Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Kidnapping & Killing of Kim Nguyen Part 1: Without a Trace

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The Kidnapping & Killing of Kim Nguyen Part 1: Without a Trace · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

0:01
Speaker 1: Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
0:05
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. By eighteen eighty four, Duck Creek, Texas,
0:12
Speaker 1: was coming into its own They'd recently re acquired a
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Speaker 1: post office by this time after going almost eleven years without.
0:22
Speaker 1: There were a few churches, just as many general stores,
0:26
Speaker 1: and even a district school. But it was industry that
0:30
Speaker 1: buttered the resident's bread, specifically the corn mill to gristmills
0:36
Speaker 1: and the triple steam cotton gins. When the Santa Fe
0:41
Speaker 1: and Dallas Greenville Railroad lines went in east of Dallas
0:45
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty six, however, they bypassed the small farming
0:49
Speaker 1: community by about a mile. About that same distance to
0:54
Speaker 1: Duck Creek's east, Santa Fe Railroad Company built a depot,
0:59
Speaker 1: and just of a mile north, the Dallas and Greenville
1:02
Speaker 1: line built theirs. The economic opportunities the railroads and depots
1:08
Speaker 1: would have brought to the modest town might have had
1:12
Speaker 1: Duck Creek located in northeast Dallas County on the road
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Speaker 1: to becoming a serious business hub like its bustling metropolis
1:22
Speaker 1: neighbor to the southwest. Residents were not happy, and perhaps
1:27
Speaker 1: perceived the logistics giants' decision to do so as some
1:32
Speaker 1: kind of slight. They were especially upset when the following year,
1:37
Speaker 1: after almost the entirety of Duck Creek went up in flames,
1:41
Speaker 1: their post office was moved to the small city the
1:45
Speaker 1: Santa fe built around their depot, Embury. It's said that
1:50
Speaker 1: the men in Duck Creek began carrying their pistols and rifles,
1:54
Speaker 1: something they'd never done before, because, in its attempts to
1:58
Speaker 1: incorporate Embry had allegedly claimed the residents of that town
2:03
Speaker 1: alongside their own. Duck Creek residents were itching for the
2:08
Speaker 1: new small town residents to pop off at the mouth.
2:12
Speaker 1: Imbrey had even enticed the Duck Creek newspaper, The Rustler,
2:16
Speaker 1: to move shop and become the Embry Enterprise. It was
2:21
Speaker 1: nothing short of a hat Field's and McCoy's type of situation,
2:25
Speaker 1: and in late eighteen eighty seven, the issues between the
2:28
Speaker 1: two feuding towns had become heated court battles, so heated
2:34
Speaker 1: that a United States Congressman who represented a completely different
2:38
Speaker 1: district of Texas got fed up and created the city
2:41
Speaker 1: of Garland smack dab in the middle of the two
2:45
Speaker 1: feuding towns. That'll show him, he must have thought, and
2:50
Speaker 1: it did. Garland was an instant's success. It was newer,
2:56
Speaker 1: the gas lit streets lined with banks and merchants. Even
3:00
Speaker 1: after a fire destroyed virtually all the city's businesses in
3:04
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty nine, more modern architecture was erected in Garland,
3:10
Speaker 1: creating what is today a picturesque and archetypal downtown. Businesses
3:16
Speaker 1: moved back in, and then some wood plank sidewalks were installed,
3:21
Speaker 1: and surrounding the new town square were the factories and
3:25
Speaker 1: plants that kept the place alive and thriving. And Garland
3:29
Speaker 1: continued to thrive through most of the early twentieth century
3:33
Speaker 1: as an autonomous town that offered all the amenities of
3:36
Speaker 1: the big city of Dallas in a much smaller package.
3:41
Speaker 1: There were more than a dozen beautiful parks, more than
3:44
Speaker 1: two dozen schools, a town history museum, a handful of banks,
3:49
Speaker 1: two hospitals, and enough grocers and goods merchants to keep
3:54
Speaker 1: residents from having to leave by the late nineteen sixties.
