Latest / Crime and Horror / Her murderer was caught by the most UNLIKELY INFORMANT - MrBallen

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Her murderer was caught by the most UNLIKELY INFORMANT - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: On May twenty second, nineteen ninety three, a man named
0:03
Speaker 1: Kurt was carrying some boxes into his new home. He
0:06
Speaker 1: just moved into this two story house along with his
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Speaker 1: fiance whose name was Kem. Kurt went into the house
0:11
Speaker 1: and he dropped the boxes in the foyer and then
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Speaker 1: he turned back to head back down to the car
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Speaker 1: to get another load. And as he walked down the steps,
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Speaker 1: he passed his fiancee KM and they smiled at each other.
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Speaker 1: She was making her way up he was making his
0:23
Speaker 1: way down. But seconds after they passed each other, right
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Speaker 1: as Kurt got back to the car, he felt this
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Speaker 1: incredible pressure and blast wave hit him in the back
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Speaker 1: that almost sent him flying. And then when Kurt turned around,
0:35
Speaker 1: he could not believe what he saw. But before we
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Speaker 1: get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange,
0:41
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0:44
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1:02
Speaker 1: get into today's story. On the evening of Friday, May
1:25
Speaker 1: twenty first, nineteen ninety three, a twenty nine year old
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Speaker 1: woman named Kem Wenger clapped her hands together in front
1:31
Speaker 1: of her with happiness in the basement of the Golden
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Speaker 1: Congregational Church in rural Iowa. Her closest friends had gathered
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Speaker 1: here to throw Kem and her fiance, thirty two year
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Speaker 1: old Kurt Simon, a combination wedding shower and goodbye party,
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Speaker 1: and now they were presenting the couple with their gift.
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Speaker 1: It was a money tree planted in a little yellow
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Speaker 1: coffee can with envelopes full of cash hanging off of it.
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Speaker 1: Kem and Kurt both smiled and began making their way
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Speaker 1: through the crowd to give everybody a big hug and
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Speaker 1: to say thank you. Tonight was a big night for them.
2:02
Speaker 1: All their plans were finally falling into place. Tomorrow, they
2:05
Speaker 1: would pack all of Kurt's belongings into their car and
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Speaker 1: they would drive two hundred and thirty miles south from
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Speaker 1: place where he had been living in Iowa to the
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Speaker 1: city of Bloomington, Illinois, just outside of Chicago, where Kem
2:16
Speaker 1: already lived and in Bloomington. They would begin their new
2:20
Speaker 1: life together as a soon to be married couple, raising
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Speaker 1: Kem's two children from previous relationships. It had been a
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Speaker 1: whirlwind eight months since they had first met on actually
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Speaker 1: a blind date. Cam had known almost immediately that Kurt
2:32
Speaker 1: really was something special, but it hadn't been easy for
2:36
Speaker 1: them to get to this point. They both had almost
2:38
Speaker 1: no money. Kurt was studying to be a Presbyterian minister
2:42
Speaker 1: and living in Iowa to finish seminary school, and Kem
2:45
Speaker 1: was a single mom living in Bloomington who had just
2:48
Speaker 1: recently quit her office job because her co worker was
2:51
Speaker 1: sexually harassing her. She'd taken on off the book's work
2:54
Speaker 1: as a hairdresser and house cleaner, but she still had
2:57
Speaker 1: to rely on public assistance to make ends meet. Long
3:00
Speaker 1: distance relationship itself was also just exhausting with all the
3:03
Speaker 1: driving back and forth, and it didn't help that Kem
3:07
Speaker 1: had contentious relationships with the fathers of both of her kids.
3:11
Speaker 1: Her one year old son's father, Dale Fosdick, was always
3:14
Speaker 1: late with his child support payments, and he still acted
3:17
Speaker 1: like he was entitled to walk right into Kem's house
3:20
Speaker 1: any time he wanted. Kurt had actually recently confronted him
3:23
Speaker 1: about doing that and told him to stop, which Dale
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Speaker 1: did not seem to appreciate. Her seven year old daughter's father,
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Speaker 1: Todd Wanger, really wasn't much better. Todd fought with Kem
3:32
Speaker 1: all the time over their custody arrangement, and he and
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Speaker 1: her other ex Dale were actually friends, which really annoyed Kem.
3:40
Speaker 1: But now as somebody handed Kim a piece of cake
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Speaker 1: in the church basement, all those problems seemed like they
3:46
Speaker 1: were about to get a whole lot smaller. Kurt was
3:48
Speaker 1: moving in and Kem was about to get her whole
3:51
Speaker 1: life organized waiting for her at home in Bloomington. She
3:54
Speaker 1: had a whole collection of Modern Bride magazine so she
3:56
Speaker 1: could plan their wedding, and she and Kurt were actually
3:59
Speaker 1: talking about Kurt maybe adopting her son. And she knew
4:02
Speaker 1: Kurt could very quickly get a job in Bloomington as
4:05
Speaker 1: a pastoral counselor, and they could maybe save some money
4:09
Speaker 1: by only having to pay for one residence now, and
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Speaker 1: this money tree they were getting was a sweet start.
4:15
Speaker 1: I mean, Km knew that the members of the congregation
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Speaker 1: were not wealthy, people by any stretch, but you know,
4:20
Speaker 1: she found it very touching that they'd pulled their limited
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Speaker 1: resources to give her and Kurt such a wonderful send off.
