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A peaceful beachside community is rocked when a beloved school teacher falls victim to a vicious crime.

She was beaten over over the head with a blunt object.

She suffered devastating injuries.

I heard screams, just absolute screams from everywhere.

I instructed everyone just to call Network.

I wanted someone there so I could go chase this guy.

As authorities race to track down a dangerous criminal, the investigation zeroes in on a business deal gone bad.

She was getting money from a whole bunch of friends.

A lot of people were upset because they never got any of their investment back.

The truth reveals a harrowing betrayal and a secret romance that emboldened deadly passions.

As human beings, we always tend to lash out with the people that we love the most.

I think those two, feeding off of each other, came together to make this the perfect storm that caused this crime.

December 4th, 2016.

The evening is winding down in Long Beach, New York, a barrier island off Long Island's South Shore.

It's a beach community, very family-oriented, very

social.

The 2.1-mile boardwalk is our crown jewel.

You can find people every day, even in the winter, exercising, enjoying it.

It consistently ranks in the top of the safest cities to live in the United States.

On this night, however, the usual calm of the beach community is shattered at 10.30 p.m.

When local resident Franklin Kuzma witnesses something out of the ordinary.

I was doing a normal boardwalk workout

and I noticed someone was walking into their foyer and they were going home and someone kind of ran up behind them

and all of a sudden I heard lots of screams.

It was very dark.

You could see like with a little silhouette shadow of exactly what was happening.

Someone all of a sudden took out something really big and started hitting them over the head with it.

I immediately started running towards the whole situation.

When the assailant notices Franklin approaching, they take off running.

I ran over to the scene and I saw this woman on the ground.

She was really in bad shape.

She was completely unresponsive.

People started coming out of the apartment building and I said, you call 911.

I instructed everyone just to call 91.

I wanted someone there so I could go chase this guy.

He was already a good 15, 20 seconds ahead of me.

So I ran after him as fast as I could.

As I was catching up to him, he kept looking back and I was gaining ground.

I chased him a long way, and as I got close to him, he went into a very dark alley.

It was so dark, I was kind of like walking through the alley with my hands above my head, wondering when he was going to try and hit me.

That's when I lost him

because it was extremely dark.

After losing the assailant's trail, Franklin returns to check on the victim and finds Long Beach police have already arrived on the scene.

The initial responding officers found the victim lying in the courtyard outside of an apartment with heavy blunt force trauma injuries about her head and face.

She was in a pool of blood.

She was beaten severely.

The victim was unconscious and unresponsive.

The fire department immediately gave medical aid.

Neighbors identify the woman as 56-year-old Teresa Keel,

a local school teacher who lives in the building with her two adult children, 18-year-old Francesca and 24-year-old Vincent.

Around the same time, Vincent, her son, shows up at the apartment building and sees the commotion and says, you know, that's my mother.

Vincent told us that he had been out to dinner with his mother earlier in the night.

When the attack occurred, a resident that lives in that complex called Vincent right away, and he came to the scene.

It was a miracle she was still alive, and they rushed her to the hospital.

A crime scene was established.

They began to interview the neighbors to determine who this woman was and what might have happened to her.

Originally from neighboring Queens County, New York, Teresa Ann Albano had dedicated her life to children.

Teresa was very loved by her community, especially the schools in which she taught.

She was the teacher that everybody wanted to have.

The kids loved her, the parents loved her, and her colleagues loved her.

Terry Keel was just a wonderful woman.

Her husband had passed away in 2004.

He had been a prominent dentist up in Glen Cove, Long Island.

She had basically raised her children single-handedly.

That included Vincent and her daughter, Francesca.

She was very dedicated to her two children.

She was always there for them when they needed her, especially when their father passed away.

Despite their loss, Francesca and Vincent thrived under their mother's care.

While Francesca shined academically,

Vincent excelled at sports.

He discovered that he had a real knack for tennis.

Vincent went all the way up to tournament levels and was a bit of a tennis phenom in the area.

In 2015, Francesca graduated from Long Beach High School.

She got a job waitressing and at the time her mother encouraged her to go to Nassau Community College to help further her education and open up more opportunities for her and Francesca did and she started attending classes there.

Vincent was also coming into his own.

