Latest / Crime and Horror / New York couple’s crazy secret life led to murder - MrBallen

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New York couple’s crazy secret life led to murder - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: Today's story is about a murder from two thousand and
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Speaker 1: three in Rochester, New York. Now, at first, when you
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Speaker 1: listen to the story, it's going to sound like a
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Speaker 1: sort of run of the mill murder case, if there
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Speaker 1: is such a thing, but it's not. When you get
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Speaker 1: to the end of the episode, we're going to reveal
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Speaker 1: one piece of information that you didn't have that not
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Speaker 1: only will inform why anything happened in the story, it'll
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Speaker 1: completely explain that, but more than that, it will totally
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Speaker 1: alter your perspective of what you thought was happening when
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Speaker 1: you first listen to the story. I'm sure a lot
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Speaker 1: of you, once you reach the end, may consider listening
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Speaker 1: to this story all over again.
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Speaker 2: But before we get into.
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Speaker 1: Today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark
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Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into today's story. On the morning of Sunday,
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Speaker 1: July thirteenth, two thousand and three, twenty six year old
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Speaker 1: Tabitha Bryant walked through the front door of her big
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Speaker 1: white house in Penfield, New York, which was an upper
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Speaker 1: middle class suburb of Rochester. Her husband, Kevin, and their
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Speaker 1: two young sons followed her inside, and they were all
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Speaker 1: dressed in their Sunday best because they had just come
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Speaker 1: back from church. However, on this morning, Tabitha sort of
1:52
Speaker 1: felt like a fraud because she knew she was not
1:54
Speaker 1: really living a Christian lifestyle. So Tabitha was actually having
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Speaker 1: an affair with a guy named Keith, and her husband, Kevin,
2:02
Speaker 1: who was forty five and nearly twenty years her senior,
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Speaker 1: he had recently found out about it and confronted her
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Speaker 1: about it. Tabitha, during this confrontation, had promised Kevin that
2:12
Speaker 1: she would end the affair, and then she and Kevin
2:15
Speaker 1: had agreed that they really needed to work on their
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Speaker 1: marriage together.
2:18
Speaker 2: But despite sort.
2:20
Speaker 1: Of coming to a kind of resolution, it was very
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Speaker 1: obvious that Kevin was still very mad at her, and
2:26
Speaker 1: so Tabitha had been sleeping on the pullout couch in
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Speaker 1: the den ever since. Now, Tabitha watched as Kevin grabbed
2:33
Speaker 1: his briefcase off the kitchen counter. He kissed their two
2:36
Speaker 1: boys goodbye, and then he walked back out to his car.
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Speaker 1: Tabitha was used to him disappearing to the office on
2:41
Speaker 1: the weekends. Kevin was a lawyer and he worked basically
2:44
Speaker 1: all the time. And you know, they did depend on
2:47
Speaker 1: his salary, his big salary, to pay their mortgage and
2:51
Speaker 1: also finance their expensive lifestyle with vacations and lots of
2:54
Speaker 1: nights out. Now, despite Kevin's salary being so sizable, they
2:59
Speaker 1: had for a while tried to supplement his income by
3:02
Speaker 1: renting out a bedroom in their house to Tabitha's half brother,
3:06
Speaker 1: Cyril Winebrenner and his girlfriend Cassidy Green. However, that arrangement,
3:11
Speaker 1: despite it being profitable for the couple, had ultimately soured
3:15
Speaker 1: when Cyril, the half brother, had begun using drugs inside
3:19
Speaker 1: of the house, and so Cyril and Cassidy had moved
3:22
Speaker 1: out two months earlier. But despite you know, the terms
3:26
Speaker 1: on which they left the group. You know, Cyril Cassidy Tabitha, Kevin,
3:31
Speaker 1: you know, their family. They remain friends and they would
3:33
Speaker 1: still actually spend time together on the weekends. It was
3:35
Speaker 1: just they were not able to live together now. Tabitha,
3:38
Speaker 1: she did like having that extra money coming in, but
3:41
Speaker 1: the truth was having her whole house back to herself
3:44
Speaker 1: was ultimately a good thing. Like she felt relieved in
3:46
Speaker 1: some ways, but also there was a part of her
3:49
Speaker 1: that sort of missed having you know, her half brother
3:51
Speaker 1: and Cassidy around, especially when Kevin was gone all the
3:55
Speaker 1: time working like she.
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Speaker 2: Just felt lonely.
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Speaker 1: And also on top of just being lonely, I mean,
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Speaker 1: Tabitha often was the one saddled with childcare. You know,
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Speaker 1: they had a toddler and a five year old, and
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Speaker 1: you know, she was just sort of taking care of
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Speaker 1: kids all the time or sort of isolated.
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Speaker 2: It was just exhausting.
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Speaker 1: And now as she watched Kevin back his.
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Speaker 2: Car out of the driveway, she could tell today.
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Speaker 1: Was going to be another long, exhausting, lonely day. That night,
4:21
Speaker 1: around nine pm, Tabitha was fast asleep on Kevin's bed
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Speaker 1: with one of their sons when she felt somebody shaking
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Speaker 1: her and when she opened her eyes and looked up,
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Speaker 1: she saw Kevin standing right over her, and he leaned
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Speaker 1: down and he whispered to her that it was very
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Speaker 1: late and that Tabitha should go to her bed out
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Speaker 1: on the pullout couch, and then he picked up their
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Speaker 1: sleeping son and carried him off to the boy's bedroom
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Speaker 1: without waiting for a response from Tabitha.
