Aug. 18, 2025

Carol Kennedy and Steve DeMocker - Part 2

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Carol Kennedy was a therapist, an artist, and a devoted mother of two. In July 2008, just five weeks after her divorce was finalized, she was brutally bludgeoned to death in her Prescott, Arizona home. Suspicion quickly turned to her ex-husband, Steve DeMocker — a charismatic but financially troubled stockbroker who was deep in debt. With no eyewitnesses, no murder weapon, and a complex trail of circumstantial evidence, prosecutors faced an uphill battle. What followed was a years-long legal saga filled with delays, courtroom drama, and emotional testimony. Through it all, Steve and Carol’s daughters stood by their father, convinced of his innocence — even as the state pushed for conviction.

Today's snacks: Herr's Jalapeño Poppers and Muddy Bites

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Hi, I'm Rich and I'm Tina.

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And if there's one thing we've learned, and over twenty

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years of marriage, some days.

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You'll feel like killing your husband.

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And some days you'll feel like killing your wife.

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Welcome to love, Mary Kill.

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Hey Tina, Hey Rich. How are you today?

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I'm good? How are you?

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I'm good. I'm getting a little tired of this air quality.

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We've been an air quality alert it's like every day

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for a few weeks now.

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Yeah. Yeah, it's affecting us both a little bit.

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I think it is.

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Yeah, I'm slightly asthmatic and it just I don't know.

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You can just see sort of a haze in the

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air and you just feel kind.

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Of like disoriented.

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Yeah, a little bit.

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When we're on vacation in Illinois and Wisconsin, it followed

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us there too, Yeah, from the Canadian wildfires. I was

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looking at a map today and it's pretty bad. There's

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a lot of fires all over Canada.

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Not good.

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Yeah. The whole Upper Midwest I think is a fact.

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So it's not just you know, like Michigan and Illinois,

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but you know, even further east.

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Yeah. And to make matters worse, I've had a song

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stuck in my head for three days. Yeah, and I

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can't get rid of it. And I just figured out

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what it was. I didn't know what it was. I

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just had this song in.

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My head that happens to you a lot.

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And I figured out it's a video. It was a song.

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It's a Chapel Roane song. But what I have in

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my head is this little kid did a video, a

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spoof of this Chapel Roane song, and it went viral

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and it's it's called hot Dogs Are the Stinkin' Best,

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Stinkin' Best. Yes, okay, so little kid did and he

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goes a jo tdogs hot Dogs are the stink and Best.

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And I've had that in my head for three.

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Days, serenading us. It was very nice.

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You're welcome. It's just a glimpse inside my brain.

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Rich does sing pretty well?

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Oh yes I do.

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Not.

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I don't think I do either, but think.

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No, you do. Really. Before we started recording, I went

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and got some ice and refilled the ice trays, and

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it cracked me up. A couple of weeks ago when

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we talked about that, because our content is so riveting,

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how many people comment and we're like dummies, just go

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get like you know, an external ice maker. Yeah, and

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there's a reason why we haven't done that. It's because

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I just don't want to put something on the counters.

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But then I feel really bad about getting a new

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refrigerator because what happens to your old refrigerator. I don't

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think anyone would want it with a broken ice maker,

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And I feel bad about putting a big refrigerator in

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a landhouse.

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It's a big quandary.

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It It's really not. There's people with bigger problems in

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the world, but yeah, it's it's I don't know.

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I did notice you filled up the ice tray again,

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so when I went and got my water, So thank

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you for that.

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I try, and you're a very considerate person, and you

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do it sometimes too, so sometimes yeah, yeah, no you.

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I think we're fifty to fifty almost, not quite, not

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that I'm keeping score, all right. Do you have a

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snack for us? I do.

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It's not the most exciting snack because we were on vacation.

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I didn't have a lot of time to plan. Last time,

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we had the great snack that are listener Carlos sent,

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So this time I just have a gas station snack.

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I went to the gas station and I picked out

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a couple of things, and one of them is.

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Why I see they're open.

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Well, yeah, I hate some These are cheese curls, but

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they're alipeno flavors. I know you don't love halopeno, but

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I know you like cheese curls, and they're actually much

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more cheesy than they are halopenia. Yes, then I'm sorry

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I dropped the other one. And then I have these

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Buddy Muddy bites. These are waffle cones.

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I have had those before, okay, but not in a while.

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I think I got them at like TJ Max. You know,

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when you a TJ Max and you're waiting in line,

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they always have some random snacks there. Yeah, so all right,

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I'll give them a try.

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All right, Well, how did you enjoy the halopenno poppers

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and the body bites?

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Before I answer, I'm going to tell you about a

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report I read today about how ultra processed foods are

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really shortening your life expectance. And both of these I

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think are ultra processed. You know, I kind of like

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the jalapeno poppers. You were right, they were kind of cheesy,

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and it's like the fat cheetos, not the crunchy Cheetos. Yeah,

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they're good. I give them up. I don't know, six

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and a half out of ten, and the muddy Bites.

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I like the filling, but I have this weird I

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don't like ice cream cones. You know this, don't you know? Okay,

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we'lly been together for four hundred years, but you don't

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know that. I don't like to go get ice cream.

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I always get in a dish, and I.

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Just thought that's because you didn't like, you know, the

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ice cream cone. It's kind of it can drip and

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it can get messy. I thought it was more that.

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Would listen to me. I don't like ice cream cones,

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and I don't like Fortune cookies. I think there are

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similar taste, So anyway, I like the chocolate, but I

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didn't really love the ice cream cones. I came six

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out of ten.

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Okay, that's about it as good as I could hope

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for with that snack.

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Yeah, No, I appreciate it. Appreciate your effort.

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Should we get back to the case of Carol Kennedy

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and Steve Democher, Absolutely, would you like to give us

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a recap?

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No? Why don't you go ahead and do that? No,

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I'll do it last time. We introduced you to Carol Kennedy,

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a devoted mother, artist, yoga instructor, and counselor who spent

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years trying to hold together a marriage that was slowly

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breaking her down. Her husband, Steve Democher, was once an adventurous,

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idealistic man she believed was her solemate, but over time

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that image unraveled. He became very materialistic and cheated on

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her repeatedly, including with students, coworkers, and his longtime assistant,

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barb Onnon. He racked up enormous debts while living a

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lavish lifestyle, all while accusing Carol of being the one

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who was financially irresponsible. Carol finally filed for divorce in

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two thousand and seven, and after a long, painful negotiation,

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the marriage was officially over in May of two thousand

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and eight, but the fighting didn't stop. Steve was behind

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on alimony, Carol was worried about money. Intentions remained high,

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especially as their teenage daughter Charlotte sided with her father.

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Then on July second, just ten days before Carol was

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set to visit a new romantic interest in Maine, she

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was found dead in her home. The scene appeared staged

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a ladder, a toppled bookshelf, and a fatal head wound

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that was far too severe to be accidental. Her mother, Ruth,

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had been on the phone with her when it happened.

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The last thing she heard was Carol saying oh no,

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followed by silence. So you mentioned Charlotte, But there was

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another daughter too, Katie.

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Katie was their oldest daughter. She was in college. She

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had just left for a trip abroad. She was going

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to study in South Africa, and she had left maybe

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three or four days before Carol was killed. On the

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day that Carol was killed, Wednesday, July second, her sixteen

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year old daughter Charlotte, was spending the day with her

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boyfriend Jake Janisek. Just the day before, Jake had temporarily

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moved into Steve's condo. He had been having problems at

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home with his parents, and Steve offered to let him

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see while things cooled off. That afternoon, Charlotte and Jake

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had Launch then stopped it Safeway to pick up some cookies,

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delivering them to Steve's office at UBS Financial Services at

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four thirty eight pm. Steve logged off his work computer.

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By four point fifty two he was back at his condo,

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opening the security gate with his remote. He told Charlotte

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and Jake that he was heading out for a long

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bike ride and he changed into his workout clothes and

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left just after five o'clock. And just a reminder that

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Carol's phone call with her mom ended right around eight

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o'clock PM, and presumably that's when she was killed.

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Okay, since we've returned from vacation, our cats have been

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they've been having a separation. Leave ye a long Cosmo

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is in the room and he's making some loud mewing noises.

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You hear that. Don't be alarmed, all right? So Steve

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left for his long bike ride just after five. At

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five thirty six, he turned off his cell phone as

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the sun began to set, and eight pm came and went.

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Steve still wasn't home. Charlotte wasn't too worried at first,

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they often ate dinner after eight, but it started to

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feel strange that he hadn't returned. She tried texting and

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calling him, but got no answer. She even called Renee Gerard,

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Steve's girlfriend, to ask if she knew where Steve might

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be riding, but Renee didn't know Charlotte and Jake eventually

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dozed off for a bit, then woke up around nine

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forty pm. Steve still wasn't home. It had been dark

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for nearly two hours. They tried calling again, but still

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there was no response. At ten pm, they decided to

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head to safeway to grab ingredients for a late night stirfry.

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This kind of cracks me up. The two sixteen year olds.

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Their dad is missing for like four and a half hours,

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and they're like, oh, let's go get food, let's go,

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let's go make a stirfry.

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Well, he had so many women that he was seeing,

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so yeah, it probably happened a lot where he just

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didn't come home sometimes.

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Yeah, that's probably true.

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Charlotte's sixteen.

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Yeah. Soon after Charlotte and Jake left for a safeway,

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Steve turned his phone back on at ten oh eight pm.

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He now had eleven missed calls and three texts, but

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he didn't listen to any of the voicemails. Instead, he

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called Charlotte, who was still that safeway, and he explained

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that he had gotten a flat tire and his phone

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had died. A minute later, at ten oh nine, he

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used his remote to open the gate at his condo.

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Then he called Renee and told her he couldn't come

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over that night. He was tired, dehydrated and needed a shower.

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She was annoyed not because he wasn't coming over, but

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because it sounded like he was making excuses. They hadn't

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even planned to see each other that night. Her first

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thought was that maybe he had been with another woman.

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Steve added another detail to Renee. He said he was bleeding.

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He said he had scraped his leg on a branch

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during the bike ride, and that his arms were scratched

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from walking the bike after he got the flat tire. Meanwhile,

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Carrol's brother, John Kennedy, had been trying to get in

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touch with Steve. Ruth, still deeply unsettled by the way

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her call with Carrol, had ended, had shared what had happened,

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and John had been calling around trying to figure out

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what was going on. Steve finally picked up at ten thirty,

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but before John could explain much, Steve cut him off, saying, quote, hey, look,

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I'm standing here, dripping wet, just stepped out of the shower,

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adding that he had been on a long mountain bike ride.

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John finally managed to explain the situation that Ruth had

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heard something alarming during her call with Carrol and was worried.

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John asked if Steve would drive over and check on Carroll.

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Steve said no, I will not they were divorced. He

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explained it wouldn't be appropriate for him to check on her,

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what if she had someone over After the call. Steve

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emerged from his bedroom wearing only a towel and asked

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if Charlotte or Jake had any laundry. He then started

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a load with just his workout clothes, something he later

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told investigators was completely normal for him. Jake noticed that

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Steve's scratches were bleeding and asked if he was okay.

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Steve said he was just tired. He'd had to walk

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over four miles back to his car after his tire

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blew out. Steve got dressed, ate dinner with Charlotte and Jake,

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and then casually mentioned the call from Carroll's brother. At

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ten forty eight pm, Charlotte texted her mom's phone saying

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she was worried. She tried calling both her cell and

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her landline and got no answer. That was unusual because

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Carol always answered the landline if she was home.

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And then Ruth, Carroll's mom calls Charlotte, she tried, She

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00:11:24.120 --> 00:11:25.879
ignored the call and never called her back.

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00:11:25.960 --> 00:11:29.360
Yeah, nice, Charlotte, I know. Then, just before eleven o'clock,

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Steve told the teens that a coworker had called to

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00:11:32.159 --> 00:11:34.440
say that he had left his computer logged in at

240
00:11:34.480 --> 00:11:38.000
the office. That was a big no no in financial services.

241
00:11:38.519 --> 00:11:40.799
He also claimed that he needed to grab something that

242
00:11:40.840 --> 00:11:43.480
he had forgotten at work, so he left again for

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00:11:43.519 --> 00:11:46.600
a short trip into his office. While he was gone,

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00:11:46.679 --> 00:11:50.360
Charlotte and Jake grew more concerned about Carol. They started

245
00:11:50.360 --> 00:11:53.960
calling around to local emergency rooms, wondering if maybe Carol

246
00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:57.279
had taken Jim Napp in for some type of medical issue.

247
00:11:57.840 --> 00:12:01.120
Jim Napp, just a reminder, is Carol's friend who was

248
00:12:01.200 --> 00:12:04.720
living in her guest house. When Steve returned, the kids

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00:12:04.720 --> 00:12:07.240
told him someone needed to go check on Carol, but

250
00:12:07.360 --> 00:12:10.600
again Steve refused, saying what if she has someone over?

251
00:12:11.159 --> 00:12:14.440
The teens pushed, and finally Steve relented. He said they

252
00:12:14.480 --> 00:12:16.799
could go, but he asked them to call him as

253
00:12:16.840 --> 00:12:18.879
they got close so that he could make sure that

254
00:12:18.919 --> 00:12:22.399
they were safe. As they left, Steve called Carol's cell

255
00:12:22.480 --> 00:12:25.679
and left a voicemail quote, people are really worried. If

256
00:12:25.679 --> 00:12:27.840
you wouldn't mind calling, I mean, if you're on a

257
00:12:27.919 --> 00:12:31.200
date or whatever, it's totally okay. We don't want to intrude,

258
00:12:31.360 --> 00:12:34.799
but you're not answering anybody's calls. I'm sure everything is fine,

259
00:12:34.840 --> 00:12:36.960
but if you could even text to let us know

260
00:12:37.039 --> 00:12:39.559
you're okay, that would be great. I think your mom

261
00:12:39.600 --> 00:12:42.600
and John are up back East worried and waiting to hear,

262
00:12:42.960 --> 00:12:44.879
so please call somebody bye.

263
00:12:45.279 --> 00:12:48.799
Remind us how long ago had Steve tried to get

264
00:12:48.840 --> 00:12:49.720
back with Carol.

265
00:12:50.279 --> 00:12:52.559
It was only a few days before that he had

266
00:12:52.559 --> 00:12:54.720
had coffee with her and told her he wanted to

267
00:12:54.759 --> 00:12:58.480
get back together. At eleven fifty five pm, Charlotte called

268
00:12:58.519 --> 00:13:00.840
Steve from the car just as they were pulling on

269
00:13:00.879 --> 00:13:03.879
to Bridle Path, the road that Carol lived on, But

270
00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:06.399
before they could even reach the driveway, they saw it,

271
00:13:06.559 --> 00:13:09.240
a sea of red and blue flashing lights up ahead.

272
00:13:09.840 --> 00:13:12.399
Still on the phone, Charlotte rolled down her window and

273
00:13:12.559 --> 00:13:15.360
asked an officer what had happened. She told him, I'm

274
00:13:15.360 --> 00:13:18.399
her daughter. The officer told her, your mother is dead.

275
00:13:18.879 --> 00:13:21.200
Charlotte dropped the phone onto the floor of the car

276
00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:25.120
and burst into tears. After Charlotte dropped the phone in shock,

277
00:13:25.480 --> 00:13:28.639
Jake picked it up and relaid the devastating news to Steve.

278
00:13:29.159 --> 00:13:31.799
On the other end, Jake could hear Steve breathing heavily,

279
00:13:31.960 --> 00:13:34.679
as if he were crying. Steve asked to speak with

280
00:13:34.720 --> 00:13:37.440
the officer on the scene. When the officer got on

281
00:13:37.480 --> 00:13:40.559
the line, Steve asked what had happened, but the officer

282
00:13:40.600 --> 00:13:43.240
could only say that Carol had passed away. He didn't

283
00:13:43.240 --> 00:13:46.200
have any further details. Steve got in his car and

284
00:13:46.279 --> 00:13:50.159
headed toward Carol's house. On the way, he called his girlfriend,

285
00:13:50.159 --> 00:13:53.159
Renee Girard and told her the news. He asked if

286
00:13:53.159 --> 00:13:55.480
she could come to the house as well, but Renee

287
00:13:55.519 --> 00:13:59.279
was watching her grandson and couldn't leave. Next, Steve called

288
00:13:59.360 --> 00:14:03.919
John Kennedy, Carroll's brother, without emotions, Steve said, quote, John,

289
00:14:04.080 --> 00:14:05.639
you need to call your mom and tell her that

290
00:14:05.679 --> 00:14:09.799
Carrol is gone. John, stunned, tried to ask questions. Steve

291
00:14:09.879 --> 00:14:14.360
simply repeated, she's gone. She's dead. John later recalled Steve,

292
00:14:14.399 --> 00:14:18.600
adding apparently she suffered a fall. After that, Steve tried

293
00:14:18.639 --> 00:14:22.200
calling Barbo Nan, his longtime assistant and lover, but she

294
00:14:22.279 --> 00:14:25.159
didn't pick up Steve arrived at Carroll's house at twelve

295
00:14:25.240 --> 00:14:28.919
twenty three am and tried to comfort Charlotte. Outside the house,

296
00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:33.120
Police Commander Scott Masher spoke with Steve. As they talked,

297
00:14:33.279 --> 00:14:36.679
Masher quietly passed his flashlight up and down Steve's body,

298
00:14:37.320 --> 00:14:40.279
noting several fresh cuts on his left arm and leg.

299
00:14:40.639 --> 00:14:44.120
One gash above the ankle was still bleeding. Steve asked

300
00:14:44.159 --> 00:14:47.480
Masher what had happened. Masher declined to give details, saying

301
00:14:47.720 --> 00:14:50.919
they wouldn't know anything for sure until the medical examiner arrived.

302
00:14:51.320 --> 00:14:54.840
Then Steve asked, am I a suspect? That question, along

303
00:14:54.919 --> 00:14:58.480
with the visible injuries, immediately raised red flags for Masher.

