Cold Case Files: Murder in the Bayou (2024) s01e03 Episode Script

(ominous music)
- My mom said she was
going to Louisiana.
And next thing you
know, she was gone.
- The east side of Lafayette
is a very remote
area, very desolate.
Someone could really do some
heinous things in those areas.
- There are gators,
water moccasins.
It's not all fun and
games when you get lost.
In trouble quick.
(dramatic music)
- This was probably one
of the bloodiest scenes
that I had seen.
Her neck was cut very deep,
and possibly multiple times.
- This was pure evil.
Somebody that had no regards
for life, whatsoever.
- I told them, you treat this
like this was your mother.
Because I want answers.
(tense music)
(gentle music)
- Lafayette's located in
south central Louisiana,
about 50 miles west of
the Mississippi River,
20, 30 miles from
the Gulf of Mexico.
It's an entertainment hub.
(lively music)
- Lafayette is its own little
bitty piece of Louisiana.
It's really small, it has
its own little flavor.
The Cajun culture is everywhere.
I mean, it's in the food,
it's in the way that
people live their lives.
I don't think I went
to as many festivals
and celebrations
as I've ever been
in any other place
that I've lived.
(lively music)
I felt like I could connect
to people a little bit better
because they're so welcoming.
I still love it very much.
It's still very
much home for me.
(music and whistling
in distance)
(tense music)
- [Narrator] Just a few miles
from Lafayette's city center
lie the murky
depths of the bayou.
(thunder rumbling)
- As soon as you
leave the city limits,
you're in an area where
there's no lights,
there's no houses, buildings,
or any kind of structures.
The majority of that area is
very desolate, very remote.
You're in swampland,
you're in a marshland.
- You end up in bayous
and bring your hip boots
'cause you're gonna
be in mud and water.
There are gators,
water moccasins.
It's not all fun and
games when you get lost.
In trouble quick.
- Someone could really
do some heinous things
in those areas.
(tense music)
(insects chirring)
(tense music)
On Saturday, December 6th, 2008,
it was a typical cool morning.
(people cheering)
The Cajun Country
Marathon, at the time,
was a half on, half
off-road marathon
that was taking
place in Lafayette.
A runner was warming
up prior to the event
and had stepped off
of one of the trails
to relieve himself.
(tense music)
And, when doing so,
he located a female,
obviously deceased,
and he notified the
local sheriff's deputies
that were working
the race off duty.
(tense music)
(sirens blaring)
- [Narrator] Sergeant Bajat
makes his way to the crime scene
just off Lajaunie Road,
an area surrounded by
thick southern oak and cypress.
- The body of the victim was
about 20 yards inside the woods
from the roadway.
(tense music)
The victim was a white female.
She was in her mid-40s.
Her arms were above her head and
there was a significant
amount of blood in the area.
(tense music)
The most obvious injury
that we were able to tell
was that her neck had been cut.
Very deep and possibly
multiple times.
She was still fully clothed.
Her pants were unbuttoned,
but it didn't appear
that the victim had been
sexually assaulted.
- [Narrator] Her
killer leaves behind
one identifying and
vicious piece of evidence.
- We located a boot print
in blood on her chest,
which would've been caused
after the stabbing occurred,
because she was found
lying on her back.
That made it look like
there was anger involved
and that it was a
personal attack on her.
At the time that this occurred,
I was on the force
for nearly eight years
and this was probably one of
the bloodiest scenes
that I had seen.
(tense music)
- Since the body was found
with no animal activity
or no kind of decomposition,
which happens very fast
here in south Louisiana,
it led us to believe that she
had not been there very long.
(tense music)
- We were unable to
find any identification,
any type of purse, any type
of personal belongings.
There was only one thing that
was located in her pocket
and that was a room
key to a local hotel.
(dramatic music)
(police radio chatter)
- [Narrator] The key belongs
to room 46 at the Regency Inn.
As the crow flies,
it's located five miles
from the crime scene.
- When detectives arrived
at the Regency Inn,
using the key and
the room number,
we went and knocked on the door
(knocking)
to see if there
were any associates
that would help us
identify the victim.
We were able to locate
a female who said that
her friend Bonnie
Ruphard had not returned
from the evening before.
(ominous music)
We learned that Bonnie
Ruphard was in her late 40s.
