Latest / True Crime California / TCC 17 Roger Kibbe, The I-5 Strangler

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TCC 17 Roger Kibbe, The I-5 Strangler · True Crime California

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Then They Were Gone. We're a weekly show that covers
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Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome to True Crime California. I'm your host, Cindy,
0:50
and I'm glad you're here. Good morning everyone. I'm recording
1:05
in the morning. I'm a day late on this and
1:07
I apologize. I'm your host, Cindy, and this is True
1:10
Crime California. Thanks so much for tuning in now. Throughout
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the week, I always think about things that I want
1:16
to say to you guys, and then I forget and
1:20
I start recording and I just jump right in. So
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I wanted to go back real quick to the Carrie
1:25
Stainer case and mentioned that my dad actually worked on
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the case. So my dad went to law school, but
1:33
he knows never a lawyer. He worked doing like stuff
1:37
with documents. I don't know, it's hard to explain. It's
1:39
above my level of understanding. But he basically had all
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of the evidence, all of the written, documented evidence, photos,
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everything in his possession at one point. And it's pretty crazy.
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The details that he gave me last week. I didn't
2:00
actually share a lot of them because I'm not sure
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if I'm allowed to, but the case is insane. Like
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Carrie how I talked about how Carrie Stainer wanted to
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sort of have the fantasy about the woman like almost
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enjoying what he's doing. Some of his interviews, some of
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the things that he said that he sort of created
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in his mind about these encounters were so fucking twisted,
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basically saying like the girls like Sylvina was like enjoying
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what was happening to her. Totally fucking crazy. He also
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saw the my dad saw the photos of like the car,
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which I don't think have been like released publicly. So
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he basically said it was an insane, like horrible case
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and that the dude was so beyond what we all
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kind of know as far as like how twisted he is,
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just the evidence of that was nuts. My dad also
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worked on the Charles Ing and liked Lake case. I
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will cover that, and when I do, I'm gonna interview
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him and he'll obviously tell me what I can what
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I can share, But that one's gonna be a little
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while coming because that's a bag ass case.
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Speaker 3: There's a lot to it, so we'll get there.
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Speaker 1: In any case, I just want to kind of talk
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about carry Stayner because I totally forgot to mention that before. Anyway,
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this week we are going to do another serial killer.
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We're gonna do Roger Kibbi, the I five strangler. This
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is a case that in some ways actually reminds me
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of the Carry Stainer case. And I'll call it out
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sort of when I recognize it, but I'm sure you
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guys will all recognize some similarities between the cases as well.
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I guess I'm just gonna jump in and get started.
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This is a doozy of a case. I cut it
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down a little bit just because, like I don't know,
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sometimes there's too much backstory on a serial killer, Like
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do we really care all the details of his young
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life like maybe not maybe just the high level stuff.
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So we're gonna get through it in one episode and
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hopefully you guys enjoy and don't know this case super well.
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If you do, hopefully you like the way I tell it. Okay,
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So let's just get into it. Roger Kibbie was born
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May twenty first, nineteen thirty nine, in California. He was
4:17
the oldest of three brothers, and he grew up much
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of his young life without his father. He was born
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just before World War Two and his father was in
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the Navy, so he was gone for much of Roger's
4:30
young life, leaving Roger alone with his mother, Lorraine. His
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younger brother, Steve, was doted on by Lorraine and loved
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her very much his entire life. Now, if you guys,
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remember I said there were gonna be some Carrie Stayiner connections.
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Carrie Stayner's younger brother was named Stephen and was loved
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more by his parents than Carrie was, at least in
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Carrie's eyes. Now in Roger's eyes, his younger brother Steve
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was loved by his mother more than he was, and
5:03
in fact, Roger hated his mother, and it actually did
5:07
seem that the feeling was mutual. His mother used to
5:11
beat him often, sometimes to the point where he was
5:14
unable to move. This was when he was under five
5:17
years old, so very traumatic, possibly like actually like physically traumatic,
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like brain trauma, but definitely traumatic emotionally. You know, that's
5:28
that's fucked. His father, Jack, actually said that Lorraine never
5:34
liked Roger and that she was very mean to him.
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So this, unlike with Carrie Stainer, where we don't know
5:41
if that's actually true, in this instance, we have other
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people in the family being like, oh, yeah, she hated Roger,
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which is fucking crazy to just like hate your firstborn
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son just for no fucking reason. It's really really weird.
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And as I said, Roger lived most of his young
5:57
life without his father, to the point where when his
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father return from the war, the first thing Roger said
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to him was are you my dad? His dad was
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expecting this like warm, welcome home, you know, this beautiful
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Tierye reunion, and his kid did not even recognize him.
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So that's how bad it was and how alone Roger
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was with this woman who hated him. As far as
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school went, Roger didn't have many friends as he had
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a severe stutter, which made him the butt of many jokes.
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Even his friends treated him poorly and made fun of
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him for that, so it's just kind of piling on here.
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He doesn't have anybody who's being.
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Speaker 3: Nice to him.
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Speaker 1: As a result, Roger ended up spending a lot of
6:39
time alone and away from the house, and this started
6:42
at a young age and continued until he moved away.
