December 10, 2025 • 30 mins
Meet Gabe and Larry Ortiz, brothers who growing up on opposite sides of the law.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Campsite media.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Here's birds right here, and the house is going to
be on the left, but drive slowly because it may
obtained in the last thirty years.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
This is Gabriel Ortiz Gabe. He's a cop. In fact,
he's one of the highest ranking law enforcement officers in
the entire state of Texas region Chief Texas Department of
Public Safety. We're looking for a house.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
It could have been.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Okay, go up a little further.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I think it's We're in Brazoria County. It's on the
Gulf Coast, south of Houston.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
I want to say that.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Was two oh four.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I think this is it.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, We've stopped in front of a beat up little
bungalow on a street of other beat up little bungalows.
This one's a greenish yellow, the color of an over
boiled egg, and there's a fat stripe of mold near
the foundation. We're staring at it as if it's a clue,
as if some grimy secret might come leaking out of it. Nothing,
(01:13):
that's okay because this isn't surveillance. It's not part of
an ongoing criminal investigation. Instead, Gabe is doing some historical reconnaissance.
He's retracing the steps of a criminal he used to know.
Not a bad guy, just one who did a lot
of things over a lot of years that weren't legal.
He was kind of a big deal in Missouri County
(01:35):
in some circles anyway. And he was shot to death
in January of twenty twenty three. His name was Larry Ortiz,
and he used to live in this little house Gabe
did too. Larry was Gabe's brother. The who of the
murder has been solved. The man who pulled the trigger
has already pleaded guilty and been sent to prison. But
(01:57):
still this might be the most difficult Gabe's career because
of the question it raises. How did two brothers raised
by the same parents in the same place at roughly
the same time end up leading such fundamentally different lives.
For years, Gabe believed he knew why, believed he knew
(02:18):
the reasons everything happened the way it did, and he
believed he knew Larry. But everyone keeps secrets from Campside
(02:48):
Media and iHeart Podcasts. This is the Brothers or Ties,
Episode one, Gabe's Salvation. I'm Sean Flynn. The Old Neighborhood
(03:17):
as Gabe suspected had changed some in thirty years. Across
the street from his old house, there's a line of
townhomes on what used to be an open field. It's
funny the way memory works, how one sensory tickle will
send the brains scrambling after something else. These townhouses remind
Gabe that there was once a field, which in turn
brings up a party.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Parents raps down. I'm probably seventeen, Larry's thirteen. It was
just supposed to be a small gathering of friends, like
close friends. Well, we were at the mall, that evening.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Malls by the way, where kids hung out in the nineties.
And this is the point in the story where it
all goes sideways.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
My brother is telling people at the mall that we're
having big house party, and so my friends start telling
other friends and it just turns into this whole big deal.
So before you know it, like there's a shitload of
people over here. There's people I don't recognize coming in,
Like he like, hey.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Who are you? Kids? Bring a lot of beer, a
lot of booze. It's a teenager reader organized more or
less by Larry Well.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
The cops show up and they roll up hit their
lives automatically. Well, my brother is out here.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
He's gesturing toward the townhouses where the field used to be.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
He and like two or three was friends hall ass
like I see him running. I'm like, bro, where are
you going? Like we live here, Like what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Larry doesn't hear them. It's too far away. And since
mom and dad aren't home, well, someone's got to talk
to the cops.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
They're like, hey, you know who lives here? And I said, hey, sir,
I said, this is my house. I said, I don't
know who half these people are. It was just supposed
to be a small group of friends. And all these
people started showing up. I said, I appreciate you're showing up,
but I want most of them to leave. So they're
going through every room. One of my brother's friends I remember,
was in the room. He got shit faced, he was
throwing up and they're like, who's this kid. I'm like,
(05:11):
that's my brother's friend. I didn't know he was drinking, Sir,
I'm sorry, And he was like, well, all this alcohol
needs to go, and and all these people need to go.
If we get called back over here, we're taking people
to jail.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I was like, yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So Gabe shuts it down, kicks everyone out, but he
can't find Larry.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
They're still hiding.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
The cops leave and they finally start. I was like,
what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (05:30):
He's like, bro, the cops.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
I'm like, this is our house. We live here. Why
are you running from the cops.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
He's like, I don't know. We just we just saw
the cops and we ran.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
I'm like, get your ass in the house. Did you
get in trouble? No, nobody found out. Dad didn't.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Nobody knew.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
So where was the house where your parents would have
the parties? Oh? That was in Freeport.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Yeah, we can, we can get a Freeport.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
We spent more than an hour driving around this little
patch of Brazoria County. Gabe's an excellent tour guide. There's
the Burger place where he used to work, and here's
the peewee ball field where he played second base, and
that's the high school and the rich kids went to
that sort of stuff. But we didn't find all the
places he lived, because well, there were quite a few.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
As long as I can remember, it was every year
and a half to two years we were moving to
another house, and it was always a rental property. I
take you back. There was one time I was probably
twelve years old and my parents bought a house in
Clute and we lived there probably two years before it
(06:39):
got four closed on, so then we had to move.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
And all of those moves they never went very far.
Gabe was born in Freeport, at the far edge of
Brassouria County, right up against the golf shoreline, and the
family shuffled around there until they bought that house in
Clute when Gabe was twelve. But Clute is just the
next town over as you're drifting inland, and Lake Jackson,
where that house party was, is just on the other
side of Clute, So really those are distinctions without a difference.
(07:07):
That part of Brezoria County, the part of the Ortiz
family lived in all kind of smears together into one
worn out strip of low buildings and trailer parks straddling
Highway to eighty eight and surrounded by chemical plants and refineries.