She wasn't a resident
of this area.
She was from Illinois.
With the hotel key and the
statement that we obtained
from the friend
that we interviewed,
we were fairly confident that
Bonnie was the individual
that we found off
of Lajaunie Road.
- [Narrator] Fingerprints
confirmed the victim
as 47-year-old
Bonnie Faye Ruphard.
Detectives reach out to her
daughter up north in Illinois
to break the news.
(somber music)
- I got off of
work, I was in IGA.
It was me and my
daughter's father,
and my grandma called.
She said, "Hey girl,
are you off work?"
I said, "Yeah."
I remember her saying,
"They found your
mama dead today."
I said, "Huh?"
She said, "Yeah.
They found your
mama dead today."
And I remember falling
in the middle of the store
and my daughter's
father looked at me
and he said, "I know that,
I know that scream."
He said, "Is Bonnie Faye okay?"
I said, "No."
(somber music)
(slide clicks)
(tender music)
My mom was from
Broughton, Illinois.
My mother went through
some horrible things
that had happened to
her by her grandfather
and at age 14, my mom
decided to leave Broughton
and she came to
Champaign, Illinois
and she met my father.
(slide clicks)
(tender music)
I was born but my mom
was my mom, I mean
She just had a tough
fight in this world.
She had really bad
depression and anxiety
and she was bipolar.
And I think instead of
her taking her meds,
she would turn to the drugs
and that would help numb her.
But when that high came down,
those problems were still there.
- [Narrator] As Bonnie
struggles with addiction,
she parts ways with
Nichole's father.
(slide clicks)
In 1981, Nichole's grandmother
steps in to adopt her,
while free-spirited
Bonnie takes to the road.
- My mom was a worldly woman.
She was 5'11", beautiful.
She had these olive skin tones
and she had the most
beautiful-est hair
and the most
bubbliest personality.
And she just traveled.
She would be in California,
Texas, Massachusetts.
All I could say is she
traveled very well.
- [Narrator] Two decades pass.
Nichole is in her mid-20s
and a mother herself
when Bonnie returns.
She's welcomed with open arms
and once again makes
Illinois her home.
- When Grandma Bonnie
came into my life,
I was about six or seven.
She was a lively woman.
She always kept
herself up, jewelry,
purses, her hair done.
She taught me how to do a
inside-out French braid,
how to take care of my hair,
and she was excited about it.
She was happy to be a part
of her grandkids' life.
It was a good moment,
because now I had another
grandma to spoil me.
- [Narrator] In 2007, Bonnie's
wanderlust kicks in again.
- I came to visit my mom one day
and she told me she was leaving.
She said, "I met this cool man."
I didn't even know his name.
And she said she was
going to Louisiana.
I said, "You know
what you doing?"
She told me, "Yeah."
And next thing you
know, she was gone.
(ominous music)
- [Narrator] Police
discover Bonnie is part
of a traveling group.
She's been sharing a room
with the man she
mentioned to her daughter.
His name is Lambert Hatfield
and their relationship is rocky.
- We had learned that there
was a domestic incident
that happened several
months prior out of state,
where it was reported that
Lambert was intoxicated
and had struck Bonnie,
which led her to go
to a women's shelter
and to get a stay away
order against him.
Bonnie had checked into
the women's shelter
and then had checked out,
stating that she was
traveling to Mississippi
to do some work,
which obviously wasn't the case,
because she ended up here
in Lafayette with Lambert.
It's a very high percentage,
when a woman is murdered,
that it's going to be some
type of romantic partner
or relationship gone bad.
And because of the injuries and
how violent this crime was,
the total disregard for
her body and her remains,
that led us to
believe that someone
committed the murder
in a fit of rage.
You would associate
these types of wounds
with a domestic
violence incident.
That definitely
raised a red flag
and make Lambert
suspect number one.
(dramatic music)
(tense music)
- Bonnie Ruphard
and Lambert Hatfield
had been traveling
together for some time.
And there's a history
of domestic violence.
(tense music)
(insects chirring)
(tense music)
- [Narrator] Investigators bring
Lambert in for questioning.
- Lambert said that the
last time he saw Bonnie
was the Friday morning
prior to her death
and that as he
left to go to work,
she was still sleeping
in the hotel room.
- [Narrator] Lambert
denies any involvement
in Bonnie's murder.
