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 22, 1993, a man named Kurt was carrying
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Speaker 1: some boxes into his new home. He had just moved
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Speaker 1: into this two-story house along with his fiancée, whose.
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Speaker 2: Name was Kem.
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Speaker 1: Kurt went into the house, and he dropped the boxes
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Speaker 1: in the foyer, and then he turned back to head
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Speaker 1: back down to the car to get another load. And
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Speaker 1: as he walked down the steps, he passed his fiancée, Kem,
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Speaker 1: and they smiled at each other.
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Speaker 2: She was making her way up, he was making his
0:23
Speaker 2: way down.
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Speaker 1: But seconds after they passed each other, right as Kurt
0:26
Speaker 1: got back to the car, he felt this incredible pressure
0:30
Speaker 1: and blast wave hit him in the back that almost
0:32
Speaker 1: sent him flying.
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Speaker 2: And then when Kurt turned around, he could not believe
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Speaker 2: what he saw.
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Speaker 1: But before we get into today's story, if you're a
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1:01
Speaker 2: Okay, let's get into today's story.
1:23
Speaker 1: On the evening of Friday, May 21st, 1993, a 29-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 fiancé, 32-year-old Kurt Simon,
1:41
Speaker 1: a combination wedding shower and goodbye party, and now they
1:45
Speaker 1: were presenting the couple with their gift. It was a
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Speaker 1: money tree, planted in a little yellow coffee can with
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Speaker 1: envelopes full of cash hanging off of it. Kem and
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Speaker 1: Kurt both smiled and began making their way through the
1:57
Speaker 1: crowd to give everybody a big hug and to say
1:59
Speaker 1: thank you. Tonight was a big night for them. All
2:02
Speaker 1: their plans were finally falling into place. Tomorrow, they would
2:05
Speaker 1: pack all of Kurt's belongings into their car, and they
2:08
Speaker 1: would drive 230 miles south from the place where he
2:11
Speaker 1: had been living in Iowa to the city of Bloomington, Illinois,
2:14
Speaker 1: just outside of Chicago, where Kem already lived. And in Bloomington,
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Speaker 1: they would begin their new life together as a soon-to-be-married couple,
2:22
Speaker 1: raising Cam's two children from previous relationships. It had been
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Speaker 1: a whirlwind eight months since they had first met on
2:29
Speaker 1: actually a blind date. Cam had known almost immediately that
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Speaker 1: Kurt really was something special. But it hadn't been easy
2:35
Speaker 1: for them to get to this point. They both had
2:38
Speaker 1: almost no money. Kurt was studying to be a Presbyterian
2:41
Speaker 1: minister and living in Iowa to finish seminary school. And
2:44
Speaker 1: Cam was a single mom living in Bloomington, who had
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Speaker 1: just recently quit her office job because her co-worker was
2:51
Speaker 1: sexually harassing her. She'd taken on off-the-books work as a
2:54
Speaker 1: hairdresser and house cleaner, but she still had to rely
2:57
Speaker 1: on public assistance to make ends meet. The long-distance relationship
3:01
Speaker 1: itself was also just exhausting, with all the driving back
3:04
Speaker 1: and forth. And it didn't help that Kem had contentious
3:07
Speaker 1: relationships with the fathers of both of her kids. Her
3:11
Speaker 1: one-year-old son's father, Dale Fosdick, was always late with his
3:15
Speaker 1: child support payments, and he still acted like he was
3:18
Speaker 1: entitled to walk right into Kem's house anytime he wanted.
3:21
Speaker 1: Kurt had actually recently confronted him about doing that and
3:24
Speaker 1: told him to stop, which Dale did not seem to appreciate.
3:28
Speaker 1: Her seven-year-old daughter's father, Todd Wenger, really wasn't much better.
3:31
Speaker 1: Todd fought with Kem all the time over their custody arrangement,
3:35
Speaker 1: and he and her other ex, Dale, were actually friends,
3:38
Speaker 1: which really annoyed Kem. But now, as somebody handed Kim
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Speaker 1: a piece of cake in the church basement, all those
3:45
Speaker 1: problems seemed like they were about to get a whole
3:47
Speaker 1: lot smaller. Kurt was moving in and Kim was about
3:50
Speaker 1: to get her whole life organized. Waiting for her at
3:53
Speaker 1: home in Bloomington, she had a whole collection of Modern
3:55
Speaker 1: Bride magazines so she could plan their wedding. And she
3:58
Speaker 1: and Kurt were actually talking about Kurt maybe adopting her son.
4:02
Speaker 1: And she knew Kurt could very quickly get a job
4:04
Speaker 1: in Bloomington as a pastoral counselor. and they could maybe
4:08
Speaker 1: save some money by only having to pay for one
4:10
Speaker 1: residence now.