304
00:14:58.919 --> 00:15:01.679
He decided to begin recording the rest of their conversation.

305
00:15:02.480 --> 00:15:05.279
Steve told Masher that the divorce had been difficult, but

306
00:15:05.480 --> 00:15:08.440
insisted that things had been improving. He said they had

307
00:15:08.440 --> 00:15:11.399
even had coffee together that past Sunday and were talking

308
00:15:11.480 --> 00:15:15.480
about dating again. Eventually, Masher asked Steve, Charlotte, and Jake

309
00:15:15.559 --> 00:15:18.399
to come down to the station for a more formal interview.

310
00:15:18.799 --> 00:15:21.440
They agreed, though Steve continued to ask if he was

311
00:15:21.480 --> 00:15:24.240
a suspect and even wondered aloud whether he should have

312
00:15:24.279 --> 00:15:27.279
a lawyer present. They arrived at the station around one

313
00:15:27.399 --> 00:15:28.679
thirty am.

314
00:15:28.759 --> 00:15:32.679
It turned into a long night at the Presscott Police Department. Steve, Charlotte,

315
00:15:32.720 --> 00:15:35.879
and Jake were all interviewed separately by detectives who were

316
00:15:35.919 --> 00:15:39.960
working to piece together everyone's timeline and movements leading up

317
00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:42.960
to Carrol's death. Steve from the start didn't seem eager

318
00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:45.759
to talk. He told one detective he was tired and

319
00:15:45.840 --> 00:15:49.480
would really rather continue the next day. I'd prefer not

320
00:15:49.559 --> 00:15:52.879
to be up all night, he said. The detective replied, yeah,

321
00:15:52.919 --> 00:15:55.279
I'd prefer not to be up all night either, and

322
00:15:55.440 --> 00:15:59.000
kept going with his questions. As the interview unfolded, Steve's

323
00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:02.000
story began to shift. He gave more than one explanation

324
00:16:02.080 --> 00:16:04.720
about his cell phone, and one version, he said he

325
00:16:04.759 --> 00:16:06.559
had turned it off and left it in his car

326
00:16:06.679 --> 00:16:09.759
during the ride, a ride he estimated would normally take

327
00:16:10.080 --> 00:16:12.519
two to two and a half hours but ended up

328
00:16:12.600 --> 00:16:16.159
lasting four because of the flat tire. In another version,

329
00:16:16.320 --> 00:16:18.519
he said the phone had died when he didn't realize

330
00:16:18.519 --> 00:16:21.200
he had a spare battery until he got back into town.

331
00:16:21.759 --> 00:16:23.720
I was wondering about that, because he told Charlotte his

332
00:16:23.840 --> 00:16:26.960
phone died but then he was calling around his phone.

333
00:16:27.080 --> 00:16:29.840
Steve also told them he didn't mountain bike that often.

334
00:16:30.080 --> 00:16:33.320
He usually ran, but on this particular night, he decided

335
00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:35.639
to ride a trail that was twenty to twenty five

336
00:16:35.679 --> 00:16:39.720
minutes from his condo. Coincidentally, that same trail happened to

337
00:16:39.720 --> 00:16:42.600
be just a mile or so from Carroll's house. He

338
00:16:42.679 --> 00:16:45.559
admitted it didn't look good. I wish I'd chosen a

339
00:16:45.600 --> 00:16:49.919
different trail, He'd said. Detectives pressed further, was there any

340
00:16:49.960 --> 00:16:53.399
reason his DNA fingerprints or blood might be found at

341
00:16:53.399 --> 00:16:58.200
Carroll's house. No, Steve said, absolutely not, any reason bike

342
00:16:58.279 --> 00:17:02.519
tracks might be found or behind her property. Again no.

343
00:17:03.440 --> 00:17:06.440
At one point, the detectives gave him an opportunity to

344
00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:09.839
come clean, to admit that maybe things had gotten heated

345
00:17:10.160 --> 00:17:13.240
that there had been an argument that something had gone wrong.

346
00:17:13.920 --> 00:17:15.720
Now would be the time to say, you know what

347
00:17:15.839 --> 00:17:18.400
I went over, We argued, she threw something at me,

348
00:17:18.519 --> 00:17:21.279
I got upset and I but Steve cut them off. No,

349
00:17:21.400 --> 00:17:25.240
he said, I was not there. Police documented and photographed

350
00:17:25.279 --> 00:17:28.839
the numerous cuts and scratches on Steve's arms, legs, and torso.

351
00:17:29.359 --> 00:17:32.640
Some of the wounds, they noted looked consistent with barbed wire,

352
00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:35.519
like the kind that separated the back of Carroll's property

353
00:17:35.720 --> 00:17:39.119
from the open ranch land behind it. Charlotte and Jake

354
00:17:39.119 --> 00:17:42.279
were finally released around five am. Renee came to pick

355
00:17:42.319 --> 00:17:45.720
them up. Steve stayed much longer, eventually leaving the station

356
00:17:45.839 --> 00:17:46.920
around ten am.

357
00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:51.000
So later there would be some criticism and Steve's lawyers

358
00:17:51.079 --> 00:17:54.359
would basically accuse the police of having tunnel vision and

359
00:17:54.440 --> 00:17:57.839
only focusing on Steve and not people like Jim Knapp

360
00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:01.880
and potentially other suspects. But you have to think about

361
00:18:02.079 --> 00:18:06.160
the circumstances. So Steve had disappeared for four hours, his

362
00:18:06.279 --> 00:18:08.759
cell phone was turned off, he had cuts on his

363
00:18:08.880 --> 00:18:11.839
leg and arm. I mean, it seems pretty natural that

364
00:18:11.880 --> 00:18:13.839
you would focus in on Steve at that point.

365
00:18:13.720 --> 00:18:16.359
Right, absolutely, And I think it's okay to start with

366
00:18:16.359 --> 00:18:19.480
the husband and then eliminate him just questioning someone. It's

367
00:18:19.519 --> 00:18:22.759
not like they arrested him right away, right right. Meanwhile,

368
00:18:22.799 --> 00:18:25.720
back at Carroll's house, Jim Napp was still on the scene.

369
00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:28.039
Around one am, he asked if he could grab his

370
00:18:28.119 --> 00:18:31.200
medications from the guest house before heading to a hotel

371
00:18:31.240 --> 00:18:34.440
for the night. A deputy escorted him inside at one

372
00:18:34.480 --> 00:18:37.599
oh four, am after that, Jim checked into the Mariotte

373
00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:41.559
spring Hill Suites. Steve's defense team would later raise questions

374
00:18:41.559 --> 00:18:44.319
about this. Why they asked, was Jim napp allowed to

375
00:18:44.319 --> 00:18:47.519
simply walk away after just a few brief questions at

376
00:18:47.559 --> 00:18:50.680
the scene while Steve was taken in for hours of interrogation,

377
00:18:51.240 --> 00:18:53.799
and why did it take nearly ninety minutes for Jim

378
00:18:53.839 --> 00:18:56.359
to reach the hotel when it should have taken him

379
00:18:56.440 --> 00:18:59.680
less than twenty. Back at the crime scene, investigators began

380
00:18:59.759 --> 00:19:03.160
sir reaching the area around Carroll's house, including the trails

381
00:19:03.160 --> 00:19:06.279
behind the property. It had rained the day before, so

382
00:19:06.319 --> 00:19:09.559
any tracks left behind would likely still be fresh, and

383
00:19:09.640 --> 00:19:13.119
they did find something a set of mountain bike tracks

384
00:19:13.160 --> 00:19:16.279
with shoe prints beside them, as if someone had been

385
00:19:16.319 --> 00:19:19.839
walking the bike. The tracks stopped at a bush. From there,

386
00:19:19.920 --> 00:19:23.519
the shoe prints continued alone, crossing over a barbed wire

387
00:19:23.599 --> 00:19:26.960
fence and leading straight to Carroll's back patio. On the

388
00:19:27.000 --> 00:19:30.519
way out, the same tracks crossed the fence again, circled

389
00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:33.400
around some thick brush, and returned to the spot where

390
00:19:33.400 --> 00:19:36.920
the bike had originally stopped. Photos were taken of the prince,

391
00:19:37.240 --> 00:19:41.519
but crucially, no measuring stick or scale was included, which

392
00:19:41.519 --> 00:19:46.319
is standard procedure. Even more concerning, no plaster casts were made,

393
00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:49.160
so when it rained again, the tracks were washed away,

394
00:19:49.559 --> 00:19:53.759
gone for good. Oh boy. These mistakes would later come

395
00:19:53.799 --> 00:19:57.680
back to haunt the prosecution. Police seized Steve's mountain bike

396
00:19:57.759 --> 00:19:59.720
and brought it to the scene. When they rolled it

397
00:19:59.759 --> 00:20:02.440
next to the tire tracks, it appeared to be a match,

398
00:20:02.720 --> 00:20:05.359
but as Steve's lawyers would point out later, about ninety

399
00:20:05.400 --> 00:20:08.119
percent of mountain bikes at that time used the same

400
00:20:08.200 --> 00:20:11.480
type of tread, and the gravel was much too coarse

401
00:20:11.519 --> 00:20:16.279
to capture fine details. No unique defects, no definitive match.

402
00:20:16.920 --> 00:20:20.000
They also found no shoes during the search of Steve's condo,

403
00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:23.119
vehicle or office that matched the shoe prints at the scene.

404
00:20:23.519 --> 00:20:26.640
Oh did they find any cycling shoes? Uh?

405
00:20:26.680 --> 00:20:28.240
Not that I am aware of.

406
00:20:29.359 --> 00:20:32.160
Then there was the matter of Steve's work computer. Remember,

407
00:20:32.200 --> 00:20:34.160
Steve had told Charlotte and Jake that he had to

408
00:20:34.200 --> 00:20:36.400
return to the office that night because a co worker

409
00:20:36.559 --> 00:20:39.039
had called to say that he'd left his computer logged in,

410
00:20:39.319 --> 00:20:42.799
a major security issue for someone working in finance. But

411
00:20:42.880 --> 00:20:45.599
when police spoke with that coworker, he said that he'd

412
00:20:45.640 --> 00:20:48.400
made no such call, and a check of Steve's computer

413
00:20:48.559 --> 00:20:51.200
confirmed that it had been logged off at four thirty

414
00:20:51.240 --> 00:20:54.839
eight PM, right when Steve left work, several hours before

415
00:20:54.880 --> 00:20:57.960
Carroll's murder. Aside from the tire and shoe tracks behind

416
00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:01.240
Carroll's house, police found no physical evidence linking Steve to

417
00:21:01.279 --> 00:21:04.319
the crime scene. None of Steve's DNA or fingerprints were

418
00:21:04.359 --> 00:21:07.400
found in or around the house. None of Carroll's blood

419
00:21:07.480 --> 00:21:10.319
was found on his bike, in his car, or at

420
00:21:10.319 --> 00:21:14.279
his condo. One stain in Katie's BMW, the car that

421
00:21:14.279 --> 00:21:17.279
Steve had texted Carol about picking up that evening, looked

422
00:21:17.319 --> 00:21:20.960
suspicious and was sent for testing. It turned out to

423
00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:21.839
be chocolate.

424
00:21:22.039 --> 00:21:24.519
That's exactly what would happen to me if anyone had

425
00:21:24.519 --> 00:21:27.799
to search my vehicles. That looks like blood. Now it's chocolate.

426
00:21:28.279 --> 00:21:29.960
Will be back after a break.

427
00:21:37.319 --> 00:21:41.680
The autopsy confirmed what investigators had already suspected. Carol's death

428
00:21:41.680 --> 00:21:44.240
had been brutal. She had been struck at least ten

429
00:21:44.319 --> 00:21:47.200
times with a blunt object. At least seven of those

430
00:21:47.240 --> 00:21:50.440
blows were to her head. Her skull had been shattered,

431
00:21:50.599 --> 00:21:52.759
broken into more than two hundred fragments.

432
00:21:52.759 --> 00:21:53.240
Horrible.

433
00:21:53.599 --> 00:21:56.880
She also had multiple defensive wounds bruising on her right

434
00:21:56.920 --> 00:21:59.920
hand and forearm clear signs that she had fought back.

435
00:22:00.880 --> 00:22:03.440
No murder weapon was ever found, but based on the

436
00:22:03.440 --> 00:22:06.839
shape and pattern of the wounds, the medical examiner believed

437
00:22:06.960 --> 00:22:10.319
the most likely weapon was a golf club, specifically a wood.

438
00:22:11.079 --> 00:22:13.920
The wide, rounded head of a wood matched the crushing

439
00:22:13.960 --> 00:22:18.000
injuries found on Carol's skull. Later, her body was transported

440
00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:22.440
to a forensic anthropologist in Phoenix for a more specialized examination.

441
00:22:23.039 --> 00:22:26.599
That expert came to the same conclusion without ever consulting

442
00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:30.599
the medical examiner. Based on the fracture patterns of Carol's skull,

443
00:22:31.039 --> 00:22:33.839
she also believed the weapon was likely a golf club.

444
00:22:34.519 --> 00:22:39.920
That sounds so brutal and so aggressive and angry. Right

445
00:22:40.039 --> 00:22:43.759
to destroy someone's skull with a golf club? How many times,

446
00:22:44.039 --> 00:22:46.799
you know, would the person have had to swing at

447
00:22:46.799 --> 00:22:47.200
their head?

448
00:22:47.480 --> 00:22:51.119
Yeah, it's definitely a sign of overkill, and you know,

449
00:22:51.359 --> 00:22:53.400
kind of a crime of passion. You think about that,

450
00:22:53.519 --> 00:22:54.519
right that somebody.

451
00:22:54.319 --> 00:22:55.200
Is I hate that term.

452
00:22:56.400 --> 00:22:58.599
Yeah, it's not a good term. There was one more

453
00:22:58.640 --> 00:23:02.279
potentially important piece of evidence. Under the fingernails of Carol's

454
00:23:02.359 --> 00:23:06.039
left hand, Investigators found a small amount of foreign material

455
00:23:06.519 --> 00:23:09.759
It was tested and found to contain male DNA, but

456
00:23:09.880 --> 00:23:13.960
it didn't match Steve. When detectives heard the medical examiner's

457
00:23:13.960 --> 00:23:16.640
opinion that Carol may have been killed with a golf club,

458
00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:20.359
they immediately recalled seeing something during the initial search of

459
00:23:20.400 --> 00:23:24.599
Steve's condo, an empty Callaway golf club headcover sitting on

460
00:23:24.640 --> 00:23:27.559
a shelf in his garage. They checked the photos from

461
00:23:27.599 --> 00:23:30.039
that day to be sure, and there it was a

462
00:23:30.119 --> 00:23:33.440
Callaway headcover, but no club in Steve's bag that was

463
00:23:33.519 --> 00:23:37.319
missing one that raised red flags. But by then Steve's

464
00:23:37.359 --> 00:23:39.880
condo had already been turned back over to him, so

465
00:23:39.960 --> 00:23:43.480
investigators had to secure a second search warrant to return

466
00:23:43.519 --> 00:23:46.480
and look again. When they did, the headcover was gone.

467
00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:49.559
They would later learn what happened to it. Steve had

468
00:23:49.599 --> 00:23:52.960
given the headcover to his lawyer, John Sears. He knew

469
00:23:52.960 --> 00:23:55.960
the police were interested in it, but since the specific

470
00:23:56.039 --> 00:23:59.440
item hadn't been listed on the original search warrant, Sears

471
00:23:59.480 --> 00:24:02.319
wasn't sure if he was legally obligated to turn it over.

472
00:24:02.759 --> 00:24:05.960
He consulted the Arizona Bar Association, who told him that

473
00:24:06.279 --> 00:24:09.720
neither suspects nor their attorneys are required by the constitution

474
00:24:10.079 --> 00:24:13.519
to help law enforcement build their case. The burden, they said,

475
00:24:13.599 --> 00:24:16.519
is on the government. Sears placed the headcover in a

476
00:24:16.559 --> 00:24:20.599
safe and left it there until investigators specifically asked for it.

477
00:24:20.799 --> 00:24:22.519
So there wasn't a golf club missing.

478
00:24:23.200 --> 00:24:25.440
There was no golf club that didn't have a cover

479
00:24:25.559 --> 00:24:28.720
on it, so they had an extra cover, but no

480
00:24:28.839 --> 00:24:31.079
golf club that it went to. But we don't know

481
00:24:31.119 --> 00:24:33.079
if a golf club was missing or now golf club

482
00:24:33.160 --> 00:24:35.759
sets can have different numbers of golf clubs in them.

483
00:24:35.920 --> 00:24:37.799
I did not know that. I thought there was like

484
00:24:37.839 --> 00:24:40.400
a standard number of like there was thirteen clubs in

485
00:24:40.440 --> 00:24:41.119
a background.

486
00:24:41.160 --> 00:24:42.839
I mean, there are rules about how many you can carry,

487
00:24:42.839 --> 00:24:46.799
but a lot of people have more or less club gotcha. Eventually,

488
00:24:46.839 --> 00:24:50.519
detectives learned that Steve had a custom callaway seven would

489
00:24:50.599 --> 00:24:53.720
made five years earlier, a club that would have matched

490
00:24:53.759 --> 00:24:57.759
the missing headcover, but that club was never found. When questioned,

491
00:24:57.880 --> 00:25:00.240
Katie told police she thought her dad made They have

492
00:25:00.279 --> 00:25:02.640
given a golf club to Carol to sell in a

493
00:25:02.680 --> 00:25:05.319
garage sale at one point, but no one knows if

494
00:25:05.359 --> 00:25:07.880
that was the same club or where it ended up.