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This led him to spending a lot of time outdoors,
6:50
and eventually he began peeping into his neighbor's windows. He
6:54
focused mostly on women, likely due to his hatred for
6:57
his mother. It was starting to already manifest in sort
7:00
of an obsession and a negative obsession with women. And
7:05
when he was a preteen, this is fucked up. He
7:07
started stealing women's clothing, mostly underwear, from local clotheslines because
7:11
people were drying their clothing outside a lot still in
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the forties and fifties, and he was a teenager. I
7:18
guess in nineteen fifty two is when he turned thirteen,
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so around this time he started doing this, which is
7:25
kind of crazy.
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Speaker 3: When he was.
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Speaker 1: Fourteen, he stole a pair of scissors from his mother
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and started cutting up the clothing that he was stealing.
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He would shred it to ribbons. He also buried boxes
7:36
of clothing and in nearby park, likely so he could
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visit the box when he wanted. So all of this
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is very concerning, like pre serial killer behavior, and we
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know this now, so seeing it happen or hearing about it,
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it's like we all kind of know what's going to
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happen right now. Around this time, a girl, a little
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girl in the park saw him burying a box of
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clothing and told her mother. Her mother called the police,
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and they started to investigate, and a bunch of people
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in the park let the cops know, like, oh, it's
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this kid, Roger. Now this was connected to another report
8:13
that a woman made of her clothing being stolen. So
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they had a report of a woman's underwear being stolen
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from a clothing line. And then they had a little
8:21
girl saying that she saw a teenager bearing a box
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of clothing in the park. Finally police kind of put
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everything together. They went to Roger's house and they confronted him,
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and the cop who confronted him later said that while
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Roger said he was sorry, he seemed extremely emotionless about
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the situation, like he could not have been more of
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a blank slate when he was talking about this. Roger
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admitted to what he did and returned what clothing he
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had in his room, which had all been cut to
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shreds now. The officer saw this for the red flag
8:58
it was and decided to step in, which is pretty
9:02
crazy because you know cops. Anyway, he decided to help
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the family get Roger therapy. Unfortunately, Roger's family couldn't pay
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for it, and the officer was only able to get
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three sessions sponsored. He had somebody donate money, but after
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those three sessions, the family was like, we can't afford it,
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we don't care, and they just dropped it. So it's
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kind of crazy that this cops saw this and went
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to these lengths to help the family, And it's really
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sad that his parents just kind of let him flounder
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without help when it's very clear that he needed it.
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But again, his mother is a big part of why
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he needs it, so I guess it kind of all
9:38
makes sense. Roger also at this time started breaking into
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homes and tying himself up waiting for police to come
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get him, and when the cops would come, he would
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claim that he was kidnapped, tied up, and sexually assaulted
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by a group of men. Now, this actually happened twice
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where the police actually came, and both times Roger was
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tied up with win woman's clothing, and the thought is
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that he did this himself, obviously. He also around this
10:07
time dropped out of high school without his parents even
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realizing it for months, that's how little attention they paid
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to him. He actually went to an open house at
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his high school and the school was like, what are
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you guys doing here? We thought you moved away? Like
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they had no idea that Roger was just skipping, absolutely crazy.
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So he did then fully drop out, and then as
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soon as he could, he moved out of his parents' home.
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At twenty two, he married someone and had a daughter,
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but was arrested for stealing multiple times in his young
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life between like eighteen and twenty two, and after his
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daughter was born, he was arrested for stealing and he
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ended up going to jail for two years. During this time,
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his wife left him and moved away, took his daughter,
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and he did not have much of a relationship with
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his daughter until she was an adult. At this time,
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while he was in jail, not only did his wife
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leave him, but his mother died, so there's just trauma, trauma, trauma,
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and no closure with his mother either. This left Roger
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angry and aimless and looking for more trouble. His main
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thing was stealing, which somehow kept his anger at bay
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but also kept him in and out of prison for years.
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Around nineteen seventy, he got his welder's license and also
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learned woodworking and had a few jobs relating to those skills,
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and he also got into skydiving, which was a way
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that he was able to sort of calm his brain.
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I think the adrenaline worked to satisfy his need to
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take risks and get into trouble without actually getting into trouble.
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So I think there was something definitely weird about his
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brain that he needed the adrenaline, he needed the thrill,
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like he was like a thrill seeker.
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Speaker 3: I forget the name of that.
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Speaker 1: There's like a rock climbing movie, God, I can't remember it,
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and the guy like free climbs. I think it's called
12:02
like free climb something like that. I mean, it's like
12:03
such an obvious name, but basically there's this like rock
12:07
climber who climbs like mountain sides with no gear. So
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if he lets go, he dies, and it's super scary
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people who do this and die all the time. And
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they actually did a scan of this guy's brain and
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they saw that it's like different than most people's brains,
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and like he doesn't get excited or upset by like
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the normal stimuli that like would upset and excite other people,
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which is why he's looking for this thrill. And if
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I had to guess, I would say that Roger Kibbie
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had something similar because he likes the thrill of stealing.
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He likes the thrill of skydiving. Obviously he's a serial killer,
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so there's like something about it that's like scratching an
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itch in his brain for this like danger and this
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like scare. So I don't know, I thought that was
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interesting when I was reading about him. It just came
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to my mind that like that could be what it is,
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especially with like the skydiving tie in. Also, Roger was
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like the most flat, quiet, emotionless guy, and when he
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would get like cornered to talk about his emotions, he
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would just shut down entirely, like he just would not
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say anything. He would clam up and like walk away.
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So a very interesting person with a very interesting brain.