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Speaker 2: And this money tree they were getting was a sweet start.
4:14
Speaker 1: I mean, Kem knew that the members of the congregation
4:17
Speaker 1: were not wealthy people by any stretch. But, you know,
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Speaker 1: she found it very touching that they'd pooled their limited
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Speaker 1: resources to give her and Kurt such a wonderful send-off.
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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.
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Speaker 2: Was there.
4:31
Speaker 1: But, unfortunately, Kem and Cricket were estranged. Kem wished she
4:35
Speaker 1: could be closer to her mother, but Cricket had a
4:38
Speaker 1: mean streak, and for some reason, she really hated Kurt.
4:43
Speaker 1: Kem finished her cake and then checked the time, and
4:45
Speaker 1: she realized, you know, it was time to go. So
4:47
Speaker 1: she tapped Kurt on the shoulder as he was speaking
4:49
Speaker 1: to some friends. They had a lot left to pack
4:51
Speaker 1: tomorrow morning, and they had a long drive ahead of them.
4:54
Speaker 1: So Kem and Kurt made their goodbyes and then headed
4:56
Speaker 1: out of the church holding hands. The next day was Saturday,
5:04
Speaker 1: May 22nd. and Kem and Kurt spent the first part
5:06
Speaker 1: of the day packing and then the second part driving.
5:10
Speaker 1: And then finally, at 10.30 p.m. that night, they pulled
5:13
Speaker 1: their car into the driveway of Kem's two-story house in Bloomington,
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Speaker 1: the home they would now share together. Kem just sat
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Speaker 1: for a second in the passenger seat while Kurt got
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Speaker 1: out of the car and opened up the trunk. They
5:24
Speaker 1: had a lot of stuff to carry in, but Kem
5:26
Speaker 1: was just exhausted and frankly didn't feel like doing it
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Speaker 1: quite yet. So she watched as Kurt went ahead and
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Speaker 1: walked up the front stairs carrying a box and the
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Speaker 1: money tree. He unlocked the door, he stepped inside, and
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Speaker 1: then a minute later, he came back out empty-handed. And
5:40
Speaker 1: at that point, you know, Kem sighed and decided she
5:42
Speaker 1: better get out and help too. Kurt was halfway back
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Speaker 1: down the stairs as Kem grabbed her own box out
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Speaker 1: of the trunk and walked her way into the house,
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Speaker 1: into the foyer of her home. She put her box
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Speaker 1: down and was about to go back outside and do
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Speaker 1: another trip with Kurt when she paused. There was something
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Speaker 1: she didn't recognize on the floor of the foyer that
6:00
Speaker 1: had not been there when she had left for Iowa.
6:02
Speaker 1: Kurt was outside facing away from the house when an
6:06
Speaker 1: intense wave of pressure hit him from behind. And nearly
6:10
Speaker 1: at the exact same time, this booming sound like some.
6:13
Speaker 2: Kind of explosion filled his ears.
6:15
Speaker 1: He stumbled forward almost uncontrollably and then whipped around and
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Speaker 1: called out for Kim. But his ears were ringing now
6:22
Speaker 1: and he couldn't really tell if she had answered or not.
6:24
Speaker 1: There was smoke pouring out from the front door of
6:26
Speaker 1: their house. And instinctively, he just ran into the house,
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Speaker 1: into the foyer to go find Kem. When he got
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Speaker 1: in there, there's all this smoke and chaos. There's shards
6:35
Speaker 1: of broken glass everywhere. And also, he noticed all these
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Speaker 1: little pieces of what looked like metal kind of all
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Speaker 1: over the foyer.
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Speaker 2: Kurt screamed Kem's name over and over. And he looked
6:45
Speaker 2: frantically all around through all the rubble. But it was
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Speaker 2: impossible to see. It was like everything was destroyed in here.
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Speaker 1: And so now, beginning to gasp from all the smoke,
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Speaker 1: He started walking around the foyer, kind of ducking below
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Speaker 1: the smoke as best as he could. And that's when
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Speaker 1: he saw legs on the floor. Minutes later, Detective Larry
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Speaker 1: Shepard of the Bloomington Police Department pulled up outside the
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Speaker 1: two-story house in his cruiser with his partner beside him
7:15
Speaker 1: and another squad car behind them. Shepard did not usually
7:18
Speaker 1: respond to 911 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, Shepard knew this could not have been a
7:37
Speaker 1: shotgun blast. There was all this black smoke billowing out
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Speaker 1: the front door of the house. And although Shepard couldn't
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Speaker 1: see any fire, he could hear the fire alarm going
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Speaker 1: off inside. And outside, the street was chaos. There were
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Speaker 1: all these people who Shepard guessed must be neighbors shouting
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Speaker 1: and running around.
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Speaker 2: And there was debris everywhere.