495
00:25:08.359 --> 00:25:11.079
Katie Demacher was still in Europe when she learned the

496
00:25:11.079 --> 00:25:14.160
devastating news about her mom. She hadn't yet left for

497
00:25:14.240 --> 00:25:17.079
South Africa, so she booked the earliest flight home and

498
00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:20.359
arrived on July fourth. That evening, she had dinner with

499
00:25:20.400 --> 00:25:23.440
her dad, Charlotte, and Jake. At the dinner table, the

500
00:25:23.440 --> 00:25:27.240
conversation turned to who could have possibly killed Carol, and

501
00:25:27.319 --> 00:25:30.640
it was Steve who floated a theory maybe Barbo Nan,

502
00:25:30.839 --> 00:25:34.599
his former assistant and longtime on again, off again girlfriend,

503
00:25:34.799 --> 00:25:37.119
had something to do with it. He pointed out that

504
00:25:37.160 --> 00:25:40.319
Barb never liked Carol, she had seen her as competition,

505
00:25:40.720 --> 00:25:44.039
and now, after splitting their book of business at ubs,

506
00:25:44.240 --> 00:25:47.119
Barb had walked away with only thirty percent, not the

507
00:25:47.160 --> 00:25:50.640
fifty percent she felt she deserved. If Steve went down

508
00:25:50.680 --> 00:25:53.839
for Carroll's murder, Barb could potentially scoop up the rest

509
00:25:53.920 --> 00:25:57.440
of his business, a massive financial win for her. Whether

510
00:25:57.480 --> 00:26:00.200
Steve truly believed that or not, one thing is clear.

511
00:26:00.599 --> 00:26:03.599
He planted that seed, because when Katie sat down with

512
00:26:03.720 --> 00:26:06.359
detectives and they asked if anyone might want to harm

513
00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:09.680
her mom, she brought up Barb almost word for word.

514
00:26:10.160 --> 00:26:14.160
She also mentioned Jim Knapp, describing him as romantically kind

515
00:26:14.200 --> 00:26:17.039
of interested in her mom, adding another name to the

516
00:26:17.079 --> 00:26:20.640
list of possible suspects. But the one person Katie couldn't

517
00:26:20.680 --> 00:26:24.759
fathom being responsible was her father. She told investigators that

518
00:26:24.839 --> 00:26:27.799
both of her parents were nonviolent. They didn't even spank

519
00:26:27.839 --> 00:26:30.200
the kids when they were young. To her, the idea

520
00:26:30.319 --> 00:26:33.480
of her dad hurting her mom was simply inconceivable.

521
00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:36.759
Steve wasn't the only one thinking that Barbo Nan could

522
00:26:36.839 --> 00:26:39.519
be a suspect. When Barb heard about Carol's murder of

523
00:26:39.519 --> 00:26:42.160
the day after it happened, her reaction wasn't just shock,

524
00:26:42.599 --> 00:26:45.839
it was fear. She immediately realized she might be seen

525
00:26:45.880 --> 00:26:48.680
as a suspect. She hired a lawyer right away, who

526
00:26:48.680 --> 00:26:51.440
advised her not to speak with police unless they could

527
00:26:51.519 --> 00:26:54.960
guarantee in writing that she wasn't a target of the investigation.

528
00:26:55.559 --> 00:27:00.240
That refusal to cooperate raised suspicions, but eventually police did

529
00:27:00.279 --> 00:27:02.920
issue a letter stating that Barb was not a target,

530
00:27:03.200 --> 00:27:06.000
and she agreed to be interviewed on July twelfth. Her

531
00:27:06.039 --> 00:27:08.799
alibi for the night of the murder was confirmed through

532
00:27:08.839 --> 00:27:11.880
her cell phone records. She was at home, just as

533
00:27:11.920 --> 00:27:15.119
she had claimed. Still, Barb had some eye opening things

534
00:27:15.160 --> 00:27:18.359
to say during that interview. She told detectives that during

535
00:27:18.559 --> 00:27:22.599
Steve and Carroll's divorce, Steve had made multiple offhand comments

536
00:27:22.599 --> 00:27:26.160
about wishing Carroll was dead. She also shared that about

537
00:27:26.200 --> 00:27:29.559
six months earlier, Steve had started injecting himself with a

538
00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:34.279
human growth hormone and getting to testosterone shots, something that

539
00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:38.720
concerned her. Rob's relationship with Steve didn't end with Carroll's murder.

540
00:27:38.960 --> 00:27:41.839
A couple of weeks after her murder, Steve invited her

541
00:27:41.880 --> 00:27:44.839
to go hiking and camping with him. She turned him down,

542
00:27:44.920 --> 00:27:47.960
saying she was afraid of him by that point, but

543
00:27:48.039 --> 00:27:49.920
later that month, when she went to La Hooya by

544
00:27:49.960 --> 00:27:52.799
herself to get some distance, Steve flew out and showed

545
00:27:52.839 --> 00:27:55.319
up at her hotel. They ended up hooking up again

546
00:27:55.880 --> 00:27:58.359
that night. Steve told her his version of what happened

547
00:27:58.359 --> 00:28:00.960
to night Carol died, how he'd gone for a long

548
00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:03.640
bike ride, gotten a flat tire, and how his phone

549
00:28:03.680 --> 00:28:06.400
had died. But Barb didn't buy it, and all the

550
00:28:06.440 --> 00:28:09.039
time that she'd known him, Steve had never let his

551
00:28:09.160 --> 00:28:12.400
phone die. He always carried a spear battery and biking

552
00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:15.680
it just wasn't his thing. Three months after Carroll's death

553
00:28:15.720 --> 00:28:18.920
in October, Steve made one final play, he asked Barb

554
00:28:19.039 --> 00:28:22.119
to marry him. She didn't say yes. In fact, she

555
00:28:22.279 --> 00:28:25.880
didn't see him again after that. If Steve was hoping

556
00:28:25.880 --> 00:28:29.079
to steer suspicion away from himself, Jim Napp made an

557
00:28:29.119 --> 00:28:33.119
awfully convenient target, and unfortunately for Jim, his behavior in

558
00:28:33.160 --> 00:28:36.200
the days after Carroll's death didn't help his case. On

559
00:28:36.279 --> 00:28:39.240
July third, just one day after the murder, Jim was

560
00:28:39.279 --> 00:28:42.799
overheard talking to a cashier Safeway about the crime scene.

561
00:28:43.119 --> 00:28:46.200
He mentioned how much blood there was. The problem is

562
00:28:46.200 --> 00:28:48.920
that Jim hadn't been inside the house, and at that

563
00:28:49.079 --> 00:28:52.680
point police had been extremely tight lipped about the details.

564
00:28:53.079 --> 00:28:56.599
A concerned friend of Carroll's who overheard the conversation called

565
00:28:56.640 --> 00:28:59.680
the police. Later, an officer would clarify that he had

566
00:28:59.720 --> 00:29:02.319
spoken to Jim earlier that day to let him know

567
00:29:02.400 --> 00:29:04.720
that he could return to the house, and had warned

568
00:29:04.799 --> 00:29:07.119
him that there was a lot of blood in Carroll's office.

569
00:29:07.440 --> 00:29:10.640
He hadn't wanted Jim to stumble and unprepared, but by

570
00:29:10.680 --> 00:29:14.200
then the damage was done. The seed of suspicion had

571
00:29:14.240 --> 00:29:18.400
already been planted. Jim seemed genuinely shaken by Carroll's death,

572
00:29:18.440 --> 00:29:21.880
and he couldn't stop talking about it. He was emotional, erratic,

573
00:29:21.960 --> 00:29:25.640
and often inappropriate. One day, he was loudly speculating at

574
00:29:25.640 --> 00:29:29.160
a Mexican restaurant about Steve being the only possible killer.

575
00:29:29.559 --> 00:29:33.720
Unfortunately for him, Charlotte's boyfriend Jake worked at that restaurant

576
00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:37.559
and messaged Charlotte about what was going on. She showed

577
00:29:37.640 --> 00:29:41.400
up and confronted Jim on the spot. Jim told anyone

578
00:29:41.400 --> 00:29:43.920
who would listen that Steve had a history of abuse.

579
00:29:44.240 --> 00:29:47.160
He claimed Steve had once dragged Carroll by the hair

580
00:29:47.519 --> 00:29:50.240
and he had beaten her while she was pregnant. The

581
00:29:50.319 --> 00:29:53.519
problem was Jim hadn't even known the Deamockers back then,

582
00:29:53.759 --> 00:29:56.799
and there was no evidence to support these claims. Despite

583
00:29:56.799 --> 00:30:00.640
Steve's many faults, no history of violence toward Carroll had

584
00:30:00.640 --> 00:30:04.720
ever surfaced. Jim also started bombarding people with emails. He

585
00:30:04.799 --> 00:30:08.359
shared his theories about Steve with friends, often copying Katie

586
00:30:08.400 --> 00:30:11.559
and Charlotte. On the email, Carol's friend Catherine told him

587
00:30:11.599 --> 00:30:15.440
to stop, saying it was it appropriate. In response, Jim

588
00:30:15.519 --> 00:30:19.880
blasted out a sarcastic apology, copying dozens of people, seemingly

589
00:30:19.920 --> 00:30:24.160
to embarrass her. He later apologized more sincerely, and Catherine

590
00:30:24.240 --> 00:30:27.839
chalked it up to grief. Well, that is very strange behavior, I.

591
00:30:27.839 --> 00:30:31.680
Know, especially copying the daughters on that. That's just really cool.

592
00:30:32.200 --> 00:30:36.799
Katie became increasingly uncomfortable with Jim's behavior. She told detectives

593
00:30:36.799 --> 00:30:40.640
that he had been leaving bizarre, possibly drunken voicemails and emails,

594
00:30:40.960 --> 00:30:43.759
including one where he wrote, quote, I know your dad

595
00:30:43.799 --> 00:30:46.920
is screening these emails. That's why I can't get through.

596
00:30:47.559 --> 00:30:50.519
Then came the issue of the guest house. Technically it

597
00:30:50.559 --> 00:30:53.359
belonged to Steve, and the Democrat family told Jim he

598
00:30:53.440 --> 00:30:57.200
needed to move out. He refused. In August, they forcibly

599
00:30:57.240 --> 00:31:01.599
evicted him, leaving his belongings outside. Jim claimed his washer

600
00:31:01.640 --> 00:31:04.759
and dryer had been damaged by exposure and demanded five

601
00:31:04.799 --> 00:31:09.079
thousand dollars in compensation. As the executor of Carroll's estate,

602
00:31:09.359 --> 00:31:12.359
Katie had to deal with it. Jim emailed her, pleading

603
00:31:12.359 --> 00:31:15.599
his case and writing, Katie, I loved your mom deeply.

604
00:31:15.880 --> 00:31:19.000
She was my coach, my confidant, and my friend. He

605
00:31:19.079 --> 00:31:21.880
made a point to clarify that their relationship had never

606
00:31:21.920 --> 00:31:25.279
been romantic. Eventually, Katie agreed to pay part of the

607
00:31:25.359 --> 00:31:28.759
damage claim if only to put an end to the drama.

608
00:31:29.359 --> 00:31:32.400
With suspicion mounting and knowing that the death penalty was

609
00:31:32.400 --> 00:31:36.960
a possibility, Steve Demacher quietly began laying the groundwork to disappear.

610
00:31:37.240 --> 00:31:37.640
Oh boy.

611
00:31:37.880 --> 00:31:41.279
Police had already confiscated his passport, but just nine days

612
00:31:41.319 --> 00:31:45.160
after Carroll's murder, Steve submitted an application for a new one,

613
00:31:45.319 --> 00:31:48.440
claiming his original was lost. On the forum where it

614
00:31:48.480 --> 00:31:51.440
asked for details, he wrote, quote, don't know for certain.

615
00:31:51.599 --> 00:31:53.680
It is simply missing from my file at home and

616
00:31:53.720 --> 00:31:56.559
we cannot find it. That's a felony, by the way,

617
00:31:56.559 --> 00:31:57.880
to lie on a passport application.

618
00:31:58.039 --> 00:32:01.680
I say, well, did the please have probable cause to

619
00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:04.400
take his passport away? He hadn't been charged with anything yet.

620
00:32:04.799 --> 00:32:07.279
It's a good question. I know he was definitely considered

621
00:32:07.319 --> 00:32:10.839
a suspect, and so I assume that police can do that.

622
00:32:10.920 --> 00:32:13.440
But I don't know. I never looked into that, whether

623
00:32:13.599 --> 00:32:15.400
police can just take your passport away.

624
00:32:15.920 --> 00:32:18.119
What a crazy move that is. I know, like the

625
00:32:18.160 --> 00:32:19.759
police aren't going to find out about that.

626
00:32:20.119 --> 00:32:23.880
Yeah, and somehow, despite passports usually taking four to six

627
00:32:23.920 --> 00:32:26.359
weeks or even two to three weeks if you get

628
00:32:26.400 --> 00:32:30.759
expedited service, Steve's new passport was issued on July sixteenth.

629
00:32:31.000 --> 00:32:32.720
Maybe they expedite them if you're a criminal.

630
00:32:32.960 --> 00:32:36.559
Maybe so. Then in August, Steve had a package delivered

631
00:32:36.599 --> 00:32:41.079
to his ubs office. Inside were four books. You're gonna

632
00:32:41.119 --> 00:32:44.079
love these book titles. First one How to Be Invisible,

633
00:32:44.119 --> 00:32:47.359
The Essential Guide to Protecting your personal privacy, your assets,

634
00:32:47.400 --> 00:32:49.839
and your life. And then there was also Cover your

635
00:32:49.880 --> 00:32:53.279
Tracks without Changing your Identity, How to Disappear until you

636
00:32:53.359 --> 00:32:55.880
want to be found, and then of course the classic

637
00:32:56.039 --> 00:33:01.200
The International Fugitive Secrets of Clandestine Travel Overseas and finally

638
00:33:01.440 --> 00:33:06.279
Advanced Fugitive Running, Hiding and Surviving and Thriving Forever.

639
00:33:06.279 --> 00:33:08.160
I met in one of those books, the tip was like,

640
00:33:08.440 --> 00:33:11.319
and don't go on hands out and buying any books

641
00:33:11.359 --> 00:33:14.880
about becoming invisible or becoming a survivalist.

642
00:33:15.079 --> 00:33:17.440
You know, that's all. They sound like great books, though,

643
00:33:17.519 --> 00:33:20.759
unfortunately for Steve, if you get a mail at an

644
00:33:20.759 --> 00:33:24.759
investment firm, a lot of investment firms have strict compliance policies,

645
00:33:25.119 --> 00:33:28.599
financial advisors can't open their own mail. So a coworker

646
00:33:28.880 --> 00:33:32.279
opened the package, saw the titles, and, knowing that Steve's

647
00:33:32.319 --> 00:33:35.160
wife had recently been murdered, alerted the police.

648
00:33:35.400 --> 00:33:38.319
I am learning so many things today I didn't I

649
00:33:38.319 --> 00:33:40.400
wouldn't have thought that was a thing I wouldn't have either.

650
00:33:40.759 --> 00:33:44.400
That same month, Steve purchased a motorcycle and outfitted it

651
00:33:44.440 --> 00:33:48.559
with several metal locking cases. Inside the cases, he stashed

652
00:33:48.599 --> 00:33:52.119
fifteen thousand dollars in cash, a loaded handgun with two

653
00:33:52.160 --> 00:33:56.559
extra magazines, a DVD of street maps of Mexico, energy

654
00:33:56.599 --> 00:33:59.799
bars and beef jerky, and a prepaid cell phone. And

655
00:33:59.839 --> 00:34:02.440
he gave a second prepaid cell phone to Katie.

656
00:34:02.480 --> 00:34:03.920
Who does he think he is?

657
00:34:04.640 --> 00:34:07.680
Then he took Renee Gerard, his girlfriend, to a remote

658
00:34:07.720 --> 00:34:10.239
area near his golf course, where they buried a go

659
00:34:10.320 --> 00:34:13.960
bag with clothing, more cash, and survival gear. He told

660
00:34:13.960 --> 00:34:16.760
her he was thinking about fleeing to Mexico or maybe

661
00:34:16.840 --> 00:34:19.800
vanishing into the wilderness. He even made a plan with

662
00:34:19.960 --> 00:34:22.519
Charlotte if the police came looking for him at the condo,

663
00:34:22.920 --> 00:34:25.960
she was supposed to use a code word Raspberry to

664
00:34:26.079 --> 00:34:30.760
warn him. Searches of Steve Demacher's computers revealed a disturbing

665
00:34:30.800 --> 00:34:34.079
digital trail. Back in February two thousand and eight, months

666
00:34:34.159 --> 00:34:38.679
before Carol's death, Steve had installed an anonymizer application The

667
00:34:38.760 --> 00:34:43.039
tool was designed to mask online activity, hiding internet searches,

668
00:34:43.280 --> 00:34:47.719
spoofing IP addresses, and deleting temporary files like cookies and

669
00:34:47.800 --> 00:34:51.800
browser history. The software deleted files, but it didn't overwrite

670
00:34:51.840 --> 00:34:55.159
the disk space, which meant that investigators were able to

671
00:34:55.159 --> 00:34:58.920
recover fragments of Steve's browsing history. What they found was

672
00:34:58.960 --> 00:35:02.840
deeply troubling. Just three days after the divorce was finalized,

673
00:35:02.880 --> 00:35:07.119
on June first, Steve searched for payment of life insurance

674
00:35:07.159 --> 00:35:10.400
benefits in the case of homicide, tips from a hitman

675
00:35:10.519 --> 00:35:13.840
on how to kill someone, how to stage a suicide,

676
00:35:14.360 --> 00:35:17.000
how to kill and make it look like suicide, and

677
00:35:17.079 --> 00:35:19.559
how to make a homicide appear suicide?

678
00:35:19.679 --> 00:35:20.559
What an idiot?

679
00:35:21.079 --> 00:35:24.599
On his computer, detectives found a folder labeled book research,

680
00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:27.760
a nod perhaps to Steve's claim that he wanted to

681
00:35:27.840 --> 00:35:30.800
become a writer, but the contents of that folder weren't

682
00:35:30.800 --> 00:35:34.960
creative fiction. There were eighteen files, including one that depicted

683
00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:38.519
a room diagram of a staged homicide scene, complete with

684
00:35:38.599 --> 00:35:42.760
furniture tipped over, eerily similar to how Carol's body was discovered.