3:59
Speaker 1: The proud working glass folks that called Garland home had
4:02
Speaker 1: always been its backbone, and this reality grew increasingly so
4:08
Speaker 1: as the decades came and went, but Dallas inevitably was
4:12
Speaker 1: slowly creeping in. By the early nineteen nineties, Garland had
4:17
Speaker 1: become little more than a suburban outlier for the big city,
4:21
Speaker 1: albeit one with much more personality and historical significance and
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Speaker 1: beauty than many others, one only rivaled in the area
4:31
Speaker 1: in these traits, perhaps by oak Cliff. As time went on, however,
4:37
Speaker 1: the line between Dallas and Garland became even more of
4:40
Speaker 1: a blur, and differences in crime rates between the two
4:44
Speaker 1: was hardly a worthwhile topic for debate. Garland, in every
4:49
Speaker 1: practical sense, at least, was now just a part of Dallas.
4:55
Speaker 1: Since nineteen ninety four was a major election year in
4:59
Speaker 1: the state, as incumbent and Richards fought against candidate George W.
5:04
Speaker 1: Bush for governor. Kneeling down, even a semblance of clear
5:07
Speaker 1: violent crime statistics for the preceding year is daunting, since
5:12
Speaker 1: explanations and specifics are steeped in and even clouded by
5:16
Speaker 1: political rhetoric. For the city of Dallas, it was all
5:21
Speaker 1: a battle of semantics anyway. Although the homicide rate in
5:25
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three was down, it nonetheless remained high at
5:29
Speaker 1: three hundred and seventeen or nearly thirty one homicides per
5:34
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand residents. To be fair, it was something
5:38
Speaker 1: to feel good about, since the city's homicide rate had
5:41
Speaker 1: peaked at five hundred just a couple years before. Still,
5:46
Speaker 1: there was a specific type of homicide or murder more specifically,
5:52
Speaker 1: that had the citizens of Dallas, and particularly parents, in
5:56
Speaker 1: a state of constant paranoia. Children being snatched off the
6:00
Speaker 1: streets and later found slain. There'd been plenty in the
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Speaker 1: city in the previous two decades, but none as widely
6:10
Speaker 1: reported in the Dallas Fort Worth Arlington area as those
6:13
Speaker 1: that began in nineteen ninety three. One such crime in
6:18
Speaker 1: July of that year, in fact, was almost immediately overshadowed
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Speaker 1: by another less than two months later. The kidnapping and
6:27
Speaker 1: killing of eight year old Kem Newhen of Garland, however,
6:32
Speaker 1: arguably began the widespread panic of North Texas parents that
6:36
Speaker 1: was to come. Kem Newen was born on September twenty second,
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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, to parents Sarah and Rudolph or Rudy
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Speaker 1: as he was known to friends and family, who moved
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Speaker 1: to the United States from South Vietnam in nineteen eighty one.
7:15
Speaker 1: With son Michael and daughter Janme upon their arrival in
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Speaker 1: the US with the help of friends. Rudy and Sarah
7:23
Speaker 1: first settled in Hot Springs, Arkansas, but they moved to Garland,
7:27
Speaker 1: Texas a few years after Kim's birth, where they'd found
7:31
Speaker 1: a school that would be best suited for their child's
7:35
Speaker 1: special needs. Kim was autistic, which in the late nineteen
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Speaker 1: eighties and early nineteen nineties was something materially misunderstood. In fact,
7:46
Speaker 1: while some might ring slightly true, descriptions of autism in
7:51
Speaker 1: reports at the time seem uncharacteristic of what is known
7:55
Speaker 1: and understood about it today, to the point that they
7:58
Speaker 1: read as archaic. The following are verbatim. Quote. Autism is
8:05
Speaker 1: characterized by antisocial behavior, a mental disorder involving an inability
8:11
Speaker 1: to express or understand any form of communication. Early characteristics
8:18
Speaker 1: include a resistance to being held or touched, isolation, and
8:22
Speaker 1: an inability to communicate orally or in writing. And Autism
8:27
Speaker 1: is characterized by day dreaming and disregard of external reality
8:34
Speaker 1: end quotes. One doctor observed in his experience that folks
8:38
Speaker 1: with autism both stay close to their nests and don't
8:43
Speaker 1: like communicating with those in their nest. Unless that's a misprint.