- Lambert said that Bonnie
would disappear on occasion
and that she would perform
sex acts as a form of revenue
so that she could
purchase narcotics.
It appeared that Bonnie
was in this situation
because of addiction
and doing that, along
with small odd jobs
is the only way that she
could support herself
and live to see the next day.
Lambert said that he didn't
approve of what she was doing,
but was okay with the fact
that she was bringing in
some type of revenue.
Additional information
that we learned
is that Lambert had told
Bonnie to get rid of
all of her identification
and to cut ties with all
of her family in Illinois.
(ominous music)
Doing this to someone
is a clear sign of them
trying to isolate them
from anyone that they love
and could be considered,
potentially,
premeditation to commit a murder
and make it difficult
for law enforcement
to identify the victim.
(dramatic music)
- I started going
online, searching.
And I seen a picture
in a article
after Lambert had beat on her
and she looked sad, and
she looked down and out.
You got rid of her ID,
you wouldn't let her
call me anymore.
Most people who do that,
it's because they
have something to hide
and they're about to do
something really, really crazy.
(tense music)
- Because it was
such a violent crime,
you look at the individual
to see if they had
any types of injuries
or scratches on their hands,
anything on their face.
And Lambert didn't
have any of those.
Lambert's clothing was
also looked at closely.
His shoes were inspected,
not only for blood
or trace evidence,
but for the tread on the soles.
And that was compared
to any type of tread
that we located on the scene
and none of those matched
and no physical evidence of
blood was found on his shoes.
(tense music)
Lambert was very cooperative
with the detective
that was conducting
the interview.
He answered all
of the questions.
He voluntarily gave a DNA sample
and ultimately took a polygraph.
The results of that
test showed that
he did not show any deceit.
The amount of cooperation
that he extended towards us,
the lack of physical injuries,
and just the way that
he presented himself
led us to believe that he
wasn't involved in the murder.
(tense music)
On December 8th, 2008,
a autopsy was conducted
on Bonnie at the Lafayette
Parish coroner's office.
The initial thought that Bonnie
wasn't sexually assaulted
was confirmed.
The pathologist discovered
that Bonnie was stabbed
11 times on her
back and shoulders.
She was struck
with a blunt object
approximately four
times on her head
and that her throat
was slashed six times.
(tense music)
When looking at everything
that took place in the scene,
the boot print on
Bonnie's chest in blood,
the blunt force trauma,
the multiple stab wounds,
and the way that she was
discarded in a trash pile,
this was pure evil.
Somebody that had no
regards for life whatsoever.
(tense music)
- Hearing the
details of her death,
it kind of made me hurt worse.
Whoever did it, they beat her,
they stabbed her
all over her body,
and they bashed her skull in.
You really wanted
to end her life
and I just wanna know why.
(somber music)
- A monster did that.
But that monster didn't realize
who he was dealing with,
dealing with my mom.
And I know my mom was a fighter
and when I tell you, wrist was
broke from her punching back,
stab wounds everywhere.
That little lady
fought for her life.
- [Narrator] Bonnie's
battle with her killer
may well provide detectives
with the evidence to catch him.
- During the autopsy,
it's standard procedure
to get nail scrapings.
In the case of
Bonnie, there was skin
that was located
underneath her fingernails.
- While documenting
the bloodstains
on Bonnie Ruphard's shoes,
a 90 degree drop was
located near her laces
and on the toe of her shoe.
(dramatic music)
A 90 degree blood drop
is a perfect circle.
This indicates to us that it
came from an elevated level.
- That type of blood drop
leads investigators to believe
that the suspect was
standing over her
whenever the blood
was deposited there.
It could have been
from one of the items
that the suspect
used to stab Bonnie.
- She could have punched
the suspect in the nose,
could have scratched him, could
have caused him to bleed.
But there led me to believe that
whoever stabbed her had cut
himself during the altercation
and had bled on her shoes.
- So we were fairly confident
that we had the suspect's blood,
we had the suspect's skin.
DNA evidence that
potentially could help us
identify that individual that
committed this heinous murder.
(suspenseful music)
(tense music)
- A swab of the 90
degree blood drop,
along with Bonnie's
fingernail scrapings
was sent to the Acadiana
Crime Lab for DNA testing,
with the hopes of
finding a suspect.