685
00:35:43.039 --> 00:35:46.880
There was also a link to practical homicide investigation, a

686
00:35:46.920 --> 00:35:49.840
real crime scene textbook showing a page on how to

687
00:35:49.880 --> 00:35:53.719
stage a crime scene. Steve had also visited amateur writing

688
00:35:53.760 --> 00:35:58.320
sites like writingworld dot com, but notably, investigators couldn't find

689
00:35:58.360 --> 00:36:03.039
any actual writing stories, no outlines, not even a paragraph.

690
00:36:03.360 --> 00:36:06.320
So it almost seemed like Steve's whole writing thing was

691
00:36:06.679 --> 00:36:09.920
him laying the groundwork for an excuse as to why

692
00:36:09.960 --> 00:36:12.760
he was googling things he shouldn't be googling.

693
00:36:12.679 --> 00:36:16.360
Just like us, Not just like us. Well, we google

694
00:36:16.719 --> 00:36:19.360
very suspicious things all the time, we do. But how

695
00:36:19.400 --> 00:36:21.280
long does rigor Mortis take to set in?

696
00:36:21.440 --> 00:36:23.480
Oh, we totally do. But in his case, it just

697
00:36:23.480 --> 00:36:26.800
felt like he was pretending to be a writer just

698
00:36:26.840 --> 00:36:29.360
so he had an excuse for googling some of these things.

699
00:36:29.559 --> 00:36:32.639
What if you have been making this podcast for three

700
00:36:32.719 --> 00:36:35.039
years is some sort of an alibi? But then play

701
00:36:35.039 --> 00:36:37.320
in a very long game, in the long game exactly.

702
00:36:37.840 --> 00:36:40.880
Then there was the matter of carbon monoxide. In March,

703
00:36:41.119 --> 00:36:44.840
Steve had searched for use of carbon monoxide in suicide.

704
00:36:45.280 --> 00:36:47.840
Around that same time, he found a company that sold

705
00:36:47.880 --> 00:36:51.519
and delivered gas in bulk, but to purchase carbon monoxide,

706
00:36:51.599 --> 00:36:54.920
he needed to provide a federal employer ID number. He

707
00:36:54.960 --> 00:36:58.599
obtained one using the name doctor Stephen C. Demacher, doing

708
00:36:58.639 --> 00:37:02.880
business as DBD Research and Consulting, and began filling out

709
00:37:02.880 --> 00:37:06.239
a purchase order. He listed his home address for delivery,

710
00:37:06.719 --> 00:37:09.760
but when the company requested a formal gas storage plan

711
00:37:09.880 --> 00:37:13.159
before proceeding with the delivery, Steve dropped the effort and

712
00:37:13.239 --> 00:37:17.280
never followed through. Even as suspicions swirled around him. Steve

713
00:37:17.320 --> 00:37:20.480
Demacher wasted no time trying to collect on Carroll's life

714
00:37:20.519 --> 00:37:24.000
insurance policies. The couple had taken out two policies a

715
00:37:24.039 --> 00:37:28.559
decade earlier, totaling seven hundred and seventy thousand dollars. Despite

716
00:37:28.559 --> 00:37:33.280
their separation and eventual divorce, Steve remained the listed beneficiary

717
00:37:33.559 --> 00:37:36.880
and he had continued making the premium payments even after

718
00:37:36.920 --> 00:37:40.920
they split. Just weeks after Carol's death, Steve filed a claim,

719
00:37:41.400 --> 00:37:44.079
but because he was considered a suspect in her murder,

720
00:37:44.199 --> 00:37:47.760
the insurance company denied his request. That didn't stop him.

721
00:37:47.920 --> 00:37:50.760
Between August two thousand and eight and January two thousand

722
00:37:50.760 --> 00:37:55.480
and nine, Steve submitted five separate claims. Each one was rejected,

723
00:37:56.280 --> 00:37:59.719
but Steve wasn't done. When the straightforward approach didn't work,

724
00:37:59.760 --> 00:38:02.960
he'd he began looking for more creative and more questionable

725
00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:06.360
ways to get his hands on the money. In early October,

726
00:38:06.400 --> 00:38:09.039
an article ran in the local paper with the headline

727
00:38:09.159 --> 00:38:11.880
police hoped to make a rest in Kennedy murder. Soon,

728
00:38:12.480 --> 00:38:15.880
Steve's mother saw it online and got excited. Assuming they

729
00:38:15.880 --> 00:38:18.800
were talking about someone else. She called Steve and he

730
00:38:18.840 --> 00:38:22.159
calmly told her, I think they're talking about me, mom,

731
00:38:22.679 --> 00:38:26.039
and he was right. Despite having no murder weapon and

732
00:38:26.119 --> 00:38:29.159
no hard forensic evidence linking him to the crime scene,

733
00:38:29.280 --> 00:38:33.320
police arrested Steve Demacher and charged him with first degree murder.

734
00:38:33.880 --> 00:38:36.679
At his first court appearance on October twenty fourth, two

735
00:38:36.719 --> 00:38:39.960
thousand and eight, prosecutors announced that they intended to seek

736
00:38:40.039 --> 00:38:43.039
the death penalty. They also asked the judge to deny

737
00:38:43.119 --> 00:38:46.159
Steve bail and to bar him from having any contact

738
00:38:46.159 --> 00:38:50.679
with his daughters. This last request created an unusual legal dilemma.

739
00:38:51.159 --> 00:38:54.760
Under Arizona law, victims are granted special rights, including the

740
00:38:54.840 --> 00:38:57.400
right to meet with prosecutors and be kept in the

741
00:38:57.440 --> 00:39:00.599
loop about the case. But the prosecution argued that if

742
00:39:00.639 --> 00:39:04.840
Katie and Charlotte retained these rights, any information they received

743
00:39:05.159 --> 00:39:08.559
could be passed along to their father and potentially compromised

744
00:39:08.559 --> 00:39:11.960
the case, so the girls were forced to choose either

745
00:39:12.039 --> 00:39:14.920
keep their legal rights as victims or give them up

746
00:39:14.960 --> 00:39:17.480
in order to stay in touch with their dad. They

747
00:39:17.559 --> 00:39:18.400
chose their dad.

748
00:39:18.719 --> 00:39:20.320
They both did, They both did.

749
00:39:21.159 --> 00:39:24.599
Judge Thomas Lindbergh was appointed to preside over the trial.

750
00:39:25.239 --> 00:39:26.679
We'll be back after a break.

751
00:39:34.079 --> 00:39:36.840
A bail hearing for Steve Demacher was held on December

752
00:39:36.880 --> 00:39:39.880
twenty third, two thousand and eight. His family was hopeful

753
00:39:39.960 --> 00:39:42.360
that he might be home for Christmas, but the hearing

754
00:39:42.440 --> 00:39:45.480
stretched over several days and was paused for the holidays

755
00:39:45.599 --> 00:39:49.480
and didn't conclude until January. During the hearing, the prosecution

756
00:39:49.639 --> 00:39:53.360
laid out a broad version of their theory. Steve, they said,

757
00:39:53.599 --> 00:39:56.719
was drowning in debt. He wanted out of the alimony

758
00:39:56.760 --> 00:39:59.440
payments he'd been ordered to make for the next eight years,

759
00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:02.559
and he wanted access to these seven hundred and seventy

760
00:40:02.599 --> 00:40:06.079
thousand dollars in life insurance still in his name. They

761
00:40:06.199 --> 00:40:09.400
argued that Steve had carefully planned the murder, researching how

762
00:40:09.440 --> 00:40:12.119
to kill someone and stage it to look like an accident.

763
00:40:12.519 --> 00:40:15.280
On July second, he rode his bike to Carroll's house

764
00:40:15.320 --> 00:40:18.880
with a backpack containing gloves and overalls. They said he

765
00:40:18.920 --> 00:40:22.159
waited until she returned from her run, ambushed her during

766
00:40:22.199 --> 00:40:24.800
her phone call with Ruth, and bludgeoned her to death

767
00:40:24.880 --> 00:40:28.559
with a golf club. Afterward, he disposed of his bloody clothes,

768
00:40:28.760 --> 00:40:32.519
possibly in a bonfire, and later made plans to flee

769
00:40:32.559 --> 00:40:36.400
the country, all pointing to consciousness of guilt. The defense

770
00:40:36.519 --> 00:40:39.800
countered that the computer searches were nothing more than research

771
00:40:39.880 --> 00:40:42.679
for a novel that Steve had once talked about writing.

772
00:40:43.119 --> 00:40:45.239
They pointed out that the shoe prints near the bike

773
00:40:45.320 --> 00:40:48.360
tracks didn't match any shoes that Steve owned, and the

774
00:40:48.440 --> 00:40:51.480
tire treads could have belonged to nearly any mountain bike.

775
00:40:52.079 --> 00:40:56.639
Was that the trail behind her house did people often.

776
00:40:56.440 --> 00:40:58.519
It was used quite a bit, but I think we

777
00:40:58.639 --> 00:41:01.840
mentioned earlier it had rained day before, and so any

778
00:41:01.960 --> 00:41:03.880
tracks that they found were pretty fresh.

779
00:41:04.039 --> 00:41:07.519
Okay. No physical evidence linked Steve to the crime. Not

780
00:41:07.639 --> 00:41:10.559
a drop of Carroll's blood was in his car, condo

781
00:41:10.760 --> 00:41:13.440
or on his bike. There was no evidence of a bonfire,

782
00:41:13.559 --> 00:41:16.719
and no record of Steve buying any protective clothing like

783
00:41:16.800 --> 00:41:21.039
gloves or overalls. And most compellingly, there was male DNA

784
00:41:21.199 --> 00:41:25.000
under Carroll's fingernails that did not match Steve. The defense

785
00:41:25.119 --> 00:41:29.000
argued this alone should exonerate him, and they claimed that

786
00:41:29.039 --> 00:41:33.199
this and other exculpatory evidence hadn't been properly presented to

787
00:41:33.239 --> 00:41:37.159
the grand jury. Judge Thomas Lindberg agreed. He ruled that

788
00:41:37.159 --> 00:41:40.760
the prosecution had not met the legal threshold to bind

789
00:41:40.840 --> 00:41:46.760
Steve over for trial. He found that they had presented misleading, incomplete, prejudicial,

790
00:41:46.800 --> 00:41:50.039
and erroneous information to the grand jury and ordered the

791
00:41:50.079 --> 00:41:54.239
case to be sent back. Prosecutors regrouped and presented the

792
00:41:54.280 --> 00:41:58.639
case again, this time following the judge's guidance in February

793
00:41:58.679 --> 00:42:02.039
two thousand and nine, and jury once again indicted Steve

794
00:42:02.239 --> 00:42:06.119
on the same charges. In January of two thousand and nine,

795
00:42:06.280 --> 00:42:10.639
Jim Knapp's ex wife and Saxead grew concerned. Jim had

796
00:42:10.679 --> 00:42:13.719
been scheduled to watch their sons, but he never showed up,

797
00:42:13.920 --> 00:42:17.440
and he wasn't responding to calls or emails. That wasn't

798
00:42:17.480 --> 00:42:21.079
like him. Worried, An contacted one of Jim's close friends,

799
00:42:21.119 --> 00:42:23.599
a man named Sean, and asked if he would check

800
00:42:23.639 --> 00:42:26.320
on him. Jim had been staying at a friend's condo,

801
00:42:26.400 --> 00:42:29.199
and Sean agreed to stop by. He brought another friend

802
00:42:29.280 --> 00:42:32.840
with him. When they arrived, the scene was unsettling. The

803
00:42:32.960 --> 00:42:35.800
lights were off, but the front door was ajar There

804
00:42:35.840 --> 00:42:38.920
was broken glass on the porch, damaged to the front window,

805
00:42:39.159 --> 00:42:41.639
and what looked like a small bullet hole in the

806
00:42:41.639 --> 00:42:45.440
screen door. Cautiously, the two men entered the condo, calling

807
00:42:45.480 --> 00:42:48.880
out for Jim. The living room was unusually messy, with

808
00:42:49.000 --> 00:42:52.760
more broken glass and two spent bullet casings on the floor.

809
00:42:53.119 --> 00:42:57.320
The bedroom door was closed. Sean decided not to open it. Instead,

810
00:42:57.599 --> 00:43:01.039
he stepped back outside and called nine one one. When

811
00:43:01.079 --> 00:43:04.119
police arrived and entered the primary bedroom, they found Jim

812
00:43:04.239 --> 00:43:06.800
napp lying on the floor near the closet. He had

813
00:43:06.800 --> 00:43:09.840
been shot once in the chest. A nine millimeter semi

814
00:43:09.960 --> 00:43:13.639
automatic pistol was lying by his left hip. Gun shot

815
00:43:13.679 --> 00:43:16.400
residue on his shirt and around the wound indicated that

816
00:43:16.440 --> 00:43:20.400
the shot was fired at close range, and total investigators

817
00:43:20.440 --> 00:43:24.920
found five bullet casings, all matching Jim's gun. Four bullets

818
00:43:24.920 --> 00:43:28.239
had traveled through the condo through a chair, the walls,

819
00:43:28.360 --> 00:43:31.280
the window, and the screen door. All had been fired

820
00:43:31.320 --> 00:43:34.719
from inside. Despite the chaotok scene and the absence of

821
00:43:34.719 --> 00:43:38.000
a suicide note, police ultimately determined that Jim had died

822
00:43:38.039 --> 00:43:40.320
by suicide. What do you think about that?

823
00:43:40.719 --> 00:43:44.519
I think it's probably true. I think Jim was very troubled.

824
00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:47.199
There were five bullet casings.

825
00:43:46.760 --> 00:43:50.639
Though, I think he had just randomly fired around the

826
00:43:50.679 --> 00:43:53.360
apartment or the condo and then shot himself.

827
00:43:53.400 --> 00:43:56.599
Okay. There were no signs of forest entry, no bullets

828
00:43:56.679 --> 00:43:59.760
or shell casings found outside, and no evidence of another

829
00:44:00.840 --> 00:44:03.639
It appeared that Jim had fired several rounds randomly then

830
00:44:03.639 --> 00:44:07.480
turned the gun on himself. Toxicology results later revealed six

831
00:44:07.519 --> 00:44:13.360
prescription medications in his system, including antidepressants, anxiety meds, sleeping pills,

832
00:44:13.400 --> 00:44:17.079
and painkillers. Jed had been spiraling in the months following

833
00:44:17.119 --> 00:44:21.079
Carroll's murder. He'd lost his closest friend, his health was declining,

834
00:44:21.159 --> 00:44:23.440
and he was nearly broke, with just one hundred and

835
00:44:23.480 --> 00:44:26.159
seventy seven dollars to his name when he died. He

836
00:44:26.199 --> 00:44:28.679
had recently told a friend that he had seen an

837
00:44:28.760 --> 00:44:32.000
attorney to ensure his sons would inherit what little he

838
00:44:32.079 --> 00:44:35.320
had in case anything happened to him. It's possible he

839
00:44:35.400 --> 00:44:38.000
tried to stage the scene to look like something other

840
00:44:38.079 --> 00:44:41.119
than suicide. A couple of weeks later, friends and family

841
00:44:41.159 --> 00:44:44.440
gathered for a celebration of life in true Jim knapk fashion.

842
00:44:44.639 --> 00:44:48.079
The dress code was casual, a low hash shirts, shorts,

843
00:44:48.119 --> 00:44:51.559
and sandals instead of flowers. Guests were asked to donate

844
00:44:51.599 --> 00:44:56.199
to his Surfrider Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the

845
00:44:56.199 --> 00:45:00.480
world's oceans and beaches. Steve Demacher wasn't done trying to

846
00:45:00.519 --> 00:45:03.599
get his hands on Carroll's life insurance money, all seven

847
00:45:03.719 --> 00:45:06.159
hundred and seventy thousand dollars of it. He needed the

848
00:45:06.199 --> 00:45:09.159
cash for his legal defense, which was expected to run

849
00:45:09.239 --> 00:45:13.000
over a million dollars, and after being denied five times,

850
00:45:13.320 --> 00:45:15.639
Steve and his legal team came up with a new plan.

851
00:45:16.480 --> 00:45:18.400
When you want that money to go to your children,

852
00:45:18.559 --> 00:45:21.880
but now not if you're Steve. Apparently. In March two

853
00:45:21.960 --> 00:45:25.880
thousand and nine, Steve formally disclaimed himself as the beneficiary

854
00:45:25.920 --> 00:45:29.519
of Carroll's life insurance policies. On paper, it looked noble

855
00:45:29.719 --> 00:45:32.400
like he was stepping aside so his daughters could receive

856
00:45:32.440 --> 00:45:36.320
the money instead, and technically he was. That move allowed

857
00:45:36.320 --> 00:45:39.639
the funds to be released to the contingent beneficiaries, Katie

858
00:45:39.639 --> 00:45:42.599
and Charlotte. But don't get the wrong idea. This wasn't

859
00:45:42.599 --> 00:45:46.119
some selfless act. Behind the scenes, Steve was doing everything

860
00:45:46.119 --> 00:45:49.679
he could to persuade Katie, who was also the executor

861
00:45:49.760 --> 00:45:52.199
of her mom's estate, to hand over the money to

862
00:45:52.239 --> 00:45:56.079
his lawyers. What followed was a deeply uncomfortable power struggle

863
00:45:56.079 --> 00:45:59.760
between father and daughter, a conversation captured in a record

864
00:45:59.800 --> 00:46:03.119
of call that we're going to partially recreate a little

865
00:46:03.159 --> 00:46:04.320
true crime theater.

866
00:46:05.039 --> 00:46:06.880
You will be playing the part of Katie and I

867
00:46:06.960 --> 00:46:09.119
will be playing the part of Steve Democher.

868
00:46:09.360 --> 00:46:11.719
All right, I need to be sure that I can

869
00:46:11.800 --> 00:46:14.039
make sure that Charlotte goes to college.