4:26
Speaker 1: The only thing that could make this moment any better
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Speaker 1: would be if Kem's mother, Cricket, was there, but unfortunately,
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Speaker 1: Kem and Cricket were estranged. Kem wished she could be
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Speaker 1: closer to her mother, but Cricket had a mean streak
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Speaker 1: and for some reason, she really hated Kurt. Kem finished
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Speaker 1: her cake and then checked the time, and she realized,
4:45
Speaker 1: you know, it was time to go, so she tapped
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Speaker 1: Kurt on the shoulder as he was speaking to some friends.
4:50
Speaker 1: They had a lot left to pack tomorrow morning, and
4:52
Speaker 1: they had a long drive ahead of them, so Kem
4:54
Speaker 1: and Kurt made their goodbyes and then headed out of
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Speaker 1: the church holding hands. The next day was Saturday, May
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Speaker 1: twenty second, and Kem and Kurt spent the first part
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Speaker 1: of the day packing and then the second part driving,
5:10
Speaker 1: and then finally, at ten thirty pm that night, they
5:12
Speaker 1: pulled their car into the driveway of Km's two story
5:15
Speaker 1: house in Bloomington, the home they would now share together.
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Speaker 1: Kem just sat for a second in the passenger seat
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Speaker 1: while Kurt got out of the car and opened up
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Speaker 1: the trunk. They had a lot of stuff to carry in,
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Speaker 1: but Kim was just exhausted and frankly didn't feel like
5:28
Speaker 1: doing it quite yet, so she watched as Kurt went
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Speaker 1: ahead and walked up the front stairs carrying a box
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Speaker 1: and the money tree. He unlocked the door, he stepped inside,
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Speaker 1: and then a minute later he came back out empty handed,
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Speaker 1: and at that point Kem sighed and decided she better
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Speaker 1: get out and help to Kurt was halfway back down
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Speaker 1: the stairs as Cam grabbed her own box out of
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Speaker 1: the trunk and walked her way into the house. Into
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Speaker 1: the foyer of her home, she put her box down
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Speaker 1: and was about to go back outside and do another
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Speaker 1: trip with Kurt when she paused. There was something she
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Speaker 1: didn't recognize on the floor of the foyer that had
6:00
Speaker 1: not been there when she had left for Iowa. Kurt
6:03
Speaker 1: was outside, facing away from the house when an intense
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Speaker 1: wave of pressure hid him from behind, and nearly at
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Speaker 1: the exact same time, this booming sound like some kind
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Speaker 1: of explosion filled his ears. He stumbled forward, almost uncontrollably,
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Speaker 1: and then whipped around and called out for Kem, but
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Speaker 1: his ears were ringing now and he couldn't really tell
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Speaker 1: if she had answered. There was smoke pouring out from
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Speaker 1: the front door of their house, and instinctively he just
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Speaker 1: ran into the house, into the foyer to go find Kem.
6:32
Speaker 1: When he got in there, there's all the smoke and chaos.
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Speaker 1: There's shards of broken glass everywhere, and also he noticed
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Speaker 1: all these little pieces of what looked like metal, kind
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Speaker 1: of all over the foyer. Kurt screamed Kem's name over
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Speaker 1: and over, and he looked frantically all around through all
6:47
Speaker 1: the rubble, but it was impossible to see. It was
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Speaker 1: like everything was destroyed in here. And so, now beginning
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Speaker 1: to gasp from all the smoke, he started walking around
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Speaker 1: the foyer kind of ducking below the smoke as best
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Speaker 1: as he could, and that's when he saw legs on
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Speaker 1: the floor. Minutes later, Detective Larry Shepherd of the Bloomington
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Speaker 1: Police Department pulled up outside the two story house and
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Speaker 1: his cruiser with his partner beside him and another squad
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Speaker 1: car behind them. Shepherd did not usually respond to nine
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Speaker 1: to one one calls because he was a homicide detective,
7:22
Speaker 1: but he had happened to be in the area when
7:24
Speaker 1: dispatch requested officers go check out a report of potentially
7:27
Speaker 1: a shotgun blast on a residential street. However, the second
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Speaker 1: he stepped out of his car and looked at this
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Speaker 1: two story house, Shepherd knew this could not have been
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Speaker 1: a shotgun blast. There was all this black smoke billowing
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Speaker 1: out the front door of the house, and although Shepherd
7:43
Speaker 1: couldn't see any fire, he could hear the fire alarm
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Speaker 1: going off inside and outside the street was chaos. There
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Speaker 1: were all these people, who Shepherd guessed must be neighbors,
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Speaker 1: shouting and running around, and there was debris everywhere, broken
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Speaker 1: glass and splintered pieces of wood and chunks of metal
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Speaker 1: that had basically been blown out of the house out
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Speaker 1: onto the street. In the driveway of this home, Shepherd
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Speaker 1: could see there was a man who had his hands
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Speaker 1: on his head and he looked frantic, and he was
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Speaker 1: yelling the name Kem over and over again as he
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Speaker 1: looked towards the destroyed house. And it was at that
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Speaker 1: point Shepherd realized there must be someone or multiple people
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Speaker 1: inside of the house, and he really couldn't wait for
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Speaker 1: backup to go find them, so he and his partner
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Speaker 1: shouted for everyone to stay back, and then they raced
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Speaker 1: up the stairs into the smoke. Once Shepherd was inside
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Speaker 1: the front foyer, he could tell there was no active fire,
8:36
Speaker 1: just lots of smoke kind of hanging in the air.