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Speaker 2: As Tabitha got out of bed, she thought about.
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Speaker 1: Just staying put and insisting on sleeping in the master
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Speaker 1: bedroom that night, but you know, their kids were already asleep,
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Speaker 1: and she also didn't want to risk getting into a
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Speaker 1: fight with Kevin, especially at this hour, and wake everyone up,
5:01
Speaker 1: And so ultimately she decided against it and just left
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Speaker 1: the bedroom and headed downstairs to the den. And then
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Speaker 1: when she got there, Tabitha unfolded the pullout couch and
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Speaker 1: lay down and she tried to fall asleep, but after
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Speaker 1: tossing and turning for a while, she just pulled out
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Speaker 1: her phone and she pulled up the number for Keith,
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Speaker 1: the guy she'd been having an affair with. As she
5:22
Speaker 1: did this, she reminded herself that she had promised to
5:25
Speaker 1: end things with Keith. She was also feeling sort of
5:28
Speaker 1: desperate for someone to talk to and Kevin was clearly
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Speaker 1: very intentionally shutting her out. So after a moment, Tabitha
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Speaker 1: hit the call button. Later that same night, around midnight,
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Speaker 1: nine to one to one operator Jacqueline Sinnabria had just
5:47
Speaker 1: started her shift at the Monroe County Sheriff's office when
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Speaker 1: a call came in. Jacqueline answered it, and immediately this
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Speaker 1: man's voice came over the line saying his wife had
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Speaker 1: just been shot, and so right away Jacqueline followed protocol
6:00
Speaker 1: and as calm as she could, she asked the man
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Speaker 1: had he attempted CPR and the man, in this eerily
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Speaker 1: calm voice, said no, he hadn't, and the reason he
6:11
Speaker 1: gave was there was simply too much blood. At one
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Speaker 1: forty five am on July fourteenth, two thousand and three,
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Speaker 1: so about two hours after that nine to one one call,
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Speaker 1: Sergeant Paul Sienna of the Monroe County Sheriff's Department pulled
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Speaker 1: up in front of a large white house with black
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Speaker 1: shutters and an attached garage. There were a bunch of
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Speaker 1: police cruisers and forensics fans that were already on the scene,
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Speaker 1: and Sienna could see neighbors who were kind of coming
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Speaker 1: outside watching from their lawns and driveways, trying to figure
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Speaker 1: out what was going on. Sienna had been very surprised
6:42
Speaker 1: when he had gotten the call from dispatch about a
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Speaker 1: murder in Penfield because Penfield was a really nice, safe area.
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Speaker 1: In fact, there had not been a single murder there
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Speaker 1: in more than forty years now. He climbed out of
6:56
Speaker 1: his car and walked over to the front lawn where
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Speaker 1: three deputy were interviewing this middle aged man who looked
7:02
Speaker 1: like he might have just gotten out of bed. One
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Speaker 1: of the deputies saw Sergeant Sienna, and so he ran
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Speaker 1: over to him and began to brief him on what
7:09
Speaker 1: they knew. He explained to Sienna that the man they
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Speaker 1: were speaking to was Kevin Bryant. He was the man
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Speaker 1: who had called nine to one one, and he was
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Speaker 1: the husband of the victim, Tabitha Bryant. The deputy said
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Speaker 1: that Tabitha and Kevin's two young sons had been inside
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Speaker 1: the house at the time of the shooting. Their grandparents
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Speaker 1: had picked them up a few minutes ago. The house
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Speaker 1: itself had already been searched and there were no signs
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Speaker 1: of forced entry, but it was not hard to guess
7:35
Speaker 1: how the killer or killers got inside, the garage door
7:38
Speaker 1: had been left open, and then the door between the
7:41
Speaker 1: inside of the garage and the inside of the house
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Speaker 1: had been left unlocked, so basically, anybody off the street
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Speaker 1: could have just waltzed into the house. Now, Sienna knew
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Speaker 1: that in nice, safe neighborhoods like Penfield, it was not
7:54
Speaker 1: unusual for people.
7:55
Speaker 2: To leave their doors and garage doors.
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Speaker 1: Unlocked or even open. But at the same time, you know,
8:01
Speaker 1: he did think it was a little unusual that it
8:03
Speaker 1: just so happened that on the night of the shooting,
8:06
Speaker 1: you know, the house was unsecured, so he wasn't really
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Speaker 1: sure what to make of that. At this point, Sienna
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Speaker 1: glanced over at the husband, Kevin, and he saw Kevin
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Speaker 1: suddenly bend over and start dry heaping. Now, Sienna definitely
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Speaker 1: wanted to talk to Kevin, but really he needed to
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Speaker 1: check out the crime scene first, and also considering how
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Speaker 1: you know, Kevin did not appear to be ready to
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Speaker 1: talk right now, he figured he should just go inside
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Speaker 1: and have a look around.
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Speaker 2: So he ducked under the police tape.