(insects chirring)
- [Narrator] As detectives
await lab results,
Bonnie's body is
transported north
700 miles to her hometown
of Broughton, Illinois,
where she is finally
laid to rest.
(somber music)
- We just had a small,
little graveside service,
but before we went there,
my grandmother took me
and we got the most
prettiest nightgown
with a house coat and
it was silky and long.
She said,
"You don't have to get her
regular clothes, Nichole.
She's going to bed for
the rest of her life."
And they got her dressed
and I looked at her,
and I gave her a kiss.
- She was so young.
Like, she was 47.
You still have a whole
life ahead of you.
She still had time to change.
She had time to fix her life.
She had time to
make things better.
And that's not fair.
It's not fair that she didn't
get the chance to, like,
keep being, you know,
be able to be a better person.
(insects chirring)
- [Narrator] As
the family grieves,
detectives receive
results from the lab.
- 10 days after
submitting the blood swabs
and fingernail
scrapings from Bonnie
to the Acadiana Crime Lab,
we received a full DNA
profile of a white male.
So we were fairly confident
that this was the blood
and DNA profile of our suspect.
(tense music)
- The sample was
entered into CODIS.
But the national database
where the DNA is stored,
you have to commit a
felony or a violent crime.
It did not match to anybody
in the database at the time.
(tense music)
- That was extremely
frustrating for us because
we felt that the
individual that was capable
of doing a crime such as this
would have had some type
of criminal history.
And that wasn't the case.
(tense music)
- [Narrator] The investigation
is hitting a wall in Lafayette.
Detectives expand their search
beyond this bayou community.
They look into a series
of unsolved murders
in neighboring
Jefferson Davis Parish.
- Prior to Bonnie's
death, since 2005,
about 40 miles down
the interstate
in Jennings, Louisiana,
seven women have been killed
and their bodies disposed of
in these very remote places.
Canals, wooded areas.
It is alarming.
Jennings is very small.
It's a very, everybody knows
everybody type of place.
(tense music)
All of these women lived
very similar lifestyles.
Some of them had to
resort to doing sex work.
Some of them have
lived through poverty.
They have some
substance abuse issues.
- [Narrator] Detectives cannot
ignore the eerie similarity
to Bonnie's case.
- Bonnie was somewhat
down on her luck.
She would prostitute
herself for money.
So we felt like because
of the victimology,
that Bonnie could have been
a victim of their suspect.
(tense music)
- We also have where
these women in Jennings,
their bodies have
been disposed of
in these very remote places.
And then you have
Bonnie in Lafayette,
who also, you find her
body off into the woods.
You're wondering
if the same person
is doing the same thing
in these two very
small communities.
(dramatic music)
- I was scared for everyone,
because it wasn't
just my mother.
It was young ladies
and women all over.
Because killers move.
They kill people from one
town to the next town
and they don't stop
until they are caught.
- You start to wonder if
this is a serial killer.
Is he or she expanding
their territory?
Do we have to worry about
somebody else being killed?
Is this coming this way?
(dramatic music)
(tense music)
- We were concerned
that the serial killer
that was operating 40
miles down the road
had moved his operation
into our city.
(tense music)
(insects chirring)
- [Narrator] Just down the
highway from Lafayette,
in Jennings, between
2005 and 2008,
seven women have been murdered
in similar circumstances.
- It's a very eerie feeling
that you really can't shake.
And so for that to spread
to somewhere like Lafayette,
that is happy-go-lucky,
community oriented,
(police radio chatter)
it's an unsettling thing.
(dramatic music)
Because you don't know
what's gonna happen next.
(tense music)
- Local agencies
were investigating
those other murders that took
place in the Jennings area
and we reached out
to those agencies
because of the victimology.
- There were similarities
in all of those
young ladies' backgrounds.
Young women who basically lived
the same lifestyle as Bonnie.
Substance abuse
problems, some sex work.
- We contacted investigators
that were in charge
of those crimes,
compared similarities
to what was going on.
Looking at the injuries
to victims in that area
and the extensive stab
wounds that Bonnie had,
we were able to
determine that there were
minimal similarities.
- [Narrator] While Bonnie
was stabbed to death,
investigators believe that
most of the Jennings victims
were strangled.
- We determined that Bonnie
wasn't a victim of their suspect
and we were able to exclude
her from that group.