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Speaker 1: It's an incredibly strange observation, but is perhaps an attempt
8:52
Speaker 1: to explain why kem no when didn't talk, or perhaps
8:56
Speaker 1: chose not to talk, Contrary to most reports that suggest
9:01
Speaker 1: Kim was unable or completely unwilling to talk at all. However,
9:06
Speaker 1: one Associated Press article quotes the boy's father as saying
9:10
Speaker 1: that he understands English but often refuses to speak with anyone,
9:16
Speaker 1: a description of him that Garland police would echo in
9:20
Speaker 1: further reports. Other subtle clues scattered throughout reports further suggest
9:26
Speaker 1: that the boy chose not to talk, certainly a characteristic
9:31
Speaker 1: of his autism and not a symptom as it was
9:34
Speaker 1: considered at the time. Rudy described his son's usual chosen
9:39
Speaker 1: communication style. When he was hungry, the father told local
9:44
Speaker 1: news reporters, he would take my hand and lead me
9:47
Speaker 1: to the refrigerator to get him something to eat. In
9:52
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, the Nunn family had been living in
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Speaker 1: Garland for five years. Kim, eight years old, was enrolled
10:01
Speaker 1: at Centerville Elementary, where his teacher described him as having
10:05
Speaker 1: the mental capacity of a two year old, which again
10:09
Speaker 1: probably speaks more to the ignorance of autism at the
10:12
Speaker 1: time than it does of Kim's actual mind and abilities,
10:16
Speaker 1: even considering the wide spectrum of characteristics and traits that
10:20
Speaker 1: we now understand to be included. Rudy, the boy's father,
10:26
Speaker 1: most often worked seven days a week, fourteen hours each
10:29
Speaker 1: of them to provide for his family at the clock
10:33
Speaker 1: and watch repair shop he owned, but he enjoyed spending
10:38
Speaker 1: every second he could with his children. Like any other
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Speaker 1: working class family in the United States, the Newen's lives
10:46
Speaker 1: were busy and moving fast. Still, the children were savoring
10:51
Speaker 1: their childhoods, and Kim, in stark contrast to what many
10:56
Speaker 1: reports led on, was a bit of an adventurer and
11:00
Speaker 1: was easily distracted by nearly anything that offered him the
11:04
Speaker 1: opportunity to explore. Some Leading up to the summer of
11:09
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, in fact, the eight year old had
11:12
Speaker 1: wandered off a couple times. Although both instances caused a
11:17
Speaker 1: little panic, Kim was quickly found in each case, once
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Speaker 1: sitting in the Nuen family van and the other time
11:25
Speaker 1: near the stop sign at the end of their street.
11:29
Speaker 1: When it happened for a third time, however, Kim's prolonged
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Speaker 1: disappearance caused panic far outside the Neuen family and ended
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Speaker 1: in unimaginable tragedy. Early in the morning of Sunday, July eighteenth,
11:57
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, eight year old When woke up ready
12:01
Speaker 1: to play, and he didn't have to leave bed to start,
12:05
Speaker 1: since he and twelve year old Michael shared one. Kim
12:09
Speaker 1: began wrestling with his older brother, but after a few minutes,
12:13
Speaker 1: Michael told him he'd had enough and directed him to
12:17
Speaker 1: go watch television. The boy left the bedroom and headed
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Speaker 1: to the TV, after which perhaps he flipped the channels
12:26
Speaker 1: looking for his favorite cartoon, The Pink Panther. Like Kim,
12:31
Speaker 1: the title character moved through his misadventures without speaking, and
12:36
Speaker 1: The Pink Panther's stoicism, grace, and confidence always had him
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Speaker 1: coming out on top, a heroic figure for little and
12:45
Speaker 1: not so little kids the world over. At about seven am,
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Speaker 1: Kim's father, Rudy, made his way to the living room
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Speaker 1: to check in on him, but he wasn't there. Along
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Speaker 1: with his wife Sarah, Rudy began searching the home, a
13:01
Speaker 1: single story brick house on the seven hundred block of
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Speaker 1: Garland's Thornhill Lane. They woke Michael and jan Me up
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Speaker 1: to help. As they neared the end of their initial
13:13
Speaker 1: search the house, followed by the front and backyards, and
13:17
Speaker 1: then their block of Thornhill Lane, Kim's parents began to panic.