He was starting to develop apps and Teresa was 100% in support and was a big champion for Vincent and trying to help him push this forward and get these things done.

She had also earned her doctorate while she was working.

She was just a great person.

Teresa had actually been working on creating a tutoring program for the homeless in the area.

She was very friendly, she was very willing to help you if you needed help.

But now, the 56-year-old school teacher is clinging to life after a brutal assault.

And Long Beach police are trying to piece together what happened.

A review of the crime scene showed that there was a deep gash in the wall close to where Teresa Keele's body was found.

indicating that whatever instrument was used to injure Teresa Keele at some point missed her and struck the wall and took a deep gouge out of the wall.

Her pocketbook was next to her.

Nothing was taken from her pocketbook.

Her wallet was still in her pocketbook.

So we knew this most likely wasn't a random attack because nothing was missing.

The injuries to Teresa Keele's head, in particular,

and the violence of the entire attack led us to believe that this was a personal encounter.

This just spoke of rage,

of somebody who had hatred and rage for this woman for whatever reason.

Based on the evidence at the scene, detectives believe Teresa likely knew the perpetrator.

But who had attacked her?

Oftentimes you don't have an eyewitness to a crime, but we were really fortunate to have Franklin Kuzma be the eyewitness who happened to be there finishing a workout and who was willing and courageous enough to get involved and actually pursue a guy who had just viciously attacked Teresa Keele.

He was, I'd say about 6'4, maybe 6'3.

He was wearing a big hat.

He had on a vest and he had on something that covered his kind of his bottom chin a little bit and you really couldn't make out who it was.

When Franklin told us what had happened with chasing this subject, we knew we had to broaden our search.

Long Beach Police had canine and every officer out there looking for the person who committed this horrific assault because they wanted to make sure that if he was in the area that they could apprehend him safely.

After a period of time elapsed, it appeared that perhaps the person escaped our efforts to locate him and officers began combing the area for any type of physical evidence now that we know the route that he took.

And in a back alley over a fence, officers located the weapon.

They found the bar from a dumbbell.

It did have what appeared to be blood evidence on it, and that was preserved and secured by them.

The weapon was discovered in an alley.

I went to that residence and I discovered that there was video in the alley and found that the subject was captured on the video.

Coming up, as the manhunt for the assailant intensifies, police unearth evidence of a stalker.

The GPS tracker had to have been placed on Teresa Kiel's car because the movement of the tracker was predominantly between the places where she spent the majority of her time.

In Long Beach, New York, local middle school teacher Teresa Keele is in critical condition after an assault outside her apartment.

In their search for the assailant, detectives have discovered home security cameras in a back alley near the crime scene.

I located the owner of the video and downloaded the video and found that the subject was captured on the video, but that for

the LED bulbs that light up the video at night were defective, so all we could get was a shadow of the individual

detectives secure more security footage in the area and watch as their witness franklin kuzma chases the assailant down

the assailant who was seen on the surveillance video was also carrying a duffel bag so it's our belief that he changed clothes and took the clothes that he wore during the assault with him

Unfortunately, detectives can't identify the perp from the footage alone.

With little else to go on, detectives head to the hospital to speak with Teresa's family.

There, they learn Teresa's prognosis is grim.

Teresa suffered devastating injuries.

The right side of her skull was basically caved in.

She is entirely dependent on life support now.

She's in a vegetative state.

I responded to the hospital in the wee hours of the morning.

We spoke with Vincent Keel at the hospital, and we also spoke with Teresa's brother, Michael.

Vincent and Teresa's brother were extremely, extremely devastated over what happened to Teresa Keel.

When detectives question Teresa's family about the whereabouts of Teresa's daughter, Francesca, Vincent tells them that they haven't been able to get a hold of her.

According to Vincent, his sister had moved out 10 months earlier following a dispute with their family.

Francesca had lost all touch with her family.

She did not speak to any of them, including her mother.

She had no contact with the family whatsoever.

Suspicious of this new piece of information, detectives ask Vincent to elaborate on the family conflict.

He explains that the hostility stemmed from Francesca's relationship with his former friend, 26-year-old Ralph Kepler.

Ralph Kepler was a New York City corrections officer.

He was also an entrepreneur.