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Speaker 1: That was roping off the garage and he made his
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Speaker 1: way inside. Once inside the house, Sienna passed the kitchen
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Speaker 1: and also a playroom, and they looked relatively normal, and
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Speaker 1: then he got to the den, and there was nothing
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Speaker 1: normal about the den. There was blood everywhere, on the walls,
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Speaker 1: the floor, the ceiling, and there were all these forensic
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Speaker 1: technicians that were inside of the den furiously swabbing all
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Speaker 1: over the room, trying to take samples of all this
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Speaker 1: blood and also trying to photograph the entire scene. And
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Speaker 1: in the middle of all this chaos happening in the den,
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Speaker 1: Sienna saw the victim, Tabitha Bryant. She was laying on
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Speaker 1: the pullout couch bed. As Sienna walked over to the
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Speaker 1: body to get a closer look, right away he saw
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Speaker 1: this was not just a shooting, because Tabitha had, you know,
9:17
Speaker 1: more than a dozen stab wounds to her chest and
9:20
Speaker 1: her neck, and then also right below her right eye
9:23
Speaker 1: there was this small, clean hole that Sienna recognized as
9:26
Speaker 1: a gunshot wound. This was an excessive amount of violence,
9:30
Speaker 1: and it made Sienna think that this could have been
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Speaker 1: a crime of passion. And the fact that Tabitha clearly
9:36
Speaker 1: had been sleeping on the pullout couch in the den
9:39
Speaker 1: instead of in bed with her husband made Tabitha's husband,
9:43
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10:04
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10:07
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10:11
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11:03
Speaker 1: am on July fourteenth, two thousand and three, So about
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Speaker 1: nine hours after Tabitha Bryant was killed, Sergeant Paul Sienna
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Speaker 1: sat across from her husband Kevin, at a diner in Rochester,
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Speaker 1: New York. Now, normally Sienna would conduct interviews like this
11:18
Speaker 1: at the Sheriff's office, but he was starving after spending
11:22
Speaker 1: all night on his feet at the crime scene. And
11:24
Speaker 1: he also hoped that, you know, this informal setting would
11:26
Speaker 1: hopefully get Kevin to be a bit more talkative. So
11:29
Speaker 1: Sienna was suspicious of Kevin one because he was the
11:33
Speaker 1: husband of the victim, and right away in murder cases,
11:37
Speaker 1: you know, spouses are regarded as early suspects. And then
11:40
Speaker 1: also just this unusually violent murder. I mean, the murder
11:44
Speaker 1: itself was rare in a town like this, but it
11:47
Speaker 1: was just so violent, so much gore and blood. It
11:51
Speaker 1: just sort of screamed, this is a personal attack, this
11:54
Speaker 1: is a crime of passion, again making Kevin seem sort
11:58
Speaker 1: of suspicious here. However, the physical evidence made it look
12:02
Speaker 1: like Kevin actually could not have done it. He didn't
12:05
Speaker 1: have any blood or defensive injuries on him, which would
12:08
Speaker 1: make sense if he was the killer. I mean, given
12:10
Speaker 1: how much blood was at the scene, there should be.
12:12
Speaker 2: Some on him. And Sienna had checked these sinks and.
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Speaker 1: Showers at the house to see if maybe Kevin had
12:18
Speaker 1: had gotten blood on himself, but cleaned himself up before
12:21
Speaker 1: police arrived, but there was no sign that there had
12:24
Speaker 1: been blood in the drains. Plus, the police had spent
12:26
Speaker 1: all night searching the house for murder weapons a gun
12:29
Speaker 1: and maybe a knife, and so far they hadn't found anything. Still,
12:33
Speaker 1: though Sienna was not ready to outright dismiss Kevin as
12:37
Speaker 1: a suspect, and he was looking for any holes in
12:39
Speaker 1: Kevin's story at this point, as Kevin had already explained
12:43
Speaker 1: multiple times by this point. He said he had come
12:45
Speaker 1: home from work around nine pm the night before. He
12:48
Speaker 1: said he took the trash out and then he went
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Speaker 1: right up to his bedroom to read while Tabitha was
12:54
Speaker 1: asleep on the pullout couch downstairs. But at around eleven
12:57
Speaker 1: thirty pm, Kevin said he'd gotten a very strange phone call.
13:01
Speaker 1: He had answered and it was a woman and she
13:04
Speaker 1: had said hello, But then it was silent, and there
13:07
Speaker 1: was just static on the line. Kevin eventually had just
13:10
Speaker 1: hung up and said he thought it was just a
13:11
Speaker 1: wrong number.
13:13
Speaker 2: But then he.
13:13
Speaker 1: Said a little while later, just before midnight, he'd heard
13:16
Speaker 1: gunshots and screams. Kevin said at that point he got
13:20
Speaker 1: up and he ran to his kid's bedrooms first to
13:22
Speaker 1: make sure they were safe, and when he saw they were,
13:25
Speaker 1: then he went downstairs and he found Tabitha dead in
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Speaker 1: the den. And so now Sienna, sitting across from Kevin
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Speaker 1: in their booth, he asked him, you know, do you
13:35
Speaker 1: have any idea who could have done this? And Kevin
13:38
Speaker 1: he paused for a moment, and then when he spoke,
13:41
Speaker 1: his voice cracked and he actually began to cry as
13:44
Speaker 1: he sort of choked out that his wife's death was
13:47
Speaker 1: his fault. Now, at first Sienna thought, oh, my goodness,
13:51
Speaker 1: is this guy about to confess did he kill her?