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So anyway, he gets into skydiving and for a little
13:29
while this kind of put him on the quote unquote
13:31
straight and narrow. But even here he couldn't help but
13:34
be himself. Eventually, after a short while, he was caught
13:39
stealing parachutes from the airport, and as a result, he
13:42
went to prison for two years. Because at this point
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he'd been arrested more than twenty times for similar things,
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so this is the second time he goes to prison
13:50
for two years for theft, because it's like more than
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the twentieth time he's been arrested. At this point, he
13:56
was also evaluated by a psychiatrist who said that Rod
14:00
was a very scary man who would very likely turn
14:04
to violence eventually. Of course, nothing was done with this information,
14:10
because of course it wasn't that being said. After getting
14:15
out of prison, Roger moved in for a while with
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his brother Steve, who had actually become a cop and
14:20
later a homicide detective, which is very ironic. But during
14:25
this time he started to get his life together, at
14:27
least outwardly. He even started dating one of Steve's neighbors,
14:31
a woman named Harriet, who was this very like loud
14:34
and domineering person, which probably reminded Roger of his mother.
14:40
What Roger, like I said, was quiet and meek. The
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word meek was used to describe him often to the
14:46
point of being like unsettling. He was so quiet, so
14:49
it seemed like Harriet sort of filled in the gaps
14:52
in his personality. In reality, the two were a mismatch
14:56
to say the least. Harriet didn't respect Roger as he
15:00
too passive and didn't ever take charge on anything, and
15:03
as a result, Harriet was pretty.
15:04
Speaker 3: Abusive to Roger.
15:06
Speaker 1: She would scream at him and in return, Roger would
15:09
be completely indifferent to her and everything else. However, somehow
15:15
this helped him keep his life together, like he didn't
15:18
do bad things, at least when they first got together.
15:22
So the couple mismatched as they were got married and
15:26
moved to the East Bay. I think they were in Pittsburgh,
15:29
which is a small town in.
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Speaker 3: Like the Bay area.
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Speaker 1: So we're now in the late nineteen seventies. Roger's working
15:36
as a truck driver, which is, you know, the perfect
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job for a serial killer, but weirdly doesn't actually come
15:40
into play in this story. And after a time of
15:45
being with Harriet and sort of trying to keep his
15:46
shit together. He falls back into his old patterns, wanting
15:52
to find trouble, and in fact, his desire to kill
15:56
women now becomes all he can think about. He really,
16:01
you know, he was peeping on women. He hates his mother.
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He's got this domineering wife. They're getting an argument. She's
16:08
basically just verbally abusing him all the time. Finally, he
16:13
can't take it anymore. So in nineteen seventy seven, Roger
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Kibbie reached out to a school who trained admin assistance
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like administrative assistants, claiming to be a business owner in
16:24
need of a secretary. They connected him with twenty one
16:28
year old lou Ellen Burley, who Roger had meet him
16:32
in a parking lot near a construction site I believe
16:35
in I don't know if it was San Francisco, but
16:38
somewhere right around there. Roger told leu Ellen that his
16:42
office was under construction, so he wanted to have the
16:46
job interview with her in his van. She agreed with
16:49
him to do that. Sorry, that was a weird way
16:52
to say that. She agreed to do that because they
16:54
were at this construction site and there were other people around,
16:57
so she was like, well, he's not going to do
16:59
anything to me with like all these you know, construction
17:01
workers here, and everything went okay in the van. He
17:05
offered her the job, and he offered her like a
17:08
really good pay rate. I don't know how much, but
17:10
like way over the going rate for her profession. And
17:13
this is something that he does later on. He always
17:16
offers way more money than seems reasonable, so that's one
17:20
of his little like patterns. So he says to her,
17:23
I'm going to pay you all this money to be
17:25
my secretary. I want to have one more interview with
17:27
you tomorrow. Can you come back tomorrow meet me here
17:31
at the same time, and we'll have another interview, lock
17:35
everything in, and then you'll start working for me. So
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Luellen agrees. She's super nervous to do so. Roger hadn't
17:41
done anything like specifically strange during the interview, but she
17:45
did get a weird feeling from him, which is totally fair.
17:49
That being said, she couldn't give up such a great
17:50
job opportunity, so she agreed to meet him. She went
17:53
home and told her boyfriend about the meeting and was like,
17:55
you know, something's a little off. Can you come with
17:58
me tomorrow to this interview. Very Unfortunately, he was not available,
18:04
so lou Ellen decided to go on her own. She
18:07
debated for a while and finally she was like, I
18:09
gotta do it.
18:11
Speaker 3: This was a big mistake.
18:14
Speaker 1: She met Roger in the same place the next day,
18:16
which was Sunday, and as it was Sunday, nobody was around.
18:21
She got into Roger's van and he immediately attacked her
18:24
and tied her up. He then drove to Lake Barriessa
18:29
in Napa County, which you all might know Lake Barriessa
18:32
because of the Zodiac Killer. He killed two people there,
18:37
or I think one actually survived, but anyway, Lake burry
18:39
Essa connects from where I grew up to Napa, which
18:43
is more on the Bay side. So he drove her
18:45
to that side of Lake Barriessa in Napa County, raped her,
18:49
and strangled her to death. He then dumped her body.
18:53
Her boyfriend reported her missing and told the police everything,
18:57
but he'd never seen Roger. He didn't have any information
19:00
about him.
19:01
Speaker 3: Really.