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Speaker 1: Sure the little boy had wandered off before, but he'd
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Speaker 1: previously been easy to find. He'd never gone far. After
13:32
Speaker 1: looking for about a half an hour, Rudy Neen phoned
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Speaker 1: the Garland Police Department to report his youngest son missing.
13:41
Speaker 1: He told them Kim was autistic and might refuse to communicate,
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Speaker 1: at least verbally. Police rushed to the Newen home, and
13:50
Speaker 1: with the help of concerned neighbors and the Garland Emergency Corps,
13:54
Speaker 1: a larger scale search began. Walking nearby fields of overgrown grass,
14:01
Speaker 1: sporadic small wooded areas, alongside creeks that had receded as
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Speaker 1: the result of the hot, dry, North Texas summer, and
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Speaker 1: in their own backyards. Volunteers scoured a large perimeter around
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Speaker 1: the Neuen home at the direction of police. The entirety
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Speaker 1: of this diverse, working class neighborhood of Garland had gotten
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Speaker 1: word of eight year old Kim's disappearance fast, and they
14:28
Speaker 1: sprung into action to take care of their own. Some
14:32
Speaker 1: neighbors went door to door. After having quickly put together
14:36
Speaker 1: flyers with Kim's photograph and description, Resident Christy Parrott, battered
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Speaker 1: by the hot Texas sun and drenched in sweat, insisted
14:46
Speaker 1: to a Dallas Morning News reporter that she was in
14:49
Speaker 1: it for the long haul. We walked twenty miles looking
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Speaker 1: for him, she said, I'm going to look for him
14:55
Speaker 1: until they run me off. Next Door neighbors of the
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Speaker 1: Neuen family, Manuel and Anne or Deign, also spent several
15:03
Speaker 1: hours fighting through the ninety seven degree day. After four hours,
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Speaker 1: Manuel said his legs ached, but as a father of
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Speaker 1: two children himself, as well as a friend to the
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Speaker 1: missing boy's family, he understood the neighborhood had to push
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Speaker 1: through their own discomfort and pain to find Kim. Garland police, meanwhile,
15:29
Speaker 1: weren't sure where to concentrate the efforts. Commander Bob Barber
15:34
Speaker 1: said they'd found no evidence or even signs of foul play,
15:39
Speaker 1: and the fact that the eight year old had no
15:42
Speaker 1: real hangouts besides his home rendered an area of focus
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Speaker 1: virtually nonexistent. In other words, the search was a crap shoot.
15:52
Speaker 1: No clues as to kem Newen's whereabouts were found during
15:56
Speaker 1: the first day of search, which ended not long after dark,
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Speaker 1: Garland police commander Barber commented, it's very disturbing that we
16:06
Speaker 1: haven't found him yet. As the search continued the following day, Monday,
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Speaker 1: July nineteenth, nineteen ninety three, neighborhood residents scolded the police
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Speaker 1: for failing to provide the man power and resources necessary
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Speaker 1: to find the missing boy. In all, a couple dozen
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Speaker 1: police officers were assigned to the search efforts and investigation,
16:31
Speaker 1: along with a handful of police Academy trainees. The days
16:35
Speaker 1: were sweltering, and perhaps the merciless Texas sun had the
16:40
Speaker 1: volunteer searchers a little more on edge than usual, which
16:44
Speaker 1: led them to their criticisms of the police response. Or
16:48
Speaker 1: perhaps not less than a month and a half later,
16:52
Speaker 1: when seven year old Ashley Nicole Estelle disappeared from the
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Speaker 1: mostly upper middle class city of Plano with no evidence
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Speaker 1: of foul play, several law enforcement jurisdictions became involved immediately,
17:06
Speaker 1: including FBI agents and thirty five Dallas Police detectives. Garland
17:12
Speaker 1: residents had no way of seeing the future, of course,
17:16
Speaker 1: but in their minds, the cops simply were not pulling
17:19
Speaker 1: out all the stops to find kem Ne when there
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Speaker 1: were far more local volunteers than police, seventy five or so,
17:27
Speaker 1: a few of which came from Afar, some middle and
17:30
Speaker 1: high school aged kids, and many who had called into
17:34
Speaker 1: work to find eight year old Kim. It was one
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Speaker 1: of them who found the first potential clue. That afternoon,
17:43
Speaker 1: three men hurriedly burst into the building that was once
17:46
Speaker 1: a daycare but now served as the makeshift police command post.