13:53
Speaker 1: Is he going to tell me that? But when he
13:55
Speaker 1: pressed Kevin to continue, like what do you mean by that,
13:58
Speaker 1: Kevin very tearfully would say that, you know, he thought
14:00
Speaker 1: he maybe was the one who had left the garage
14:03
Speaker 1: open when he had taken out the trash, and he
14:05
Speaker 1: suspected that that must have been how the killer or
14:08
Speaker 1: killers got inside. And then, sort of oddly, Kevin continued
14:13
Speaker 1: and basically began to lay out this, this whole theory
14:16
Speaker 1: for what might have happened that night, sort of unprompted.
14:19
Speaker 1: He's just he's giving his opinion. Kevin said, as he
14:22
Speaker 1: saw it, a burglar must have driven by, saw their
14:25
Speaker 1: garage was open, and decided to rob the house. However,
14:29
Speaker 1: he said, when they went inside the house to rob it,
14:32
Speaker 1: they must have been caught off guard when they saw
14:34
Speaker 1: Tabitha in the den, and she must have woken up,
14:37
Speaker 1: and there must have been some sort of confrontation and
14:40
Speaker 1: the burglar or burglars must have panicked and killed her
14:43
Speaker 1: and then fled without even robbing the place.
14:45
Speaker 2: Like that's probably what happened.
14:47
Speaker 1: And Sergeant Sienna did not give off how he felt about,
14:50
Speaker 1: you know, what Kevin was doing and what he was saying.
14:52
Speaker 1: He just sort of nodded thoughtfully, like he was considering
14:55
Speaker 1: his theory. However, in reality, Sienna had already considered the
14:59
Speaker 1: possibility of this being a burglary gone wrong, but the
15:03
Speaker 1: way Tabitha had actually been killed just felt way too
15:07
Speaker 1: personal to chalk it up to a random intruder, and also,
15:11
Speaker 1: you know, again, nothing from the house had been stolen,
15:14
Speaker 1: So what Sienna really wanted to know from Kevin was
15:17
Speaker 1: why was Tabitha sleeping on the couch and not up
15:21
Speaker 1: with you? And to Sienna's surprise, Kevin was actually really
15:25
Speaker 1: open about these problems in their marriage. He explained that
15:29
Speaker 1: Tabitha was young, you know, twenty years younger than he was,
15:32
Speaker 1: and she wanted to go to clubs and see friends
15:35
Speaker 1: every night of the week, while he was usually too
15:38
Speaker 1: busy and too tired for doing that kind of stuff,
15:41
Speaker 1: so she would do it alone. Kevin said that once
15:44
Speaker 1: he'd realized his marriage was actually in trouble because of
15:47
Speaker 1: this dynamic, he said he'd put a lot of effort
15:49
Speaker 1: in to try to fix it by taking Tabitha out
15:52
Speaker 1: more often, and he'd thought things were basically back on
15:55
Speaker 1: track until a few months ago, when he'd found.
15:58
Speaker 2: Out that she was actually having an affair.
16:00
Speaker 1: He said he'd drawn up divorce papers and then on
16:02
Speaker 1: the verge of filing them, but Tabitha had ultimately promised
16:06
Speaker 1: that she would break off the affair, so he had
16:08
Speaker 1: decided to give her one more chance as Kevin said this,
16:12
Speaker 1: Sienna watched him very closely, trying to gauge whether or
16:15
Speaker 1: not Kevin was lying. Kevin definitely seemed nervous as he
16:19
Speaker 1: was speaking, and he also kept tapping his foot and
16:21
Speaker 1: running his fingers through his hair, but there was a
16:24
Speaker 1: chance that was also just exhaustion and maybe some shock,
16:27
Speaker 1: you know, lingering shock. Sienna checked his watch and saw
16:30
Speaker 1: it was almost nine o'clock, and he knew Kevin by
16:33
Speaker 1: this point had been awake for about twenty four hours.
16:35
Speaker 2: But Sienna didn't want to just let him.
16:37
Speaker 1: Off the hook right now, because if Kevin was guilty,
16:40
Speaker 1: if he really did kill his wife or had something
16:43
Speaker 1: to do with it, Sienna knew he might never get
16:46
Speaker 1: a better shot at a confession than right now. So
16:49
Speaker 1: he decided he would just push Kevin to his breaking
16:52
Speaker 1: point and see if he'd crack. Eight hours later, around
16:58
Speaker 1: four pm, Sienna stared at Kevin from across an interview
17:01
Speaker 1: room at the Monroe County Sheriff's office in downtown Rochester.