- [Narrator] This is a
setback for detectives,
who are flush out of leads.
(pensive music)
- The lead investigator
in Bonnie's case
worked diligently for months,
exhausted all leads,
exhausted all tips,
and ultimately, she decided
to suspend the case.
(tense music)
It's extremely frustrating
when all the leads dry up.
One of the worst things that
can happen to an investigator
is to hit that wall.
- [Narrator] After a year,
the case of the
murdered grandmother
grows as cold as the dark
December waters of the bayou.
(mysterious music)
(slide clicks)
(somber music)
- I was angry at whoever did it.
I was angry at the world,
because it wasn't fair
I lost my grandma.
And especially when I got her
into my life later in life.
So to get her taken away
from me permanently,
it was a different type of pain,
because she can't
come back this time.
(somber music)
(insects chirring)
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] Though Bonnie's
case sits on the shelf,
the crime lab continues to
run DNA samples through CODIS,
looking for a match
to their suspect.
Then, something catches
a specialist's eye.
(dramatic music)
- One of the lab
technicians recognized
a familial trait on
the Y chromosome.
That familial trait ran
in the Hebert family.
So if you were a male
with the last name Hebert,
or your father had
the last name Hebert,
you were likely to
carry this trait.
So while there was still
no hit in the database,
we now had a last name.
(tense music)
- [Narrator] What feels like
a major break in the case
could be more akin to finding
a needle in a haystack.
- With a little research,
I was able to determine
that just in the
state of Louisiana,
there's over 20,000 individuals
that have that last name.
You can narrow that down because
we're looking for a male,
but it's still a significant
amount of people in the state.
(tense music)
By 2013, I had been transferred
to our homicide
violent crimes section.
And upon my arrival
in that section,
I requested that I be
assigned Bonnie's case.
Because I was on the scene,
because of how violent it was,
it was always in my mind
and having the opportunity
to pick it back up in 2013,
I jumped at the chance.
(tense music)
Having that full DNA profile,
I knew that if we identified
a very good suspect,
that we could solve it.
The lab was able to
identify three Heberts
that had a very distant
DNA match to our suspect.
And the first thing I
thought of at that time
was to get as many swabs
from family members
along the family tree of the
known individuals that we had.
And if I could find
a common relative,
possibly I could
get a suspect name
and do what I could to
get a swab from them
to compare to our suspect.
(tense music)
- [Narrator] For four years,
Sergeant Bajat collects
voluntary DNA samples
from Hebert family members
and keeps plugging them into
the system, without a hit.
Until a surprise
phone call turns this
stone cold
investigation red hot.
- So in March of 2018,
10 years after Bonnie's
murder took place,
I was building a shed
in the back of my house
and I received a phone
call from the crime lab.
And the technician who
I'd worked with for years
was extremely excited on
the other side of the phone,
saying, "We got
him, we got him."
And when she
finally calmed down,
she said that she had a
match to the suspect DNA
in Bonnie's case
and that he had been
arrested on a drug charge
and booked into the Lafayette
Parish Correctional Center,
where they obtained
a swab from him
during the booking process.
And in fact that
it was an Hebert
and it was an individual by
the name of Millard Hebert.
(dramatic music)
I was extremely excited
because I knew that I had him.
(tense music)
Looking into
Millard's background,
up until 2018, Millard
was leading a clean life.
He was a family man from a
small town called Youngsville,
just south of the
city of Lafayette.
We learned that he
was a tow truck driver
for a local tow company
and that he was in
his mid to late 50s.
(tense music)
Luckily for us, Millard was
still waiting to bond out
on the drug charge
and I couldn't wait to get
into work the next morning
to hit the ground running and
do what we needed to do to
to make sure that he
didn't harm anybody else.
- So we arranged it with our
local sheriff's department
to bring him down to
an interview room.
- Just because your DNA
is found at the scene
doesn't mean you
committed the murder.
But it was blood and skin
under Bonnie's fingernails.
- Explaining why
his DNA was present
was going to be difficult.
(dramatic music)
(tense music)
(dramatic music)
(insects chirring)
- [Narrator] Sergeant Bajat
doesn't waste any time
diving into the reason he's
questioning Millard Hebert.
- When we started the interview,
Millard didn't know
why we were there.
But that didn't last long.