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Speaker 1: And he looked around and he saw there was a
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Speaker 1: six inch hole on the wall right near the front door,
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Speaker 1: and there was another hole right in the floor of
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Speaker 1: the foyer. But even though he saw those things pretty quickly,
8:49
Speaker 1: his attention quickly snapped to the body of a woman
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Speaker 1: who was on the ground, and it was immediately clear
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Speaker 1: that there was nothing they could do for her. Literally
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Speaker 1: half of her head was just missing. In his entire career,
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Speaker 1: Shepherd had never worked a murder case where the weapon
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Speaker 1: was a bomb. But standing in this blackened, destroyed foyer
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Speaker 1: over the charred body of this woman, Shepherd felt sure
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Speaker 1: that that is exactly what he was looking at right now.
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Speaker 1: Around this point, the officers from the other squad car
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Speaker 1: had now come up the stairs and into the house,
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Speaker 1: but Shepherd told them to get back go back outside
9:25
Speaker 1: because the scene was not safe to process yet. They
9:28
Speaker 1: needed the fire department here, and they needed the bomb
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Speaker 1: squad because there could be more explosives. Not long afterwards,
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Speaker 1: Shepherd and the other officers stood on the front lawn
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Speaker 1: as members of the fire department and the State Police
9:42
Speaker 1: bomb squad combed through the scene. By this point, Detective
9:46
Speaker 1: Shepherd had learned a bit more about what had happened.
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Speaker 1: The dead woman was Kem Wanger, and the man he
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Speaker 1: had seen screaming in the driveway was Kem's fiance, Kurt Simon.
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Speaker 1: Neighbors said the pair had arrived around ten thirty PM,
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Speaker 1: and a couple the neighbors had actually noticed them before
10:02
Speaker 1: the blast went off when they started unloading their car.
10:04
Speaker 1: These neighbors said that they saw Kurt be the first
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Speaker 1: one to go inside the house, and when he did,
10:10
Speaker 1: he went in carrying a box that he had pulled
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Speaker 1: from the back of the car. And then these neighbors
10:15
Speaker 1: said they saw Kurt come out again empty handed, but
10:18
Speaker 1: he went down to the back of the car again
10:20
Speaker 1: and he appeared to put something in the trunk. And
10:23
Speaker 1: at the same time, cam had grabbed a box from
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Speaker 1: the car and she went into the house by herself,
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Speaker 1: and that's when the explosion happened. Sheppard was troubled by
10:32
Speaker 1: these accounts. He thought it was suspicious that Kurt had
10:35
Speaker 1: been able to walk into the house without getting hurt,
10:38
Speaker 1: and then just seconds later Kem goes in, and her
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Speaker 1: arrival seems to have triggered the explosion, And so naturally
10:45
Speaker 1: he wondered if maybe that box Kurt was carrying that
10:48
Speaker 1: he went inside with, maybe that was the bomb. Then
10:50
Speaker 1: he planted it, and then when he left, she goes
10:52
Speaker 1: in and it obviously goes off. And then also he wondered,
10:55
Speaker 1: you know, what had Kurt put back into his car
10:59
Speaker 1: after he came out again? What did he put into
11:00
Speaker 1: the trunk? But even more suspicious than any of that
11:04
Speaker 1: was what a preliminary sweep of Kem's home had turned
11:07
Speaker 1: up in the basement, and that was wires, gunpowder, and fuses.
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Speaker 1: Shepherd did not need to be a bomb expert to
11:14
Speaker 1: know that these could be components of a bomb, and
11:17
Speaker 1: that whoever killed Kem must have built the bomb right
11:20
Speaker 1: there in her basement, which naturally made Kurt Simon the
11:25
Speaker 1: number one suspect. So Shepherd told a crime scene tech
11:28
Speaker 1: to process Kurt's vehicle and pay extra attention to the trunk.
11:32
Speaker 1: Then the detective walked over to Kurt himself, and Kurt
11:36
Speaker 1: was rocking back and forth, and he was crying, and
11:38
Speaker 1: he was still just saying Cam over and over and
11:41
Speaker 1: over again. Shepherd asked Kurt if he could tell him,
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Speaker 1: you know, what had happened here, And Kurt looked at
11:46
Speaker 1: him with this vacant and shocked expression, and he told
11:49
Speaker 1: the detective that he didn't know what happened. He'd gone
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Speaker 1: inside with a box and he had just started back
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Speaker 1: down the stairs when he felt the blast behind him.
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Speaker 1: And at this Shepherd's eyes narrowed because, according to the
12:00
Speaker 1: neighbor's account, they said Kurt was actually at his trunk,
12:04
Speaker 1: you know, putting something back into the car at the
12:06
Speaker 1: time of the explosion. But Kurt was now claiming that
12:09
Speaker 1: he had actually only just exited the house basically was
12:12
Speaker 1: on the stairs as the blast happened. Now, this discrepancy
12:16
Speaker 1: could just be a result of confusion, or Kurt could
12:19
Speaker 1: be lying to cover up whatever he may or may
12:21
Speaker 1: not have done. But independent of whatever this was, Shepard
12:25
Speaker 1: just told Kurt that right now he was going down
12:28
Speaker 1: to the station for questioning. Several hours later, a little
12:41
Speaker 1: before dawn on Sunday, May twenty third, nineteen ninety three,
12:45
Speaker 1: Detective Shepherd walked out of the interrogation room in the Bloomington,
12:48
Speaker 1: Illinois police station, where he'd just spent more than an
12:51
Speaker 1: hour hammering Kurt Simon with questions about his murdered fiance,
12:55
Speaker 1: and Kurt had been a pretty difficult interview. He had
12:58
Speaker 1: plenty of ideas about other people who might have killed Kem.