17:05
Speaker 1: Kevin was sort of slumped in his chair with his
17:07
Speaker 1: head buried in his hands, and he kept complaining about migraines. Now,
17:11
Speaker 1: Sienna was not surprised that Kevin might be feeling worn
17:14
Speaker 1: out right about now, because he'd been answering questions for
17:17
Speaker 1: the last seventeen hours and they'd covered everything from the
17:21
Speaker 1: details of Kevin and Tapitha's relationship to their extended families,
17:26
Speaker 1: including the fact that Tabitha's half brother Cyril, had lived
17:29
Speaker 1: with them for a few months earlier in the year
17:31
Speaker 1: and it had sort of ended badly. And by this
17:33
Speaker 1: point Kevin had made it clear that he actually thought
17:36
Speaker 1: Keith Cromwell, the guy Tabitha had been cheating on him with,
17:39
Speaker 1: should be a suspect, and Sienna had to agree. However,
17:43
Speaker 1: what Sienna couldn't get over right now was just how
17:46
Speaker 1: angry Kevin sounded whenever he mentioned Keith. I mean, he
17:50
Speaker 1: was truly enraged. He clearly was not remotely over his
17:55
Speaker 1: wife's affair. And so now Siena was trying to gauge
17:58
Speaker 1: if maybe maybe y Vin was angry enough about this
18:02
Speaker 1: to have committed murder, and so Sienna decided he would
18:05
Speaker 1: push Kevin a little bit further and extend the interview,
18:08
Speaker 1: and he did this by suggesting that they go ahead
18:11
Speaker 1: and order dinner.
18:12
Speaker 2: And at that point, Kevin, who was totally mad.
18:15
Speaker 1: He jumped ab out of his chair and he said
18:16
Speaker 1: that unless he was under arrest, he needed to go
18:19
Speaker 1: back to his kids. And Sienna did not have the
18:22
Speaker 1: evidence to hold Kevin, so he had no choice but
18:25
Speaker 1: to tell him that.
18:26
Speaker 2: Of course he was free to leave.
18:28
Speaker 1: And as Sienna watched a deputy escort Kevin out of
18:31
Speaker 1: the room, he felt a little disappointed that he had
18:34
Speaker 1: not managed to get a confession, but he had gotten
18:37
Speaker 1: some pretty promising leads. Primarily, there was Tabitha's half brother Cyril,
18:42
Speaker 1: who definitely sounded like he knew a lot about Kevin
18:45
Speaker 1: and Tabitha's relationship and he could have some good insights.
18:49
Speaker 1: And also, Sienna was thinking as soon as possible he
18:52
Speaker 1: needed to speak to Keith, who was Tapitha's a fair partner.
18:56
Speaker 1: At ten am the next morning, Sergeant Sienna sat across
18:59
Speaker 1: from a broad shouldered, bald, middle aged man in the
19:02
Speaker 1: living room of a small house outside of Rochester.
19:05
Speaker 2: This was Keith.
19:06
Speaker 1: Cromwell, the man that Tabitha had been having an affair with,
19:09
Speaker 1: and he struck Sienna as being a pretty tough, intense guy.
19:13
Speaker 1: So Sienna was actually a bit taken aback when he
19:16
Speaker 1: asked Keith about his affair with Tabitha, and Keith just
19:19
Speaker 1: began to cry. It just seems sort of uncharacteristic for
19:23
Speaker 1: the way he appeared, you know, at least at first glance.
19:25
Speaker 1: But Keith quickly wiped his eyes and he apologized, and
19:28
Speaker 1: then he asked what exactly Sienna wanted to know, and
19:32
Speaker 1: Sienna told him to just, you know, start at the beginning.
19:34
Speaker 1: So Keith explained that he was a machine operator at
19:37
Speaker 1: a local factory and it was a really stressful job.
19:41
Speaker 1: So Keith would sometimes blow off steam by going to
19:44
Speaker 1: a nearby strip club, and it was at that strip club,
19:47
Speaker 1: about six months earlier, that he had met Tabitha Bryant.
19:51
Speaker 1: And this really caught Sienna off guard, and he immediately
19:54
Speaker 1: asked Keith, like, what was Tabitha doing there at the
19:56
Speaker 1: strip club? But Keith just shrugged and said Tabitha had
19:59
Speaker 1: a wild side, she was a regular there. Sienna was
20:02
Speaker 1: still sort of taken it back by this and really
20:05
Speaker 1: didn't know what to think of it, but he just
20:07
Speaker 1: told Keith to keep telling his story, and so Keith continued,
20:10
Speaker 1: and he explained how he and Tabitha had exchanged numbers
20:13
Speaker 1: that first night and then started texting and calling, and
20:17
Speaker 1: how that eventually turned into regular meetups when Kevin was
20:21
Speaker 1: at work. He said, by July they were hanging out
20:24
Speaker 1: several times a week and speaking on the phone basically
20:26
Speaker 1: every day, and Keith said this continued right up until
20:30
Speaker 1: Tabitha's death. And here Sienna had to stop Keith again
20:34
Speaker 1: because Kevin had told Sienna that Tabitha and Keith their
20:38
Speaker 1: affair was over, but here Keith was basically telling Sienna
20:43
Speaker 1: the opposite, and so when Sienna pressed him on it,
20:47
Speaker 1: Keith said that actually Tabitha had called him around eleven
20:51
Speaker 1: pm on Sunday night, only about an hour before she
20:54
Speaker 1: was killed. And so this timing just felt like way
20:57
Speaker 1: too big of a coincidence, and it made siena way
21:00
Speaker 1: if Keith was actually just trying to give himself an alibi,
21:03
Speaker 1: except it was not a very good one, because Keith
21:06
Speaker 1: lived close enough to Tabitha and Kevin that after that
21:09
Speaker 1: last phone call at about eleven o'clock he would.