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Speaker 1: Broken glass and splintered pieces of wood and chunks of
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Speaker 1: metal that had basically been blown out of the house
8:02
Speaker 1: out onto the street. In the driveway of this home,
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Speaker 1: Shepard could see there was a man who had his
8:07
Speaker 1: hands on his head and he looked frantic. And he
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Speaker 1: was yelling the name Kem over and over again as
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Speaker 1: he looked towards the destroyed house. And it was at
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Speaker 1: that point Shepard realized there must be someone or multiple
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Speaker 1: people inside of the house. And he really couldn't wait
8:23
Speaker 1: for backup to go find them. So he and his
8:26
Speaker 1: partner shouted for everyone to stay back. And then they
8:29
Speaker 1: raced up the stairs into the smoke. Once Shepard was
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Speaker 1: inside the front foyer, he could tell there was no
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Speaker 1: active fire. Just lots of smoke kind of hanging in
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Speaker 1: the air. And he looked around and he saw there
8:40
Speaker 1: was a six-inch hole on the wall right near the
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Speaker 1: front door. And there was another hole right in the
8:45
Speaker 1: floor of the foyer. But even though he saw those
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Speaker 1: things pretty quickly, his attention quickly snapped to the body
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Speaker 1: of a woman who was on the ground. And it
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Speaker 1: was immediately clear that there was nothing they could do
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Speaker 1: for her. Literally half of her head was just missing.
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Speaker 1: In his entire career, Shepard had never worked a murder
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Speaker 1: case where the weapon was a bomb. But standing in
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Speaker 1: this blackened, destroyed foyer over the charred body of this woman...
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Speaker 1: Shepard felt sure that that is exactly what he was
9:15
Speaker 1: looking at right now. Around this point, the officers from
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Speaker 1: the other squad car had now come up the stairs
9:21
Speaker 1: and into the house. But Shepard told them to get back,
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Speaker 1: go back outside, because the scene was not safe.
9:27
Speaker 2: To process yet.
9:28
Speaker 1: They needed the fire department here, and they needed the
9:31
Speaker 1: bomb squad, because there could.
9:32
Speaker 2: Be more explosives. Not long afterwards, Shepard and the.
9:38
Speaker 1: Other officers stood on the front lawn as members of
9:41
Speaker 1: the fire department and the state police bomb squad combed
9:43
Speaker 1: through the scene. By this point, Detective Shepard had learned
9:47
Speaker 1: a bit more about what had happened. The dead woman
9:50
Speaker 1: was Kem Wenger, and the man he had seen screaming
9:52
Speaker 1: in the driveway was Kem's fiancée, Kurt Simon. Neighbors said
9:56
Speaker 1: the pair had arrived around 10.30 p.m., and a couple
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Speaker 1: of the neighbors had actually noticed them before the blast
10:02
Speaker 1: went off when they started unloading their car. These neighbors
10:05
Speaker 1: said that they saw Kurt be the first one to
10:08
Speaker 1: go inside the house, and when he did, he went
10:11
Speaker 1: in carrying a box that he had pulled from the
10:12
Speaker 1: back of the car. And then these neighbors said they
10:15
Speaker 1: saw Kurt come out again empty-handed and but he went
10:19
Speaker 1: down to the back of the car again and he
10:20
Speaker 1: appeared to put something in the trunk. And at the
10:23
Speaker 1: same time, Cam had grabbed a box from the car
10:26
Speaker 1: and she went into the house by herself. And that's
10:29
Speaker 1: when the explosion happened. Shepard was troubled by these accounts.
10:33
Speaker 1: He thought it was suspicious that Kurt had been able
10:35
Speaker 1: to walk into the house without getting hurt. And then
10:38
Speaker 1: just seconds later, Cam goes in and her arrival seems
10:42
Speaker 1: to have triggered the explosion. And so naturally, he wondered
10:46
Speaker 1: if Maybe that box Kurt was carrying that he went
10:48
Speaker 1: inside with, maybe that was the bomb and he planted it.
10:51
Speaker 1: And then when he left, she goes in and it
10:53
Speaker 1: obviously goes off. And then also he wondered, you know,
10:56
Speaker 1: what had Kurt put back into his car after he
10:59
Speaker 1: came out again? What did he put into the trunk?
11:01
Speaker 1: But even more suspicious than any of that was what
11:04
Speaker 1: a preliminary sweep of Kem's home had turned up in
11:07
Speaker 1: the basement. And that was wires, gunpowder.
11:11
Speaker 2: And fuses.
11:12
Speaker 1: Shepard 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 Shepard 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 Kem over and over and
11:41
Speaker 1: over again. Shepard asked Kurt if he could tell him,
11:43
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
11:52
Speaker 1: inside with a box and he had just started back
11:54
Speaker 1: down the stairs when he felt the blast behind him.
