amy had the gun in the truck. And she said they were struggling to...
So I got the gun and I ran over the gun and I went with both of our hands because the gun goes off right on his head. I'm really afraid. Oh my gosh. I'm sorry. It wasn't planned. It wasn't planned. It wasn't planned.
April says afterward, they took the cash from Phil's wallet to make it look like a robbery. They also took his cell phone. And they put his phone, their clothing, a knife, and all those things in a bag and stopped on Highway J and set that bag on fire. They left. They said they threw the gun out the window of their car, and then they went home. The next day, April grew concerned that someone might find the bag with the burnt evidence. She returned and brought it back home.
We've seen that several times in cases where people burn evidence related to the crime and we're able to sift through that to find out that they were connected to the crime. The thing that did surprise me is that they took it back to their house. The knife, the phone, all that, you burnt the knife too? She had everything in the bag. I just picked it up, but it didn't burn. I had to get home. Okay. When you had to get home, whose idea was it to report the gun and stuff stolen?
April also confirms the knife found was the one used in the attack. Investigators finally have a confession, only it doesn't quite match the evidence. I felt that she was being somewhat accurate with most of the information that she was providing us, except everything with the gunshot.
The gunshot wound, evidence indicated that it was made at close range. And for her to be merely grabbing a gun from a vehicle and handing it to Amy, and it just accidentally goes off, did not meet the evidence that we were looking at. Then, investigators learned that they might have one more shot at getting the truth. The detention officers there at Baxter County came up and told us that Amy Herring would now like to speak with us.
Coming up, Amy takes the fall for her lover. I stabbed him in the a** until we hit the ground. Then I shot him in the head. And investigators must determine, was this self-defense or cold-blooded murder? They didn't contact the authorities. They tried to destroy all the evidence in this case.
Four days after the murder of Phil Taylor, April Quick has just confessed to accidentally killing him following an altercation at a roadside park. Then April's lover Amy Herring comes forward with her version of what happened that night. She stated that they tried to contact Philip to speak about the children. He was threatening lawyers and everything else.
We decided that since we were in town, that we should call him. - Okay. - You know, speak to him. - They had met there at the roadside park and that he had gotten physical with April and then she stated that she jumped out and stabbed him. - And then he's pushing on her and he's too busy worried about her. He didn't even see me. I just ran around the truck and started stabbing him in the back of the neck. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
- She made a lot of statements, basically volunteering her guilt
but not giving the whole story. I thought some of the statements were a little far-fetched, but it became very obvious that we had the right people. With the two women in custody, investigators take a close look at the claims Phil was abusive. They find no police reports to back the accusations. They reach out to the woman who knew Phil in both the depths of his addiction and heights of his recovery, Phil's first wife, Melina Aldridge.
He was not a violent person. When he was there and was not into alcohol or drugs, he was a really good father. You know, as a part of this investigation, we did a lot of follow-up interviews with people that knew him and were acquainted with Phillip and people that may have been involved in past relationships with him, ex-wives and girlfriends. When asked if he'd ever been violent with them, all of them said no. You know, aside from
April Quick, that's the only person that we found that indicated Philip had any type of violent past. As for their claims that Phil attacked them on the day of the murder, if he did, both Amy and April walked away unscathed.
Had this really been a self-defense, I would have expected them to have shown up at my office showing me some type of injuries. They didn't contact the authorities. What they did is they took $100 out of his wallet. They stole his cell phone, tried to destroy all the evidence in this case, and they knew that they were on a killing. When it comes to what happened that night, to investigators, there's only one explanation. I think that they planned to meet him there.
The letter just kind of pushed things over the edge, and they snapped. They planned this murder, and then they filed a false report in Mountain Home, Arkansas, to say that your home was burglarized and a murder weapon was stolen. Facing overwhelming evidence against them that they conspired to kill Phil Taylor, both Amy and April agreed to plead out. Their only way of escaping a first-degree murder conviction...
was to take a plea bargain to a second-degree murder. Amy Herring and April Quick were charged with second-degree murder. They eventually pled guilty, and Amy was sentenced to 15 years in prison, and April Quick was sentenced to 20 years. People I talked to, they're like, "I cannot believe that's all she got. What do you do?" It's like, "I think she deserved more." I think he was remembered as a family man.
He was hardworking and caring. He would do anything for his kids. Just a good brother, uncle. I can't ever see him. I can't hug him. He'll walk me down the aisle. I miss my dad and there's nothing that will bring him back. April Quick will be eligible for parole in September 2025. Amy Herring became eligible for parole in 2022 and has been released under supervision.
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