21:12
Speaker 2: Have had time to hang up the phone and.
21:15
Speaker 1: Drive over to their house and commit the murder by midnight,
21:18
Speaker 1: So this really wasn't an alibi. So now Sienna realized
21:23
Speaker 1: he was in a tough spot here. Tabitha's affair really
21:25
Speaker 1: gave both Kevin and Keith strong motives to want to
21:29
Speaker 1: kill her, and so basically neither man could be ruled out.
21:32
Speaker 1: They were kind of like equally primary suspects at this point.
21:36
Speaker 1: And on top of that, the additional information that Tabitha
21:40
Speaker 1: had been a regular at a strip club just raised
21:43
Speaker 1: a lot of additional questions.
21:45
Speaker 2: He realized he really needed to.
21:46
Speaker 1: Speak to someone who really knew Tabitha. Five days later,
21:58
Speaker 1: on July nineteenth to z thousand and three, Sergeant Sienna
22:01
Speaker 1: stood inside of a cemetery at the back of a
22:04
Speaker 1: group of mourners and watched as Tabitha Bryan's casket was
22:07
Speaker 1: lowered into the ground. Sienna had come to Tabitha's funeral
22:10
Speaker 1: not only to pay his respects, but also because he
22:13
Speaker 1: was looking for her half brother, Cyril, and he had
22:15
Speaker 1: two reasons he really wanted to.
22:17
Speaker 2: Speak to him.
22:18
Speaker 1: First of all, he thought Cyril might have some additional
22:21
Speaker 1: unique insights into Tabitha's various relationships. I mean, Cyril had
22:25
Speaker 1: lived with Tabitha and Kevin and their kids earlier that year,
22:29
Speaker 1: and Sienna had heard that Cyril and Tabitha were quite close,
22:33
Speaker 1: and so maybe she had shared some additional insights that
22:36
Speaker 1: he would know.
22:37
Speaker 2: But the second reason for wanting to.
22:39
Speaker 1: Speak to Cyril was recently, Sienna had also begun to
22:43
Speaker 1: look at Cyril as being maybe a potential suspect. So
22:47
Speaker 1: Sienna had spoken with the number of Tabitha's friends, and
22:51
Speaker 1: from those interviews, Sienna had learned that Cyril and his
22:54
Speaker 1: girlfriend Cassidy were also both regulars at that same strip club.
22:59
Speaker 2: That Tapabatha went to.
23:01
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, Sienna knew that, you know,
23:03
Speaker 1: Cyril and Cassidy had been caught using drugs by Tabitha
23:07
Speaker 1: and Kevin, and that's why they had been booted from
23:10
Speaker 1: the house just a few months ago, and so who knows,
23:12
Speaker 1: there could be some bad blood there. And so this
23:14
Speaker 1: made Sienna wonder if Tabitha's murder might have had nothing
23:18
Speaker 1: to do with her affair and everything to do with,
23:21
Speaker 1: you know, very likely some fight that she had had
23:23
Speaker 1: with Cyril and Cassidy when she caught them and kicked
23:26
Speaker 1: them out. But now, as Sienna scanned the funeral crowd,
23:30
Speaker 1: he didn't see anybody who matched Cyril's description, and so
23:33
Speaker 1: when the service ended, and all the mourners began making
23:36
Speaker 1: their way out to the parking lot. Sienna hustled over
23:39
Speaker 1: to Tabitha's mother and he asked her had Cyril attended
23:43
Speaker 1: the funeral, and she said that actually, no one had
23:47
Speaker 1: heard from Cyril since the night Tabitha was killed. And
23:51
Speaker 1: she said that she was really worried about him because
23:53
Speaker 1: Cyril's mental health was quite fragile. About a year earlier,
23:56
Speaker 1: he'd suffered a huge mental breakdown after the death of
23:59
Speaker 1: another sibling, which was why Tabitha had invited him to
24:02
Speaker 1: live with her in the first place, and so now
24:04
Speaker 1: Tabitha's mom was afraid that Cyril had spiraled again and
24:08
Speaker 1: might be in trouble. But as empathetic as Sienna was,
24:12
Speaker 1: ultimately this information he was getting from the mother did
24:16
Speaker 1: not paint Cyril as like a guy in need of help.
24:19
Speaker 1: It painted Cyril as being really suspicious and so as
24:24
Speaker 1: politely as he could, Sienna asked the mom if she
24:26
Speaker 1: had any idea of how he could go about trying
24:30
Speaker 1: to find Cyril, like any way he could even begin
24:33
Speaker 1: that process, and Tabitha's mom she thought for a moment
24:36
Speaker 1: and then said that if anyone knew where Cyril was
24:40
Speaker 1: it was his girlfriend, Cassidy Green. One night, about a
24:44
Speaker 1: week after Tabitha's funeral, Sergeant Sienna sat in the back
24:47
Speaker 1: of an unmarked van in downtown Rochester and through the
24:50
Speaker 1: windshield he watched a man standing alone in an alley,
24:54
Speaker 1: pacing back and forth, constantly checking his phone. This was
24:57
Speaker 1: all part of a sting operation that Sienna Hoe hoped
25:00
Speaker 1: would finally lead him to Tabitha's half brother, Cyril. Ever
25:03
Speaker 1: since Tabitha's funeral, he and his fellow deputies had been
25:07
Speaker 1: trying to track Cyril down, but so far they'd had
25:10
Speaker 1: no luck. It looked an awful lot like Cyril had
25:12
Speaker 1: either left town or was actively hiding from the police. However,
25:17
Speaker 1: Sienna had managed to locate Cyril's girlfriend, Cassidy, who it
25:21
Speaker 1: would turn out, was well known to the police for
25:24
Speaker 1: being a drug dealer and an escort who went by
25:26
Speaker 1: the working name of Angel.