19:02
Speaker 1: Police went to the lot where she met Roger and
19:04
found Llewellyn's car. They then gave the the case over
19:08
to the Walnut Creek Police, which is another town around there,
19:11
and they found some witnesses who described Roger fairly well,
19:15
including the fact that he had some missing teeth yum.
19:20
About a month later, another woman contacted police to tell
19:24
them about a run and she had with Roger Kibbi.
19:26
She said she put an ad in the paper for
19:28
sex work and he responded. He took her out, offered
19:32
her two hundred dollars for sex, which at that time
19:35
was a lot of money, then drove her to a
19:38
secluded area and had sex with her. Before doing this,
19:43
she made him show her his ID so that she
19:46
knew who he was, and she also said, you need
19:49
to give me four hundred dollars, to which he agreed,
19:52
which is another.
19:53
Speaker 3: Red flag in my opinion.
19:55
Speaker 1: Around three in the morning, he was driving her home
19:58
but suddenly stopped in a field, saying his sisters lived
20:02
nearby and he wanted to see if their lights were on.
20:06
He asked this woman to get out of the van
20:07
and walk with him, but she refused because this is
20:10
fucking ridiculous. Obviously, this is just a ruse and he's.
20:12
Speaker 3: Gonna hurt her.
20:14
Speaker 1: He pulled her out of the van angrily when she
20:17
refused and put a knife to her throat. Somehow this
20:21
woman was able to remain calm, and this seemed to
20:24
calm Roger as well, and that makes me think again,
20:28
he's getting off on the excitement when he sees other
20:31
people showing emotion. That scratches that itch for him. So
20:35
her ability to remain calm and not give him that
20:39
somehow calmed him down. Eventually, he put the knife away
20:44
and let her go. Her lack of terror definitely made
20:48
killing her less appealing for him, and I'm pretty sure
20:51
that's what.
20:51
Speaker 3: Saved her life.
20:53
Speaker 1: He actually drove her home, and while he did, for
20:56
some reason, he told her he had done this three
20:58
times before with other women. Whatever this was will never know.
21:05
As he was leaving, she wrote down his license plate,
21:07
and when she was next arrested for sex work a
21:09
couple of weeks later, she told police this story. Police
21:13
used this information and quickly linked Roger to lou Ellen's disappearance,
21:18
and they thought they had their man. Unfortunately, this woman,
21:22
the sex worker, wouldn't press charges. Also, the witnesses in
21:26
Llewellen's case couldn't say for sure that Roger was the
21:29
man they saw with her. Lastly, lou Ellen was still
21:33
considered missing. She wasn't considered dead because her body hadn't
21:37
been found, so it couldn't really be a murder case
21:40
because they didn't have a body, So eventually police had
21:43
to drop the case as an aside. Lluellen's body wasn't
21:47
found for over thirty years, so that's pretty fucked. The
21:51
police came to Roger's house and Harriet found out about
21:54
his being questioned, but she didn't believe Roger would ever
21:57
be capable of something like murder because once again she
22:00
saw him as this sort of meek, passive, emotionless person.
22:05
And so life went on. Llewellen was gone and nobody
22:10
was held accountable for it. Roger and Harriet's marriage continued
22:16
to be problematic, and Roger began leaving at night, sometimes
22:21
for many, many hours, leaving Harriet all alone. Harriet had
22:26
no idea where he was going and would often beg
22:29
him to tell her, and to open up to her
22:32
and give her something of emotion, some love, some anger, anything.
22:37
In response, Roger would simply walk away, not saying a
22:40
single word. Sometimes Harriet would find him in his wood
22:44
shop asleep on a couch, but more often she wouldn't
22:47
find him at all. This is because Roger was out
22:51
prowling the streets, paying for sex and hurting and killing women.
22:56
As far as we all know, he didn't actually kill
22:58
another woman until nineteen eighty six, nine years after lou
23:02
Ellen's murder, and in fact, for a while his life
23:05
seemed quote unquote normal, despite the terrible relationship he had
23:09
with his wife. For a time, his daughter from his
23:12
first marriage even came and lived with him after she
23:14
had her son. Roger seemingly loved his grandson and spent
23:19
a ton of time with him. In April of nineteen
23:22
eighty four, however, after kind of once again having another
23:25
bout of like being a normal dude, his urges took
23:28
over and he started once again looking for victims. He
23:32
found a woman who was a sex worker and gained
23:35
her trust. Over the course of a few weeks, he
23:37
started giving her money, like talking to her about her situation.
23:41
You know, she had a drug habit and she needed
23:43
to support herself. He then said, you know, why don't
23:47
you come live with me and have sex with me
23:50
and I will give you two hundred dollars a day
23:52
to do this. Now, once again, two hundred dollars a
23:55
day is a crazy amount of money in nineteen eighty four,
23:59
he obviously didn't have that kind of money, but he's
24:02
trying to make it something she can't refuse. So as
24:05
he's like gaining her trust, he's also learning about her
24:08
and understanding how to manipulate her to get what he wants.
24:12
This woman agreed, but when Roger picked her up to
24:14
take her to his home, he of course instead drove
24:17
her to a field in the middle of nowhere, then
24:19
raped her. He left her in the field. He did
24:22
not kill her, and she went to the hospital and
24:26
then called the police. When questioned, Roger blamed the sex worker,
24:30
saying she was a liar trying to take advantage of him.