13:02
Speaker 1: He told Sheppard that both the fathers of Kem's children,
13:05
Speaker 1: Dale Fosdick and Todd Wenger, fought with her all the time,
13:08
Speaker 1: and he said that Kem's estranged mom, will M Lewis,
13:11
Speaker 1: who everybody called Cricket, was quote every kind of evil.
13:16
Speaker 1: But Kurt had seemed to have no information to offer
13:19
Speaker 1: about what he had actually witnessed before the explosion. He
13:22
Speaker 1: had stuck to a story that he had not seen
13:25
Speaker 1: anything suspicious at all in the foyer, which Shepherd found
13:28
Speaker 1: hard to believe. Kurt also had no explanation for why
13:31
Speaker 1: the bomb exploded on Kem and not on him, and
13:34
Speaker 1: he also denied knowing anything about the bomb making materials
13:37
Speaker 1: that had been found in Kem's basement. Kurt also said
13:40
Speaker 1: he hadn't put anything back in his trunk around the
13:43
Speaker 1: time of the explosion, but he couldn't explain why the
13:46
Speaker 1: neighbors said he had. Shepherd ultimately thought Kurt was either
13:50
Speaker 1: the most unobservant person alive or he was lying. And
13:55
Speaker 1: on top of all that, Kurt had refused to take
13:58
Speaker 1: a light detector test. However, Shepherd still had to let
14:01
Speaker 1: him go home. The detective just didn't have anywhere near
14:04
Speaker 1: enough evidence to arrest Kurt, at least not yet. At
14:08
Speaker 1: this point, the bomb squad was actually still searching the
14:11
Speaker 1: house for any additional bombs, so the crime scene text
14:14
Speaker 1: had not gotten in yet to begin to start looking
14:16
Speaker 1: for forensic evidence. They actually hadn't even been able to
14:19
Speaker 1: remove Kem's body yet. Shepherd knew the day ahead was
14:22
Speaker 1: going to be very busy. Other members of his team
14:25
Speaker 1: had spent the entire night canvassing the neighborhood and notifying
14:28
Speaker 1: and questioning Kem's family members, and now Shepherd was sure
14:32
Speaker 1: there was going to be quite a few interrogations for
14:35
Speaker 1: him to conduct. He'd already been awake for twenty four
14:37
Speaker 1: hours by this point, but he knew there was not
14:39
Speaker 1: going to be any sleep soon, So he walked to
14:42
Speaker 1: the office coffee pot and poured himself a cup of
14:45
Speaker 1: coffee and stood there drinking it and thinking about how
14:48
Speaker 1: he was going to nail Kurt Simon for murder. Meanwhile,
14:52
Speaker 1: the bombing itself was making huge news all across Illinois.
14:56
Speaker 1: By about nine am on Sunday morning, so less than
14:59
Speaker 1: twelve hours after the explosion, there were all these reporters
15:03
Speaker 1: milling around the front entrance of the police station, and
15:05
Speaker 1: some were even going in and out of the lobby
15:07
Speaker 1: trying to talk to people and get any information. And
15:11
Speaker 1: Detective Shepherd knew this story was only going to get
15:13
Speaker 1: bigger because the Illinois State bomb Squad had just called
15:16
Speaker 1: in the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms or
15:20
Speaker 1: ATF to help them process the scene, and all that
15:24
Speaker 1: meant there was going to be an enormous amount of
15:27
Speaker 1: pressure on Shepherd, who was leading the investigation, and this
15:30
Speaker 1: pressure was especially stressful this morning because the case he'd
15:35
Speaker 1: thought he'd had against Chem's fiance, Kurt Simon, was starting
15:38
Speaker 1: to fall apart. In all their interviews with Kem's friends,
15:42
Speaker 1: everyone had said Kem and Kurt had a good relationship
15:46
Speaker 1: and were excited to start their life together. The crime
15:48
Speaker 1: scene unit had searched Kurt's car, where neighbors claimed they
15:52
Speaker 1: had seen him place something in the trunk right after
15:54
Speaker 1: the explosion or manipulate something back there, maybe a detonator,
15:58
Speaker 1: but the crime scene text had found nothing suspicious at
16:01
Speaker 1: all back there. Shepherd's partner had checked out Kurt's story
16:05
Speaker 1: that he had spent the entire week previous to the
16:07
Speaker 1: explosion in Iowa, where he lived and he was moving
16:11
Speaker 1: here to Bloomington to live with Cam, and they had
16:14
Speaker 1: found out that that story was true. He really had
16:16
Speaker 1: been in Iowa, And so this made Shepherd's theory that
16:19
Speaker 1: Kurt had assembled the bomb in Kem's basement a lot
16:23
Speaker 1: less likely, since Kem was home all week and Kurt
16:26
Speaker 1: wasn't there. Plus, Kem's babysitter had given police two additional
16:30
Speaker 1: pieces of information that really widened the suspect pool. First,
16:35
Speaker 1: she said that the spare key to Kem's house had
16:37
Speaker 1: recently gone missing. And the second thing was because the
16:41
Speaker 1: spare key was gone, Kem had gotten locked out at
16:44
Speaker 1: some point and had to cut a hole in the
16:46
Speaker 1: screen in the back door to get inside. And so
16:49
Speaker 1: this meant that basically anybody could have gotten inside of
16:52
Speaker 1: Kem's house to build the bomb if they just went
16:54
Speaker 1: in through the back door, or if they had the key,
16:57
Speaker 1: if they stole the key, so Shepherd's suspect list effectively
17:01
Speaker 1: had gone from Kurt to all of Bloomington. Just before lunchtime,
17:10
Speaker 1: Shepherd walked into the station's interrogation room, where Kem's ex husband,