25:28
Speaker 2: Now.
25:29
Speaker 1: Sienna doubted that if he approached Cassidy directly that she
25:32
Speaker 1: would just immediately give up Cyril's location willingly, and so
25:36
Speaker 1: what he needed to do was get leverage on her first.
25:40
Speaker 1: So Sienna went to an informant of his with a plan.
25:44
Speaker 1: The informant would reach out to Cassidy or Angel looking
25:47
Speaker 1: to buy some cocaine, and then, once they had clear
25:50
Speaker 1: evidence that she had broken the law by selling these drugs,
25:54
Speaker 1: Sienna would arrest her and then try to strike a
25:56
Speaker 1: deal to get her to talk about Cyril and so. Now,
26:00
Speaker 1: through a pair of binoculars, Sergeant Sienna watched as a small, blond.
26:04
Speaker 2: Woman appeared at the far end of the alley.
26:07
Speaker 1: His heartbeat picked up as he realized it was definitely Cassidy.
26:10
Speaker 2: And he watched as she walked right.
26:12
Speaker 1: Up the alley and began talking to the informant, the
26:15
Speaker 1: man who had been pacing before, on his phone, and
26:17
Speaker 1: when Sienna saw the money and drugs change hands, he
26:21
Speaker 1: gave the command on his radio to go ahead and
26:23
Speaker 1: move in. In an instant, two police cars rounded the
26:26
Speaker 1: corner with their sirens blaring, cutting off both ends of
26:29
Speaker 1: the alley. Cassidy looked completely startled and started to run
26:34
Speaker 1: before the arriving deputies boxed her in and moments later
26:37
Speaker 1: they had her in handcuffs. The following morning, Sienna stood
26:44
Speaker 1: outside of an interview room at the Sheriff's office in Rochester,
26:47
Speaker 1: New York. He looked through a two way mirror, and
26:50
Speaker 1: on the other side of the glass, he watched a
26:52
Speaker 1: deputy question Cassidy, the girlfriend of Tabitha's half brother Cyril,
26:56
Speaker 1: who was still missing and still a major suspect. Now,
27:00
Speaker 1: Cassidy had been completely stonewalling police since they'd arrested her
27:04
Speaker 1: for selling cocaine the night before, and she was still
27:06
Speaker 1: insisting that she had no idea where Cyril was or
27:09
Speaker 1: why he disappeared. Now, to this point, the deputy who
27:13
Speaker 1: was speaking to Cassidy had not brought up Tabitha's murder,
27:16
Speaker 1: and so at this point Cassidy seemed to think that
27:19
Speaker 1: her only problem was the cocaine charge. And so as
27:23
Speaker 1: Siena watched this interview, just kind of go in circles
27:26
Speaker 1: and drag because Cassidy just was not giving them anything.
27:29
Speaker 2: Finally, Sienna just couldn't take it.
27:31
Speaker 1: Anymore and he just busted in the room and he
27:34
Speaker 1: slammed a folder down right on the table, totally shocking
27:38
Speaker 1: not just the deputy but Cassidy.
27:39
Speaker 2: They both looked at him like, what are you doing?
27:41
Speaker 1: And then before Cassidy could say or do anything, Sienna
27:44
Speaker 1: looked right at her and just said, I don't care
27:47
Speaker 1: about your drug charge. What I want to know is
27:51
Speaker 1: what you know about Tabitha Bryant's murder. And at first
27:55
Speaker 1: Cassidy just stared back at Sienna and said nothing, And
27:59
Speaker 1: for a minute I thought maybe he had sort of
28:01
Speaker 1: miscalculated here. But then after a long, awkward pause, Cassidy's
28:05
Speaker 1: whole demeanor shifted and she started to talk. Based on
28:14
Speaker 1: witness testimony, evidence collected at the crime scene, and the
28:18
Speaker 1: killer's eventual confession, here is a reconstruction of what police
28:22
Speaker 1: belief happened to Tabitha brand on the night of July thirteenth,
28:25
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, around eleven fifty pm. The killer
28:35
Speaker 1: very carefully crept through the first floor of the Bryant
28:38
Speaker 1: home carrying a rifle, and they went straight to the den,
28:41
Speaker 1: where they found Tabitha asleep on the pull out couch.
28:44
Speaker 1: For a moment, the killer paused, just staring down at Tabitha, wondering,
28:49
Speaker 1: you know, questioning whether they could really go through with this.
28:51
Speaker 1: But then after just a little bit of deliberation in
28:54
Speaker 1: their own minds, they raised the rifle and they fired.