24:33
Police already had this guy on their radar from the
24:36
Llewellyn murder, so they were not immediately believing him. But
24:40
when they went to reinterview this woman, she had disappeared,
24:44
likely leaving town to avoid the entire situation. So this
24:48
is twice that we've had sex workers involved who have
24:51
been like, I'm not putting myself in this situation. I'm
24:53
getting out of here, which given what we know about
24:56
the way police treat these women, is more than fair.
24:59
But also very unfortunate because this is yet another close
25:03
call where Roger does.
25:04
Speaker 3: Not get caught.
25:06
Speaker 1: Then, as I mentioned, in nineteen eighty six, he struck again.
25:10
He decided to wait a while to get the police
25:12
office trail, so you know, he took another like two
25:16
year kind of cooling off period before nineteen eighty six.
25:20
Between nineteen eighty four nineteen eighty six, he and Harriet
25:23
went into business together making furniture. The business was beginning
25:28
to fail pretty much immediately and things continued to fall apart,
25:31
but they did sort of.
25:32
Speaker 3: Keep it together for a while.
25:35
Speaker 1: Once again, part of the reason the business was failing
25:37
was due to Roger's intense apathy and inability to really
25:42
do anything for the business besides like build furniture, And
25:47
this sort of failure was essentially the.
25:50
Speaker 3: End of their relationship.
25:51
Speaker 1: Now they stayed together, but for all intents and purposes,
25:55
they were no longer together. Roger wouldn't even bother coming
25:59
home at night anymore, not even late late at night.
26:02
He would just stay out, and Harriet stopped even asking
26:05
what was going on. On September sixth, nineteen eighty six,
26:09
Roger went out on one of his nights away and
26:12
picked up Laura Heidik, a sometimes sex worker and drug
26:15
user who was only twenty one years old. This was
26:19
in Modesto, California, and if you all remember what I
26:21
said about Modesto in the Carrie Steiner episode, is a
26:25
very rough area and was even more so back then.
26:29
So Roger picks up Laura and she agrees to go
26:31
with him to have sex, but asked that her boyfriend
26:34
come along and wait outside the hotel room for her safety. Roger,
26:39
not bothered, totally agreed, then said, while me and Laura
26:43
are gonna go pick up some drugs, why don't you,
26:46
boyfriend wait outside the hotel room.
26:48
Speaker 3: Will be right back.
26:49
Speaker 1: Then we'll all do the drugs, and then Laura and
26:51
I will have sex and you can wait outside. Of course,
26:55
Roger and Laura never came back, and her boyfriend sat
26:58
there waiting until ten am the following morning. While he waited,
27:04
Roger raped and strangled Laura to death, then dumped her
27:07
body near the side of the road. The following morning,
27:10
her boyfriend reported her missing, and he actually had her
27:14
mom do it and then lied to police about the
27:16
circumstances of how she went missing because he didn't want
27:19
to get in trouble and he didn't want.
27:20
Speaker 3: Her to get in trouble.
27:22
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, this made her very difficult to find and made
27:25
him the prime suspect because obviously he's being not truthful
27:30
about it and police knew that. Eventually he was cleared,
27:34
but by this time the case went cold. Just a
27:37
few months later, on July third, nineteen eighty six, he
27:41
met another sex worker near his Pittsburgh, California home. Twenty
27:46
nine year old Barbara Ann Scott was also raped and
27:49
strangled to death, then dumped on a golf course in Antioch.
27:54
Her body was found quickly, but there were no leads
27:57
in the case as there was no evidence. Also, she
28:01
was a sex worker, so it wasn't really priority. Less
28:04
than two weeks later, on July nineteenth, he did the
28:09
same thing, And at this point I want to call
28:12
out that almost all of his victims were picked up
28:14
either on or just near the five Freeway, hence his
28:18
nickname the I five Strangler. Now July nineteenth, Stephanie Brown,
28:23
who was not a sex worker, was called by her
28:26
friends after their car broke down. Her friends, Jim and Patty,
28:31
needed help, and Stephanie came to their rescue. Despite having
28:33
to be up early the next morning for work. After
28:36
helping her friends, she was on her way home when
28:40
she went the wrong way. She didn't actually know really
28:42
where she was, and her friends tried to give her directions,
28:45
but she went the wrong way on the five Freeway.
28:48
She went down the five South instead of the five North.
28:51
It's not clear exactly what happened from here, but seemingly
28:55
she pulled to the side of the road to look
28:57
at a map and Kibby pulled over behind her. He
29:00
attacked her in her car, tied her up, and drove
29:03
her fifty miles south. He then raped and strangled her.
29:08
But this time he did something else that harkens back
29:11
to his teenage years. Roger brought scissors with him and
29:15
cut off her hair and also shredded her shirt with
29:20
the scissors. So what he was doing is he would
29:23
put duct tape on his victim's faces and then cut
29:27
it off so as not to leave any evidence. So like,
29:31
if there was like DNA evidence on the tape because
29:33
he touched it or whatever, he would cut it off
29:35
and take it with him. And police knew this because
29:38
there was residue and also like at this point now
29:40
he's like cutting their hair, so they're starting to see
29:43
a pattern. But even though they see a pattern, they
29:45
realize part of this pattern is getting rid of any evidence,
29:49
and this is what he did to Stephanie. He then
29:52
dumped her body in a drainage ditch. She was reported
29:56
missing the next morning, and when her body was found
29:59
shortly there at after, there were scissors found next to it.