870
00:46:14.360 --> 00:46:17.880
I understand your concern, but that is, unfortunately, at this

871
00:46:18.039 --> 00:46:20.840
point that has to be down the scale of priorities

872
00:46:20.880 --> 00:46:22.119
below bond first.

873
00:46:22.320 --> 00:46:25.480
Defense Second, The amount of money that I was planning

874
00:46:25.519 --> 00:46:28.760
to set aside for Charlotte is not going to significantly

875
00:46:28.800 --> 00:46:30.400
impede upon any of that.

876
00:46:30.800 --> 00:46:33.480
Sweetie, let me be as direct as I can, and

877
00:46:33.519 --> 00:46:35.320
I don't want to get into a fight, but I

878
00:46:35.360 --> 00:46:37.519
want to make sure we're clear with each other. We

879
00:46:37.599 --> 00:46:40.360
may need every penny of it for defense, and I

880
00:46:40.440 --> 00:46:43.320
need to make certain that you understand that there will

881
00:46:43.320 --> 00:46:45.960
be no impediment to that if that's what we need.

882
00:46:46.440 --> 00:46:48.920
And I need to make sure you understand that I

883
00:46:48.960 --> 00:46:51.519
am trying to take care of my little sister.

884
00:46:51.920 --> 00:46:54.119
I understand that you're trying to do that. But we're

885
00:46:54.159 --> 00:46:56.880
going to get an acquittal here, and if we don't.

886
00:46:56.760 --> 00:47:00.000
You don't know that. I'm really sorry to be that harsh.

887
00:47:00.079 --> 00:47:02.280
Of course, that's what we all want, but you cannot

888
00:47:02.320 --> 00:47:04.760
say beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is

889
00:47:04.800 --> 00:47:08.039
what is going to happen. I'm setting aside money that

890
00:47:08.199 --> 00:47:10.079
I'm not just going to hand over.

891
00:47:10.519 --> 00:47:12.400
How what are you talking about doing?

892
00:47:12.719 --> 00:47:14.639
Maybe you should get your lawyer to explain it to

893
00:47:14.719 --> 00:47:17.920
you a little better. Hey, Hey, hey, before criticizing me

894
00:47:18.039 --> 00:47:19.639
and m decisions.

895
00:47:19.119 --> 00:47:22.079
Sweety, the only reason those resources will come under your

896
00:47:22.119 --> 00:47:24.079
control will be if I give them up.

897
00:47:24.239 --> 00:47:26.400
If you can take them for yourself, go for it.

898
00:47:26.719 --> 00:47:30.320
These are resources that otherwise wouldn't come until this is

899
00:47:30.320 --> 00:47:32.800
all over, and we need them now for the defense.

900
00:47:32.880 --> 00:47:36.000
And so this is a completely legal and appropriate way

901
00:47:36.039 --> 00:47:39.280
that the attorneys have constructed. But we need your cooperation.

902
00:47:39.639 --> 00:47:42.280
And if you're going to exert control here, I'm asking

903
00:47:42.320 --> 00:47:45.480
you simply to step aside and don't exert this sort.

904
00:47:45.239 --> 00:47:46.559
Of I'm not going to do that.

905
00:47:46.880 --> 00:47:49.599
Oh Pumpkin. I'm counting on you. My life is in

906
00:47:49.639 --> 00:47:50.199
the balance.

907
00:47:50.280 --> 00:47:53.800
Stop saying that that's the truth. It's not true. I

908
00:47:53.880 --> 00:47:56.599
have some decisions to make now, and you can't always

909
00:47:56.599 --> 00:47:58.320
play the daddy card, Sweetie.

910
00:47:58.480 --> 00:48:00.840
I will make certain, first of all, well ninety nine

911
00:48:00.880 --> 00:48:03.519
percent probability here that if we can get me out

912
00:48:03.559 --> 00:48:06.000
and back to work, whether or not there's a civil

913
00:48:06.039 --> 00:48:08.800
suit against the county that succeeds, as long as I'm

914
00:48:08.800 --> 00:48:11.039
acquitted and back to work, I will take care of

915
00:48:11.079 --> 00:48:13.599
both of you as I always have, and if for

916
00:48:13.639 --> 00:48:16.559
some reason I'm not able to, my family will. But

917
00:48:16.639 --> 00:48:19.320
the resources we have at our disposal right now have

918
00:48:19.400 --> 00:48:22.440
to go to this without any interference, and I need

919
00:48:22.480 --> 00:48:24.599
to know that from you. As long as we're clear

920
00:48:24.679 --> 00:48:27.000
that if we need it it comes to my defense

921
00:48:27.280 --> 00:48:29.639
or my bond, I have to be out and I

922
00:48:29.679 --> 00:48:32.000
have to be acquitted. The two go hand in hand.

923
00:48:32.360 --> 00:48:34.119
I need to get out so I can raise money

924
00:48:34.280 --> 00:48:35.880
so that I can help with my defense.

925
00:48:36.159 --> 00:48:39.039
I need to take care of my little family right now.

926
00:48:39.360 --> 00:48:41.280
I need you to stop to not be part of

927
00:48:41.320 --> 00:48:43.880
the problem here, Kate. On top of everything else, we're

928
00:48:43.920 --> 00:48:46.519
battling here. Don't you enter here and become something.

929
00:48:46.840 --> 00:48:50.199
I am not a problem. How dare you? There are

930
00:48:50.280 --> 00:48:53.000
some things that I'm not your daughter about anymore. When

931
00:48:53.039 --> 00:48:56.599
I'm the executor of this estate, I'm mom, I'm not Katie.

932
00:48:57.000 --> 00:49:00.760
A very tense conversation, as you can tell. Great job, as.

933
00:49:00.719 --> 00:49:03.400
Katie, I didn't like you very much there. You were

934
00:49:03.559 --> 00:49:04.840
good at being that key.

935
00:49:04.920 --> 00:49:05.559
Good my job.

936
00:49:05.800 --> 00:49:09.079
Yeah. So the conversation ended on a tense but heartbreaking note,

937
00:49:09.079 --> 00:49:11.400
both saying I love you before hanging up, But the

938
00:49:11.480 --> 00:49:15.320
damage had been done despite her resistance. A few weeks later,

939
00:49:15.400 --> 00:49:18.239
the money, through a maze of transfers, made its way

940
00:49:18.239 --> 00:49:22.000
from Hartford Life Insurance to Carol's trust, then to Katie's

941
00:49:22.079 --> 00:49:26.119
personal checking account, then to her grandparents, and finally to

942
00:49:26.199 --> 00:49:29.880
Steve's lawyers. And Steve didn't just manipulate his daughter, He

943
00:49:29.960 --> 00:49:33.719
also enlisted his girlfriend, Renee Gerard. He convinced Katie to

944
00:49:33.719 --> 00:49:37.079
step down as trustee of her mom's trust and hand

945
00:49:37.079 --> 00:49:40.280
it over to Renee Oh my gosh, who he was

946
00:49:40.320 --> 00:49:43.639
sure would carry out his wishes. That move ensured that

947
00:49:43.679 --> 00:49:45.840
no one would stand in his way when it came

948
00:49:45.880 --> 00:49:47.199
to accessing the money.

949
00:49:47.519 --> 00:49:50.639
If you didn't already hate Steve. This whole thing just

950
00:49:50.760 --> 00:49:52.239
makes me hate him so much.

951
00:49:52.480 --> 00:49:55.519
A prosecution expert and trust law would later testify that

952
00:49:55.559 --> 00:49:58.840
both Katie and Renee had breached their legal duties as

953
00:49:58.920 --> 00:50:02.920
trustees trust us he is obligated to manage funds according

954
00:50:02.960 --> 00:50:06.400
to the trust's intent and paying for Steve's defense. The

955
00:50:06.440 --> 00:50:10.719
man accused of murdering Carroll was most definitely not the

956
00:50:10.719 --> 00:50:14.760
intended purpose of Carroll's trust. Just feeling my blood pressure

957
00:50:14.880 --> 00:50:18.360
rise in a moment over here, yeah, for sure infuriating.

958
00:50:18.920 --> 00:50:21.440
In June of two thousand and nine, a shocking twist

959
00:50:21.599 --> 00:50:25.159
landed in the inbox of Steve Demacher's attorney, John Sears.

960
00:50:25.559 --> 00:50:28.400
It was an anonymous email, and it claimed to reveal

961
00:50:28.480 --> 00:50:31.559
what really happened the night that Carol Kennedy was murdered.

962
00:50:32.039 --> 00:50:35.639
Sears immediately contacted the County Attorney's office and said he

963
00:50:35.719 --> 00:50:39.760
had information that supported his client's innocence. The email read,

964
00:50:39.800 --> 00:50:42.119
in part, I can't tell you who I am, but

965
00:50:42.199 --> 00:50:44.480
I can tell you what really happened the night Kennedy

966
00:50:44.599 --> 00:50:47.440
was killed. Napp was running his mouth to Kennedy about

967
00:50:47.440 --> 00:50:50.280
a prescription drug deal. He was in Two men and

968
00:50:50.320 --> 00:50:52.719
one woman were sent to do them both. It was

969
00:50:52.800 --> 00:50:55.480
going to be a home invasion gone bad. She tried

970
00:50:55.480 --> 00:50:57.599
to run out a side door, but one man got

971
00:50:57.639 --> 00:51:00.039
her with an ASP. An ASP, by the way, I

972
00:51:00.079 --> 00:51:03.119
didn't know what that was. It's inexpandable baton, like the

973
00:51:03.199 --> 00:51:06.360
kind that police carry. She didn't stay down and there

974
00:51:06.400 --> 00:51:08.719
was a fight. The second man had an axe handle

975
00:51:08.760 --> 00:51:11.280
he got from her bedroom instead of his ASP. They

976
00:51:11.320 --> 00:51:13.119
tried to go back for it, but the cops were

977
00:51:13.119 --> 00:51:15.719
already there. Napp was not killed by any of the

978
00:51:15.760 --> 00:51:18.559
men or woman. This wasn't one crazed man with a

979
00:51:18.599 --> 00:51:21.760
golf club. The people you're looking for are major prescription

980
00:51:21.880 --> 00:51:25.920
drug suppliers in Phoenix, connected to Mexico, Canada, and some

981
00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:29.280
other offshore operation. That's all I can say. What do

982
00:51:29.280 --> 00:51:30.119
you make of that note?

983
00:51:31.360 --> 00:51:32.679
I'm not so sure about that.

984
00:51:33.400 --> 00:51:37.079
The county prosecutor assigned an investigator to follow up. When

985
00:51:37.079 --> 00:51:39.480
the investigator met with Steve and his lawyer to show

986
00:51:39.519 --> 00:51:43.239
them the email, Steve reportedly began weeping. He said the

987
00:51:43.239 --> 00:51:46.840
message confirmed what he had already heard from a voice

988
00:51:46.920 --> 00:51:50.599
in the prison vent yep. According to Steve, just a

989
00:51:50.639 --> 00:51:53.519
few weeks earlier, a mysterious voice came through the air

990
00:51:53.599 --> 00:51:56.639
vent in his cell a fellow inmate who told him

991
00:51:56.639 --> 00:51:59.360
the same story, that Jim Napp was involved in a

992
00:51:59.400 --> 00:52:02.840
prescription drug ring and that Carol was killed as a result.

993
00:52:03.199 --> 00:52:05.199
Steve didn't know the name of the inmate who gave

994
00:52:05.239 --> 00:52:08.880
him this information, and when the investigator offered to interview

995
00:52:08.920 --> 00:52:11.440
people in the jail to try to identify who had

996
00:52:11.440 --> 00:52:14.840
spoken to Steve, Steve declined, saying he didn't want to

997
00:52:14.880 --> 00:52:17.840
be moved to protective custody. So just think about that.

998
00:52:17.880 --> 00:52:21.519
Steve claims that there's someone in jail who could exonerate him,

999
00:52:21.679 --> 00:52:24.440
but he didn't want that person tracked down because it

1000
00:52:24.519 --> 00:52:26.800
might mean spending some time in solitary.

1001
00:52:27.360 --> 00:52:29.800
That seems highly improbable.

1002
00:52:29.360 --> 00:52:32.880
I would say, so. Investigators looked into the email. It

1003
00:52:32.920 --> 00:52:35.920
had been sent from a freshly created account at an

1004
00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:39.320
internet cafe in Phoenix. The person who sent it paid

1005
00:52:39.360 --> 00:52:42.280
in cash, and there was no security camera in the building.

1006
00:52:42.519 --> 00:52:44.920
In other words, it was a dead end. But if

1007
00:52:44.960 --> 00:52:47.599
this was part of some elaborate plot to cast out

1008
00:52:47.639 --> 00:52:50.960
on Steve's guilt, it had the desired effect. It added

1009
00:52:51.079 --> 00:52:54.119
just enough mystery to keep durors guessing, Or at least

1010
00:52:54.360 --> 00:52:58.039
that was the hope. As the trial approached, prosecutors were

1011
00:52:58.079 --> 00:53:01.440
increasingly worried that Judge Thomas Lindbergh might be biased in

1012
00:53:01.480 --> 00:53:05.000
Steve Demacher's favor. The judge had already made several pre

1013
00:53:05.079 --> 00:53:08.760
trial rulings that frustrated the state. He barred the prosecution

1014
00:53:08.880 --> 00:53:12.920
from introducing evidence about Steve's extramarital affairs, his use of

1015
00:53:13.000 --> 00:53:16.519
human growth hormone, and even complaints against him related to

1016
00:53:16.599 --> 00:53:19.920
his work as a financial advisor, all of which prosecutors

1017
00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:22.280
believed spoke to motive or character.

1018
00:53:22.639 --> 00:53:25.239
Do you know what the complaints against him were? No.

1019
00:53:25.400 --> 00:53:27.760
I read about it in the book that I researched

1020
00:53:27.760 --> 00:53:30.320
this case on. There wasn't a lot of detail there,

1021
00:53:30.360 --> 00:53:34.320
but financial advisors, it's not uncommon to have complaints against you,

1022
00:53:34.559 --> 00:53:37.480
but he did have a few. But what really raised

1023
00:53:37.519 --> 00:53:40.239
eyebrows came during a hearing about whether the state would

1024
00:53:40.280 --> 00:53:44.119
pursue the death penalty. Judge Lindbergh remarked, quote, I don't

1025
00:53:44.119 --> 00:53:46.760
believe we're going to get there, implying that he didn't

1026
00:53:46.760 --> 00:53:50.920
think the evidence justified a death sentence. The prosecutor pushed back,

1027
00:53:51.000 --> 00:53:54.039
saying quote, I'm really really concerned that you have at

1028
00:53:54.119 --> 00:53:56.639
least to some extent, made up your mind in this case,

1029
00:53:56.840 --> 00:53:59.480
that you have prejudged the case to some extent, that

1030
00:53:59.519 --> 00:54:02.559
you're no longer impartial, and that you have some bias.

1031
00:54:02.599 --> 00:54:05.360
In response, the state filed a motion to have Lindberg

1032
00:54:05.440 --> 00:54:08.280
removed from the case. A hearing was held on the issue,

1033
00:54:08.360 --> 00:54:11.239
but in the end the motion was denied and Judge

1034
00:54:11.239 --> 00:54:12.760
Lindbergh remained on the case.

1035
00:54:13.159 --> 00:54:14.880
Do you think he seemed biased.

1036
00:54:14.920 --> 00:54:18.039
Just based on the comments that he made beforehand. I

1037
00:54:18.039 --> 00:54:19.920
don't think we're going to get there. It seemed like

1038
00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:23.119
he was sort of judging or prejudging the case a

1039
00:54:23.119 --> 00:54:26.920
little bit. Jury selection finally got underway in May of

1040
00:54:26.960 --> 00:54:29.840
twenty ten. Because of the state was still pursuing the

1041
00:54:29.840 --> 00:54:33.159
death penalty at that point, the process was long and tedious.

1042
00:54:33.519 --> 00:54:36.440
Finding jurors who could be fair and impartial and who

1043
00:54:36.480 --> 00:54:39.519
were also open to the possibility of imposing the death

1044
00:54:39.599 --> 00:54:43.639
sentence took weeks, and then, in a surprising twist, prosecutors

1045
00:54:43.679 --> 00:54:46.559
announced they were dropping the death penalty. They said it

1046
00:54:46.599 --> 00:54:49.760
was out of respect for Carroll's surviving family members who

1047
00:54:49.800 --> 00:54:53.239
were opposed to it. Steve's defense team wasn't thrilled with

1048
00:54:53.280 --> 00:54:56.559
this move. By the state. That's because conventional wisdom says

1049
00:54:56.599 --> 00:54:59.320
that jurors who are willing to impose the death penalty

1050
00:54:59.599 --> 00:55:03.280
tend to be more prosecution friendly, more likely to convict.

1051
00:55:03.679 --> 00:55:06.280
Once the death penalty was off the table, the defense

1052
00:55:06.400 --> 00:55:08.800
asked the court to scrap the jury that had been

1053
00:55:08.840 --> 00:55:12.599
seated and start fresh, but Judge Lindbergh denied the request.

1054
00:55:12.800 --> 00:55:15.760
The same jury would stay. As the trial began, the

1055
00:55:15.800 --> 00:55:20.000
state started stacking up circumstantial evidence. One notable moment came

1056
00:55:20.039 --> 00:55:22.559
when an FBI expert took the stand to talk about

1057
00:55:22.559 --> 00:55:25.199
the shoe prints found next to the bike tracks behind

1058
00:55:25.239 --> 00:55:28.320
Carol's home. He had run the prints through the FBI's

1059
00:55:28.320 --> 00:55:31.599
footwear database. I didn't know such a thing existed, and

1060
00:55:31.679 --> 00:55:36.639
he found just three potential matches, all from the same brand, Losportiva.