The other end, closer to Houston, has been booming as
the metro area spread south. That sprawl hasn't quite made
it to the coast. Gabe's father, Alario, which everyone anglicized
(07:29):
to Larry Larry Senior was an itinerant welder, a good one,
but the work was piecemeal. Gabe's mother, Gloria, she worked
when she could, clerical, retail and eventually with the local schools.
They were a working class family in a good year
and maybe a few dollars short of that and a
bad one. Gabe was their first child, born in the
late spring of nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
And so Gabe was like, Oh my gosh, you was
so spoiled.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
This is mom Gloria. She's remarried now, so she's Gloria Duarte.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
When he was born, everybody was just, you know, happy,
and was all excited because that was the first grandson
in my family. In both sites, I couldn't take them
away from my mom's arms.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
I remember grandmother taking me with her like everywhere.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
His memories, like every toddler's memories, are fuzzy. He has
only snapshots, highlights such as they were.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
I remember her taking me to like a bar at
an early age. I remember, I remember my grandmother gave me.
She gave me a shot of beer, like in a
shot glass. It's just her and I. I remember her
driving one time and me falling out of the backseat
of a car and rolling down some railroad tracks.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Five days before Gabe's fourth birthday, Larry was born, and
four years after that his sister Alicia came along. The
memories of those years are obviously clearer sharper. He remembers
a playground fight when he got a nose bloodied in
pre k, he's a tough neighborhood. He also remembers winning
the reading contest in first grade, read more books than
(09:07):
anyone else in the whole class. And then there were
the parties.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I do remember the house being full of smoke and
it's all you can smell is marijuana.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
When I asked Gabe about his childhood, this is the
first thing he mentioned. He wasn't complaining or judging. He
was just explaining how, with some regularity he would hear loud,
happy voices at night and he'd crawled to bed to
see what all the huha was about.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
If we stepped out of the room, you know, mom
or Dad were like, hey, get back in your room.
And I recall even a line or two of cocainew
I don't know if my parents did cocaine, but I
just remember them being some heavy partiers and drinkers at
an early age. That that changed. When I was about
(09:53):
nine years old.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
What happened.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Somebody came out of the house with these flyers about
this vacation Bible school for a couple of weeks out
of the summer, and we decided to go. I think
it was a way for Mom to get us out
of the house and then, you know, keep us occupied
over the summer. It was the first Assembly of God
of Freeport, and aside from having to get up really early,
(10:16):
it was actually pretty enjoyable. You know. It was really
my first real exposure to you know, being taught about
Jesus Christ and you know, you're becoming a born again
Christian and all these different things.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Gabe and Larry liked it so much that after vacation
Bible School they kept going. They joined the Royal Rangers
kind of a Cub Scouts for the Assembly of godcrowd.
On Sundays, a church bus would pick them up and
take them to Sunday school and to worship service and
then whatever the Royal Rangers were doing that afternoon. They
went by themselves for months riding the bus, these two brothers,
(10:54):
and then in the spring the church announced the contest.
It was a membership drive. Whichever kid could bring in
the most people to a specific service would be awarded
a brand new BMX bike.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
And I remember they had this BMX bike on displayed
in the lobby of the church, and I was like, man,
I want to win that bike. And I knew I
had a big family.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Huge aunts, uncles, cousins, a lot of family in Brazaria.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
And so I started just one by one and you know,
asking family if they wanted to, you know, come to
church and visit on this particular day, this Pictaclar Sunday,
so I could try to win this bike.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
The boys invited me, Gabe and Larry because they were
going to have a special for Mother's Day and they
wanted me to say, please, Mom, you know, come on,
you know there's going to be we're going to do
this special. And he said especially for the month, you know,
and he said if you're not there, you know we're
(11:51):
going to be the only ones that doesn't have them
all there. And so I said, okay, I yes, I
said I'll go. That was the best decision I ever made,
because I started and right away noticing you know that
my boys were so happy there. They were so happy.
(12:15):
And when they saw me there, you know that, you know,
they were real excited because I showed up. And so
then after that I made the decision, you know, to
become a Christian. I gave my heart to the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
My complete coincidence or maybe divine intervention, Lario dad was
having his own spiritual awakening.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Well, when we would be in church, he would be
watching seven hundred Club at home, with seven hundred Club
as telephone prayer counselor standing by twenty four hours a
day to answer your call. And we didn't. I didn't
even know it. And so just watching see hundred Club,
he he received a Jesus crisis, his savior.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
And then everything changed. Gloria and Alario. Mom and dad
went all in for the Lord, or their interpretation thereof.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
If we were going to set examples as a mom
and dad Christian mom and dad, we needed to do
it the correct way and we were going to follow.
We were going to follow one hundred percent. My husband did.
He said, Okay, we got to get rid of this,
and we got to get rid of that. We cleaned
up house, and so things really changed for.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
A bright little boy whose house too often smells like weed.
This is practically a miracle.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
It was great. We're like, hey, they're not partying, they're
not drinking, they're they're living this life for the Lord
and doing all these things that you know, I felt
were the right things to do and how to be
a good parents.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
As First Corinthians tells us, when I was a child,
I talked like a child, I thought like a child,
I reasoned like a child. So yeah, nine year old
Gabe thought this was great. Teenage game is not going
to be happy. Gab Arties was nine years old and
(14:23):
his brother Larry was five when the whole family found Jesus,
and their parents' lifestyle abruptly, immediately and radically changed. There's
no more drinking, no more drugs, more time with the kids.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Their idea of joy was, you know, going to church
as often as possible.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
At first, it was great, jarring, perhaps that sort of
wild behavioral swing, but great. Then a couple of years
go by, Gabe's growing up coming into his teens. What
was once soothing, this faith that made his family seem
safe and stables now smothering.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
We couldn't watch things on television, we couldn't hang out
with certain people. We couldn't listen to secular music, you know,
like John Cougar, Mellencamp. I mean like anybody on secular
radio we were not able to listen to.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
At first, gave tries to adapt. He looks for loopholes, workarounds.