11:57
Speaker 1: And at this, Shepard'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.
12:15
Speaker 2: Now, this discrepancy could just be a.
12:16
Speaker 1: Result of confusion or Kurt could be lying to cover
12:20
Speaker 1: up whatever he may or may not have done. But
12:23
Speaker 1: independent of whatever this was, Shepard just told Kurt that
12:27
Speaker 1: right now he was going down to the station for questioning.
12:40
Speaker 1: Several hours later, a little before dawn on Sunday, May 23, 1993,
12:45
Speaker 1: Detective Shepard 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 fiancée.
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 Shepard 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 2: And he said that Kem's estranged.
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Speaker 1: Mom, Wilma Lewis, who everybody called Cricket, was, quote, every
13:15
Speaker 1: kind of evil. But Kurt had seemed to have no
13:17
Speaker 1: information to offer about what he had actually witnessed before
13:21
Speaker 1: the explosion. He had stuck to a story that he
13:24
Speaker 1: had not seen anything suspicious at all in the foyer,
13:27
Speaker 1: which Shepard found hard to believe. Kurt also had no
13:30
Speaker 1: explanation for why the bomb exploded on Kem and not
13:33
Speaker 1: on him. and he also denied knowing anything about the
13:36
Speaker 1: bomb-making materials that had been found in Kemp's basement. Kurt
13:40
Speaker 1: also said he hadn't put anything back in his trunk
13:43
Speaker 1: around the time of the explosion, but he couldn't explain
13:46
Speaker 1: why the neighbors said he had.
13:48
Speaker 2: Shepard ultimately thought Kurt.
13:50
Speaker 1: Was either the most unobservant person alive, or he was lying.
13:55
Speaker 1: And on top of all that, Kurt had refused to
13:58
Speaker 1: take a lie detector test. However, Shepard still had to
14:01
Speaker 1: let him go home. The detective just didn't have anywhere
14:04
Speaker 1: near enough evidence to arrest Kurt, at least not yet.
14:07
Speaker 1: At this point, the bomb squad was actually still searching
14:10
Speaker 1: the house for any additional bombs. So the crime scene
14:14
Speaker 1: techs had not gotten in yet to begin to start
14:16
Speaker 1: looking for forensic evidence. They actually hadn't even been able
14:19
Speaker 1: to remove Kem's body yet. Shepard knew the day ahead
14:22
Speaker 1: was going to be very busy. Other members of his
14:24
Speaker 1: team had spent the entire night canvassing the neighborhood and
14:28
Speaker 1: notifying and questioning Kem's family members. And now Shepard was
14:32
Speaker 1: sure there was going to be quite a few interrogations
14:34
Speaker 1: for him to conduct. He'd already been awake for 24
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 9 a.m. on Sunday morning, so less than
14:59
Speaker 1: 12 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 Shepard 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 ATF,
15:21
Speaker 1: to help them process the scene. And all that meant
15:24
Speaker 1: there was going to be an enormous amount of pressure
15:27
Speaker 1: on Shepard, who was leading the investigations. And this pressure
15:30
Speaker 1: was especially stressful this morning because the case he'd thought
15:35
Speaker 1: he'd had against Kem's fiance, Kurt Simon, was starting to
15:38
Speaker 1: fall apart. In all their interviews with Kem's friends, everyone
15:42
Speaker 1: had said Kem and Kurt had a good relationship and
15:46
Speaker 1: were excited to start their life together. The crime scene
15:49
Speaker 1: unit had searched Kurt's car where neighbors claimed they had
15:52
Speaker 1: seen him place something in the trunk right after the
15:54
Speaker 1: explosion or manipulate something back there, you know, maybe a detonator.
15:58
Speaker 1: But the crime scene techs had found nothing suspicious at
16:01
Speaker 1: all back there. Shepard'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 Kem. 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 Shepard'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.
16:33
Speaker 2: The suspect pool.
16:34
Speaker 1: First, she said that the spare key to Kem's house
16:37
Speaker 1: had recently gone missing.
16:39
Speaker 2: And the second thing.
16:40
Speaker 1: Was, because the spare key was gone, Kem had gotten
16:43
Speaker 1: locked out at some point and had to cut a
16:46
Speaker 1: hole in the screen in the back door to get inside.
16:49
Speaker 1: And so this meant that basically anybody could have gotten
16:51
Speaker 1: inside of Kem's house to build the bomb if they
16:54
Speaker 1: just went in through the back door. or if they,
16:56
Speaker 1: you know, had the key, if they stole the key.