30:03
Other than that, there was no evidence as to who
30:06
killed her or why. Police at this point believed they
30:10
were looking for an experienced killer because there was very
30:13
little evidence left behind. Also, the shredding of the clothing
30:16
and cutting of the hair looked like a signature, which
30:20
it very much was. Police were now worried there was
30:23
a serial killer on the loose, but again they had
30:25
nothing to go on to find him. Now, this next
30:29
murder is absolutely fucking wild because it goes to show
30:34
just how brazen Roger was becoming during these attacks. Just
30:39
a few weeks after the last murder, Roger struck again.
30:43
On the night of August seventeenth, nineteen eighty six, twenty
30:47
six year old Charmaine Sabra and her mother Carmen had
30:50
broken down on the side of the Frive freeway not
30:53
far from where Stephanie had been taken. Roger pulled over,
30:57
offered them help, but said he could only take one
31:00
of the women to a phone booth because his car
31:02
was too full to fit them both. Carmen decided to
31:05
go with him, protecting her daughter. You know, if anybody's
31:08
gonna risk it, it's gonna be her, and Roger actually
31:10
did take her to a phone booth where she tried
31:13
to call her family. Unfortunately, both her son and daughter
31:17
were asleep and neither of them woke up when she
31:19
called their homes. Finally, Carmen gave up and Roger drove
31:24
her back to their car. He then said, well, why
31:27
don't I take one of you home? You can get
31:29
help in person and come back and get the other one.
31:32
The women were like, yeah, let's do it. They trusted
31:34
Roger at this point, so they were like, yeah, no problem.
31:38
Speaker 3: This time.
31:38
Speaker 1: Charmain went with Roger because she had a baby at
31:41
home that she needed to feed. So her mom was like,
31:44
why don't you go and you can feed your baby.
31:47
I'll wait here, come and get me when you're ready.
31:50
This obviously was a horrible mistake. Charmain went with Roger
31:55
and never returned. While waiting, Carmen fell asleep in the
32:00
car and didn't wake up until the following morning.
32:02
Speaker 3: When a cop woke her up by tapping on her window.
32:05
Speaker 1: She told him what happened, and he helped her to
32:07
a phone, where she called her family and then realized
32:11
Charmaine never made it home, which is why nobody came
32:14
to help her. Charmaine's strangled body was found November ninth,
32:19
nineteen eighty six, in Ione, California. Unlike the other victims
32:24
who were always strangled with their own clothing, Charmaine was
32:28
strangled using parachute chord because Roger was still going skydiving
32:32
and had it on hand. He also cut her hair
32:36
and her clothing. Now, this shows another progression or refinement
32:40
to Roger's killing, which is very scary in that he's
32:43
now bringing things with him rather than just using what's there,
32:47
so he's becoming a more organized and more methodical killer. Also,
32:52
beyond that, he straight up left a witness, someone who
32:55
spent time with him and was in his car, so
32:58
obviously like he's not afraid of getting caught, or like
33:01
I said, he probably really.
33:03
Speaker 3: Enjoys the thrill. Now.
33:06
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, police are doing their best to catch this killer,
33:09
including setting up a checkpoint near where Stephanie had been killed,
33:12
which is interesting because that's where Charman and Carmen were
33:15
picked up, and they were looking for witnesses to these crimes. Unfortunately,
33:20
this didn't lead to very much, but it did make
33:22
the case really known in the Sacramento and Bay areas,
33:25
which definitely can be a good thing, but often is
33:28
not because it just causes mass hysteria. Now, from Carmen,
33:32
they did get a composite sketch that looked very much
33:37
like Roger, and they put this out and this actually
33:42
brought in some leads, including a really good one from
33:45
a woman who called in and said a suspicious man
33:49
had offered her friend one thousand dollars to go with
33:51
him to Lake Tahoe for sex. Now, these women were
33:54
sex workers and they were together when this happened. The
33:57
woman took down the license plate and when the police
34:00
ran it and found the car, there was Roger Kibbi inside.
34:05
Roger Kibby, who looked just like the sketch of the
34:08
I five strangler. Now you would think this is the
34:11
end of our story, but it's not, because Roger had
34:14
very good luck. For a lot of this time, police
34:17
were not able to hold him for any reason because
34:20
you know, all they had was that his license blate
34:23
matched one that a sex worker reported and he kind
34:25
of looks like a sketch. But I think that they
34:28
kind of knew they had him, so they took photo
34:31
of his car and also took his license, like physically
34:35
took the license from him and kept it at the station. Now,
34:39
nothing came of this right away, but once again he's
34:41
in the spotlight with police. But once again he gets away.
34:46
So he slows down for a few months, but strikes
34:48
again on November ninth, nineteen eighty six, which is the
34:50
day that Charmaine's body was found. That was also the
34:53
day of his next murder, and this is when he
34:56
killed twenty five year old Catherine quinonas he dumped her
35:00
body in Lake Barriesa right near where he had dumped
35:03
Llewellen ten years prior. And remember Llewellyn still has not
35:07
been found. Catherine was found on December twenty one, nineteen
35:11
eighty six, strangled with her clothing and hair cut as well.
35:16
After this, police came knocking on Roger's door. They wanted
35:20
to talk to Roger, since he matched the sketch so closely,
35:23
and because women were being murdered at a terrifying rate.