He was very, very interested in starting new businesses and making money off of those businesses.

As one of his ventures, Ralph had invested in a dating app that Vincent Keel was developing.

Vincent and Ralph were very good friends, and based upon their friendship and entrepreneurial spirit, Ralph Kepler and his family invested approximately $130,000 into the app.

Vincent tells police that while they were working together on the app, Ralph had also taken an interest in in his 18-year-old sister, Francesca.

She meets Ralph Kepler, who was very handsome, very well-built, and older than her by a few years.

And, you know, this handsome, older man is lavishing her with attention.

They became romantically involved.

Francesca, by all accounts, fell pretty hard for him.

She was madly in love with him.

But according to Vincent, the relationship had developed in secret, leading to conflict in the Keele family.

Teresa and Vincent did not approve of Francesca dating Ralph.

There was obviously a lot of bad blood.

Vincent and Ralph started to butt heads, and their friendship started to deteriorate.

The worst part, according to Vincent, was that Ralph and his anger had turned Francesca against.

The more involved with Ralph Kepler that Francesca got, the bigger the rift between Francesca and her mother.

And ultimately, Francesca Kiel moved out of her mother's house and moved in with Ralph, who lived with his grandfather in a house in Limbrook.

While Vincent doesn't think his sister is capable of harming their mother, detectives want to talk to her immediately.

The detectives from Long Beach drive up to Lindbrook,

to Francesca's home where she lives with Ralph, at 1.30, 1.45 in the morning.

When detectives introduce themselves to Francesca and Ralph, the couple appears surprised to see them.

They bring them to opposite sides of the house and talk to them separately to get their stories about what happened that night.

We spoke to Francesca.

I advised her that her mother had been very seriously injured.

And Francesca was stunned into silence.

Then the detectives proceeded to ask her, what were you doing this night?

Where were you?

She conveyed to me that she had been home with Ralph all day, wrapping presents and watching football.

As proof, Francesca produces photos she and Ralph took during the time Teresa was attacked.

She showed us a photo that was timestamped and date-stamped, seeming to show Ralph Kepler and Francesca Kiel wrapping Christmas presents within moments of the brutal assault on Teresa Kiel.

Ralph is also talking to the officers on the other side of the house, and he tells them the same things that Francesca told them, that they were wrapping presents and they were watching football and they have pictures of them wrapping presents to back it up.

He said the only time he left the house was earlier that morning at approximately 11 a.m.

and that was to go buy a lottery ticket for his grandfather.

With Ralph and Francesca cleared as persons of interest, detectives aim to gather more information that might lead them to a new suspect.

They ask the couple about the recent tension with Teresa.

They don't deny it and claim their anger is valid because Teresa had stolen thousands of dollars from investors.

Teresa was soliciting money from people to help fund a Vincent's app.

She got tens of thousands of dollars.

And Francesca told the police that a lot of people were upset because the app never materialized.

Ralph Kepler and his parents sued Vincent and Terry.

There were some other investors involved also, and they wanted their money back.

Francesco was pointing to that as a possible motive for the attack on Teresa.

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The Oceanside community of Long Beach, New York is reeling after news has spread that 56-year-old Teresa Keel was viciously assaulted outside of her apartment.

Those injuries were just so overpowering and so dramatic.

I just couldn't believe it, frankly.

I was just emotionally struck by it and I broke down, frankly, because, you know, it was just heartbreaking for me.

Detectives are speaking to Teresa's daughter, Francesca, and Francesca's boyfriend, Ralph Kepler, who believe that the attack may be the result of Teresa's recent business dealings.

When they're interviewing Francesca, they ask her, does anyone have a reason to attack your mother?

And Francesca tells them that some people are saying that she's a crook who's stealing money from people and using her son's app to line her own pockets.

Ralph Kepler and his parents sued Vincent and Terry.

There were some other investors involved also, so that's why she came to me.

Armed with this new information, detectives begin tracking down investors and question them about their dealings with Teresa Keel.

They start speaking to other people who invested in the app just to see if any of them could possibly be part of it.

While detectives confirmed that Teresa had faced civil litigation, the investors claimed there was no basis for a lawsuit.

The investors basically got their money back, and that case, of course, was dismissed.