16:58
Speaker 1: So Shepard's suspect list effectively had gone from Kurt to
17:03
Speaker 1: all of Bloomington. Just before lunchtime, Shepard walked into the
17:11
Speaker 1: station's interrogation room where Kem's ex-husband, Todd Wenger, was sitting
17:15
Speaker 1: waiting for him. With Kem's fiancée, Kurt, looking less and
17:19
Speaker 1: less likely as a suspect, the detectives had set their
17:22
Speaker 1: sight on Kem's exes. Both Todd, who was the father
17:25
Speaker 1: of Kem's daughter, and Dale Fosdick, who was the father
17:28
Speaker 1: of Kem's son, not only had obvious motives, but they
17:31
Speaker 1: also knew Kem's schedule, because each of them had been
17:34
Speaker 1: watching one of her children over the weekend before she
17:37
Speaker 1: was killed. Shepard's partner had actually already spoken to Dale,
17:41
Speaker 1: basically a couple of hours after the explosion he had
17:44
Speaker 1: spoken to him, while Shepard himself had been busy questioning Kurt.
17:48
Speaker 1: And during that exchange, Dale had seemed shocked by Kem's death.
17:52
Speaker 1: and he'd made what seemed like a good-faith effort to
17:54
Speaker 1: answer the detectives' questions, although his son kept crying and
17:58
Speaker 1: interrupting them. Dale did admit to having some tension with Kem,
18:01
Speaker 1: but he also had an alibi. He'd been with family
18:04
Speaker 1: in the morning and doing yard work in full view
18:07
Speaker 1: of his neighbors in the afternoon and the evening. He'd
18:10
Speaker 1: given Shepard's partner names and phone numbers of potential witnesses
18:13
Speaker 1: that could have witnessed this, and a preliminary round of
18:16
Speaker 1: calls to those witnesses had suggested that Dale was telling
18:20
Speaker 1: the truth. But the detectives were conducting all their interviews
18:24
Speaker 1: with very little information about the crime itself because they
18:28
Speaker 1: didn't really know how the bomb that killed Kim actually worked.
18:32
Speaker 2: They weren't sure if.
18:33
Speaker 1: The killer had to be, you know, 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 bomb.
18:41
Speaker 2: Was just set to some kind of timer.
18:43
Speaker 1: Scientists at the ATF were trying to reconstruct the bomb
18:46
Speaker 1: from all the shrapnel, but until they did that, Shepard
18:49
Speaker 1: and his partner would not know exactly when the killer
18:52
Speaker 1: would have been at Kemp's house. And none of the
18:54
Speaker 1: neighbors had reported seeing anything unusual around the time of
18:58
Speaker 1: the explosion that would help them narrow it down. So now,
19:01
Speaker 1: as Detective Shepard sat down across the interrogation table from
19:05
Speaker 1: Kemp's ex-husband Todd Wenger, he started with some general questions
19:08
Speaker 1: about his relationship with Kemp.
19:10
Speaker 2: And Todd seemed a little nervous.
19:12
Speaker 1: Because he kept wringing his hands while he spoke. He
19:15
Speaker 1: said that he and Kem did fight about child support costs.
19:18
Speaker 1: And he said he had been very frustrated with her
19:20
Speaker 1: because he didn't feel like she was always fair during
19:22
Speaker 1: their divorce. But he insisted that that did not mean
19:25
Speaker 1: he wanted to hurt her. He said their problems were
19:28
Speaker 1: common for most divorced couples. Shepard did not put much
19:32
Speaker 1: stock in that assertion because in his experience, divorce or
19:36
Speaker 1: breakup plus money was.
19:38
Speaker 2: A very good motive to hurt somebody.
19:40
Speaker 1: So he asked Todd where he'd been all day on
19:42
Speaker 1: the night of the blast. And at this question, Todd
19:45
Speaker 1: definitely appeared to relax. And he launched into a very
19:48
Speaker 1: detailed explanation of all this. He said he'd been with
19:51
Speaker 1: his daughter and his new girlfriend, and both of them
19:54
Speaker 1: would definitely vouch for him, along with several people who
19:57
Speaker 1: had seen them during the day. By the time Shepard
19:59
Speaker 1: sent Todd home, he really wasn't sure which of the exes,
20:02
Speaker 1: Todd or Dale, he thought was a better candidate for
20:05
Speaker 1: his killer. Both had clearly been fighting with Cam or
20:08
Speaker 1: had real tension with Cam. but both had alibi witnesses. So,
20:13
Speaker 1: Kem's fiancée, Kurt, might have had the opportunity to plant
20:17
Speaker 1: the bomb if it was set shortly before the explosion,
20:20
Speaker 1: but he had no clear motive. As for Todd and Dale,
20:24
Speaker 1: they seemed to have plenty of motive, but no real opportunity.
20:27
Speaker 2: And so Shepard decided.
20:28
Speaker 1: His next move should be to talk again to Kem's family.
20:31
Speaker 1: Maybe they would be.
20:32
Speaker 2: Able to help him sort out his flawed suspect list.