17:14
Speaker 1: Todd Wenger was sitting waiting for him. With Kem's fiance,
17:18
Speaker 1: Kurt looking less and less likely as a suspect, the
17:21
Speaker 1: detectives had set their sight on Kem's exes. Both Todd,
17:24
Speaker 1: who was the father of Kem's daughter, and Dale Fosdick,
17:27
Speaker 1: who was the father of Kem's son, not only had
17:30
Speaker 1: obvious motives, but they also knew Kem's schedule because each
17:33
Speaker 1: of them had been watching one of her children over
17:36
Speaker 1: the weekend before she was killed. Shepherd's partner had actually
17:40
Speaker 1: already spoken to Dale, basically a couple of hours after
17:43
Speaker 1: the explosion. He had spoken to him while Shepherd himself
17:46
Speaker 1: had been busy questioning Kurt, and during that exchange, Dale
17:49
Speaker 1: had seemed shocked by Kem's death, and he'd made what
17:52
Speaker 1: seemed like a good faith effort to answer the detective's questions,
17:56
Speaker 1: although his son kept crying and interrupting them. Dale did
17:59
Speaker 1: admit to having some tension with Kem, but he also
18:02
Speaker 1: had an alibi. He'd been with family in the morning
18:05
Speaker 1: and doing yard work in full view of his neighbors
18:08
Speaker 1: in the afternoon and the evening. He'd given Shepherd's partner
18:11
Speaker 1: names and phone numbers of potential witnesses that could have
18:14
Speaker 1: witnessed this, and a preliminary round of calls to those
18:17
Speaker 1: witnesses had suggested that Dale was telling the truth. But
18:22
Speaker 1: the detectives were conducting all their interviews with very little
18:25
Speaker 1: information about the crime itself because they didn't really know
18:29
Speaker 1: how the bomb that killed Kem actually worked. They weren't
18:32
Speaker 1: sure if the killer had to be right nearby to
18:35
Speaker 1: detonate it, or if maybe it had been remote operated
18:38
Speaker 1: so the killer could be farther away, or maybe the
18:40
Speaker 1: bomb was just set to some kind of timer. Scientists
18:43
Speaker 1: at the ATF were trying to reconstruct the bomb from
18:46
Speaker 1: all the shrapnel, but until they did that, Shepherd and
18:49
Speaker 1: his partner would not know exactly when the killer would
18:52
Speaker 1: have been at keemsuse, and none of the neighbors had
18:55
Speaker 1: reported seeing anything unusual around the time of the explosion
18:59
Speaker 1: that would help them arrow it down. So now as
19:02
Speaker 1: Detective Shepherd sat down across the interrogation table from Kem's
19:05
Speaker 1: ex husband, Todd Wenger. He started with some general questions
19:08
Speaker 1: about his relationship with Kem, and Todd seemed a little
19:11
Speaker 1: nervous because he kept wringing his hands while he spoke.
19:15
Speaker 1: He said that he and Kem did fight about child
19:17
Speaker 1: support costs, and he said he had been very frustrated
19:20
Speaker 1: with her because he didn't feel like she was always
19:22
Speaker 1: fair during their divorce, but he insisted that that did
19:25
Speaker 1: not mean he wanted to hurt her. He said their
19:28
Speaker 1: problems were common for most divorced couples. Shepherd did not
19:31
Speaker 1: put much stock in that assertion, because, in his experience,
19:35
Speaker 1: divorce or breakup plus money was a very good motive
19:39
Speaker 1: to hurt somebody. So he asked Todd where he'd been
19:41
Speaker 1: all day on the night of the blast, and at
19:43
Speaker 1: this question Todd definitely appeared to relax, and he launched
19:47
Speaker 1: into a very detailed explanation of all his movements. He
19:50
Speaker 1: said he'd been with his daughter and his new girlfriend,
19:53
Speaker 1: and both of them would definitely vouch for him, along
19:56
Speaker 1: with several people who had seen them during the day.
19:58
Speaker 1: By the time Shepherd sent Todd home. He really wasn't
20:00
Speaker 1: sure which of the exes, Todd or Dale he thought
20:03
Speaker 1: was a better candidate for his killer. Both had clearly
20:07
Speaker 1: been fighting with Cam or had real tension with Kem,
20:10
Speaker 1: but both had alibi witnesses. So Kem's fiance Kurt might
20:15
Speaker 1: have had the opportunity to plant the bomb if it
20:18
Speaker 1: was set shortly before the explosion, but he had no
20:21
Speaker 1: clear motive. As for Todd and Dale, they seemed to
20:24
Speaker 1: have plenty of motive but no real opportunity, and so
20:27
Speaker 1: Shepherd decided his next move should be to talk again
20:30
Speaker 1: to Kem's family, maybe they would be able to help
20:33
Speaker 1: him sort out his flawed suspect list. On Sunday evening, so,
20:43
Speaker 1: almost twenty four hours after the explosion, Detective Shepherd knocked
20:47
Speaker 1: on the door of the home where Kem's sister Joni lived. Now,
20:51
Speaker 1: by this point another officer had already been there to
20:53
Speaker 1: tell her and their mother, Cricket, about Kem's death, but
20:57
Speaker 1: Shepherd wanted to hear from them himself. Now, Shepherd had
21:00
Speaker 1: been told that Kem and her mother were estranged. But
21:04
Speaker 1: even though he went in with some idea that this
21:06
Speaker 1: interaction could be odd, Shepherd was still really caught off
21:10
Speaker 1: guard by the way Cricket was acting. It was like
21:13
Speaker 1: way over the top. As Joni welcomed Shepherd inside and
21:17
Speaker 1: offered him a seat on the couch, she was crying.
