Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Kidnapping & Killing of Kim Nguyen Part 2: Nightmares

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The Kidnapping & Killing of Kim Nguyen Part 2: Nightmares · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

0:01
Speaker 1: Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
0:05
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. The diligence and determination in which Garland,
0:12
Speaker 1: Texas locals searched for eight year old Kem Nowen after
0:17
Speaker 1: he vanished on the morning of July eighteenth, nineteen ninety three,
0:21
Speaker 1: kept the boy's family from sinking into a hopeless darkness,
0:26
Speaker 1: if only just barely A week after Kim went missing,
0:31
Speaker 1: some folks were still putting in fourteen hour days to
0:34
Speaker 1: find him. Many wore a T shirt bearing his photograph
0:38
Speaker 1: and the phone number for the Garland Police Department, of
0:41
Speaker 1: which about three hundred and fifty were handed out by
0:45
Speaker 1: Vietnamese community leaders. On Sunday, July twenty fifth, seven days
0:51
Speaker 1: since Kim was last seen, the Garland Police command Post
0:55
Speaker 1: was no longer in operation, but policeman Steve Fraser had
0:59
Speaker 1: been assigned as coordinator of the continued search efforts, though
1:04
Speaker 1: it now consisted only of volunteers as the cops concentrated
1:08
Speaker 1: on investigating tips and carefully patrolling the area. Officers were
1:14
Speaker 1: instructed to respond immediately to any call having to do
1:18
Speaker 1: with the Kim Neen case, while Noen family neighbors combed
1:23
Speaker 1: through areas where they hoped to find the eight year
1:26
Speaker 1: old hiding. Each volunteer breathed in deeply and held it
1:30
Speaker 1: as they turned over large items like discarded sheets of plywood,
1:35
Speaker 1: or as they came upon something in the tall brush
1:38
Speaker 1: that didn't belong. Each time, they breathed out quickly and
1:42
Speaker 1: heavily when they discovered they had not come across the
1:45
Speaker 1: boy's body. Everyone wanted to find Kim Nowen, they just
1:50
Speaker 1: didn't want to find him dead. Garland Police Commander Bob
1:55
Speaker 1: Cortes told reporters that the case had them baffled. They
1:59
Speaker 1: were to stand still, Cortes said until searchers found a
2:03
Speaker 1: clue or new information came to light. There was one
2:08
Speaker 1: clue found earlier in the searches, Kim Newen's blue and
2:11
Speaker 1: brown striped shirt. It was discovered by a person who
2:16
Speaker 1: had taken it upon themselves to search outside the approximate
2:19
Speaker 1: two mile perimeter surrounding the Neuen home. Three days after
2:24
Speaker 1: the efforts began. Volunteers and police found no other clues
2:29
Speaker 1: in the area the shirt had been found, which was
2:32
Speaker 1: near a Garland to power and light generating plant on
2:36
Speaker 1: East Walnut Street. Though it had no blood stains or tears.
2:40
Speaker 1: The discovery of Kim's shirt seemed like evidence of foul play.
2:45
Speaker 1: He'd been known to disrobe at inappropriate times, but even
2:49
Speaker 1: the director of pediatric behavior at Children's Medical Center in
2:53
Speaker 1: Dallas doubted Kim, who was autistic, would wander off so
2:58
Speaker 1: far and so aimlessly. Even the FBI, who said they
3:04
Speaker 1: were investigating a lead out of state they'd come across,
3:07
Speaker 1: had no idea where Kim was or what happened to him.
3:13
Speaker 1: The shirt anyway, at least so far as the public knew,
3:17
Speaker 1: was the single clue or piece of evidence that had
3:20
Speaker 1: been discovered since the beginning. But the cops had been
3:23
Speaker 1: holding something back, a specific and distinct witness report that
3:29
Speaker 1: perhaps could have led somewhere the very first day of
3:32
Speaker 1: the searches had it been released. On Thursday July twenty ninth,
3:46
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, an article in the Dallas Morning News
3:50
Speaker 1: shocked North Texans who'd been keeping up with Kim Newen's case.