20:42
Speaker 1: On Sunday evening, so almost 24 hours after the explosion,
20:46
Speaker 1: Detective Shepard knocked on the door of the home where.
20:48
Speaker 2: Kem's sister, Joni, lived.
20:50
Speaker 1: Now, by this point, another officer had already been there
20:53
Speaker 1: to tell her and their mother, Cricket, about Kem's death.
20:57
Speaker 1: But Shepard wanted to hear from them himself. Now, Shepard
21:00
Speaker 1: had been told that Kem and her mother were estranged.
21:04
Speaker 1: But even though he went in with some idea that
21:06
Speaker 1: this interaction could be odd... Shepard was still really caught
21:10
Speaker 1: off guard by the way Cricket was acting. It was
21:12
Speaker 1: like way over the top. As Joanie welcomed Shepard inside
21:16
Speaker 1: and offered him a seat on the couch, you know,
21:18
Speaker 1: she was crying.
21:19
Speaker 2: Her reaction to.
21:20
Speaker 1: The death of her sister seemed very genuine. But Cricket
21:23
Speaker 1: was not crying or showing any signs of being sad.
21:27
Speaker 2: Instead, she was just furious.
21:29
Speaker 1: And not about the murder or about losing her child
21:32
Speaker 1: or about the fact that police had not made an
21:34
Speaker 1: arrest yet. She was furious and about her child's life
21:39
Speaker 1: insurance policy, which apparently Cam had not added her to
21:42
Speaker 1: as a beneficiary, which meant that Cricket was not going
21:45
Speaker 1: to be paid any money despite her child being killed.
21:49
Speaker 1: You know, as Shepard's seeing this, he thought about how
21:51
Speaker 1: Kurt had insisted in his interrogation that Cricket was a
21:56
Speaker 1: horrible person, that she was evil. Now, at the time,
21:59
Speaker 1: Shepard had not really taken that seriously because he figured
22:02
Speaker 1: Kurt was trying to throw suspicion off of himself.
22:05
Speaker 2: And lots of people don't like their mother-in-laws. But now
22:08
Speaker 2: he was reconsidering.
22:09
Speaker 1: He felt like he was witnessing someone who could be
22:11
Speaker 1: just as bad as they were described to be. And
22:13
Speaker 1: then when Shepard actually asked Cricket about her relationship with
22:17
Speaker 1: her now deceased daughter, Cricket went off, but not about
22:21
Speaker 1: her relationship really with Kem, but more about Kurt and
22:25
Speaker 1: how Kurt had ruined Kem's life. She said Kurt was
22:29
Speaker 1: a terrible partner for Kem and that he had destroyed
22:32
Speaker 1: the best relationship she ever had which Cricket said was
22:35
Speaker 1: with Dale Fosdick, the father of Kem's son. She also
22:39
Speaker 1: said that Kurt had destroyed her, Cricket's, relationship with Kem too.
22:43
Speaker 2: She said that she.
22:44
Speaker 1: And her daughter used to talk every day, but once
22:47
Speaker 1: Kurt was in the picture, she had been forbidden to
22:49
Speaker 1: call the house at all. Now, to Shepard, Cricket seemed
22:52
Speaker 1: completely scattered, bouncing from one subject to another and just
22:56
Speaker 1: mad about everything. But he started to wonder if what
23:00
Speaker 1: he was witnessing here was not just pure selfishness and
23:03
Speaker 1: being a terrible person, but instead could be some kind
23:07
Speaker 1: of very complicated grief or maybe even guilt or grief
23:11
Speaker 1: and guilt combined. But one thing was definitely true, which
23:14
Speaker 1: was Cricket really seemed to hate Kurt as much as
23:17
Speaker 1: Kurt seemed to hate her. And Shepard just wasn't sure
23:21
Speaker 1: which one of them was in the right. But it
23:23
Speaker 1: was around this point in the conversation that Kem's sister, Joni,
23:26
Speaker 1: cut in and she offered up a potential suspect idea
23:29
Speaker 1: of her own. She said that Kem had recently left
23:32
Speaker 1: a job where a colleague, a man named Phil Hartman,
23:35
Speaker 1: had sexually harassed her. Following this, Kem had actually gotten
23:39
Speaker 1: a settlement out of it, and apparently Phil had made
23:42
Speaker 1: threats afterwards, including a promise to get her for this.
23:47
Speaker 1: And so Joni said it was Phil who the police
23:50
Speaker 1: really should be investigating for this murder. When Shepard finally
23:53
Speaker 1: left the house, his head was spinning. He'd gone to
23:56
Speaker 1: Cricket and Joni, hoping for clarity, sorting out his three suspects.
24:00
Speaker 1: But he'd come away with less clarity than now five suspects.