35:28
At this point, Harriet, who remember, they're still married. She's
35:31
starting to get a little suspicious of Roger, but still
35:34
remained loyal to him and told police nothing of any substance. Roger,
35:40
for his part, denied ever even using sex workers and
35:43
said nothing more. Again, without any real evidence, they had
35:48
to leave him alone. That said, this time Roger was
35:55
pretty shook up because he realized they were getting closer
35:58
and decided he needed to be more careful. The next day,
36:01
after the interview, he actually skipped town, ditching Harriet. I'm
36:06
sure at this point she realized something was going on,
36:08
but she was still in denial about it, so once
36:11
again didn't call the police. Anyway, Roger drove cross country,
36:15
buying but not killing sex workers along the way, at
36:18
least as far as we know about. But his running
36:21
did make her think that he was a coward, whether
36:23
or not he actually did anything, so Harriet lost more
36:26
respect for him. But when he came back once again,
36:29
she took him back. He was gone for such a
36:32
short time that police didn't actually know he even left town.
36:34
So once again, nothing happens from this, like, even though
36:38
it's very suspicious because nobody knew it, essentially didn't happen.
36:43
Now police are still looking into Roger, and they realized
36:46
that he'd been arrested for roughing up a sex worker
36:48
in the past, so now they know that he's lying
36:50
about having never been with one. Still they weren't yet
36:54
ready to arrest Roger. And once again, he was able
36:57
to go out and find his victims. On June fourteenth,
37:02
nineteen eighty seven, so we're looking about six or so
37:05
months after the last murder because he had to cool down,
37:08
Roger abducted and killed twenty five year old Karen Luis Finch,
37:12
who he kidnapped, kidnapped off the five freeway, then stabbed
37:16
in the neck rather than strangling her. So again this
37:19
is somebody who I believe their car broke down or
37:22
there were like skid marks on the road, so he
37:25
maybe even just like ran her off the road. And
37:28
I think we don't know why he stabbed her, but
37:31
he did stab her in the neck rather than strangling her.
37:34
Perhaps she pissed him off. She was found less than
37:36
a week later, and it took police a while to
37:38
determine if she was a victim of the same killer,
37:41
because she had been stabbed in the neck. But what
37:43
helped them decide she was was that they found duct
37:46
tape in her hair because Roger hadn't fully cut it out,
37:50
which led police to believe that it was the same
37:53
person and also gave them DNA evidence from the tape.
37:57
But also what that also made them think is like,
38:00
maybe he got interrupted, so instead of being able to
38:02
strangle her, he had to stab her, and he was
38:05
in such a hurry to cut her hair that he
38:07
missed some of the duct tape. Anyway, he continued to
38:12
live freely, and in late August nineteen eighty seven, he
38:15
killed again. This time it was a seventeen year old
38:19
runaway named Darcy Frankenpohle, who had come from Seattle, Washington.
38:24
She was found strangled and her clothing had been cut
38:26
to ribbons, which again meant she was a victim of
38:30
the same killer. There were also nylon fibers on her
38:33
clothing and other fibers as well, which were more clues.
38:38
Roger continued on his rampage and on September fourteenth, nineteen
38:43
eighty seven, he picked up another sex worker in Sacramento.
38:48
He offered her fifteen hundred dollars to do some nude
38:52
modeling for him. Smart she asked for the money up front,
38:55
and he had to admit he had only twenty five
38:57
dollars on hand. They then negotiated that she would have
39:01
sex with him for this money, and went to a
39:03
secluded golf course to do their thing. He, of course,
39:08
attempted to attack her in the car, tried to handcuff her.
39:11
She began to struggle, and he became enraged, yelling at
39:15
her to stop fighting. However, she did not stop, and
39:19
she was able to get off the car and screamed
39:21
for help. Luckily, at this point, Roger's luck ran out,
39:27
as a cop happened to be there doing a random
39:29
check on the area, found the woman and chased Roger down.
39:34
This time, the victim was alive and willing to talk.
39:38
Roger was immediately arrested and charged with attacking the woman
39:41
and attempted rape. Harriet waited some days, but did finally
39:45
bail him out, but this was the beginning of the
39:48
end for him. His arrest reignited Detective's interest in Roger,
39:52
as the I five strangler, and what interested them specifically
39:56
was what was found in Roger's car, including a pair
39:59
of scissors, parachute cord, and fibers from the car which
40:05
matched the fibers found on Darcy's body. They also, like
40:09
I said, they were able to find out that the
40:10
cord was a parachute cord, so they linked not only
40:14
the fibers from his car, but also the fibers from
40:16
the cord, and they also linked it to parachuting. And
40:19
they knew that Roger liked to skydive, So now they
40:22
have a ton of circumstantial evidence here, right. So he
40:25
gets arrested, but then he's like released because he gets
40:28
bailed out, and they haven't arrested him for murder yet.
40:32
But in October they begin trailing him waiting for him
40:35
to slip up. He was being careful and police wanted
40:40
to speed up the process, so they decided to try
40:43
to bait Roger into another attack by causing a fight
40:46
between him and Harriet. They believed that he potentially went
40:49
out killing after particularly bad fights with Harriet as a
40:52
way of blowing off steam. And I mean they'd met Harriet,
40:55
so they kind of knew what kind of person they
40:56
were dealing with, so you know, they went to Harriet's
40:59
work to unquote question her in front of her coworkers,
41:02
which did work. It really upset her, but not at Roger.
41:06
She was so pissed at the cops that she screamed
41:08
at them to get out and vowed to never speak.