3:56
Speaker 1: Just hours after searches for the boy began eleven days early,
4:00
Speaker 1: an unidentified neighbor of the Neens came to police with
4:04
Speaker 1: an important recollection. While driving down Castle Drive that morning,
4:10
Speaker 1: this woman past Thornhill Lane, where she saw Kim near
4:14
Speaker 1: the stop sign at the end of the street, about
4:17
Speaker 1: one hundred yards away from the Neuen home. He was
4:20
Speaker 1: flapping his arms as if he was flying like a bird,
4:23
Speaker 1: the witness told police. As she passed, she noticed another
4:28
Speaker 1: vehicle driving slowly past Kim. When the witness looked in
4:33
Speaker 1: her rear view mirror after passing the boy, she saw
4:36
Speaker 1: the car slow down even more. The vehicle then turned around,
4:42
Speaker 1: going back toward him. The witness described this vehicle as
4:47
Speaker 1: a white Chevy Blazer, although she was apparently unable to
4:52
Speaker 1: give a model year range. She told the cops other
4:55
Speaker 1: details that were seemingly distinct. The blazer had two inch
5:01
Speaker 1: wide silver stripes running down its sides, a chromeball trailer hitch,
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Speaker 1: and dark tinted windows. As she reported what she'd seen,
5:11
Speaker 1: the witness was distraught, almost inconsolable. Had she done something,
5:18
Speaker 1: she told the missing boy's father, Rudy Noene, perhaps Kim
5:22
Speaker 1: could have been saved. When the Garland Police finally made
5:27
Speaker 1: this information public via news sources like the Dallas Morning
5:32
Speaker 1: News and WFAATV, they said they had no reason to
5:36
Speaker 1: suspect the driver was involved necessarily, they only wanted to
5:40
Speaker 1: question them. It wasn't hard to read between those lines.
5:46
Speaker 1: Those who had volunteered so much of their time trying
5:49
Speaker 1: to find Kim didn't understand why the police held back
5:53
Speaker 1: the information. Surely they thought the public's help identifying the
5:59
Speaker 1: vehicle could hastened its discovery at the get go. Still,
6:04
Speaker 1: the cops defended their lack of disclosure the only way
6:08
Speaker 1: they really could, by calling it an investigative lead that
6:12
Speaker 1: they wanted to exhaust before asking the public's help. Not
6:17
Speaker 1: long after the Chevy Blazer description's release, Garland Police Chief
6:22
Speaker 1: Terry Hensley said officers and detectives were put to work
6:26
Speaker 1: checking out the thirty five to forty responses the department
6:29
Speaker 1: had received. The very same day, the report of this
6:34
Speaker 1: vehicle hit the pages of the Dallas Morning News, an
6:38
Speaker 1: unthinkable discovery was made many miles away in a neighboring city.
6:45
Speaker 1: At six twenty pm, about eleven miles due south of
6:49
Speaker 1: the home of the Nunn family and a mile southwest
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Speaker 1: of Town East Mall in Mesquite, two teenagers were walking
6:56
Speaker 1: through a vacant lot near the intersection of US Highway
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Speaker 1: eighty and the Lyndon B Johnson Freeway or Interstate six
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Speaker 1: thirty five. The lot sat at a paved dead end
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Speaker 1: road accessed by vehicle from the Interstate six thirty five
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Speaker 1: service road. The lot was unkempt, the Johnson grass there
7:18
Speaker 1: reaching three and a half to four feet tall in
7:21
Speaker 1: some areas, and was surrounded by woods. Not far away
7:26
Speaker 1: from a drainage ditch. The teenagers caught a glimpse of
7:29
Speaker 1: something out of place in their peripheral and decided to
7:32
Speaker 1: take a look. They were shocked to find the unclothed,
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Speaker 1: badly decomposed body of a child. The boys rushed to
7:42
Speaker 1: an unknown nearby business and called nine one one about
7:46
Speaker 1: the terrifying discovery. Within minutes, the scene was swarming with
7:51
Speaker 1: Dallas County Sheriff's deputies and Mesquite PD. Not long after that,
7:58
Speaker 1: as rubber necking passers by bottlenecked the six thirty five
8:02
Speaker 1: access road as well as the interstate itself, detectives from
8:06
Speaker 1: Garland arrived. Word had spread so quickly, in fact, that
8:12
Speaker 1: many in the traffic jams knew exactly what was happening
8:16
Speaker 1: and had come specifically to watch. Though the body was
8:20
Speaker 1: at a point of decomposition that made it impossible for
8:24
Speaker 1: detectives to immediately determine the sex of the deceased child.