17:51
Speaker 1: In the hands of one of them was a children's
17:54
Speaker 1: blue plaid shirt they'd found along a creek bed. The
17:58
Speaker 1: missing boy's parents remained at home during the searches, as
18:02
Speaker 1: per the request of the Garland Police, who rushed to
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Speaker 1: the nowen home two blocks away with the volunteer's discovery.
18:11
Speaker 1: It took seconds to get there, but Rudy Neenn told
18:15
Speaker 1: officers the shirt was not Kim's. Discouraged but certainly not defeated,
18:22
Speaker 1: searchers continued, having looked nearly everywhere in a several block radius,
18:29
Speaker 1: police and volunteers began retracing the previous day's tracks through
18:34
Speaker 1: familiar fields, creeks, woods, culverts, vacant properties, and again around
18:40
Speaker 1: their own homes. Parents in the area were justifiably horrified,
18:46
Speaker 1: not only because Kem Nowen had seemingly vanished without so
18:50
Speaker 1: much as a trace, but also because they feared their
18:54
Speaker 1: children might be next. The neighborhood, where the residential streets
18:59
Speaker 1: were us usually filled with kids playing, was now empty
19:03
Speaker 1: of youth, save those deemed old enough to help in
19:06
Speaker 1: the efforts, or those that defied their parents' orders to
19:10
Speaker 1: stay inside, insisting instead to lend a hand. At five pm,
19:16
Speaker 1: civilian folks were asked to postpone their searching to make
19:20
Speaker 1: way for tracking dogs and an aerial search by helicopter.
19:25
Speaker 1: By the end of the night, there was still no
19:28
Speaker 1: trace of Kem Noen. The next day, Tuesday, July twentieth,
19:34
Speaker 1: a new police command post was set up at a
19:36
Speaker 1: shipping and Receiving service office about two miles away from
19:41
Speaker 1: the Nowen home. That day, at a little before noon,
19:45
Speaker 1: an unidentified resident found a long, blue and brown striped
19:49
Speaker 1: shirt on East Walnut Street, near a Garland power plant facility.
19:55
Speaker 1: When showed to Km's father, he confirmed that it belonged
19:59
Speaker 1: to his son. It was the shirt he slept in
20:02
Speaker 1: that night, the only article of clothing he was thought
20:05
Speaker 1: to have been wearing when he disappeared. There was no
20:09
Speaker 1: blood on the shirt, and it had not been torn,
20:12
Speaker 1: no signs of foul play. Knowing his son, the discovery
20:17
Speaker 1: gave Rudy Neen a glimmer of hope. Kim, the father
20:22
Speaker 1: pointed out, had been known to take off clothing at
20:25
Speaker 1: inappropriate times or in inappropriate situations. Rudy believed there was
20:32
Speaker 1: a good chance his son would be found soon. The
20:36
Speaker 1: Garland Police, on the other hand, were quoted as saying
20:39
Speaker 1: the discovery was an ominous one, something that increased the
20:43
Speaker 1: chances of foul play. To the cops, it felt like
20:48
Speaker 1: the break in the case they needed, though, the clue
20:51
Speaker 1: that would lead them to Kim Newen, especially considering the
20:56
Speaker 1: area was outside the perimeter that had already been searched
21:00
Speaker 1: several times. Now they had an educated guess about where
21:04
Speaker 1: to look. Even if there had been foul play, as
21:09
Speaker 1: the police now strongly suspected, Rudy Nohen needed to know.