1061
00:55:37.199 --> 00:55:40.559
The specific models were the Ultranoord, the Imagen, and the

1062
00:55:40.599 --> 00:55:44.119
Pike's Peak. A check of Steve's credit card records revealed

1063
00:55:44.119 --> 00:55:47.480
that he had purchased a pair of Losportiva Pike's Peak

1064
00:55:47.519 --> 00:55:50.599
shoes back in April of two thousand and six, just

1065
00:55:50.679 --> 00:55:54.320
over two years before Carroll's murder, and only three hundred

1066
00:55:54.360 --> 00:55:57.679
and forty nine pairs of those shoes in Steve's size

1067
00:55:57.679 --> 00:55:59.760
had been sold in the US by that time.

1068
00:56:00.519 --> 00:56:03.679
There's so much data there in that sentence, it really is.

1069
00:56:04.079 --> 00:56:06.800
It blows my mind that the FBI have a database.

1070
00:56:06.840 --> 00:56:09.280
They can run a photo through it and say, yep,

1071
00:56:09.320 --> 00:56:13.920
there's only these three shoes. Steve's attorneys pointed out that

1072
00:56:14.039 --> 00:56:17.480
he ran regularly and wore through shoes quickly, about one

1073
00:56:17.519 --> 00:56:20.760
pair every six months, so it was entirely plausible that

1074
00:56:20.800 --> 00:56:24.840
those shoes had long since been discarded. Still, for the jury,

1075
00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:26.880
it may have been one more piece of the puzzle,

1076
00:56:27.079 --> 00:56:31.000
placing Steve near the scene. On June sixteenth, day eight

1077
00:56:31.079 --> 00:56:34.519
of the trial, the prosecution was hitting its stride. Witnesses

1078
00:56:34.519 --> 00:56:37.480
have been called, exhibits entered, and the state was steadily

1079
00:56:37.480 --> 00:56:41.239
building its case. But then something unexpected happened that brought

1080
00:56:41.239 --> 00:56:44.440
the entire trial to a screeching halt. That day, Judge

1081
00:56:44.480 --> 00:56:47.760
Thomas Lindbergh called for an early lunch break, which struck

1082
00:56:47.800 --> 00:56:50.719
some in the courtroom as a bit unusual. A short

1083
00:56:50.800 --> 00:56:54.280
while later, back in his chambers, he suddenly collapsed. A

1084
00:56:54.360 --> 00:56:56.960
nearby deputy saw what happened and rushed to his aid.

1085
00:56:57.480 --> 00:57:00.559
Judge Lindbergh was taken to the hospital, where doctors discovered

1086
00:57:00.599 --> 00:57:04.679
the cause, a brain tumor. Wow. The trial was immediately

1087
00:57:04.719 --> 00:57:07.960
suspended for weeks. Everything was on hold while a new

1088
00:57:08.039 --> 00:57:11.840
judge could be appointed. Eventually, Judge Warren Darrow was assigned

1089
00:57:11.880 --> 00:57:15.199
to take over. More than a month after the abrupt interruption,

1090
00:57:15.639 --> 00:57:19.360
the trial resumed on July twenty first. One of the

1091
00:57:19.400 --> 00:57:23.679
defense's key strategies was to undermine the credibility of the investigation,

1092
00:57:24.119 --> 00:57:26.360
to plant the idea that police had zeroed in on

1093
00:57:26.440 --> 00:57:30.199
Steve too quickly and then fumbled the forensics. They found

1094
00:57:30.239 --> 00:57:34.159
a surprising ally in the prosecution's own witness, County medical

1095
00:57:34.199 --> 00:57:38.719
examiner doctor Philip Keene. During his testimony, doctor Keene revealed

1096
00:57:39.000 --> 00:57:42.159
that when he transported Carroll's body to Phoenix for further

1097
00:57:42.239 --> 00:57:46.280
examination by a forensic anthropologist, he did so in the

1098
00:57:46.320 --> 00:57:49.840
back of his personal pickup truck. The body, sealed in

1099
00:57:49.920 --> 00:57:52.320
a body bag, had been strapped down with a bungee

1100
00:57:52.320 --> 00:57:54.639
cord for the hour and a half ride through the

1101
00:57:54.719 --> 00:57:58.880
Arizona heat. He admitted that the Phoenix temperatures in July

1102
00:57:59.079 --> 00:58:02.880
often soar above of one hundred degrees and acknowledged somewhat

1103
00:58:02.920 --> 00:58:07.360
sheepishly that This wasn't the ideal procedure for the defense.

1104
00:58:07.400 --> 00:58:10.960
It was a gift, an opportunity to highlight carelessness, raised

1105
00:58:11.039 --> 00:58:14.199
questions about the chain of custody and suggest that key

1106
00:58:14.239 --> 00:58:18.239
evidence might have been compromised. We'll be back after a break.

1107
00:58:25.119 --> 00:58:28.719
As the trial moved forward, the prosecution continued chasing down

1108
00:58:28.760 --> 00:58:32.760
leads tied to the mysterious anonymous email, the one that

1109
00:58:32.800 --> 00:58:36.199
claimed Carroll's murder was the result of Jim Knapp's involvement

1110
00:58:36.320 --> 00:58:39.559
in a prescription drug ring. The judge had ruled that

1111
00:58:39.599 --> 00:58:44.119
the email couldn't be excluded, so investigators needed to discredit it.

1112
00:58:44.360 --> 00:58:48.079
They sent it to the FBI's Behavior Analysis Unit in Quantico.

1113
00:58:48.360 --> 00:58:53.679
Their assessment the email was bogus. The scenario described didn't

1114
00:58:53.719 --> 00:58:56.840
match what was found at the crime scene. No professional

1115
00:58:56.960 --> 00:58:59.800
hit team would show up without weapons and improvise with

1116
00:58:59.840 --> 00:59:02.880
a golf club or axe handle. The FBI believed the

1117
00:59:02.920 --> 00:59:06.639
email was an attempt to exonerate Steve and likely written

1118
00:59:06.679 --> 00:59:11.079
by someone close to him. Investigators started comparing writing styles

1119
00:59:11.159 --> 00:59:16.159
a note something interesting. This syntax, grammar, and punctuation of

1120
00:59:16.199 --> 00:59:20.320
the anonymous email closely resembled emails Charlotte had written to

1121
00:59:20.360 --> 00:59:24.079
her mom lowercase letters of the beginning of sentences run

1122
00:59:24.119 --> 00:59:29.639
on thoughts, misplaced commas, all very familiar. Meanwhile, Steve's girlfriend,

1123
00:59:29.639 --> 00:59:32.760
Renee was reaching her limit. She had stood by him

1124
00:59:32.800 --> 00:59:36.400
through the investigation and even acted as trustee of Carroll's estate,

1125
00:59:36.800 --> 00:59:40.280
helping funnel insurance money to Steve's legal defense, but by

1126
00:59:40.360 --> 00:59:45.199
now she felt used, manipulated, and done so. On September nineteenth,

1127
00:59:45.239 --> 00:59:49.519
Renee came clean. In exchange for immunity from conspiracy and

1128
00:59:49.639 --> 00:59:53.559
evidence tampering charges, she agreed to reveal the truth about

1129
00:59:53.599 --> 00:59:57.159
the email. She told investigators that during a prison visit,

1130
00:59:57.519 --> 01:00:00.440
Steve had written out the entire email and held it

1131
01:00:00.519 --> 01:00:03.599
up to the glass partition for Charlotte to copy. He

1132
01:00:03.679 --> 01:00:07.039
claimed the information came from a mysterious voice in the event,

1133
01:00:07.400 --> 01:00:10.639
an anonymous prison source, and insisted it had to be

1134
01:00:10.719 --> 01:00:14.599
shared anonymously where no one would believe it. Renee and

1135
01:00:14.679 --> 01:00:17.119
Charlotte had been uncomfortable with the plan, but at the

1136
01:00:17.239 --> 01:00:20.559
time Steve was facing the death penalty, they were desperate

1137
01:00:20.559 --> 01:00:24.639
to help. Now, with Renee's confession in hand, prosecutors approached

1138
01:00:24.800 --> 01:00:28.400
Charlotte and told her they knew everything. They offered her

1139
01:00:28.440 --> 01:00:32.440
immunity as well. And Charlotte agreed to testify. What a

1140
01:00:32.480 --> 01:00:33.719
piece of dirt this guy is?

1141
01:00:34.039 --> 01:00:36.920
Oh totally, I mean he uses everyone around him to

1142
01:00:37.000 --> 01:00:37.760
his benefits.

1143
01:00:37.800 --> 01:00:42.039
They just can't fathom putting your child in danger like that.

1144
01:00:42.159 --> 01:00:44.440
I know, had she not gotten immunity, she could have

1145
01:00:44.519 --> 01:00:45.280
been prosecuted.

1146
01:00:45.400 --> 01:00:46.000
Yeah, for sure.

1147
01:00:46.440 --> 01:00:49.280
With a revelation about the fabricated email, the trial came

1148
01:00:49.320 --> 01:00:52.760
to a screeching halt. Suddenly there were potential new charges

1149
01:00:52.760 --> 01:00:57.000
on the table, tampering with evidence, forgery, fraud, conspiracy, even

1150
01:00:57.039 --> 01:01:00.760
contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Ves defense team

1151
01:01:00.800 --> 01:01:03.840
now claimed they had a conflict of interest. After all,

1152
01:01:03.920 --> 01:01:07.199
they had unknowingly been used to help Steve orchestrate the

1153
01:01:07.280 --> 01:01:10.519
email hoax, and they were also involved in the convoluted

1154
01:01:10.559 --> 01:01:15.519
insurance money transaction, another potential criminal matter. They petitioned to

1155
01:01:15.639 --> 01:01:19.480
withdraw from the case. Prosecutors opposed the motion, but the

1156
01:01:19.519 --> 01:01:23.280
issue escalated all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court,

1157
01:01:23.400 --> 01:01:26.360
which ultimately ruled that the defense team had to be

1158
01:01:26.400 --> 01:01:29.840
allowed to step down. That left Judge Warren Darrow with

1159
01:01:30.000 --> 01:01:33.639
no choice but to declare a mistrial in November twenty ten,

1160
01:01:34.199 --> 01:01:36.800
one familiar face in the courtroom that day was Judge

1161
01:01:36.840 --> 01:01:40.360
Thomas Lindbergh, once the original judge on the case. He

1162
01:01:40.400 --> 01:01:42.880
had collapsed during the trial just a few months earlier

1163
01:01:43.079 --> 01:01:46.000
due to a brain tumor. Now gaunt and visibly ill,

1164
01:01:46.199 --> 01:01:48.559
he watched quietly from the gallery as the trial he

1165
01:01:48.679 --> 01:01:51.880
started was officially declared over. He would pass away just

1166
01:01:51.920 --> 01:01:54.960
a few months later. At age fifty eight. Steve, now

1167
01:01:54.960 --> 01:01:58.239
out of money and officially declared indigent, was appointed a

1168
01:01:58.360 --> 01:02:01.880
new team of public defenders. There's a cruel irony, given

1169
01:02:01.920 --> 01:02:03.960
the links that he had gone to in order to

1170
01:02:03.960 --> 01:02:06.679
funnel the seven hundred and seventy thousand dollars in life

1171
01:02:06.679 --> 01:02:10.119
insurance money towards his defense. That money was gone and

1172
01:02:10.159 --> 01:02:12.320
the trial had to start all over.

1173
01:02:12.559 --> 01:02:14.320
That's one of the things that a waste, I know,

1174
01:02:14.480 --> 01:02:16.559
just such a waste like the seven hundred and seventy

1175
01:02:16.599 --> 01:02:20.119
thousand dollars which should have gone to Charlotte and Katie. Right,

1176
01:02:20.159 --> 01:02:21.119
it's just up in smoke.

1177
01:02:21.280 --> 01:02:22.639
I mean, that's what I meant. I didn't mean, like,

1178
01:02:22.679 --> 01:02:24.119
you know, it was too bad that he didn't have

1179
01:02:24.119 --> 01:02:27.320
the money towards his defense, Just so sad that he

1180
01:02:27.960 --> 01:02:30.239
didn't want to take care of his daughters and their

1181
01:02:30.360 --> 01:02:33.000
education and you know, helping them start out in life.

1182
01:02:33.239 --> 01:02:36.840
After the mistrial, Steve's new attorneys interviewed nine jerors from

1183
01:02:36.880 --> 01:02:40.280
the original trial. Five said that they were leaning toward acquittal,

1184
01:02:40.599 --> 01:02:44.159
three toward conviction, and one was undecided. And that was

1185
01:02:44.199 --> 01:02:47.960
before the defense had even presented its case. It gave

1186
01:02:48.000 --> 01:02:50.800
Steve's new team reason to believe that a second trial

1187
01:02:50.880 --> 01:02:53.920
might go their way. I don't love that these jurors

1188
01:02:54.079 --> 01:02:56.800
had to be interviewed after the first trial.

1189
01:02:56.960 --> 01:02:59.280
They didn't have to be these they chose to be interviewed.

1190
01:02:59.320 --> 01:03:01.639
But I know it is a little.

1191
01:03:01.360 --> 01:03:02.960
Bit makes me feel icky.

1192
01:03:03.360 --> 01:03:05.960
Yeah, I mean, you're right, if you're a juror, you

1193
01:03:06.000 --> 01:03:08.480
should be I mean, they didn't have to talk, but

1194
01:03:08.519 --> 01:03:11.679
at the same time, they probably felt obligated to talk.

1195
01:03:11.760 --> 01:03:14.519
And yeah, you know, it should really be your own opinion.

1196
01:03:14.880 --> 01:03:16.639
Seems very untoward to me.

1197
01:03:16.920 --> 01:03:18.920
Yeah, there's something a little bit icky about it.

1198
01:03:19.360 --> 01:03:21.960
One of the biggest obstacles for the prosecution was the

1199
01:03:22.119 --> 01:03:25.119
DNA evidence, or rather the lack of it. There were

1200
01:03:25.119 --> 01:03:28.920
no fingerprints, no hair, no fibers, and no DNA linking

1201
01:03:28.960 --> 01:03:31.800
Steve Demcker to the scene of Carroll's murder, but What

1202
01:03:31.880 --> 01:03:35.280
they did find under Carroll's fingernails was even more troubling,

1203
01:03:35.559 --> 01:03:39.599
male DNA that didn't match Steve. Despite testing samples from

1204
01:03:39.679 --> 01:03:45.480
everyone who might reasonably have come into contact with Carrol, friends, family, coworkers,

1205
01:03:45.599 --> 01:03:50.320
even emergency responders, investigators came up empty. Whoever this was,

1206
01:03:50.559 --> 01:03:54.480
they were unidentified and potentially a huge problem for the

1207
01:03:54.519 --> 01:03:58.559
prosecution's case. The unknown profile came to be known as

1208
01:03:58.840 --> 01:04:02.880
mister six's here three, named after the evidence tag number

1209
01:04:02.920 --> 01:04:06.599
assigned to the DNA samples they prepared for the second trial.

1210
01:04:06.719 --> 01:04:10.239
Investigators had an idea one if this DNA wasn't left

1211
01:04:10.320 --> 01:04:13.920
during the crime, but instead was the result of contamination

1212
01:04:14.159 --> 01:04:17.239
during the autopsy, they pulled the files for the three

1213
01:04:17.239 --> 01:04:21.960
autopsies performed immediately before Carroll's and had blood samples tested.

1214
01:04:22.280 --> 01:04:25.880
In February twenty eleven, the crime lab called with an answer.

1215
01:04:26.239 --> 01:04:30.039
Mister six to zero three was identified as Ronald Berman,

1216
01:04:30.400 --> 01:04:32.760
a man who had died of natural causes and whose

1217
01:04:32.800 --> 01:04:36.679
autopsy had taken place just before Carroll's. I don't remember

1218
01:04:36.679 --> 01:04:39.519
the case this happened in in a different case, And.

1219
01:04:39.559 --> 01:04:43.079
Oh, it's just so crazy, and it's crazy that they

1220
01:04:43.159 --> 01:04:45.880
thought to do this too, that It's good that they

1221
01:04:45.880 --> 01:04:48.079
thought to do this, because otherwise it would have been

1222
01:04:48.119 --> 01:04:49.800
a big problem, I think with their case.

1223
01:04:49.840 --> 01:04:53.519
But so it must have been like a negligible amount

1224
01:04:53.559 --> 01:04:57.360
of DNA, really, right, I guess it was a striking

1225
01:04:57.400 --> 01:05:01.320
example of procedural sloppiness and and another talking point for

1226
01:05:01.360 --> 01:05:04.119
the defense. But at least it solved the mystery of

1227
01:05:04.159 --> 01:05:07.079
the unknown male DNA, removing what had been one of

1228
01:05:07.079 --> 01:05:11.000
the most troubling pieces of evidence undermining the state's case.

1229
01:05:11.559 --> 01:05:15.400
After years of delays, jury selection for Steve's retrial finally

1230
01:05:15.400 --> 01:05:19.320
began in July twenty thirteen. This time around, the prosecution

1231
01:05:19.480 --> 01:05:23.000
streamlined their case. They trimmed their witness list, focused on

1232
01:05:23.079 --> 01:05:26.440
core facts, and ditched some of the more convoluted elements

1233
01:05:26.440 --> 01:05:30.360
from the first trial. Their case was still circumstantial, no weapon,

1234
01:05:30.480 --> 01:05:33.880
no direct evidence, no confession, but they believed the pattern

1235
01:05:33.920 --> 01:05:37.360
of Steve's behavior before and after the murder told the story.

1236
01:05:37.880 --> 01:05:40.719
The state argued that there was a clear motive money.

1237
01:05:41.400 --> 01:05:45.159
Prosecutors highlighted Steve's extravagant lifestyle in the months leading up

1238
01:05:45.199 --> 01:05:48.880
to the murder. In just three months, he averaged fifteen

1239
01:05:49.000 --> 01:05:52.280
hundred dollars per month on clothing, eleven hundred dollars in

1240
01:05:52.360 --> 01:05:55.920
cash withdrawals every month, eight hundred dollars on restaurant meals,

1241
01:05:56.119 --> 01:05:59.320
six hundred dollars for golf club membership, five hundred dollars

1242
01:05:59.320 --> 01:06:02.559
for electronics, one hundred and sixty dollars for haircuts, and

1243
01:06:02.599 --> 01:06:06.239
one hundred and twenty dollars in spa treatments. That's every month.