21:19
Speaker 1: Her reaction to the death of her sister seemed very genuine,
21:22
Speaker 1: But Cricket was not crying or showing any signs of
21:25
Speaker 1: being sad. Instead, she was just furious, and not about
21:30
Speaker 1: the murder, or about losing her child, or about the
21:33
Speaker 1: fact that police had not made an arrest yet. She
21:36
Speaker 1: was furious about her child's life insurance policy, which apparently
21:41
Speaker 1: CAM had not added her to as a beneficiary, which
21:44
Speaker 1: meant that Cricket was not going to be paid any
21:46
Speaker 1: money despite her child being killed. You know. As Shepherd
21:50
Speaker 1: seeing this, he thought about how Kurt had insisted in
21:53
Speaker 1: his interrogation that Cricket was a horrible person, that she
21:57
Speaker 1: was evil. Now at the time, Shepherd had not taken
22:00
Speaker 1: that seriously because he figured Kurt was trying to throw
22:03
Speaker 1: suspicion off of himself, and lots of people don't like
22:06
Speaker 1: their mother in laws. But now he was reconsidering he
22:09
Speaker 1: felt like he was witnessing someone who could be just
22:11
Speaker 1: as bad as they were described to be. And then
22:14
Speaker 1: when Shepherd actually asked Cricket about her relationship with her
22:18
Speaker 1: now deceased daughter, Cricket went off, but not about her
22:22
Speaker 1: relationship really with Kem, but more about Kurt and how
22:25
Speaker 1: Kurt had ruined Kem's life. She said Kurt was a
22:29
Speaker 1: terrible partner for Kem and that he had destroyed the
22:32
Speaker 1: best relationship she ever had, which Crickett said was with
22:36
Speaker 1: Dale Faustick, the father of Kem's son. She also said
22:39
Speaker 1: that Kurt had destroyed her Cricket's relationship with Kem too.
22:43
Speaker 1: She said that she and her daughter used to talk
22:45
Speaker 1: every day, but once Kurt was in the picture, she
22:48
Speaker 1: had been forbidden to call the house at all. Now,
22:51
Speaker 1: to Shephard, Cricket seemed completely scattered, bouncing from one subject
22:55
Speaker 1: to another, and just mad about everything. But he started
22:58
Speaker 1: to wonder if but he was witnessing here was not
23:01
Speaker 1: just pure selfishness and being a terrible person, but instead
23:06
Speaker 1: could be some kind of very complicated grief for maybe
23:09
Speaker 1: even guilt, or grief and guilt combined. But one thing
23:13
Speaker 1: was definitely true, which was Cricket really seemed to hate
23:16
Speaker 1: Kurt as much as Kurt seemed to hate her, and
23:19
Speaker 1: Shephard just wasn't sure which one of them was in
23:22
Speaker 1: the right. But it was around this point in the
23:24
Speaker 1: conversation that Kem's sister, Joni cut in and she offered
23:27
Speaker 1: up a potential suspect idea of her own. She said
23:31
Speaker 1: that Kem had recently left the job where a colleague,
23:34
Speaker 1: a man named Phil Hartman, had sexually harassed her. Following this,
23:38
Speaker 1: Kem had actually gotten a settlement out of it, and
23:41
Speaker 1: apparently Phil had made threats afterwards, including a promise to
23:45
Speaker 1: get her for this, and so Joni said it was
23:48
Speaker 1: Phil who the police really should be investigating for this murder.
23:52
Speaker 1: When Shepherd finally left the house, his head was spinning.
23:55
Speaker 1: He gone to Cricket and Jony, hoping for clarity sorting
23:58
Speaker 1: out his three suspects, but he'd come away with less
24:01
Speaker 1: clarity than now five suspects, Kem's fiance, Kurt, her exes
24:06
Speaker 1: del Fosdick and Todd Wenger, her coworker Phil Hartman, and
24:09
Speaker 1: Frankly Cricket herself. At this point, it was late on
24:13
Speaker 1: Sunday night, and Shepherd had been awake since Saturday morning,
24:16
Speaker 1: and so he decided the best thing he could do
24:18
Speaker 1: now was just go home and get some sleep. That way,
24:21
Speaker 1: he could come back with a clear head on Monday
24:23
Speaker 1: morning and maybe make sense of it then. On the
24:32
Speaker 1: afternoon of Monday, May twenty fourth, so almost two days
24:36
Speaker 1: after the bombing that killed Kem Wenger, Detective Larry Shepherd
24:39
Speaker 1: walked through the front door of Kem's house, feeling cautiously optimistic.