21:15
Speaker 1: He refused to open up his clock and watch repair shop,
21:19
Speaker 1: opting instead to stay home and wait for news, any news.
21:24
Speaker 1: Two days before, as he anxiously awaited word from volunteers
21:29
Speaker 1: or police, he told a Dallas Morning News reporter, I'm
21:32
Speaker 1: really worried about him. I hope no one gets him.
21:36
Speaker 1: The next day, when the discovery of Kim's shirt reawakened
21:40
Speaker 1: his optimism, Rudy said, I can't go to work until
21:44
Speaker 1: I've heard something. But it was more than that. The
21:48
Speaker 1: entire Noen family was suffering unimaginably. His other children couldn't
21:54
Speaker 1: sleep without knowing their little brother was okay. Kim's mother, Era,
22:00
Speaker 1: like her missing son, had stopped verbally communicating struck mute.
22:06
Speaker 1: Her husband said by the fear she felt for her
22:09
Speaker 1: missing child, no matter if he's dead or alive, the
22:14
Speaker 1: boy's father said, seemingly slipping back into a dark place,
22:19
Speaker 1: I have to know where my son is. At the
22:35
Speaker 1: time kem Newnd's shirt was found, many volunteers were seeing red,
22:40
Speaker 1: angry that it was only them and not police searching,
22:45
Speaker 1: but Garland Police spokesperson Officer Larry Rollins confidently backed the
22:50
Speaker 1: department's decision. The volunteers, Rollins said, were continuing to search
22:57
Speaker 1: the same areas that had already been looked over closely.
23:01
Speaker 1: They were as sure as they could possibly be. The
23:04
Speaker 1: officer said of his department that Kim was not in
23:08
Speaker 1: that area. Locals and some from out of town, but
23:13
Speaker 1: by and large folks who resided in the Nuennes neighborhood
23:17
Speaker 1: had every right to be frustrated. It's unknown if any
23:21
Speaker 1: of the civilians watched or read enough true crime to
23:25
Speaker 1: know that bodies of missing people are commonly found in
23:28
Speaker 1: areas that were thought to have been thoroughly searched. But
23:32
Speaker 1: one thing was clear to them. It looked like the
23:36
Speaker 1: cops had given up before the discovery of Kim's shirt.
23:40
Speaker 1: In fact, many of the volunteers had as well. The
23:44
Speaker 1: group consisted of up to forty that Tuesday morning and afternoon,
23:49
Speaker 1: a considerable drop from the seventy five folks who came
23:53
Speaker 1: out Monday. Many of the remaining searchers were recognized by
23:58
Speaker 1: the reporters who continued to pick up the beat and
24:01
Speaker 1: who had previously taken quotes from some of them. After
24:06
Speaker 1: the discovery, however, and as a search of the perimeter
24:09
Speaker 1: around the power and light generating facility immediately got under way,
24:14
Speaker 1: with hope seemingly renewed, one hundred or so volunteers showed
24:19
Speaker 1: up to comb the area for more clues, or, better still,
24:23
Speaker 1: for the missing child himself. Perhaps scared and hungry but
24:27
Speaker 1: hopefully alive, they marched on at the active direction of
24:32
Speaker 1: the Garland Police. At the end of the day, hopes
24:37
Speaker 1: were dashed again when the massive search turned up absolutely
24:41
Speaker 1: no other clues suggesting what might have happened to Kim.
24:47
Speaker 1: On the fourth day of the search for eight year
24:50
Speaker 1: old kem Newhen, Wednesday, July twenty first, nineteen ninety three,
24:55
Speaker 1: the FBI finally entered the investigation, as they almost always do,
25:01
Speaker 1: likely to justify coming in to help local and state jurisdictions,
25:06
Speaker 1: since the bureau is charged with handling federal and interstate crimes.