There wasn't any sign of animosity between the parties.

They were ruled out fairly rapidly as being involved.

It was clear it wasn't them at that point.

The detectives do look at everybody that potentially could be involved.

They look to see what activity has been in the area.

They look to see what offenders might have been recently released, who might be doing these type of crimes.

But in Long Beach, being a very safe community, there is not a whole lot of that type of activity.

The next step is look at phone records and begin methodically plotting through the records.

The victim can't speak for herself, so we have to ask her electronic devices to speak for her

who might have threatened her what might have happened we hope that the phone and the analysis of it can provide that information

we found some contentious texts between miss keele and her daughter and her son indicating that there were problems in the family relationship some of these problems appeared to be related to business dealings

Contrary to Francesca and Ralph's claims, the animosity found in the text messages leads investigators back to Ralph Kepler.

The person who was most angry over the whole money issue was Ralph.

And Ralph, of everyone who had lost their money to the app, Ralph was the most aggressive.

Teresa Keel kind of managed the investment.

money.

Ralph Kepler was under the assumption that the money was being misappropriated, and that's where the conflict started.

We saw a number of different text messages where he expressed extreme hatred towards Teresa Kiel.

Ralph Kepler was sort of blatant in his communications.

He was not only threatening them in emails and so forth, but in photographs and other communications.

As detectives continue digging into Teresa's life, they receive more information that Teresa was scared of Ralph.

Friends of Teresa came forward to the police and one of them had a text message that Teresa had sent her.

It said that Francesca had moved in with a psychopath who wanted to, quote, kill her and Vince.

Teresa Keele knew how much Ralph hated her and was concerned that ultimately he was going to harm her or her son, or possibly her daughter.

Detectives immediately secure search warrants for Ralph Kepler and Francesca Kiel's cell phones.

They look for any information that Ralph was involved and whether or not Francesca knew about it.

Detectives went through phone records, in particular, Francesca Kiel's phone records.

One of the detectives actually researched every call that was made in the months leading up to the attack on Teresa Kiel.

He came across a 1-800 number, and he looked into what that 1-800 number was, and he saw that it belonged to a company called SpyTech.

They're basically an outfit that sells, among other things, GPS tracking devices.

We were able to ask them to provide any information they had regarding purchases made by Ralph Kepler or Francesca Kiel.

Turns out that a purchase was made by Francesca using her credit card of a GPS device.

The receipt showed that it was delivered by overnight or next day mail and turned on on November 25th, 2016.

Once the detective learned that a GPS tracking device was purchased by Francesca Kiel about two and a half weeks before her mother's assault.

We did a search warrant and we asked the company for the GPS records.

When we got the GPS tracking device records, and we realized that the GPS tracker had to have been placed on Teresa Kiel's car because the movement of the tracker was predominantly between the places where she spent the majority of her time.

The police, using that information, start going through all of Francesca's emails.

And they find among them, they find alerts from the company and the tracking device.

And they realize that Francesca had set specific alerts so that she would know when her mother was either at home or at work.

Detectives have to wonder: had Francesca betrayed her mother for her boyfriend?

Or is it possible Ralph had made the purchase without Francesca's Francesca's awareness?

Well, the only person besides Francesca who would have access to her credit card and her email and her passwords was Ralph, who she was living with.

We applied for a warrant for the cell sites for Ralph Kepler's phone and Francesca's phone.

We were given Teresa Keel's cell sites.

and we had a warrant for the GPS for Spytech.

And we put the four cell sites together and we were able to simultaneously look at direction of travel on the car and the other phone numbers associated with Kepler and Francesca's phone.

It was our understanding, based upon some detectives from the Nassau County Electronics Department, that these GPS trackers have batteries, but they don't last forever.

You have to take the batteries out and change them every couple days.

So there were multiple times when we saw Ralph and Francesca's phone meet up with the GPS, and it was our belief that they were changing the batteries on the GPS to make sure that it would continue to track Teresa Kiel's movements.

This told us that Francesca as well as Ralph were tracking Teresa's movements for weeks leading up to the assault.

Coming up, as police build their case to take down their primary suspects, questions about the crime's true mastermind begin to mount.

The more involved she got with him, the more dependent she got on him.