For instance, he goes to the local Christian bookstore and
buys himself a cassette. This was the eighties. That's where
a thing of an ostentatiously Christian band called Striper, and it.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Was rock, it was Christian. All the lyrics were about God.
And I remember Dad telling me that the devil was
trying to get into Christian music and that rock, that
that group was being manipulated by Satan. And I was like,
(16:05):
I can't do anything right here. I'm really trying.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Any kid is going to be frustrated by a parent
vetoing his or her taste in music or close friends, whatever.
But for a kid like Gabe who grew up in
the house he grew up in, that frustration is going
to be especially intense. Teenage Gabe isn't asking for much
power chords and a four to four backbeat affect simile
of all the music as friends listened to so when
(16:29):
his father, his reformed, post partying father, says, no, that's
not just frustrating, it's infuriating. It's hypocrisy and idiocy all
at once.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I just felt like my dad just got locked in
and just you know, had this really, really this strong
belief that you know, that everything was the devil was
attacking us, The devil was attacking our family, and you know,
there were all these generational curses things that were happening
in our family, and oh, that's the.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Devil, generational curses, that's Old Testament material, Deuteronomy, numbers, Exodus,
the whole angry jealous God routine. He's gonna punish your
kids and your grandkids and your great grandkids for whatever
you did that might have displeased him. And that raises
the question of what exactly a Lario thought was cursing
(17:24):
his family through the generations. Gabe didn't know, not then
and not when I asked him about it all these
years later. Maybe alcohol. There were some cirrhosis level alcoholics
in the extended family, but that didn't really make sense
because Lario stopped drinking once he found Jesus. In any case,
young Gabe was not concerned with generations yet to come
(17:45):
or those gone by. He was, like most kids, focused
in the moment, and in the moment his parents are
really starting to suck.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
As an early team, we're wanting to go to hang
out with friends or go to the movies, and they're like, no,
you can't can allow you to do that. I mean,
we don't want you hanging out with these people, and
very strange. So at some point, probably fifteen, we started
to rebel at least I did. I'm the older one, right,
so I got a little rebellious and started testing the
(18:15):
waters and going to parties with friends and drinking a
little bit and obviously doing things that were, you know,
not very Christian.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
So the theology here is debatable, but as a practical matter,
the more Gabe's parents cracked down in him, the more
he pushed back, and it was taking a toll. Gabe
had always been in the gifted classes, honor roll, student counsul,
the whole package, but in high school his grades are
slipping a lot. In his senior year, a teacher tells
him he might not even graduate because he never shows
(18:47):
up curiously enough. Grades weren't really an issue at home,
neither of his parents graduated from high school, so they
figured as long as Gabe was passing from one grade
to the next, he was probably fine. And Gabe did
graduate from high school barely, but that's all that counts.
Where they were butting heads Gabe and his parents was
over all the other stuff, sneaking out of the house,
(19:09):
drinking beer, chasing girls, and as it gets older, all
of those things escalate.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
I'd become so rebellious to the point where grounding didn't
work anymore. I was getting kicked out of the house,
staying with friends, you know, CouchSurfing, just bouncing around, and
you know, I'd check in with mom every now and
then and she's like, hey, your dad said you can
come back home. And then I'd go back home, and
you know, repeat the cycle.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Little brother Larry is watching all of this. He and
Gab have always been close since the day Gloria brought
Larry home from the hospital when they were younger, when
they were both still kids nine and five, eleven and seven.
Gabe was Larry's mentor, his role model, his idol.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Brother and I we ran around the neighborhood on riding
bikes and you know, building tree houses. You know he's
four years younger, but you know, he wanted to follow
his big brother.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
But now Gabe is eighteen and Larry's fourteen.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
He was always, you know, trying to be right by
my side, and you know sometimes like hey, go hang
out with your friends. You know, the little brother just
wants to hang around and becomes more of a nuisance.
And so he tried to hang around with us. But
he just always looked up to me and always wanted
to kind of imitate what I was doing.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
What Gabe was doing at that point was getting kicked
out of the house.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
I think he kind of started to see the rebellion
and so that probably left an impression with him.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
After high school, Gabe is a drift. He doesn't know
what he wants to do. He could learn a trade,
like say, welding, like his father, but that didn't really appeal.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Dad worked out in a lot of the chemical plants
and ore refineries, and I was out there for a
couple of summers as his helper. And is not fun,
not enjoyable.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
No, not for a kid or a lot of adults either.
For Gabe, there's too much stuff to carry, and it's
always swampy, hot and the job starts early and ends late,
and everything smells like poison. It's physically demanding labor that
is actually laborious and moderately dangerous, but not in an
exciting way like skydiving. And when you're the helper, you
(21:18):
don't even get the satisfaction of knowing you laid down
a clean stringer bead. So, not knowing what he wanted
to do, Gabe enrolled in Brazosport Community College. It was local, affordable,
and he could figure things out, and he started to
He was intrigued by a computerated design, by engineering graphics,
that sort of thing. He thought that someday maybe he
(21:39):
could be an architect. His dad even bought him a
drafting table for his room. But college, even community college,
requires some basic coursework math, English, the basics. But Gabe
didn't want to do the basics, so we didn't go.