24:43
Speaker 1: On the night the bomb went off, the police had
24:45
Speaker 1: to evacuate so the state bomb squad and the ATF
24:49
Speaker 1: could make sure there were no additional explosives. But finally,
24:52
Speaker 1: the night before, the scene had officially been cleared, which
24:56
Speaker 1: meant Shepherd could now enter the house and actually look
24:58
Speaker 1: around for himself. Inside the house, he could see that
25:02
Speaker 1: the foyer was still in complete disarray, although Kem's body
25:05
Speaker 1: by this point had been removed and autopsied. There were
25:09
Speaker 1: also now all these little flags and markers all over
25:11
Speaker 1: the place pointing out how she'd been positioned on the
25:14
Speaker 1: floor and where various bomb fragments and other evidence had
25:17
Speaker 1: been collected. And also, now because the FEDS had completed
25:21
Speaker 1: a preliminary assessment of the bomb, Shepherd could actually imagine
25:25
Speaker 1: how the bombing went down, there was a six inch
25:28
Speaker 1: hole in the foyer floor, and Shepherd now knew that
25:31
Speaker 1: that was where the bomb had been placed, right there
25:33
Speaker 1: on the ground, probably concealed in some kind of a
25:36
Speaker 1: small box or package. From the autopsy which had shown
25:39
Speaker 1: distinct damage to Kem's right hand, Shepherd knew that what
25:43
Speaker 1: likely happened was that she had spotted the package and
25:46
Speaker 1: picked it up with her right hand, which then triggered
25:49
Speaker 1: the explosion. And this was actually the single most important
25:52
Speaker 1: thing the FEDS had been able to determine that the
25:55
Speaker 1: bomb was motion activated. This was huge because it meant
26:00
Speaker 1: and the bomber did not have to be at or
26:02
Speaker 1: even near Kem's house to trigger the explosion manually, which
26:06
Speaker 1: meant they could have left this thing there anytime during
26:09
Speaker 1: the weekend. This also explained why there were a bunch
26:12
Speaker 1: of wires and bomb making materials found in the basement,
26:15
Speaker 1: because if the bomb had been built somewhere else and
26:17
Speaker 1: transported to Kem's house in say a car, the bomb
26:21
Speaker 1: could have exploded along the way. So what likely happened
26:24
Speaker 1: was that Kem's killer brought a partially finished bomb to
26:28
Speaker 1: Kem's house that would not detonate as they carried it,
26:31
Speaker 1: and then they put the final touches on it right
26:33
Speaker 1: on site once it was actually in position in the foyer.
26:37
Speaker 1: This also meant the bomber had to be pretty sophisticated,
26:40
Speaker 1: because building a bomb like this took technical skill, it
26:43
Speaker 1: took some intelligence and real attention to detail, because if
26:47
Speaker 1: you don't have those things, you can set off the
26:49
Speaker 1: bomb and kill yourself. And so in Shepherd's mind, this
26:53
Speaker 1: likely took Kem's mother, Cricket right off the table. She
26:56
Speaker 1: just did not strike him as organized enough or really
26:59
Speaker 1: coherent enough to build this type of bomb. She just
27:01
Speaker 1: seemed way too scatterbrained. Kem's exes, Dale Fosdick and Todd
27:06
Speaker 1: Wenger both worked with machines for a living, so they
27:09
Speaker 1: were definitely still in, and her fiance Kurt was highly educated,
27:13
Speaker 1: so he was still in. Shepherd wasn't sure about Phil Hartman,
27:16
Speaker 1: the coworker who Kem had accused of sexually harassing her.
27:19
Speaker 1: He had reached Phil by phone that morning, and Phil
27:21
Speaker 1: had told him he was working in Louisiana at the
27:24
Speaker 1: time the bomb went off, hundreds of miles away, but
27:27
Speaker 1: Shepherd knew just being physically far away from the bomb
27:30
Speaker 1: when it went off was not a perfect alibi. Because
27:33
Speaker 1: it was motion activated. You could place it and then
27:36
Speaker 1: travel and be far away. But at the same time,
27:39
Speaker 1: Louisiana was really far away, and Phil really didn't seem
27:43
Speaker 1: to have any technical background that Sheppard had found. So
27:46
Speaker 1: Phil was still in but less so. As Shepherd stood
27:50
Speaker 1: there in the black and destroyed foyer, looking at the
27:53
Speaker 1: partially burned pages of modern bride magazines that had been
27:56
Speaker 1: blown all over the room, he thought about the fact
27:58
Speaker 1: that whoever had done this had to have been very
28:01
Speaker 1: comfortable in Kem's house. They had gotten inside the house
28:04
Speaker 1: at some point and then clearly spent time in the
28:07
Speaker 1: basement tinkering with the bomb. Then they came up and
28:10
Speaker 1: they're in the foyer setting the bomb up. I mean,
28:12
Speaker 1: that's someone who's pretty confident they're not going to get
28:15
Speaker 1: caught doing all this inside the house. That serious boldness,
28:20
Speaker 1: and so Shepard was starting to feel pretty confident that
28:23
Speaker 1: whoever had done this was either family to Kem or
28:27
Speaker 1: as close to her as family. Shepherd left Kem's house
28:31
Speaker 1: thinking about how he might search both Dale and Todd's
28:34
Speaker 1: places of work to see if any of the machinery
28:36
Speaker 1: they used shared parts with the bomb. But as he
28:39
Speaker 1: stepped off the final step onto the sidewalk, he heard
28:43
Speaker 1: a voice call out behind him, and he turned to
28:45
Speaker 1: see a Bloomington police officer jogging over towards him. The
28:48
Speaker 1: bombing had created real panic, not just in Bloomington, but
28:51
Speaker 1: across Illinois. People were now terrified that there was going
28:55
Speaker 1: to be a bomb that would show up on their
28:57
Speaker 1: front porch. They would see a package they didn't recognize,
29:00
Speaker 1: and they would call the police with fears that that
29:02
Speaker 1: could be an explosive. I mean, it was like this
29:04
Speaker 1: paranoia had swept the state. And so in response to that,
29:08
Speaker 1: specifically in Bloomington, the police had a much stronger presence
29:11
Speaker 1: out on the street, and Shepherd had also asked officers
29:15
Speaker 1: to recanvass Kem's neighborhood to question the neighbors again now
29:18
Speaker 1: that they knew more about the bomb itself, specifically that
29:21
Speaker 1: the bomb was motion activated, which meant the bomber did
29:25
Speaker 1: not need to be there. Basically right before it went off.