25:11
Speaker 1: FBI agents told reporters they had developed leads out of state.
25:16
Speaker 1: Rudy Newenn worried the FBI's involvement meant that Kim had
25:20
Speaker 1: indeed been kidnapped. He hoped his son wasn't dead, but
25:25
Speaker 1: that hope had been shaved to a sliver upon FBI
25:29
Speaker 1: agents reporting that they were working the case as a
25:32
Speaker 1: presumed abduction. I lost my hope when I heard that
25:36
Speaker 1: they think my son is not here anymore. Constantly on edge,
25:41
Speaker 1: everything Rudy did, no matter how routine, brought his son's
25:46
Speaker 1: possible death to the forefront of his mind. There was
25:50
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing that took his thoughts off of his missing son,
25:54
Speaker 1: not even for a second. He told the Dallas Morning
25:58
Speaker 1: News that when he sat to eat, he thought about
26:01
Speaker 1: Kim out there not eating, and pushed his own food aside.
26:06
Speaker 1: Rudy felt like he was going crazy. The phone would
26:10
Speaker 1: ring and he'd grab for his beeper as his brain misfired.
26:15
Speaker 1: I found him, his daughter's friend, yelled out. Rudy turned
26:19
Speaker 1: around quickly to see his son, but it was a
26:22
Speaker 1: pair of scissors the girl had found. She'd been looking
26:25
Speaker 1: for them for a while. Keim ne Wen's mother, Sarah,
26:29
Speaker 1: continued in silence, only breaking it to weep or scream inconsolably.
26:36
Speaker 1: Rudy was keeping his wife away from the home, away
26:39
Speaker 1: from their son's things, the constant reminders that every second
26:43
Speaker 1: he was gone, the less likely the chances were he'd
26:47
Speaker 1: be found alive. He made sure the couple's other children,
26:52
Speaker 1: Janmy and Michael, were always busy with friends or in activity.
26:57
Speaker 1: If they stopped for even a minute, Rudy told the
26:59
Speaker 1: Deathla Morning News, they'd begin to ask questions and cry.
27:05
Speaker 1: They knew. He added that something was terribly wrong. Still,
27:10
Speaker 1: he was grateful for the outpouring of support from the community.
27:14
Speaker 1: Both neighbors and strangers. Rudy wanted that message known and clear.
27:21
Speaker 1: It's not enough to say thank you after this is over.
27:25
Speaker 1: No matter what happens, I will have to do something
27:28
Speaker 1: good for these people and for this country. But the
27:32
Speaker 1: father now refused to continue to stay home as the
27:35
Speaker 1: Garland police had requested. After a photograph of his son
27:39
Speaker 1: was shown on the news that Wednesday, Rudy began weeping
27:43
Speaker 1: and said he could no longer stay behind. He had
27:47
Speaker 1: to help find his son. On Thursday, July twenty second,
27:53
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, when eight year old Kemnwhen had been
27:57
Speaker 1: gone five days, the number of search volunteers increased tremendously
28:02
Speaker 1: to around two hundred and fifty. The Texas heat wouldn't relent,
28:07
Speaker 1: but neither would the volunteers. As area residents, neighbors and
28:13
Speaker 1: parents of kem Newen's schoolmates delivered food, including Kim's favorite
28:19
Speaker 1: pineapple cake. Their moral support was keeping the Neuenn family
28:23
Speaker 1: from turning to their darkest thoughts. Nancy and Roger Thompson
28:28
Speaker 1: had brought them food every day since the boy disappeared,
28:32
Speaker 1: but that was hardly all they did. The couple had
28:36
Speaker 1: handed out over three thousand Missing Persons flyers featuring Kim's
28:40
Speaker 1: photo and description, and it also began making T shirts
28:44
Speaker 1: and buttons. Meanwhile, Special Agent Marjorie Posche said the FBI
28:50
Speaker 1: was pursuing an out of state lead they had discovered.