(tense music)
Well, at that point I
sat back in my chair
and within 30 seconds,
Millard just started talking,
without even being
asked a question.
- I believe when Millard
said he blacked out,
he knew how brutal it was.
He was disgusted by it, I feel.
And I don't think that
he could bring himself
to admit fully what
he had done to Bonnie.
- Millard said that
during that argument,
Bonnie threatened
to call the police
and she threatened to
call his employment
and report that he was
doing this type of activity
on the job.
I believe that he was
scared to lose his job.
I would believe he was
scared to be arrested.
I believe that he was high
on some type of narcotic
and lost control.
- [Bajat] We were
able to determine
the blood came from his hand
and the skin more than
likely came from his face.
- The brutality of the murder,
it was shocking to us
that Millard hadn't
done it again
or hadn't done it before.
We were diligent
in looking to see
if he would've been
involved in anything else.
And ultimately this
appeared to be the only time
that he had done that.
- What surprised me is that
being a tow truck driver,
he had instances where he was
involved with law enforcement
for years, on all of
our accident scenes,
and he was right there
amongst us the entire time.
(dramatic music)
(tense music)
- [Narrator] Sergeant
Bajat immediately calls
Bonnie's daughter Nichole
up north in Illinois
to share the news she's
waited a decade to hear.
(telephone ringing)
- I was at work
and my phone rung
and I wasn't gonna
answer it, but I said,
"This is a Louisiana number."
And I remember,
it was March 9th,
and her birthday was March 10th.
And he said, "We got him."
And I remember saying,
"Boy, that's the best
birthday present you could
have ever gave her."
And I was excited,
and I was in the hallway,
jumping up and down.
That little piece of
hope that I had held onto
for all those years,
it finally came true.
(tense music)
- [Narrator] The Lafayette
Police announce the arrest
of Millard Hebert for the
murder of Bonnie Ruphard.
- We at the Lafayette
Police Department
want the public to understand
that we don't put
cases down here.
It may have taken us 10 years
to bring someone to justice
in this case,
but it's important that the
public know that we don't stop.
So the message we
hope to the family
is that this arrest leads
to some sense of justice
and some sense of closure.
- [Narrator] As Hebert's
case moves through the court,
Bonnie's family makes
an unusual request.
- I asked the prosecutor
not to take this to trial.
'Cause I did not want to drag
my mother through the mud.
I want this to be
done and over with.
I didn't want my kids to have
to experience that trial.
I did think about the fact
that Millard had a
wife and a daughter.
And I felt bad for
them that they see that
their father and husband
had murdered someone.
They had nothing
to do with this.
They knew nothing about it.
And I had sympathy
for them also.
I didn't want anyone's life
dragged through the mud
unnecessarily.
- [Narrator] Millard Hebert
pleads guilty to manslaughter
and is sentenced to
20 years in prison.
- The fact that Millard
openly came out and confessed
made it seem like
this had been a burden
that had been bearing
down on him for 10 years.
He knew how brutal it was.
He was disgusted by it.
I believe Millard was truly
remorseful in what he had done.
(somber music)
- When the sentencing
hearing was over,
I met the detective
in the hallway
and I gave him the biggest hug.
And it was a hug of peace.
He was able to give me something
and it wasn't about him
and it wasn't about making
a name for his self.
And I am forever
grateful to him.
- Of all things that
makes you feel good
as a law enforcement officer,
it's that hug.
It's the thank you and
the gratification showed
by the victim's family.
That's unexplainable.
- [Narrator] Nichole also
makes a special request
of Sergeant Bajat.
- I said, do you
have anything left
that I can have from my mom?
And he had me follow him
to the police station.
(emotive music)
And he said, "I
can't give you much."
And I placed these in this
napkin when he gave them to me.
It's three earrings that she
had on when she was killed.
One set and one little one.
And no, I won't
wear these earrings,
but these earrings give me a
little peace and a little hope
and let me know,
if nothing else,
we always have a
little piece of her.
(tender music)
- My grandma Bonnie
lived her life
the way she wanted
to live, free.
Without a worry in this world.
That's what I want to remember.
I want to remember her
happy, smiling face.
I want to remember
the good times we had,
the lessons she taught me.
She was a loving person.
And that's what I love,
because not everybody can find
that little bit of happiness
in a world full of darkness.
(tender music)