24:04
Speaker 1: Kem's fiancé Kurt, her exes Dale Fosdick and Todd Wenger,
24:07
Speaker 1: her co-worker Phil Hartman, and frankly, Cricket herself. At this point,
24:12
Speaker 1: it was late on Sunday night, and Shepard had been
24:14
Speaker 1: awake since Saturday morning. And so he decided the best
24:17
Speaker 1: thing he could do now was just go home and
24:19
Speaker 1: get some sleep. That way, he could come back with
24:22
Speaker 1: a clear head on Monday morning.
24:23
Speaker 2: And maybe make sense of it then.
24:32
Speaker 1: On the afternoon of Monday, May 24th, so almost two
24:36
Speaker 1: days after the bombing that killed Kem Wenger, Detective Larry
24:39
Speaker 1: Shepard walked through the front door of Kem's house, feeling
24:42
Speaker 1: cautiously optimistic. On the night the bomb went off, the
24:45
Speaker 1: police had to evacuate so the state bomb squad and
24:48
Speaker 1: the ATF could make sure there were no additional explosives.
24:51
Speaker 1: But finally, the night before, the scene had officially been cleared,
24:55
Speaker 1: which meant Shepard could now enter the house and actually
24:58
Speaker 1: look around for himself. Inside the house, he could see
25:02
Speaker 1: that the foyer was still in complete disarray, although Kem's
25:05
Speaker 1: body by this point had been removed and autopsied. There
25:09
Speaker 1: were also now all these little flags and markers all
25:11
Speaker 1: over the place, pointing out how she'd been positioned on
25:14
Speaker 1: the floor and where various bomb fragments and other evidence
25:17
Speaker 1: had been collected. And also now, because the feds had
25:20
Speaker 1: completed a preliminary assessment of the bomb, Shepard could actually
25:25
Speaker 1: imagine how the bombing went down. There was a six-inch
25:28
Speaker 1: hole in the foyer floor. And Shepard 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
25:35
Speaker 1: small box or package.
25:37
Speaker 2: From the autopsy, which had.
25:39
Speaker 1: Shown distinct damage to Kem's right hand, Shepard knew that
25:43
Speaker 1: what likely happened was that she had spotted the package
25:46
Speaker 1: and picked it up with her right hand, which then
25:49
Speaker 1: triggered the explosion. And this was actually the single most
25:52
Speaker 1: important thing the feds had been able to determine, that
25:55
Speaker 1: the bomb was motion-activated.
25:58
Speaker 2: This was huge because.
25:59
Speaker 1: It meant the bomber did not have to be at
26:02
Speaker 1: or even near Kem's house to trigger the explosion manually,
26:06
Speaker 1: which meant they could have left this thing there any
26:08
Speaker 1: time during the weekend. This also explained why there were
26:12
Speaker 1: a bunch 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.
26:41
Speaker 2: Like this took technical skill.
26:43
Speaker 1: It took some intelligence and real attention to detail because
26:47
Speaker 1: if you don't have those things, you can set off
26:49
Speaker 1: the bomb and kill yourself. And so in Shepard's mind,
26:52
Speaker 1: this likely took Kem's mother, Cricket, right off the table.
26:56
Speaker 1: She just did not strike him as organized enough or
26:58
Speaker 1: really coherent enough to build this type of bomb. She
27:01
Speaker 1: just seemed way too scatterbrained. Kem's exes, Dale Fosdick and
27:06
Speaker 1: Todd Wenger, both worked with machines for a living, so
27:09
Speaker 1: they were definitely still in. And her fiancé, Kurt, was
27:12
Speaker 1: highly educated, so he was still in. Shepard wasn't sure
27:15
Speaker 1: about Phil Hartman, the co-worker who Kem had accused of
27:18
Speaker 1: sexually harassing her. He had reached Phil by phone that morning,
27:21
Speaker 1: and Phil had told him he was working in Louisiana
27:24
Speaker 1: at the time the bomb.
27:25
Speaker 2: Went off, hundreds of miles away.
27:27
Speaker 1: But Shepard knew just being physically far away from the
27:30
Speaker 1: bomb when it went off was not a perfect alibi,
27:33
Speaker 1: because it was motion activated. You could place it and
27:35
Speaker 1: then 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 Shepard had found.
27:46
Speaker 2: So Phil was still in, but less so.
27:49
Speaker 1: As Shepard stood there in the blackened, destroyed foyer, looking
27:52
Speaker 1: at the partially burned pages of Modern Bride magazines that
27:55
Speaker 1: had been blown all over the room, he thought about
27:58
Speaker 1: the fact that whoever had done this had to have
28:00
Speaker 1: been very comfortable in Kem's house. They had gotten inside
28:04
Speaker 1: the house at some point and then clearly spent time
28:07
Speaker 1: in the basement tinkering with the bomb.