And he got away with it too, for one semester
and a second until a rainy and his third semester.
(22:02):
Rain is an important detail because his dad was working
an outside job and rain meant he got sent home
for the day. And when he came home, he looked
at the.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Mail and I was still in bed and there's probably
nine ten o'clock in the morning. Dad comes in, goes
into my room and he says, hey, Meil, you know,
hey son, no school today. And I said, oh, yeah, no, Dad,
(22:32):
I don't have any class today. He's like, okay, well,
why don't you get dressed and let's go grab some breakfast.
I'm like, okay, So I get up, hop in the truck.
We're driving to go grab breakfast, and he tosses an
envelope in my lap and I'm like, I see on
(22:53):
the outside of it it says Brows's support Community College.
And so I have an idea of what it might be.
I open it up. But he says, hey, so looks
like you've been dropped from all your classes and this
is you're in your third semester, and you know you're
wasting your time and my money because Dad was paying
(23:15):
for college for me, and I know, you know, we
weren't rich by any stretch. We were probably lower class.
And he says, after breakfast, we're going to go talk
to somebody.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Gabe and his dad slide into a diner for breakfast.
Gab orders breakfast, tacos and coffee. He doesn't like coffee,
but his father does black two sugars, and Gabe is
consciously trying to mirror him, maybe find a little common
ground before this morning completely falls apart. And he took
his time too. If you know there's a dreary thing
just over the horizon, there's really no need to rush.
(24:06):
That must have been a very long breakfast.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
It really was a long breakfast.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
They finally finish and get back in Dad's truck.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Dad said, if you don't go to college or find
something else to do with your life, you're gonna be
working out here with me in the plant. And so
we pull up to the military recruiting office, which is
in a shopping strip next to Academy and Gold Gym. Honestly,
(24:33):
I probably would have talked to any one of the services,
but the only guy that was standing in there at
the time was the Air Force guy. So we walk
in and the recruiter says, how can I help you,
and Dad says, yeah, my son wants to talk to
you about the service. And I was like, okay, well,
I'll play this game.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
So Gabe talks to the recruiter. He even agrees to
take the ASVAB that's the Arms Services occasional aptitude battery test.
It's one of the things the military uses to figure
out what you might be good at. It turns out
Gabe is qualified for satellite communications, which sounds pretty cool.
This is nineteen ninety two, so satellites are hardly a
new thing, but the technology is evolving practically by the minute.
(25:18):
This could be cutting edge stuff. Gabe puts that down
as his first choice for an Air Force specialty, satellites.
A week or so later, the recruiter calls him. He
tells Gabe that if he sticks with satellite communications, they'll
be a six month delay before he can even go
to basic training.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
But your second choice security police. He said, we can
probably send you off in about thirty days, and so
I tell Dad, hey, Dad. Recruiter calls back and says
that if I want to become a security police officer,
then I can leave in thirty days. He says, well, Son,
(25:55):
I guess you're going to become a security police officer.
Dad knew that if I didn't get out of there,
I would I was on a downward spiral, and so
I was going in thirty days off to Lackland Air
Force Base at San Antonio. Certainly had it not been
for Dad taking me to the recruiting office. Yeah, my
(26:17):
life could have been completely different.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Not long after, Game enlists the remaining where Tis family
moves again, this time into a double wide trailer. Larry
is fifteen, Alicia's eleven, and then one afternoon their mom, Gloria,
she hears crying from somewhere in the near distance.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
I wonder if it's the TV, or its next door
or what. And so I'm go to the rooms and
Larry had his room and I see Larry just sitting
on the bed. I'll go in there and I go,
what's wrong, son, where are you crying? And he's just
(26:55):
like right away, you know, he wips cheers quickly because
he don't want me seeing him. And he says he
left me. And I said, who who left you? He said,
Gabe left me, Mom, Gabe left me my best friend.
(27:24):
He said, I miss him, and I don't think I
never could have her around. I need that things were
not going to be the same. Things were not going
(27:44):
to be the same as whether we were when they
were together at home, things were going to start changing.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Coming up on this season of The Brothers Your Teas,
there was.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
An animal I'll never find another friend like that, and
where we're from and where we grew up, you can't
afford to be pass it.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
Took us under his wing and showed us the game
as they call it. Bought a car for everybody, bought
the house.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Money would burn a hole in his pocket.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Wasn't nobody going to push him in a corner?
Speaker 4 (28:38):
That's just how my boy is he gonna he gonna
push that line for the cause.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Part of me felt like at some point something like
this would.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Happen, Like my mom started screaming my dad's name and
I just heard one punch shot. I know that at
that time, you know somebody's calling you something's wrong, and
it was kissy. That screen is something that I'll never forget.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
It's like a bucket of crabs. You know, just as
the crab is almost out of the bucket, you get
somebody that pulls you right back in.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
The Brothers Orties is a production from Campsite Media in
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. The Brothers Ortiz was written, reported,
and hosted by me Sean Flynn. Lane Rose is our
Senior Producer, Story editing by Audrey Quinn, sound design, mix
(29:57):
and engineering by Garrett Tiedeman, original music by Garretteeedeman. The
fact checking by Savannah Wright. iHeart Podcasts executive producers are
Lindsay Hoffman and Jennifer Bassett. Campside Media's executive producers are
Josh Deen, Vanessa Grigoriatis, Adam hoff and Matt Cher. A
special thanks to our operations team Doug Lawn, Ashley Warren,
(30:18):
and Sabina Mara. If you enjoyed The Brothers Ortiz, please
rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts,
and thanks for listening.