28:54
Speaker 1: The Garland police, however, continually probed the missing boy's father, Rudy,
29:00
Speaker 1: specifically asking if he had any enemies. He had none,
29:06
Speaker 1: Rudy told them, and although he'd long grown tired of
29:09
Speaker 1: the question, it was hard to blame the cops for
29:12
Speaker 1: constantly asking, after all, they had nothing else to go on.
29:18
Speaker 1: In fact, they continued to hesitate to label the case
29:22
Speaker 1: as anything other than a missing person due to the
29:25
Speaker 1: lack of evidence of foul play. Dallas lawyer Joe Bellino,
29:31
Speaker 1: who often represented the area's Vietnamese families, touched the Nun
29:36
Speaker 1: family when he came forward with a five thousand dollars
29:39
Speaker 1: reward sure Kim had been kidnapped. Billino insisted the reward
29:45
Speaker 1: was unconditional. The boy being found was the only requirement
29:49
Speaker 1: to collect the money. Search efforts continued the next day.
29:56
Speaker 1: Nineteen year old Jason Lafon, a local repoman, took off
30:01
Speaker 1: work on Friday, the twenty third, repossessing cars wasn't the
30:06
Speaker 1: only potentially dangerous work he was willing to do. As
30:10
Speaker 1: a searcher, he would do things others would not, such
30:14
Speaker 1: as crawling into manholes, silos, drainage pipes, and small culverts,
30:20
Speaker 1: any nook or cranny. Others worked their day jobs, some
30:26
Speaker 1: incredibly grueling in their own right, and came out to
30:29
Speaker 1: search all evening and into the night on foot, horseback, bicycles,
30:35
Speaker 1: and in vehicles. The Red Cross had also set up
30:39
Speaker 1: shop in Garland, providing food and drink for the heat
30:43
Speaker 1: exhausted searchers. Volunteers had even restored other volunteers faith in humanity,
30:50
Speaker 1: as indicated by quotes in the newspaper, but it was
30:54
Speaker 1: the hope they gave the Nuen family, like their efforts
30:59
Speaker 1: that was most vas Some commented that they believed Kim
31:03
Speaker 1: was still alive, likely being held in someone's house nearby.
31:09
Speaker 1: It was only a matter of time, they thought, before
31:12
Speaker 1: they'd come across the kidnapper. Civilians helped officers keep the
31:17
Speaker 1: efforts organized at the police command center, and the relationship
31:22
Speaker 1: between the two groups was mending as they worked together
31:25
Speaker 1: toward the common goal of finding the boy. Garland policeman
31:31
Speaker 1: Steve Frasier commented that officers and detectives were chasing every
31:36
Speaker 1: single lead brought to them by volunteers, while policewoman Lena
31:40
Speaker 1: Kirkhelm credited them with taking on a majority of the work,
31:45
Speaker 1: which was much appreciated for the overworked department. No one
31:50
Speaker 1: was even thinking about giving up. It would be several
31:54
Speaker 1: more days until another discovery ended the search efforts. Even
32:00
Speaker 1: after that, the Garland Police struggle to find the missing
32:03
Speaker 1: pieces they needed to solve the case. That's next time
32:08
Speaker 1: on Gone Cold. If you have any information about the
32:13
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three kidnapping and murder of eight year old
32:16
Speaker 1: kem Newen, please call the Garland Police at ninety seven
32:20
Speaker 1: to two four eight five four eight for zero if
32:27
Speaker 1: you have not already, look for Gone Cold on Instagram,
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Speaker 1: Facebook and Twitter by searching Gone Cold and looking for
32:34
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Speaker 1: you who support us there. It's a huge deal to us.
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33:06
Speaker 1: The more folks who find us and listen, the greater
33:09
Speaker 1: chance someone with information about a case here's the show
33:13
Speaker 1: and comes forward with what they know. Every little bit helps,
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Speaker 1: give it. Sources for this episode can be found in
33:25
Speaker 1: the episode's show notes. Thanks for listening, y'all.