28:09
Speaker 2: Then they came up and they're in the foyer setting
28:11
Speaker 2: the bomb up.
28:12
Speaker 1: I mean, that's someone who's pretty confident they're not going
28:15
Speaker 1: to get caught doing all this inside the house.
28:17
Speaker 2: That's That's 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. Shepard 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 Shepard had also asked officers
29:15
Speaker 1: to re-canvass 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 2: They were in the house.
29:29
Speaker 1: They were building the bomb days before. They planted the
29:32
Speaker 1: bomb in advance of the bombing. So there was a
29:35
Speaker 1: bigger window of time that they were wondering who was
29:38
Speaker 1: at Kem's house, who was acting suspicious near Kem's house
29:42
Speaker 1: in the days leading up to the bombing. Those were
29:45
Speaker 1: the questions they had for the neighbors. And so this
29:48
Speaker 1: officer that was running over to Shepard, that's what they
29:50
Speaker 1: had been doing, re-canvassing the neighborhood. And when he reached Shepard,
29:54
Speaker 1: he told him he'd found something. Shepard eagerly followed the
29:58
Speaker 1: officer over to one of Kem's neighbor's houses, and there
30:01
Speaker 1: he saw a little girl, maybe 10 or 11 years old,
30:04
Speaker 1: standing nervously next to her father. And based on what
30:13
Speaker 1: this little girl would say, along with evidence collected by
30:16
Speaker 1: the Bloomington Police Department and the ATF, this is a
30:20
Speaker 1: reconstruction of what authorities believe happened to Kem Wenger on
30:23
Speaker 1: May 22, 1993. At around 10.30 that morning, the killer
30:35
Speaker 1: pulled up in their car outside of Kem's house. They
30:38
Speaker 1: picked up a bag that was sitting on their passenger seat,
30:41
Speaker 1: which contained a partially completed pipe bomb and some tools.
30:45
Speaker 1: With this in hand, they got out of the car
30:47
Speaker 1: and they walked up to the front door and they
30:49
Speaker 1: pulled a key from their pocket. This was the same
30:52
Speaker 1: key they had stolen from under the doormat.
30:54
Speaker 2: 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 walked down to
31:00
Speaker 1: the basement, where they took all the various items from
31:02
Speaker 1: the bag and placed them on the counter, and they
31:05
Speaker 1: got to work. The killer was not worried about getting caught.
31:09
Speaker 1: They knew this neighborhood very well, and everybody in this
31:12
Speaker 1: neighborhood knew them, and they would not find it suspicious.
31:14
Speaker 2: At all to see them there.
31:16
Speaker 1: Plus, they knew they would have an alibi for the
31:18
Speaker 1: time period when the bomb actually would go off. Once
31:22
Speaker 1: the bomb was mostly assembled, the killer gathered up most
31:25
Speaker 1: of their things. They left behind some random supplies in
31:28
Speaker 1: the basement, but figured it didn't really matter since the
31:30
Speaker 1: explosion would take care of everything. Feeling very confident in
31:34
Speaker 1: their worksmanship so far, the killer walked back upstairs and
31:37
Speaker 1: placed the nearly completed bomb on the floor in the foyer.
31:41
Speaker 1: And then as they completed the final steps, they could
31:44
Speaker 1: feel sweat beating on their forehead because if they did
31:47
Speaker 1: anything wrong, the bomb would go off. But the killer
31:51
Speaker 1: got it all done and they stood up very slowly
31:53
Speaker 1: and carefully and walked back out through the front door.
31:56
Speaker 1: But before they could get in their car and drive away,
32:00
Speaker 1: they saw one of the neighborhood girls playing in the
32:02
Speaker 1: yard next door. and the girl looked at them and
32:04
Speaker 1: waved and said hello.
32:06
Speaker 2: And the killer, who felt like they belonged there and
32:09
Speaker 2: no one.
32:09
Speaker 1: Will remember me, they waved back. Well, the little girl
32:13
Speaker 1: remembered that interaction, and she would tell Detective Shepard who
32:17
Speaker 1: she saw leaving Kem's house. It was none other than
32:20
Speaker 1: Kem's ex-boyfriend and the father of her son.
32:22
Speaker 2: Dale Fostick.
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 her 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-degree murder and sentenced to 61 years in prison.
33:19
Speaker 1: But he would only serve 14 of those years because
33:21
Speaker 1: in 2010, while still behind bars.
33:23
Speaker 2: Dale died of a sudden illness.
33:34
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for watching. Let me know what
33:36
Speaker 1: you thought of today's episode in the comments. And remember,
33:39
Speaker 1: we have a whole playlist of true crime episodes ready
33:42
Speaker 1: for you to binge right now.
33:43
Speaker 2: So click here and give them a watch. All right,
33:46
Speaker 2: until next time, see ya.