Campsite media.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Here's birds right here, and the house is going to
be on the left, but drive slowly because it may
obtained in the last thirty years.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
This is Gabriel Ortiz Gabe. He's a cop. In fact,
he's one of the highest ranking law enforcement officers in
the entire state of Texas region Chief Texas Department of
Public Safety. We're looking for a house.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
It could have been.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Okay, go up a little further.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I think it's We're in Brazoria County. It's on the
Gulf Coast, south of Houston.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
I want to say that.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Was two oh four.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I think this is it.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, We've stopped in front of a beat up little
bungalow on a street of other beat up little bungalows.
This one's a greenish yellow, the color of an over
boiled egg, and there's a fat stripe of mold near
the foundation. We're staring at it as if it's a clue,
as if some grimy secret might come leaking out of it. Nothing,
(01:13):
that's okay because this isn't surveillance. It's not part of
an ongoing criminal investigation. Instead, Gabe is doing some historical reconnaissance.
He's retracing the steps of a criminal he used to know.
Not a bad guy, just one who did a lot
of things over a lot of years that weren't legal.
He was kind of a big deal in Missouri County
(01:35):
in some circles anyway. And he was shot to death
in January of twenty twenty three. His name was Larry Ortiz,
and he used to live in this little house Gabe
did too. Larry was Gabe's brother. The who of the
murder has been solved. The man who pulled the trigger
has already pleaded guilty and been sent to prison. But
(01:57):
still this might be the most difficult Gabe's career because
of the question it raises. How did two brothers raised
by the same parents in the same place at roughly
the same time end up leading such fundamentally different lives.
For years, Gabe believed he knew why, believed he knew
(02:18):
the reasons everything happened the way it did, and he
believed he knew Larry. But everyone keeps secrets from Campside
(02:48):
Media and iHeart Podcasts. This is the Brothers or Ties,
Episode one, Gabe's Salvation. I'm Sean Flynn. The Old Neighborhood
(03:17):
as Gabe suspected had changed some in thirty years. Across
the street from his old house, there's a line of
townhomes on what used to be an open field. It's
funny the way memory works, how one sensory tickle will
send the brains scrambling after something else. These townhouses remind
Gabe that there was once a field, which in turn
brings up a party.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Parents raps down. I'm probably seventeen, Larry's thirteen. It was
just supposed to be a small gathering of friends, like
close friends. Well, we were at the mall, that evening.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Malls by the way, where kids hung out in the nineties.
And this is the point in the story where it
all goes sideways.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
My brother is telling people at the mall that we're
having big house party, and so my friends start telling
other friends and it just turns into this whole big deal.
So before you know it, like there's a shitload of
people over here. There's people I don't recognize coming in,
Like he like, hey.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Who are you? Kids? Bring a lot of beer, a
lot of booze. It's a teenager reader organized more or
less by Larry Well.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
The cops show up and they roll up hit their
lives automatically. Well, my brother is out here.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
He's gesturing toward the townhouses where the field used to be.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
He and like two or three was friends hall ass
like I see him running. I'm like, bro, where are
you going? Like we live here, Like what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Larry doesn't hear them. It's too far away. And since
mom and dad aren't home, well, someone's got to talk
to the cops.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
They're like, hey, you know who lives here? And I said, hey, sir,
I said, this is my house. I said, I don't
know who half these people are. It was just supposed
to be a small group of friends. And all these
people started showing up. I said, I appreciate you're showing up,
but I want most of them to leave. So they're
going through every room. One of my brother's friends I remember,
was in the room. He got shit faced, he was
throwing up and they're like, who's this kid. I'm like,
(05:11):
that's my brother's friend. I didn't know he was drinking, Sir,
I'm sorry, And he was like, well, all this alcohol
needs to go, and and all these people need to go.
If we get called back over here, we're taking people
to jail.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I was like, yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So Gabe shuts it down, kicks everyone out, but he
can't find Larry.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
They're still hiding.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
The cops leave and they finally start. I was like,
what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (05:30):
He's like, bro, the cops.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
I'm like, this is our house. We live here. Why
are you running from the cops.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
He's like, I don't know. We just we just saw
the cops and we ran.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
I'm like, get your ass in the house. Did you
get in trouble? No, nobody found out. Dad didn't.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Nobody knew.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
So where was the house where your parents would have
the parties? Oh? That was in Freeport.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Yeah, we can, we can get a Freeport.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
We spent more than an hour driving around this little
patch of Brazoria County. Gabe's an excellent tour guide. There's
the Burger place where he used to work, and here's
the peewee ball field where he played second base, and
that's the high school and the rich kids went to
that sort of stuff. But we didn't find all the
places he lived, because well, there were quite a few.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
As long as I can remember, it was every year
and a half to two years we were moving to
another house, and it was always a rental property. I
take you back. There was one time I was probably
twelve years old and my parents bought a house in
Clute and we lived there probably two years before it
(06:39):
got four closed on, so then we had to move.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
And all of those moves they never went very far.
Gabe was born in Freeport, at the far edge of
Brassouria County, right up against the golf shoreline, and the
family shuffled around there until they bought that house in
Clute when Gabe was twelve. But Clute is just the
next town over as you're drifting inland, and Lake Jackson,
where that house party was, is just on the other
side of Clute, So really those are distinctions without a difference.
(07:07):
That part of Brezoria County, the part of the Ortiz
family lived in all kind of smears together into one
worn out strip of low buildings and trailer parks straddling
Highway to eighty eight and surrounded by chemical plants and refineries.