1244
01:06:06.400 --> 01:06:09.599
I don't think it sounds that crazy. No, I don't think.

1245
01:06:09.480 --> 01:06:11.639
Teen hundred dollars a month on clothing.

1246
01:06:11.679 --> 01:06:13.920
Well, you haven't that much of like ten years.

1247
01:06:13.920 --> 01:06:14.119
I know.

1248
01:06:14.840 --> 01:06:16.519
I mean it's a lot, but if you're you know,

1249
01:06:16.519 --> 01:06:19.280
a professional, I'm not saying I mean, you know, I

1250
01:06:19.320 --> 01:06:21.440
don't spend that much. But I don't think it sounds

1251
01:06:21.440 --> 01:06:23.280
that crazy. I don't think it's as crazy as you

1252
01:06:23.360 --> 01:06:24.039
might think it's.

1253
01:06:23.880 --> 01:06:25.880
So maybe not, but he was spending a lot more

1254
01:06:25.880 --> 01:06:26.639
than he was making.

1255
01:06:26.840 --> 01:06:27.280
Yeah.

1256
01:06:27.320 --> 01:06:30.760
He was also leasing three BMW's, one for himself, one

1257
01:06:30.800 --> 01:06:34.639
for each daughter, and regularly splurging on trips and sports gear,

1258
01:06:34.840 --> 01:06:37.880
all while paying alimony. At the time of Carroll's death,

1259
01:06:38.039 --> 01:06:41.039
Steve was in the hole by nearly four hundred thousand dollars.

1260
01:06:41.880 --> 01:06:45.679
Steve's defense stuck to its original position no physical evidence

1261
01:06:45.719 --> 01:06:48.639
tied Steve to the scene. No trace of blood, DNA,

1262
01:06:49.000 --> 01:06:52.280
or even fiber from Carrol's house, in his car, his condo,

1263
01:06:52.440 --> 01:06:55.440
or his laundry. No golf club had ever been recovered.

1264
01:06:55.920 --> 01:06:58.960
The tire and shoe prints weren't definitively matched to Steve.

1265
01:06:59.440 --> 01:07:02.400
The investigation, they said, had been sloppy and biased from

1266
01:07:02.480 --> 01:07:06.599
day one, full of shortcuts, oversights, and tunnel vision. With

1267
01:07:06.679 --> 01:07:09.719
the DNA mystery resolved, the defense team leaned into an

1268
01:07:09.760 --> 01:07:13.719
alternate theory Jim Knapp was the killer. They argued that

1269
01:07:13.840 --> 01:07:17.320
Jim was mentally unstable, furious at Carrol for not helping

1270
01:07:17.400 --> 01:07:22.119
him launch his Maui Wowie Smoothie franchise, and harboring romantic

1271
01:07:22.159 --> 01:07:25.480
feelings that she didn't return. But their theory had one

1272
01:07:25.519 --> 01:07:29.559
major flaw. The timeline phone records showed that Jim was

1273
01:07:29.599 --> 01:07:31.840
at his ex wife Anne's home the night of the

1274
01:07:31.920 --> 01:07:35.519
murder at seven fifty eight pm, his cell phone pinged

1275
01:07:35.519 --> 01:07:38.960
off a tower near her house as he checked his voicemail.

1276
01:07:39.440 --> 01:07:41.880
Carrol's call with her mother was abruptly cut off just

1277
01:07:41.920 --> 01:07:45.280
one minute later at seven point fifty nine, which was

1278
01:07:45.360 --> 01:07:48.400
the presumed time of the attack. The defense tried to

1279
01:07:48.519 --> 01:07:50.400
argue that the call may have ended for some other

1280
01:07:50.440 --> 01:07:53.159
reason than that Jim could have left later and still

1281
01:07:53.199 --> 01:07:56.039
made it to Carol's home. After all, he showed up

1282
01:07:56.079 --> 01:07:59.400
suspiciously just as the police were arriving. But it was

1283
01:07:59.440 --> 01:08:02.159
a long shot. I mean, the fact that he could

1284
01:08:02.199 --> 01:08:04.639
say for sure he was at his ex wife's home

1285
01:08:04.920 --> 01:08:08.760
the minute before that phone call ended pretty much clears him.

1286
01:08:09.400 --> 01:08:13.320
Steve's defense also said that his post murder behavior, preparing

1287
01:08:13.360 --> 01:08:17.239
to flee orchestrating the anonymous email telling the voice in

1288
01:08:17.319 --> 01:08:20.920
the vents story wasn't evidence of guilt, but the desperate

1289
01:08:20.920 --> 01:08:24.640
actions of a man terrified of being wrongly convicted. In

1290
01:08:24.720 --> 01:08:29.279
closing arguments, prosecutor Jeff Pauport staged a theatrical moment. He

1291
01:08:29.319 --> 01:08:32.319
wheeled in a rolled up rug from home, then dramatically

1292
01:08:32.359 --> 01:08:34.479
beat it with a golf club in front of the jury,

1293
01:08:34.840 --> 01:08:38.560
a vivid reenactment of the brutality of Carol's murder when

1294
01:08:38.640 --> 01:08:41.479
dust flew everywhere. His wife, who was sitting in the audience,

1295
01:08:41.640 --> 01:08:44.960
was horrified. Afterwards, she scolded him, if I had known

1296
01:08:45.000 --> 01:08:46.760
you were going to do that, I would have vacuumed

1297
01:08:46.800 --> 01:08:50.840
it first. The jury deliberated for three full days before

1298
01:08:50.880 --> 01:08:54.439
returning with a verdict. As the courtroom filled in anticipation,

1299
01:08:54.680 --> 01:08:57.760
Charlotte and Katie hugged their grandmother Ruth, in a moment

1300
01:08:57.800 --> 01:09:00.960
that captured the heart wrenching divide in their face. Then

1301
01:09:01.000 --> 01:09:04.119
the sisters quietly took their places behind their father, Steve

1302
01:09:04.159 --> 01:09:07.319
on the defense side. Ruth sat across from them on

1303
01:09:07.359 --> 01:09:08.560
the prosecution side.

1304
01:09:08.680 --> 01:09:09.640
That is heartbreaking.

1305
01:09:09.720 --> 01:09:12.319
It is really sad. But at least they still maintained

1306
01:09:12.319 --> 01:09:13.000
a relationship.

1307
01:09:13.319 --> 01:09:13.880
That is good.

1308
01:09:14.039 --> 01:09:14.600
Yeah.

1309
01:09:14.640 --> 01:09:16.760
So these threats that you write in the middle of

1310
01:09:16.800 --> 01:09:20.199
these scripts are really aggressive and not very nice.

1311
01:09:20.279 --> 01:09:21.880
Rich, I don't know what you're talking about.

1312
01:09:22.239 --> 01:09:24.000
Yeah, it's so he's in all caps and it's like,

1313
01:09:24.159 --> 01:09:27.079
don't look well, look at the script, look at me.

1314
01:09:27.359 --> 01:09:29.600
Sometimes you have to be kind of direct. What do

1315
01:09:29.640 --> 01:09:31.319
you think the verdict is going to be? Because I

1316
01:09:31.359 --> 01:09:32.439
know you haven't looked ahead.

1317
01:09:32.920 --> 01:09:36.199
I'm sure he was guilty. Well, you are positive he

1318
01:09:36.199 --> 01:09:38.159
was guilty because I did look ahead. What are you

1319
01:09:38.159 --> 01:09:39.279
going to do about it?

1320
01:09:39.600 --> 01:09:43.199
Wow, it's pretty rude. Yes, the verdict was guilty on

1321
01:09:43.319 --> 01:09:46.760
all counts. Though the case was built on circumstantial evidence,

1322
01:09:46.800 --> 01:09:49.800
the jury found the puzzle pieces compelling Steve had a

1323
01:09:49.800 --> 01:09:53.520
clear financial motive and emotional motive and no credible alibi.

1324
01:09:54.079 --> 01:09:57.640
Sentencing was scheduled for January twenty fifteen, three months after

1325
01:09:57.680 --> 01:10:01.520
the conviction. Outside the courtroom that day, Steve's mother, Jan

1326
01:10:01.640 --> 01:10:05.520
approached Carol's mother Ruth. She pressed a small medallion into

1327
01:10:05.560 --> 01:10:09.840
Ruth's hand. It said peace. Jan told her quote, I'll

1328
01:10:09.880 --> 01:10:13.720
never believe that Steve killed Carol. Ruth didn't respond, she

1329
01:10:13.880 --> 01:10:17.279
understood if their roles were reversed, she might feel the same.

1330
01:10:18.039 --> 01:10:21.960
At the sentencing hearing, prosecutors pushed for the maximum possible sentence.

1331
01:10:22.399 --> 01:10:25.039
They said Steve should never be allowed to walk free again,

1332
01:10:25.439 --> 01:10:28.479
and demanded more than seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars

1333
01:10:28.520 --> 01:10:33.760
in restitution to return the stolen insurance funds to Carol's trust. Justice,

1334
01:10:33.800 --> 01:10:38.079
they argued, wouldn't be complete without financial accountability. Ruth couldn't

1335
01:10:38.079 --> 01:10:40.960
attend the hearing in person. Her health had declined and

1336
01:10:41.000 --> 01:10:43.840
she was no longer able to travel from Nashville, but

1337
01:10:44.000 --> 01:10:46.119
she wrote a letter to the court and asked that

1338
01:10:46.159 --> 01:10:49.359
Carroll's photo be displayed as her words were read aloud.

1339
01:10:50.079 --> 01:10:54.199
On Steve's behalf, his mother, several siblings, and both daughters spoke.

1340
01:10:54.840 --> 01:10:58.479
Katie now twenty six, described her father as loving and kind,

1341
01:10:58.800 --> 01:11:02.479
someone who had taught her com passion and forgiveness. Charlotte,

1342
01:11:02.520 --> 01:11:05.479
twenty three, spoke through tears about the pain of losing

1343
01:11:05.520 --> 01:11:09.239
her mother and the added devastation of potentially losing her

1344
01:11:09.279 --> 01:11:13.119
father to missing her wedding, never meeting her future children.

1345
01:11:13.880 --> 01:11:17.119
Steve addressed the court himself. He said, quote, I did

1346
01:11:17.159 --> 01:11:19.479
not kill Carol. We loved each other for more than

1347
01:11:19.520 --> 01:11:22.640
twenty years. Our marriage was over, but not our affection

1348
01:11:22.760 --> 01:11:26.439
for each other. I'm incapable of violence against her. He

1349
01:11:26.520 --> 01:11:29.920
pleaded for leniency, insisting that locking up an innocent man

1350
01:11:30.000 --> 01:11:34.079
would not serve justice, but the court disagreed. Steve was

1351
01:11:34.119 --> 01:11:36.920
sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole

1352
01:11:37.000 --> 01:11:40.920
for murder, plus twenty one additional years for the related charges.

1353
01:11:41.439 --> 01:11:43.760
He was also ordered to pay more than seven hundred

1354
01:11:43.800 --> 01:11:47.399
thousand dollars in restitution to Carroll's trust, which I'm sure

1355
01:11:47.439 --> 01:11:51.800
he'd probably never paid because he was indigent. By that point, justice,

1356
01:11:51.840 --> 01:11:53.880
at least in the eyes of the court, had finally

1357
01:11:53.920 --> 01:11:57.600
been served. Steve's attorney filed a notice of appeal in

1358
01:11:57.640 --> 01:12:01.239
February twenty fourteen, with the formal appeal submitted a year

1359
01:12:01.319 --> 01:12:04.640
later in March twenty fifteen. The case was reviewed by

1360
01:12:04.640 --> 01:12:08.439
the Arizona State Supreme Court, which ultimately denied the appeal

1361
01:12:08.600 --> 01:12:12.520
in July twenty seventeen. Today, Steve Demacher is serving a

1362
01:12:12.560 --> 01:12:15.640
life sentence without the possibility of parole at the Arizona

1363
01:12:15.680 --> 01:12:19.359
State Prison Complex in Douglas, five miles from the Mexico

1364
01:12:19.439 --> 01:12:21.680
border and two hundred and seventy miles from the town

1365
01:12:21.760 --> 01:12:25.479
of Prescott, where his life once looked very different. Despite

1366
01:12:25.520 --> 01:12:28.600
the devastating events they endured, Katy and Charlotte have both

1367
01:12:28.640 --> 01:12:32.640
gone on to build impressive lives for themselves. Katie graduated

1368
01:12:32.720 --> 01:12:36.039
from Berkeley Law School in twenty fifteen. She clerked for

1369
01:12:36.079 --> 01:12:39.279
the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of California,

1370
01:12:39.720 --> 01:12:43.399
then was selected for the prestigious Department of Justice Honors

1371
01:12:43.399 --> 01:12:46.960
Program in twenty seventeen. She worked as a trial attorney

1372
01:12:47.000 --> 01:12:49.960
for the DOJ for nearly eight years, and as of

1373
01:12:50.039 --> 01:12:53.920
June twenty twenty five, serves as the Senior Assistant Attorney

1374
01:12:53.960 --> 01:12:57.239
General for the State of Colorado. She also got married

1375
01:12:57.279 --> 01:13:00.640
in twenty seventeen. Charlotte was in space inspired by her

1376
01:13:00.680 --> 01:13:04.039
father's career in wealth management, and earned a finance degree

1377
01:13:04.079 --> 01:13:07.920
from Arizona State University. After working for several years at

1378
01:13:07.920 --> 01:13:10.560
a boutique investment bank, she went on to found a

1379
01:13:10.600 --> 01:13:15.199
financial literacy app called Penny, later rebranded as a Sender.

1380
01:13:15.760 --> 01:13:18.960
She also co founded a company called Refresh Data, providing

1381
01:13:19.039 --> 01:13:22.680
real estate insights in Colorado, and currently serves as chief

1382
01:13:22.720 --> 01:13:26.840
operating officer for a company that offers e contract solutions

1383
01:13:26.920 --> 01:13:30.880
for real estate transactions in the state of Colorado. Carol

1384
01:13:30.960 --> 01:13:34.399
Kennedy was many things, a mother, an artist, an educator,

1385
01:13:34.560 --> 01:13:38.239
a counselor, a psychotherapist, and a mentor to many. Her

1386
01:13:38.279 --> 01:13:42.520
life was full of creativity, compassion, and quiet strength. She

1387
01:13:42.600 --> 01:13:45.159
was taken far too soon at the age of fifty three.

1388
01:13:45.640 --> 01:13:47.880
Rest in peace, Carol, Rest in peace.

1389
01:13:48.600 --> 01:13:50.319
Do Charlotte and Katie see their dad?

1390
01:13:51.039 --> 01:13:53.199
I don't know that, and I don't know if they

1391
01:13:53.960 --> 01:13:56.800
believe he is innocent. Still. They obviously stood behind him

1392
01:13:56.800 --> 01:14:00.159
through the entire trial, But in the I watched to

1393
01:14:00.319 --> 01:14:04.239
dateline and forty eight hours for this case, and some

1394
01:14:04.279 --> 01:14:07.640
of Steve's family members appear in it basically defending him.

1395
01:14:07.880 --> 01:14:10.680
They don't appear in anything, so I assume they just

1396
01:14:10.800 --> 01:14:11.600
don't want to talk.

1397
01:14:11.439 --> 01:14:13.640
About Yeah, and I don't blame them for that at all.

1398
01:14:13.640 --> 01:14:16.239
No, I don't blame them either. Do you I think

1399
01:14:16.239 --> 01:14:18.640
I know the answer to this. But do you believe

1400
01:14:18.640 --> 01:14:21.520
that Steve killed Carol? And maybe the harder question is

1401
01:14:21.560 --> 01:14:24.039
do you believe there was enough to convict him.

1402
01:14:24.840 --> 01:14:28.960
I believe that he killed Carol, And yeah, I think

1403
01:14:28.960 --> 01:14:29.920
there was enough evidence.

1404
01:14:30.079 --> 01:14:33.000
I think there was too, even though there was no DNA,

1405
01:14:33.359 --> 01:14:35.439
you know, all the physical evidence, but there was so

1406
01:14:35.680 --> 01:14:37.479
much circumstantial.

1407
01:14:36.720 --> 01:14:41.760
Evidence, and circumstantial evidence is evidence. Absolutely, Steve was in

1408
01:14:41.800 --> 01:14:44.399
a significant amount of debt, but he also had the

1409
01:14:44.439 --> 01:14:46.319
means to get himself out of that debt.

1410
01:14:46.520 --> 01:14:47.640
Yeah he had it.

1411
01:14:47.640 --> 01:14:49.239
Sounds like he was pretty good at what he did.

1412
01:14:49.279 --> 01:14:51.479
He had a great career, he had a good life, and.

1413
01:14:51.680 --> 01:14:54.560
Yeah, he had great earning potential. I mean, his problem

1414
01:14:54.560 --> 01:14:57.079
with debt was that he spent too much. If he

1415
01:14:57.119 --> 01:14:59.760
had just you know, scaled back a little bit on spending,

1416
01:15:00.000 --> 01:15:02.520
he could have gotten out of debt easily and had

1417
01:15:02.560 --> 01:15:06.399
a you know, successful career and then fine financially.

1418
01:15:06.840 --> 01:15:09.520
And Carol had every right to move on with her

1419
01:15:09.560 --> 01:15:13.520
life and forget about Steve and just the fact that

1420
01:15:13.640 --> 01:15:17.039
he ended her life so selfishly, and.

1421
01:15:17.319 --> 01:15:19.760
Yeah, it's just well, I do wonder you know about

1422
01:15:19.760 --> 01:15:21.319
the motive. I was going to ask you about that

1423
01:15:21.359 --> 01:15:24.239
because I think the prosecution their theory was that his

1424
01:15:24.319 --> 01:15:27.640
motive was primarily financial. But I'm not so sure about

1425
01:15:27.640 --> 01:15:29.479
that because of what you just said. He could have

1426
01:15:29.520 --> 01:15:31.479
gotten himself out of debt. He was making a lot

1427
01:15:31.520 --> 01:15:34.600
of money. So what do you think his motive was.