29:28
Speaker 1: They were in the house they were building the bomb
29:31
Speaker 1: days before. They planted the bomb in advance of the bombing,
29:35
Speaker 1: so there was a bigger window of time that they
29:37
Speaker 1: were wondering who was at Kem's house, who was acting
29:40
Speaker 1: suspicious near Kem's house in the days leading up to
29:44
Speaker 1: the bombing. Those were the questions they had for the neighbors.
29:47
Speaker 1: And so this officer that was running over to Shepherd,
29:50
Speaker 1: that's what they had been doing, recanvassing the neighborhood. And
29:53
Speaker 1: when he reached Shepherd, he told him he'd found something.
29:56
Speaker 1: Shepard eagerly followed the officer over to one of Kem's
29:59
Speaker 1: neighbor's house, and there he saw a little girl, maybe
30:03
Speaker 1: ten or eleven years old, standing nervously next to her father.
30:12
Speaker 1: And based on what this little girl would say, along
30:15
Speaker 1: with evidence collected by the Bloomington Police Department and the ATF,
30:19
Speaker 1: this is a reconstruction of what authorities believe happened to
30:22
Speaker 1: Kem Wanger. On May twenty second, nineteen ninety three, at
30:33
Speaker 1: around ten thirty that morning, the killer pulled up in
30:36
Speaker 1: their car outside of Kem's house. They picked up a
30:39
Speaker 1: bag that was sitting on their passenger seat, which contained
30:41
Speaker 1: a partially completed pipe bomb and some tools. With this
30:45
Speaker 1: in hand, they got out of the car and they
30:47
Speaker 1: walked up to the front door and they pulled a
30:49
Speaker 1: key from their pocket. This was the same key they
30:52
Speaker 1: had stolen from under the doormat a few months earlier.
30:55
Speaker 1: They used the key to unlock the front door and
30:57
Speaker 1: they let themselves inside. The killer then down to the basement,
31:01
Speaker 1: where they took all the various items from the bag
31:03
Speaker 1: and placed them on the counter, and they got to work.
31:06
Speaker 1: The killer was not worried about getting caught. They knew
31:09
Speaker 1: this neighborhood very well, and everybody in this neighborhood knew them,
31:13
Speaker 1: and they would not find it suspicious at all to
31:15
Speaker 1: see them there. Plus, they knew they would have an
31:17
Speaker 1: alibi for the time period when the bomb actually would
31:20
Speaker 1: go off. Once the bomb was mostly assembled, the killer
31:24
Speaker 1: gathered up most of their things. They left behind some
31:27
Speaker 1: random supplies in the basement, but figured it didn't really
31:29
Speaker 1: matter since the explosion would take care of everything. Feeling
31:33
Speaker 1: very confident in their workmanship so far, the killer walked
31:36
Speaker 1: back upstairs and placed the nearly completed bomb on the
31:40
Speaker 1: floor in the foyer, and then as they completed the
31:43
Speaker 1: final steps, they could feel sweat beating on their forehead
31:46
Speaker 1: because if they did anything wrong, the bomb would go off.
31:50
Speaker 1: But the killer got it all done, and they stood
31:52
Speaker 1: up very slowly and carefully and walked back out through
31:55
Speaker 1: the front door. But before they could get in their
31:58
Speaker 1: car and drive away, they saw one of the neighborhood
32:01
Speaker 1: girls playing in the yard next door. And the girl
32:04
Speaker 1: looked at them and waved and said hello. And the killer,
32:07
Speaker 1: who felt like they belonged there and no one will
32:09
Speaker 1: remember me, they waved back. Well. The little girl remembered
32:14
Speaker 1: that interaction and she would tell Detective Shepherd who she
32:17
Speaker 1: saw leaving Kem's house. It was none other than Kem's
32:20
Speaker 1: ex boyfriend and the father of her son, Dale Faustik.
32:25
Speaker 1: Dale was very upset that Kem had broken up with
32:28
Speaker 1: him and was now seeing Kurt. He had also heard
32:31
Speaker 1: from Cricket, who he was still very close with, that
32:34
Speaker 1: Kurt had talked about adopting his own son, and this
32:37
Speaker 1: enraged him. He couldn't stand the idea that his own
32:40
Speaker 1: boy might grow up calling another man dad. So he
32:44
Speaker 1: used the electronic skills and the tools he'd acquired from
32:47
Speaker 1: his hobby of building model airplanes to build a pipe bomb,
32:51
Speaker 1: and so ultimately Dale was caught. Because of his entitlement
32:55
Speaker 1: to feel like he could just stroll into Kemp's house
32:57
Speaker 1: anytime he wanted, because he did that all the time,
33:00
Speaker 1: despite our saying not to. He became a familiar face
33:04
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood and that's why that little girl remembered him.
33:08
Speaker 1: After months of forensic work that tied Dale even more
33:11
Speaker 1: closely to the bomb, he was finally arrested and found
33:14
Speaker 1: guilty of first greet murder and sentenced to sixty one
33:17
Speaker 1: years in prison, But he would only serve fourteen of
33:20
Speaker 1: those years because in twenty ten, while still behind bars,
33:23
Speaker 1: Dale died of a sudden illness. Thank you so much
33:35
Speaker 1: for watching. Let me know what you thought of today's
33:37
Speaker 1: episode in the comments, and remember, we have a whole
33:40
Speaker 1: playlist of true crime episodes ready for you to binge
33:43
Speaker 1: right now, so click here and give them a watch.
33:46
Speaker 1: All right, until next time, see you