28:58
Speaker 1: The bullet entered tabitha skull right under her right eye,
29:02
Speaker 1: but it didn't kill her, and so, as the killer
29:06
Speaker 1: is standing there watching, expecting Tabitha to basically be motionless,
29:10
Speaker 1: Tabitha wasn't. Her body began jerking around and then she
29:13
Speaker 1: suddenly reached up and grabbed at her cheek and she
29:17
Speaker 1: sat up and she looked at the killer and began
29:19
Speaker 1: to scream, and so the killer immediately fired two more times,
29:23
Speaker 1: but Tabitha was moving around so much in her own
29:27
Speaker 1: panic that both shots missed, and then on the fourth shot,
29:31
Speaker 1: when the killer pulled the trigger for the fourth time,
29:33
Speaker 1: the rifle jammed, and so at this point the killer
29:36
Speaker 1: completely panicked. And so the killer turns and they run
29:40
Speaker 1: into the kitchen. All the while Tabitha.
29:43
Speaker 2: Is flailing around in the den.
29:45
Speaker 1: She's screaming, Blood's going everywhere, and the killer they grab a.
29:49
Speaker 2: Butcher's knife from the kitchen.
29:51
Speaker 1: They run back into the den, and when they get
29:53
Speaker 1: there they see Tabitha is now standing and she's clutching
29:57
Speaker 1: at her face.
29:57
Speaker 2: She's screaming, and the killer tackles her.
30:00
Speaker 1: Back onto the bed and begin stabbing her over and
30:03
Speaker 1: over again in the neck and the chest until she
30:06
Speaker 1: does finally go limp. When the killer climbed off of
30:10
Speaker 1: Tabitha and stood back up. They realized they, like the
30:14
Speaker 1: rest of the room, were covered in blood, and so
30:17
Speaker 1: the killer began just sort of backing away from the scene,
30:20
Speaker 1: not really sure what they were going to do. And
30:22
Speaker 1: as they're doing this, they hear a noise behind them,
30:26
Speaker 1: and they whip around and they see there was a
30:28
Speaker 1: figure coming down the stairs. And when this figure got
30:31
Speaker 1: to the bottom of the stairs, they walked right up
30:34
Speaker 1: to the killer and handed them an envelope, and the
30:38
Speaker 1: killer took the envelope.
30:39
Speaker 2: You know, blood all over them.
30:40
Speaker 1: They'd take the envelope, they open it up, they look
30:43
Speaker 1: inside to confirm that, yes, it was stuffed with one
30:46
Speaker 1: hundred dollars bills. It would turn out the person who
30:49
Speaker 1: actually wielded the rifle and the knife and literally killed
30:53
Speaker 1: Tabitha was her half brother, Cyril. He got covered in
30:57
Speaker 1: blood so that the real mastermind, Tabitha's husband, Kevin, could
31:02
Speaker 1: keep his hands clean. Kevin paid Cyril and his girlfriend Cassidy,
31:07
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars to do his dirty work for him.
31:10
Speaker 1: Cyril committed the murder and Cassidy drove the getaway car,
31:14
Speaker 1: but long before they got to the house that night,
31:16
Speaker 1: Kevin was setting things.
31:17
Speaker 2: Up so that the murder would go according to his plan.
31:20
Speaker 1: Kevin opened the garage and unlocked the door to the
31:23
Speaker 1: house so that Cyril could come inside no problem, and
31:26
Speaker 1: when he found Tabitha and their bed upstairs, he woke
31:29
Speaker 1: her up and told her to head on down to
31:31
Speaker 1: the den, where he knew Cyril would look for her.
31:34
Speaker 1: Kevin was motivated by anger over Tabitha's affair with Keith,
31:38
Speaker 1: and also the fear that he would lose his kids
31:40
Speaker 1: if they got divorced, but ironically, it was actually Kevin's
31:45
Speaker 1: own actions that drove Tabitha literally into Keith's arms. Kevin
31:50
Speaker 1: portrayed himself as this hard working lawyer who basically was
31:54
Speaker 1: a workaholic and all he did was provide for his family,
31:58
Speaker 1: but in reality, he was a drug and sex addict
32:02
Speaker 1: who routinely brought sex workers to his law office. His
32:06
Speaker 1: idea of working on his marriage, as he said he
32:09
Speaker 1: and Tabitha were doing after he discovered her affair, really
32:12
Speaker 1: just involved taking Tabitha two strip clubs and then pressuring
32:17
Speaker 1: her into having grouped sex with other sex workers, and
32:21
Speaker 1: then he would also pressure her to give lap dances
32:23
Speaker 1: to the other client. Tell and one of those other
32:26
Speaker 1: client tell was Keith.
32:29
Speaker 2: That's how they met.
32:30
Speaker 1: Kevin and Cyril were both convicted of first degree murder
32:33
Speaker 1: and sentenced to life without parole. As for Cassidy, she
32:37
Speaker 1: ultimately took a plea deal and received fifteen years.
32:46
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for watching.
32:48
Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of today's episode in
32:50
Speaker 1: the comments. And remember, we have a whole playlist of
32:52
Speaker 1: true crime episodes ready for you to binge right now,
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Speaker 1: so click here and give them a watch.
32:58
Speaker 2: All right, until next time, Yeah,