1428
01:15:34.920 --> 01:15:38.079
I think he was jealous that Carol was going to

1429
01:15:38.119 --> 01:15:40.159
move on with her life. This is what happens in

1430
01:15:40.199 --> 01:15:43.199
so many of these cases is you know, the man

1431
01:15:43.359 --> 01:15:47.319
can have multiple affairs and you know, do whatever he wants,

1432
01:15:47.319 --> 01:15:50.159
but as soon as the woman is done stands up

1433
01:15:50.199 --> 01:15:52.520
for herself, Yeah, the man has a hard time.

1434
01:15:52.960 --> 01:15:55.399
Yeah. A lot of people in the book that I

1435
01:15:55.439 --> 01:15:59.640
read speculated, people that knew Steve speculated that no one

1436
01:15:59.720 --> 01:16:01.520
had ever said no to him before, like no one

1437
01:16:01.520 --> 01:16:03.399
had ever turned him down before. He was I mean,

1438
01:16:03.439 --> 01:16:04.880
he was a good looking guy, He had a lot

1439
01:16:04.920 --> 01:16:08.960
going for him. He was very persuasive, manipulative, some might say,

1440
01:16:09.640 --> 01:16:11.720
and women. You know, he didn't have a lot of

1441
01:16:11.720 --> 01:16:15.000
women turning him down. And I think having Carol finally

1442
01:16:15.039 --> 01:16:17.479
say no, and she was done. I think that may

1443
01:16:17.520 --> 01:16:20.760
have you know, tipped him over the edge. Jim Napp

1444
01:16:20.880 --> 01:16:24.000
was kind of an interesting person in this case, kind

1445
01:16:24.000 --> 01:16:26.359
of a tragic figure in some ways, but also, you know,

1446
01:16:26.439 --> 01:16:28.720
not not the greatest guy, or he doesn't come off

1447
01:16:28.760 --> 01:16:31.159
as being the greatest guy, Like he seemed to have

1448
01:16:31.199 --> 01:16:34.079
some issues with women. But what do you think about

1449
01:16:34.239 --> 01:16:36.640
Jim's role in this case? Do you think that do you?

1450
01:16:36.760 --> 01:16:38.680
First of all, do you think it's possible that Jim

1451
01:16:38.920 --> 01:16:40.560
may have killed Carol?

1452
01:16:40.800 --> 01:16:43.239
I think you did a great job telling this story,

1453
01:16:43.439 --> 01:16:46.680
but I'm not really sure I know who Jim is. Yeah,

1454
01:16:46.720 --> 01:16:49.279
he seems kind of like a shadowy figure in a

1455
01:16:49.359 --> 01:16:50.560
lot of ways, and.

1456
01:16:51.119 --> 01:16:53.039
A little bit of a paradox, like he kind of

1457
01:16:53.079 --> 01:16:55.159
comes off as a little bit of a just an odd,

1458
01:16:55.279 --> 01:16:58.199
kind of goofy guy, but sometimes he comes off as

1459
01:16:58.239 --> 01:17:01.039
a little bit of a you know, a great guy.

1460
01:17:01.279 --> 01:17:04.039
It sounds like he was taking advantage of Carol in

1461
01:17:04.079 --> 01:17:07.039
this situation, like staying in her guest house and probably

1462
01:17:07.079 --> 01:17:09.000
not you know, giving her anything in return.

1463
01:17:09.239 --> 01:17:11.479
Yeah, yeah, that could be. I have read that a

1464
01:17:11.479 --> 01:17:15.399
lot of Jim's family and friends are upset about the

1465
01:17:15.439 --> 01:17:17.960
way he's portrayed, especially in like the TV show so

1466
01:17:18.079 --> 01:17:21.000
Dateline forty eight hours, because I think those shows they

1467
01:17:21.000 --> 01:17:22.680
want to they want to add dropa that they want

1468
01:17:22.720 --> 01:17:23.920
to make things seem.

1469
01:17:23.720 --> 01:17:26.359
Like kind of try not to do that in our case.

1470
01:17:26.239 --> 01:17:27.720
Is usually Yeah, for sure.

1471
01:17:28.239 --> 01:17:30.560
I think you know, he was a great red Herring,

1472
01:17:30.640 --> 01:17:31.960
right he was, Yes, And.

1473
01:17:31.920 --> 01:17:35.119
I think he was portrayed as being maybe worse than

1474
01:17:35.159 --> 01:17:36.399
he was in real life.

1475
01:17:36.600 --> 01:17:39.439
Well no, thanks to Steve. I mean Steve really portrayed

1476
01:17:39.520 --> 01:17:42.840
him like that, right with the whole you know, whisper

1477
01:17:42.880 --> 01:17:44.159
in the prison and you.

1478
01:17:44.279 --> 01:17:47.279
Know, oh yeah, he definitely perpetuated those those things.

1479
01:17:47.359 --> 01:17:49.800
Yeah, and his defense I'm sure was very happy to have,

1480
01:17:49.960 --> 01:17:52.560
you know, try to make Jim take the fall. Yeah.

1481
01:17:52.680 --> 01:17:54.880
Before we close, I do want to mention my main

1482
01:17:54.960 --> 01:17:57.199
source for this case. I did watch forty eight hours

1483
01:17:57.199 --> 01:18:00.560
in Dateline and read several articles, but the main source

1484
01:18:00.680 --> 01:18:03.560
was a book by Caitlin Rother called Then No One

1485
01:18:03.560 --> 01:18:06.439
Can Have Her Kitlyn Rother also wrote the book Death

1486
01:18:06.439 --> 01:18:09.840
on Ocean Boulevard about the strange case of Rebecca Zahaw

1487
01:18:09.920 --> 01:18:12.680
that we covered way back in twenty twenty two, and

1488
01:18:12.760 --> 01:18:15.079
I just want to say both books are really good

1489
01:18:15.119 --> 01:18:17.960
among the best true crime books I've read, very well researched,

1490
01:18:18.079 --> 01:18:18.760
very well written.

1491
01:18:18.960 --> 01:18:20.479
Well, I'm going to go look at her list of

1492
01:18:20.520 --> 01:18:23.279
works really quick and get a jumpstart on my next

1493
01:18:23.319 --> 01:18:24.479
case before you grab it.

1494
01:18:24.600 --> 01:18:25.039
You should.

1495
01:18:25.319 --> 01:18:28.079
I love reading a good true crime and we both

1496
01:18:28.159 --> 01:18:30.800
kind of do it because we both really do enjoy

1497
01:18:30.880 --> 01:18:34.039
learning about these stories and telling the stories. And I

1498
01:18:34.199 --> 01:18:37.239
try to like let the story unfold for me, and

1499
01:18:37.479 --> 01:18:39.239
I think you do the same. Oh, I do, definitely,

1500
01:18:39.279 --> 01:18:41.560
I do love a good book. I try not to.

1501
01:18:42.359 --> 01:18:43.760
I think we both do it the same way. We

1502
01:18:43.800 --> 01:18:47.000
don't watch the TV shows until we've read the book

1503
01:18:47.039 --> 01:18:48.520
and digested the story.

1504
01:18:48.680 --> 01:18:50.720
Yeah, for sure. And if I was going to say,

1505
01:18:50.720 --> 01:18:53.239
if you're interested in learning more about if you really

1506
01:18:53.319 --> 01:18:55.640
liked this case and thought it was interesting, read her

1507
01:18:55.640 --> 01:18:57.760
book because there was a lot of things I left out, Like,

1508
01:18:57.800 --> 01:18:59.960
I know this was a long episode, but there were

1509
01:19:00.319 --> 01:19:02.319
things that I thought were interesting that I just felt like,

1510
01:19:02.439 --> 01:19:04.680
I can't I can't add more to it, but it's

1511
01:19:04.680 --> 01:19:13.119
definitely worth a read. Yeah, Well, before we go, I know,

1512
01:19:13.199 --> 01:19:15.560
we always like to try to end on a lighter note.

1513
01:19:16.079 --> 01:19:18.680
I have a little quiz for you. You often to.

1514
01:19:18.720 --> 01:19:20.479
This the other day and I was like, oh boy,

1515
01:19:20.640 --> 01:19:22.359
I mention study.

1516
01:19:22.800 --> 01:19:24.760
They did it. You often come up with quizzes for

1517
01:19:24.800 --> 01:19:28.800
me and it's totally fair, and you can if you're listening,

1518
01:19:28.840 --> 01:19:30.520
you can play along at home too. I think this

1519
01:19:30.600 --> 01:19:31.520
is going to be a fun one.

1520
01:19:31.600 --> 01:19:32.720
I'm not a good test taker.

1521
01:19:33.720 --> 01:19:36.239
Well, I am going to name some things and you

1522
01:19:36.239 --> 01:19:38.560
have to tell me if these things I name are

1523
01:19:38.680 --> 01:19:43.840
a yoga pose, a heavy metal band, or a crime novel.

1524
01:19:44.279 --> 01:19:46.479
Yoga pose, heavy metal band or crime novel.

1525
01:19:46.840 --> 01:19:47.920
All right, fair enough, all right?

1526
01:19:47.960 --> 01:19:48.479
Are you ready?

1527
01:19:49.560 --> 01:19:49.800
Yes?

1528
01:19:50.439 --> 01:19:51.760
Okay, all right?

1529
01:19:51.800 --> 01:19:54.560
First one corpse that is a yoga pose.

1530
01:19:54.800 --> 01:19:58.000
That is a yoga pose. Good job. So a flower, yeah,

1531
01:19:58.119 --> 01:20:00.800
it is a corpse, the corpse flower. Right, there is

1532
01:20:00.840 --> 01:20:05.479
a book called Corpse Pose, but that is not that

1533
01:20:05.520 --> 01:20:07.119
doesn't count. So you got that one right, all right?

1534
01:20:07.119 --> 01:20:09.800
All right? Second one Iron Claw that.

1535
01:20:09.840 --> 01:20:11.039
Is a heavy metal band.

1536
01:20:11.199 --> 01:20:14.279
Wow, very good, very impressive. They are a heavy metal

1537
01:20:14.279 --> 01:20:17.439
band from Scotland, right of course. All right. Next one

1538
01:20:17.640 --> 01:20:19.359
Praying Mantis.

1539
01:20:19.039 --> 01:20:25.359
That is a insect. Also a hmmm, I think it's

1540
01:20:25.399 --> 01:20:31.279
a heavy crime novel pose. I'm going to go with

1541
01:20:31.319 --> 01:20:31.880
crime novel.

1542
01:20:32.159 --> 01:20:33.800
Oh that was a metal band.

1543
01:20:34.159 --> 01:20:36.159
I'm going to say that. But I'm okay, all right.

1544
01:20:36.359 --> 01:20:38.880
Embryo that is a heavy metal band.

1545
01:20:39.199 --> 01:20:41.720
No, that is a yoga pose. Oh it is an

1546
01:20:41.760 --> 01:20:43.079
advanced yoga pose.

1547
01:20:43.319 --> 01:20:46.000
Oh well, I'm a not a I'm not a I

1548
01:20:46.079 --> 01:20:48.239
do yoga, but I am not an advanced yoga eve.

1549
01:20:48.279 --> 01:20:48.880
That's for sure.

1550
01:20:49.039 --> 01:20:49.359
All right.

1551
01:20:49.600 --> 01:20:51.840
Pentagram that is a heavy metal band.

1552
01:20:51.880 --> 01:20:54.000
That is a heavy metal band. Good job you're.

1553
01:20:53.960 --> 01:20:57.720
Keeping score, little hashtag. Can't do anything for fun in

1554
01:20:57.760 --> 01:21:00.680
this house. Has to be like competitive, all right.

1555
01:21:00.800 --> 01:21:03.359
Next one is The Silkworm.

1556
01:21:03.359 --> 01:21:05.920
That is a heavy metal band.

1557
01:21:06.199 --> 01:21:08.800
No, I'm afraid not. That is a crime novel by

1558
01:21:08.920 --> 01:21:09.840
Robert Galbraith.

1559
01:21:09.960 --> 01:21:11.920
Well, no offense, Robert, but that is kind of a

1560
01:21:11.960 --> 01:21:13.359
bad name for a true crime book.

1561
01:21:14.079 --> 01:21:16.239
All right. Let's move on to the next one. Raven

1562
01:21:16.319 --> 01:21:20.239
Black that is a heavy metal band. No, once again,

1563
01:21:20.319 --> 01:21:21.560
that is a crime novel.

1564
01:21:21.640 --> 01:21:26.880
Okay, all right. Thunderbolt that is a heavy metal band.

1565
01:21:28.119 --> 01:21:30.439
I thought you'd get that one. That is a yoga pose.

1566
01:21:30.760 --> 01:21:35.479
Really yeah, it's also called Vajra sana, a seated meditation pose.

1567
01:21:36.159 --> 01:21:36.560
I don't know.

1568
01:21:36.600 --> 01:21:39.520
Okay, all right, Four left, The Snowman.

1569
01:21:39.479 --> 01:21:40.880
That is a true crime novel.

1570
01:21:41.000 --> 01:21:43.520
That is a crime novel, yes, by Joe Nezbo, which

1571
01:21:43.560 --> 01:21:44.800
I've read. It's a very good book.

1572
01:21:44.880 --> 01:21:46.880
Wait, it's a crime novel or a true crime novel.

1573
01:21:47.039 --> 01:21:49.279
These are just novels, crime novels, fiction.

1574
01:21:49.399 --> 01:21:52.720
Oh I thought you meant true crime. No, okay, gotcha.

1575
01:21:53.199 --> 01:21:57.199
Reclining Hero that is a yoga pose. Very good. Two

1576
01:21:57.319 --> 01:21:59.560
left Running Duck that.

1577
01:21:59.520 --> 01:22:01.840
Is a heavy metal band.

1578
01:22:02.319 --> 01:22:06.880
That is a crime novel. All right, Last chance, Saber Tiger.

1579
01:22:07.000 --> 01:22:08.119
That is a yoga pose.

1580
01:22:08.760 --> 01:22:11.439
I'm afraid that is a metal band. Okay, all right,

1581
01:22:11.560 --> 01:22:13.479
well you did Okay.

1582
01:22:13.439 --> 01:22:16.880
I didn't. That's all right. Still, I still like myself.

1583
01:22:16.920 --> 01:22:18.520
It was a tough quiz. It was a tough quiz.

1584
01:22:18.600 --> 01:22:19.720
So did you take the quiz?

1585
01:22:20.119 --> 01:22:21.880
No? Because I made the quiz up so I couldn't

1586
01:22:21.880 --> 01:22:22.840
really take it. You didn't.

1587
01:22:23.359 --> 01:22:25.079
We all know who made this quizz up.

1588
01:22:26.239 --> 01:22:28.920
The idea for the quiz may have come from elsewhere,

1589
01:22:28.920 --> 01:22:31.960
but I made the choices for the quiz by doing

1590
01:22:32.159 --> 01:22:33.000
my own research.

1591
01:22:33.079 --> 01:22:36.640
All right, Well, thanks humiliating me in front of the world.

1592
01:22:36.920 --> 01:22:39.720
You got five. Right, that's pretty good. Thanks for playing along.

1593
01:22:40.000 --> 01:22:43.279
Sure, just wait till your next quiz, sir. It's not

1594
01:22:43.319 --> 01:22:44.079
going to be pretty.

1595
01:22:45.079 --> 01:22:46.159
I expect nothing less.

1596
01:22:46.199 --> 01:22:48.600
Wait, I have a question. For you, okay, something in

1597
01:22:48.640 --> 01:22:51.239
the case that maybe chuckle a little bit was the

1598
01:22:51.279 --> 01:22:55.600
code word? Remember they had a raspberry and I was like, well,

1599
01:22:55.720 --> 01:22:57.640
to have just a code word when it could have

1600
01:22:57.720 --> 01:23:00.960
been like, I know, Grandma's in the hospital or something

1601
01:23:01.039 --> 01:23:03.800
like that. You know, it would have been more a little.

1602
01:23:03.520 --> 01:23:05.960
More subtle, right, less obvious.

1603
01:23:06.479 --> 01:23:08.880
So what should our We actually have a family code

1604
01:23:08.880 --> 01:23:10.800
and I can't. Sorry, guys, but we can't tell you

1605
01:23:10.800 --> 01:23:11.199
what it is.

1606
01:23:11.279 --> 01:23:13.039
I can't tell you either because I can't remember.

1607
01:23:13.359 --> 01:23:15.239
You can't remember it, just forget.

1608
01:23:16.520 --> 01:23:18.239
I know. It's not good to have a code you

1609
01:23:18.279 --> 01:23:18.880
don't remember.

1610
01:23:19.159 --> 01:23:20.279
Should we make a new code?

1611
01:23:20.439 --> 01:23:23.159
I don't know. We can't talk about that on our

1612
01:23:23.199 --> 01:23:24.880
podcast because then everyone will know.

1613
01:23:24.920 --> 01:23:27.439
The co listen are our friends except for that person

1614
01:23:27.560 --> 01:23:30.479
that message to me last week. But we're gonna move

1615
01:23:30.520 --> 01:23:30.960
on from that.

1616
01:23:31.399 --> 01:23:33.159
Yeah, probably move on from that one.

1617
01:23:33.600 --> 01:23:33.760
Well.

1618
01:23:33.800 --> 01:23:35.680
Thank you all so much for hanging out with us.

1619
01:23:35.920 --> 01:23:39.520
Please rate, review, follow, and subscribe, find us on social

1620
01:23:39.560 --> 01:23:42.760
media and YouTube, or send us an email at Lovemarykill

1621
01:23:42.800 --> 01:23:44.319
at gmail dot com.

1622
01:23:44.399 --> 01:23:46.800
Until next time, don't kill your wife and don't kill

1623
01:23:46.840 --> 01:24:29.720
your husband. Companion with the