That was the perfect storm of personalities there, and it turned out to be horrible.

Nearly a month into their investigation, Long Beach, New New York police have zeroed in on 18-year-old Francesca Keele and 26-year-old Ralph Kepler as the primary suspects in the attack on Francesca's mother, Teresa Keele.

After learning the couple had been tracking Teresa for weeks prior to the assault,

most investigations are methodical.

It's take a record, look it up.

Find out about it, move on to the next step.

This can go on for for months.

Search warrant process and subpoena process takes time.

To apply to a judge for a warrant is a very serious matter.

They don't undertake it lightly.

So the investigations slow down at this point as we collect information.

Detectives continue digging into Francesca Keele's phone records and find more incriminating evidence.

In addition to the call to the GPS company, there was also a call placed to the Long Beach taxicab company right around the time of the attack.

Francesca wasn't in Long Beach at the time.

When she made the call, her cell sites put her in Lynnbrook, where she lived with Ralph Kepler.

It was our belief she was calling for a getaway car for Ralph Kepler after the attack.

We're able to determine the license number and the taxi number of the taxi, and we're able to get records from the taxi company.

We did find a cab driver who picked up a mail matching Ralph Kepler's description.

She said he jumped into the back row, ducked down.

She described him as acting very suspicious, very, very paranoid, looking around quite a bit.

told her, take me to the rail, and and then paid her, I think it was $18 or $19 for a $5 fare and jumped out right next to the train station.

To solidify their case, detectives tracked down more surveillance footage from the night of the attack.

From the initial videos, we could see that this subject was a large, stocky individual.

appeared to be very muscular, very strong, but he was very quick.

Ralph Kepler has a very specific body type.

He is extremely well-built and he's very boxy.

He's tall, he's big, but he's also very square.

So when you saw the assailant running down the road, there's almost no question that it could be anybody other than Ralph Kepler.

On January 24th, 2018, more than a year after the attack on Teresa Keele, detectives take Ralph Kepler into custody.

Long Beach Police Department detectives arrested Ralph Kepler at his job as a corrections officer at Rikers Island.

Ralph Kepler was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of Teresa Keel.

Now that Ralph was under arrest, we were able to get a court order for a swab of his cheek.

And that's what we did

the dna sample is sent to the lab to compare with dna on the bloody barbell found near the scene of the crime

meanwhile detectives attempt to speak with ralph unfortunately he is unwilling to cooperate any further

now advise you the arrangements are you willing to answer questions while turning present

at that point he was brought to court and arraigned arraigned on those charges.

My office asked that he remain incarcerated during the pendency of the criminal case.

The judge did set bail in the amount of $500,000.

Ralph Kepler ultimately posted that bail.

Despite their belief that Francesca played a role in the crime, authorities don't have enough evidence to arrest her.

But Francesca's friends offer detectives insight into a relationship they claim had turned toxic

initially when ralph and francesca started to date francesca was still close with her family and very close with her mother but the more she became involved with ralph kepler the more she started to be pulled away from her family

Ralph would tell her things that her family was against her, that they did not have her best interest at heart, that they were going to take her money.

She had an inheritance from her father who passed away, and Ralph made her believe that her family was going to take that inheritance from her.

Francesca's mother worked hard to try to get her back into the family.

And I think this caused Ralph Kepler to push even harder to control Francesca,

get her away from the family, basically, so he could have complete control of her for himself.

She was addicted to Ralph Kepler.

She was completely under his control, completely submissive to him.

And I think Ralph Kepler, in the end, had Francesca convinced that her mother was a monster.

Finally, in November 2018, detectives received the results from the crime lab.

After the barbell was recovered, it was processed by the lab, and it was determined that Teresa Keel's blood was in fact on that barbell.

There were other male profiles that were unknown at the time.

So, after Ralph was arrested, and once that swab was taken, his DNA profile was compared and he matched.

At that point, my office, along with the police department, completed over 24 search warrants for social media, electronic devices, cell phone evidence, computer evidence, just trying to see how deeply Francesca was involved.

And we were able to retrieve some internet searches that were done under Francesca Keel's username.

And as soon as we read those internet searches, it was game over.

There were searches about how reliable is DNA evidence.