41:10
Speaker 3: To them again.
41:12
Speaker 1: So that was kind of a noops moment for the cops. Instead,
41:15
police are like, fuck it. They go the long way around,
41:18
They get a search warrant and they search his home.
41:21
There they find more parachute cord and they are also
41:24
able to question him about the murders, but they got nothing.
41:27
They even went to his brother for help, so Steve Kibbi,
41:31
who's still at this time a homicide detective, did not
41:34
believe for a second that Roger was guilty of anything
41:37
and wasn't willing to help even after seeing their circumstantial evidence. Finally,
41:42
they realize they have to go with forensic evidence. They
41:47
then lean on the fact that the floor mat in
41:49
Roger's van matched the fibers on Darcy's dress, and they
41:52
are also able to definitively connect the rope in his
41:56
house with the rope used to kill her. This was enough,
42:01
he was charged with killing Darcy based on this evidence. Steve,
42:06
finally having seen the evidence this new evidence, changed his
42:10
opinion and told Roger to give it up, as they
42:13
had enough evidence to put him away forever. Roger relented
42:18
and agreed to talk, but only after he could speak
42:21
with Harriet. He then told her everything, or at least
42:24
as much as we now know. During this time, he
42:27
also cried, which is the first time he's ever showed emotion.
42:33
After admitting everything to Harriet, he again stonewalled the police,
42:37
giving them nothing. They were pissed because they were like,
42:40
you're gonna fucking tell us everything. Once we let you
42:43
see your wife, We let you see your wife, and
42:44
now you're telling us to get fucked. But it was fine.
42:47
They brought me to trial anyway for Darcy's murder, and
42:51
less than a month later he was found guilty and
42:53
given twenty five to life for her murder. Police continued
42:58
to search for more evidence in the other murder, and
43:01
it took a really long time, but they do find it.
43:03
But during this time, after he's put in prison, Harriet
43:06
leaves him. His brother disowns him because he looks like
43:09
a fool obviously, and Finally, in two thousand and nine,
43:14
he pleaded guilty to six more counts of murder. He
43:17
did this as part of a plea agreement to avoid
43:19
the death penalty, and as part of that, finally took
43:21
police to the body of lou Ellen Burley, who had
43:24
been killed I think thirty four years prior is finally
43:26
twenty eleven when they found her body, and what they
43:30
found of her body was a piece of a bone.
43:33
At that point, that was all they could find. Roger
43:37
remained in prison until February twenty eighth, twenty twenty one,
43:41
when he was murdered in his jail cell at the
43:43
age of eighty one years old. And I'm going to
43:47
talk about that in a second, but before I want
43:49
to tell you guys that Roger gave a ton of
43:52
interviews during his time in prison. He was very open.
43:57
I mean, he was not open, but he was willing
43:59
to talk about them unless you asked him about the
44:02
cutting of the clothing. If you asked him about the
44:05
cutting of the clothing, he would deny that he did it.
44:09
He would make up lies, he would do anything to
44:12
avoid it, and eventually, if you kept asking him, he would.
44:15
Speaker 3: Just stonewall you.
44:17
Speaker 1: This was something that was so sacred to him and
44:20
so important to him that he could not share it
44:23
with anyone, and he would not share it with anyone,
44:27
and I find that really fucking weird. Anyway, he was murdered,
44:32
and his cellmate, Jason Boudreau was the man to kill him.
44:36
He said that he was working on earning Kibby's trust
44:39
before killing him.
44:41
Speaker 3: Now, Jason was.
44:42
Speaker 1: In prison for life for killing his ex girlfriend in
44:44
twenty eleven and said that at first his reasoning for
44:49
killing Kibby was simply that he wanted his own cell
44:51
which is insane. However, when he found out who his
44:55
cellmate was, it became apparently about avenging the young women
44:58
and girls he had killed, which is pretty ironic considering
45:01
Jason killed a woman. Anyway, he was given another life
45:05
sentence for strangling Roger Kibby to death, which I do
45:08
have to say that I find it very poetic that
45:09
he was strangled to death, very very fitting and weirdly,
45:13
this same inmate, Jason Boudreau, later attacked yet another well
45:18
known murderer in California. He attacked and attempted to kill
45:22
none other than Paul motherfucking Flores Kristen Smart's killer, and
45:28
we will cover that at some point, but that's a
45:29
big ass case too. He did not succeed in killing
45:32
Paul Flores and actually ended up pleading not guilty for
45:36
this attack. I'm not sure what happened with this, but
45:38
I do know that Paul Floras ended up in the
45:40
hospital after this attack, and I believe that he was stabbed,
45:43
which I don't feel bad about at all. Anyway, that's
45:47
the story of Roger Kibbi. He is a murderous, horrible
45:51
piece of shit, and also it's it's potential he's potentially
45:56
linked to like a lot of other murders. You know,
45:58
the fact that he told somebody, oh, I've done this
46:00
with three other women. We don't know who those women are,
46:03
or where they were buried or what. But it seems
46:07
like he started out a little messy, refined his methods,
46:11
and then did what most serial killers do, slipped up
46:15
and got caught. But we don't know. There could be
46:17
a lot more victims out there that were unaware of
46:20
But in any case, that's the story. I hope you
46:22
guys enjoyed it. I hope I did a good retelling,
46:26
and thanks again for listening. Please like rate review, Tell
46:29
all your friends and family, and until next week, you guys,
46:33
stay safe.