The other end, closer to Houston, has been booming as
the metro area spread south. That sprawl hasn't quite made
it to the coast. Gabe's father, Alario, which everyone anglicized
(07:29):
to Larry Larry Senior was an itinerant welder, a good one,
but the work was piecemeal. Gabe's mother, Gloria, she worked
when she could, clerical, retail and eventually with the local schools.
They were a working class family in a good year
and maybe a few dollars short of that and a
bad one. Gabe was their first child, born in the
late spring of nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
And so Gabe was like, Oh my gosh, you was
so spoiled.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
This is mom Gloria. She's remarried now, so she's Gloria Duarte.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
When he was born, everybody was just, you know, happy,
and was all excited because that was the first grandson
in my family. In both sites, I couldn't take them
away from my mom's arms.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
I remember grandmother taking me with her like everywhere.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
His memories, like every toddler's memories, are fuzzy. He has
only snapshots, highlights such as they were.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
I remember her taking me to like a bar at
an early age. I remember, I remember my grandmother gave me.
She gave me a shot of beer, like in a
shot glass. It's just her and I. I remember her
driving one time and me falling out of the backseat
of a car and rolling down some railroad tracks.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Five days before Gabe's fourth birthday, Larry was born, and
four years after that his sister Alicia came along. The
memories of those years are obviously clearer sharper. He remembers
a playground fight when he got a nose bloodied in
pre k, he's a tough neighborhood. He also remembers winning
the reading contest in first grade, read more books than
(09:07):
anyone else in the whole class. And then there were
the parties.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I do remember the house being full of smoke and
it's all you can smell is marijuana.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
When I asked Gabe about his childhood, this is the
first thing he mentioned. He wasn't complaining or judging. He
was just explaining how, with some regularity he would hear loud,
happy voices at night and he'd crawled to bed to
see what all the huha was about.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
If we stepped out of the room, you know, mom
or Dad were like, hey, get back in your room.
And I recall even a line or two of cocainew
I don't know if my parents did cocaine, but I
just remember them being some heavy partiers and drinkers at
an early age. That that changed. When I was about
(09:53):
nine years old.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
What happened.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Somebody came out of the house with these flyers about
this vacation Bible school for a couple of weeks out
of the summer, and we decided to go. I think
it was a way for Mom to get us out
of the house and then, you know, keep us occupied
over the summer. It was the first Assembly of God
of Freeport, and aside from having to get up really early,
(10:16):
it was actually pretty enjoyable. You know. It was really
my first real exposure to you know, being taught about
Jesus Christ and you know, you're becoming a born again
Christian and all these different things.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Gabe and Larry liked it so much that after vacation
Bible School they kept going. They joined the Royal Rangers
kind of a Cub Scouts for the Assembly of godcrowd.
On Sundays, a church bus would pick them up and
take them to Sunday school and to worship service and
then whatever the Royal Rangers were doing that afternoon. They
went by themselves for months riding the bus, these two brothers,
(10:54):
and then in the spring the church announced the contest.
It was a membership drive. Whichever kid could bring in
the most people to a specific service would be awarded
a brand new BMX bike.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
And I remember they had this BMX bike on displayed
in the lobby of the church, and I was like, man,
I want to win that bike. And I knew I
had a big family.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Huge aunts, uncles, cousins, a lot of family in Brazaria.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
And so I started just one by one and you know,
asking family if they wanted to, you know, come to
church and visit on this particular day, this Pictaclar Sunday,
so I could try to win this bike.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
The boys invited me, Gabe and Larry because they were
going to have a special for Mother's Day and they
wanted me to say, please, Mom, you know, come on,
you know there's going to be we're going to do
this special. And he said especially for the month, you know,
and he said if you're not there, you know we're
(11:51):
going to be the only ones that doesn't have them
all there. And so I said, okay, I yes, I
said I'll go. That was the best decision I ever made,
because I started and right away noticing you know that
my boys were so happy there. They were so happy.
(12:15):
And when they saw me there, you know that, you know,
they were real excited because I showed up. And so
then after that I made the decision, you know, to
become a Christian. I gave my heart to the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
My complete coincidence or maybe divine intervention, Lario dad was
having his own spiritual awakening.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Well, when we would be in church, he would be
watching seven hundred Club at home, with seven hundred Club
as telephone prayer counselor standing by twenty four hours a
day to answer your call. And we didn't. I didn't
even know it. And so just watching see hundred Club,
he he received a Jesus crisis, his savior.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
And then everything changed. Gloria and Alario. Mom and dad
went all in for the Lord, or their interpretation thereof.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
If we were going to set examples as a mom
and dad Christian mom and dad, we needed to do
it the correct way and we were going to follow.
We were going to follow one hundred percent. My husband did.
He said, Okay, we got to get rid of this,
and we got to get rid of that. We cleaned
up house, and so things really changed for.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
A bright little boy whose house too often smells like weed.
This is practically a miracle.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
It was great. We're like, hey, they're not partying, they're
not drinking, they're they're living this life for the Lord
and doing all these things that you know, I felt
were the right things to do and how to be
a good parents.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
As First Corinthians tells us, when I was a child,
I talked like a child, I thought like a child,
I reasoned like a child. So yeah, nine year old
Gabe thought this was great. Teenage game is not going
to be happy. Gab Arties was nine years old and
(14:23):
his brother Larry was five when the whole family found Jesus,
and their parents' lifestyle abruptly, immediately and radically changed. There's
no more drinking, no more drugs, more time with the kids.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Their idea of joy was, you know, going to church
as often as possible.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
At first, it was great, jarring, perhaps that sort of
wild behavioral swing, but great. Then a couple of years
go by, Gabe's growing up coming into his teens. What
was once soothing, this faith that made his family seem
safe and stables now smothering.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
We couldn't watch things on television, we couldn't hang out
with certain people. We couldn't listen to secular music, you know,
like John Cougar, Mellencamp. I mean like anybody on secular
radio we were not able to listen to.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
At first, gave tries to adapt. He looks for loopholes, workarounds.