We found searches about single hit death blows,

weakest part of the skull,

strongest part of the skull, brain death.

how to kill someone and get away with it.

There were a tremendous amount of searches.

Then, nearly two years after the attack, authorities received tragic news.

On November 10th, 2018, we were notified that Teresa Kill had passed away.

She was beaten severely over the head and really never recovered from those injuries.

She was essentially in a vegetative state until ultimately she succumbed to her injuries.

It was a slow and painful way to die.

It took years.

When Teresa passed away, after the medical examiner issued their findings, in cooperation with the DA's office, it was determined that we would rearrest Ralph Kepler for murder and we would also arrest Francesca Keel for murder.

Unfortunately, when she was arrested, she decided, again, speaking with the police, she had a right to remain silent.

She was advised of those rights.

She decided to exercise those rights.

Coming up, as the case heads to trial,

investigators hope that one of the co-conspirators might turn on the other.

At this point, both sides have articulated bad blood between each other.

We have to keep our focus very wide and look for anything that may come up.

Two years after the attack that left Teresa Kiel on life support, the 56-year-old school teacher has died.

And her daughter, Francesca Kiel, and Francesca's boyfriend, Ralph Kepler, have been indicted for her murder.

Ralph had managed to apparently turn Francesca from, you know, a devoted daughter into a cold murderer.

That is just over the top insane.

Just over the top insane.

Well, how do you convince a daughter to kill her mother?

Prosecutors theorize that on the night of December 4th, 2016,

Francesca tracked her mother's movements to the diner where she would have her last meal with Vincent.

She would have got a geo-alert when they got there, but they would have known when she left the diner as well because the cars tracked continuously.

So, knowing that she was there and that Teresa would soon be going home, Francesca ordered the cab to take Ralph to the apartment where he would lie in wait for Teresa and then attack her.

At the same time, Francesca used both her and Ralph's phones to establish an alibi.

What we think happened was that they'd taken a picture in a

social media platform and left it up in say the cloud and then what happened was right after the incident francesca would have taken those pictures from that social media platform taken it down to both phones and saved the picture to the camera roll

i believe that there were burner phones involved and that one had called the other from these burner phones During that time after he said whatever he said to her, whether it's a code or he said he did it, I don't know.

She then took her phone and his phone and downloaded these pictures from this third-party cloud app and then saved them onto both phones at the same time.

She sat there and waited for the moment when her mom was going to die to create an alibi.

She had an opportunity to pick up a phone.

She had an opportunity to stop him.

She had an opportunity to say, don't do this to my mother.

She elected not to do any of those things and to provide an alibi for her boyfriend.

She's 100% part of this crime.

In December 2019, the state meets with Ralph's defense team to discuss a plea agreement.

The detectives found those extremely important internet searches.

It was my job to make sure that the defense attorney knew about them right away.

And as soon as we went to court, and I informed the court as well as the defense attorney as to the amount of and the content of the internet searches, that is when shortly thereafter Ralph had agreed to plead guilty.

Ralph accepted a sentence of 22 years to life.

The maximum sentence for murder in the second degree in New York would be 25 to life.

In exchange for his agreement to plead guilty, the judge gave him a commitment that he would basically save three years and be sentenced to 22 years to life.

He will have to do at least 22 years behind bars and could potentially spend the rest of his life behind bars.

My office ultimately offered Francesca a plea to manslaughter in the first degree as long as it was conditioned upon her serving 13 years in jail.

And once we made that offer to Francesca, she accepted it soon thereafter.

It was shocking to me that it got to the point where Francesca was willing to serve her own mother up on a silver platter to Ralph Kepler.

Their hatred for this woman, somebody who was well loved by the community, someone who was well loved by her family, someone who was well loved by the children that she taught, that's what ultimately led to her violent death.

She was just a great person, she really was, and did not deserve to die.

If those two never got together, if they never dated, Teresa Kiel would be alive today.

How hard is it to kill a planet?

Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere.

When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene.

Are we really safe?

Is our water safe?

You destroyed our town.

And crimes like that, they don't just happen.

We call things accidents.

There is no accident.

This was 100%

preventable.

They're the result of choices by people.

Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime.

These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet.

Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups that are about us and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it.

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