For instance, he goes to the local Christian bookstore and
buys himself a cassette. This was the eighties. That's where
a thing of an ostentatiously Christian band called Striper, and it.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Was rock, it was Christian. All the lyrics were about God.
And I remember Dad telling me that the devil was
trying to get into Christian music and that rock, that
that group was being manipulated by Satan. And I was like,
(16:05):
I can't do anything right here. I'm really trying.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Any kid is going to be frustrated by a parent
vetoing his or her taste in music or close friends, whatever.
But for a kid like Gabe who grew up in
the house he grew up in, that frustration is going
to be especially intense. Teenage Gabe isn't asking for much
power chords and a four to four backbeat affect simile
of all the music as friends listened to so when
(16:29):
his father, his reformed, post partying father, says, no, that's
not just frustrating, it's infuriating. It's hypocrisy and idiocy all
at once.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I just felt like my dad just got locked in
and just you know, had this really, really this strong
belief that you know, that everything was the devil was
attacking us, The devil was attacking our family, and you know,
there were all these generational curses things that were happening
in our family, and oh, that's the.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Devil, generational curses, that's Old Testament material, Deuteronomy, numbers, Exodus,
the whole angry jealous God routine. He's gonna punish your
kids and your grandkids and your great grandkids for whatever
you did that might have displeased him. And that raises
the question of what exactly a Lario thought was cursing
(17:24):
his family through the generations. Gabe didn't know, not then
and not when I asked him about it all these
years later. Maybe alcohol. There were some cirrhosis level alcoholics
in the extended family, but that didn't really make sense
because Lario stopped drinking once he found Jesus. In any case,
young Gabe was not concerned with generations yet to come
(17:45):
or those gone by. He was, like most kids, focused
in the moment, and in the moment his parents are
really starting to suck.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
As an early team, we're wanting to go to hang
out with friends or go to the movies, and they're like, no,
you can't can allow you to do that. I mean,
we don't want you hanging out with these people, and
very strange. So at some point, probably fifteen, we started
to rebel at least I did. I'm the older one, right,
so I got a little rebellious and started testing the
(18:15):
waters and going to parties with friends and drinking a
little bit and obviously doing things that were, you know,
not very Christian.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
So the theology here is debatable, but as a practical matter,
the more Gabe's parents cracked down in him, the more
he pushed back, and it was taking a toll. Gabe
had always been in the gifted classes, honor roll, student counsul,
the whole package, but in high school his grades are
slipping a lot. In his senior year, a teacher tells
him he might not even graduate because he never shows
(18:47):
up curiously enough. Grades weren't really an issue at home,
neither of his parents graduated from high school, so they
figured as long as Gabe was passing from one grade
to the next, he was probably fine. And Gabe did
graduate from high school barely, but that's all that counts.
Where they were butting heads Gabe and his parents was
over all the other stuff, sneaking out of the house,
(19:09):
drinking beer, chasing girls, and as it gets older, all
of those things escalate.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
I'd become so rebellious to the point where grounding didn't
work anymore. I was getting kicked out of the house,
staying with friends, you know, CouchSurfing, just bouncing around, and
you know, I'd check in with mom every now and
then and she's like, hey, your dad said you can
come back home. And then I'd go back home, and
you know, repeat the cycle.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Little brother Larry is watching all of this. He and
Gab have always been close since the day Gloria brought
Larry home from the hospital when they were younger, when
they were both still kids nine and five, eleven and seven.
Gabe was Larry's mentor, his role model, his idol.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Brother and I we ran around the neighborhood on riding
bikes and you know, building tree houses. You know he's
four years younger, but you know, he wanted to follow
his big brother.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
But now Gabe is eighteen and Larry's fourteen.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
He was always, you know, trying to be right by
my side, and you know sometimes like hey, go hang
out with your friends. You know, the little brother just
wants to hang around and becomes more of a nuisance.
And so he tried to hang around with us. But
he just always looked up to me and always wanted
to kind of imitate what I was doing.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
What Gabe was doing at that point was getting kicked
out of the house.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
I think he kind of started to see the rebellion
and so that probably left an impression with him.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
After high school, Gabe is a drift. He doesn't know
what he wants to do. He could learn a trade,
like say, welding, like his father, but that didn't really appeal.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Dad worked out in a lot of the chemical plants
and ore refineries, and I was out there for a
couple of summers as his helper. And is not fun,
not enjoyable.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
No, not for a kid or a lot of adults either.
For Gabe, there's too much stuff to carry, and it's
always swampy, hot and the job starts early and ends late,
and everything smells like poison. It's physically demanding labor that
is actually laborious and moderately dangerous, but not in an
exciting way like skydiving. And when you're the helper, you
(21:18):
don't even get the satisfaction of knowing you laid down
a clean stringer bead. So, not knowing what he wanted
to do, Gabe enrolled in Brazosport Community College. It was local, affordable,
and he could figure things out, and he started to
He was intrigued by a computerated design, by engineering graphics,
that sort of thing. He thought that someday maybe he
(21:39):
could be an architect. His dad even bought him a
drafting table for his room. But college, even community college,
requires some basic coursework math, English, the basics. But Gabe
didn't want to do the basics, so we didn't go.
And he got away with it too, for one semester
and a second until a rainy and his third semester.
(22:02):
Rain is an important detail because his dad was working
an outside job and rain meant he got sent home
for the day. And when he came home, he looked
at the.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Mail and I was still in bed and there's probably
nine ten o'clock in the morning. Dad comes in, goes
into my room and he says, hey, Meil, you know,
hey son, no school today. And I said, oh, yeah, no, Dad,
(22:32):
I don't have any class today. He's like, okay, well,
why don't you get dressed and let's go grab some breakfast.
I'm like, okay, So I get up, hop in the truck.
We're driving to go grab breakfast, and he tosses an
envelope in my lap and I'm like, I see on
(22:53):
the outside of it it says Brows's support Community College.
And so I have an idea of what it might be.
I open it up. But he says, hey, so looks
like you've been dropped from all your classes and this
is you're in your third semester, and you know you're
wasting your time and my money because Dad was paying
(23:15):
for college for me, and I know, you know, we
weren't rich by any stretch. We were probably lower class.
And he says, after breakfast, we're going to go talk
to somebody.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Gabe and his dad slide into a diner for breakfast.
Gab orders breakfast, tacos and coffee. He doesn't like coffee,
but his father does black two sugars, and Gabe is
consciously trying to mirror him, maybe find a little common
ground before this morning completely falls apart. And he took
his time too. If you know there's a dreary thing
just over the horizon, there's really no need to rush.
(24:06):
That must have been a very long breakfast.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
It really was a long breakfast.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
They finally finish and get back in Dad's truck.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Dad said, if you don't go to college or find
something else to do with your life, you're gonna be
working out here with me in the plant. And so
we pull up to the military recruiting office, which is
in a shopping strip next to Academy and Gold Gym. Honestly,
(24:33):
I probably would have talked to any one of the services,
but the only guy that was standing in there at
the time was the Air Force guy. So we walk
in and the recruiter says, how can I help you,
and Dad says, yeah, my son wants to talk to
you about the service. And I was like, okay, well,
I'll play this game.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
So Gabe talks to the recruiter. He even agrees to
take the ASVAB that's the Arms Services occasional aptitude battery test.
It's one of the things the military uses to figure
out what you might be good at. It turns out
Gabe is qualified for satellite communications, which sounds pretty cool.
This is nineteen ninety two, so satellites are hardly a
new thing, but the technology is evolving practically by the minute.
(25:18):
This could be cutting edge stuff. Gabe puts that down
as his first choice for an Air Force specialty, satellites.
A week or so later, the recruiter calls him. He
tells Gabe that if he sticks with satellite communications, they'll
be a six month delay before he can even go
to basic training.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
But your second choice security police. He said, we can
probably send you off in about thirty days, and so
I tell Dad, hey, Dad. Recruiter calls back and says
that if I want to become a security police officer,
then I can leave in thirty days. He says, well, Son,
(25:55):
I guess you're going to become a security police officer.
Dad knew that if I didn't get out of there,
I would I was on a downward spiral, and so
I was going in thirty days off to Lackland Air
Force Base at San Antonio. Certainly had it not been
for Dad taking me to the recruiting office. Yeah, my
(26:17):
life could have been completely different.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Not long after, Game enlists the remaining where Tis family
moves again, this time into a double wide trailer. Larry
is fifteen, Alicia's eleven, and then one afternoon their mom, Gloria,
she hears crying from somewhere in the near distance.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
I wonder if it's the TV, or its next door
or what. And so I'm go to the rooms and
Larry had his room and I see Larry just sitting
on the bed. I'll go in there and I go,
what's wrong, son, where are you crying? And he's just
(26:55):
like right away, you know, he wips cheers quickly because
he don't want me seeing him. And he says he
left me. And I said, who who left you? He said,
Gabe left me, Mom, Gabe left me my best friend.
(27:24):
He said, I miss him, and I don't think I
never could have her around. I need that things were
not going to be the same. Things were not going
(27:44):
to be the same as whether we were when they
were together at home, things were going to start changing.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Coming up on this season of The Brothers Your Teas,
there was.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
An animal I'll never find another friend like that, and
where we're from and where we grew up, you can't
afford to be pass it.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
Took us under his wing and showed us the game
as they call it. Bought a car for everybody, bought
the house.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Money would burn a hole in his pocket.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Wasn't nobody going to push him in a corner?
Speaker 4 (28:38):
That's just how my boy is he gonna he gonna
push that line for the cause.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Part of me felt like at some point something like
this would.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Happen, Like my mom started screaming my dad's name and
I just heard one punch shot. I know that at
that time, you know somebody's calling you something's wrong, and
it was kissy. That screen is something that I'll never forget.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
It's like a bucket of crabs. You know, just as
the crab is almost out of the bucket, you get
somebody that pulls you right back in.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
The Brothers Orties is a production from Campsite Media in
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. The Brothers Ortiz was written, reported,
and hosted by me Sean Flynn. Lane Rose is our
Senior Producer, Story editing by Audrey Quinn, sound design, mix
(29:57):
and engineering by Garrett Tiedeman, original music by Garretteeedeman. The
fact checking by Savannah Wright. iHeart Podcasts executive producers are
Lindsay Hoffman and Jennifer Bassett. Campside Media's executive producers are
Josh Deen, Vanessa Grigoriatis, Adam hoff and Matt Cher. A
special thanks to our operations team Doug Lawn, Ashley Warren,
(30:18):
and Sabina Mara. If you enjoyed The Brothers Ortiz, please
rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts,
and thanks for listening.
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