8:28
Speaker 1: Garland Police recognized enough the body they were positive belonged
8:35
Speaker 1: to the missing boy they and volunteers had been seeking
8:38
Speaker 1: for eleven days. It was the body of eight year
8:42
Speaker 1: old kem Newen. At eight pm on the night of Thursday,
8:48
Speaker 1: July twenty ninth, nineteen ninety three, Rudy and Sarah Newen
8:52
Speaker 1: were asked to come to the Garland Police station. They
8:56
Speaker 1: brought their children, Michael and Janmy. Officers broke the news
9:01
Speaker 1: as gently as they could, but of course there was
9:05
Speaker 1: nothing that could stop the anguish the nightmare had wrought.
9:09
Speaker 1: Literally from this point forward, Rudy Neen was haunted and
9:14
Speaker 1: sometimes completely paralyzed by nightmares about his son. After returning home,
9:22
Speaker 1: Rudy and Sarah allowed some volunteers who had shown the
9:26
Speaker 1: family so much love and support to join them in
9:29
Speaker 1: their backyard. Reporters too came, though they were in unimaginable pain.
9:36
Speaker 1: The Newens wanted everyone to remember Kim. I just want
9:41
Speaker 1: to live my life to help people like him, Rudy
9:44
Speaker 1: Neen said as he held his son Michael close. Both
9:48
Speaker 1: had swollen red eyes and wet cheeks. Rudy also took
9:53
Speaker 1: the opportunity to speak directly to Kim's killer.
9:57
Speaker 2: He did nothing wrong. I won't try to take revenge
10:01
Speaker 2: on anyone. I just want to know why and what happened.
10:07
Speaker 1: The boy's mother, Sarah, tried to keep busy as she wept,
10:10
Speaker 1: but spoke to volunteers as she held tightly to her
10:14
Speaker 1: chest a photo of Kim. He was a helpless little boy,
10:18
Speaker 1: Sarah said, but he knew how to love me. Searchers
10:23
Speaker 1: were also stricken by grief, overwhelming sadness, excruciating hopelessness, intense anger.
10:33
Speaker 1: The feelings continued the following day. Police officers wanted to
10:38
Speaker 1: get their hands on the monster responsible. Garland Mayor Bob
10:43
Speaker 1: Smith declared that whoever murdered the boy would pay. They
10:48
Speaker 1: messed with the wrong city, he said. As the Nuenes
10:53
Speaker 1: awaited the results of the autopsy, Rudy graciously thanked everyone
10:57
Speaker 1: who helped look for Kim.
11:00
Speaker 2: Anything I say is not good enough what they have
11:03
Speaker 2: done for me. I'll never forget it for the rest
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Speaker 2: of my life.
11:08
Speaker 1: One cruel chapter was over, but the next has never ended.
11:25
Speaker 1: Although they'd been steadfast in the media that kem ne
11:28
Speaker 1: Win's case was being investigated as a missing person's case
11:32
Speaker 1: prior to the discovery of his body. The Garland Police
11:37
Speaker 1: likely always believed they were dealing with a homicide. Finding
11:42
Speaker 1: the boy's body eleven miles away from home solidified that belief.
11:47
Speaker 1: We're certain there was foul play because he couldn't have
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Speaker 1: walked this far without someone seeing him, Garland Police spokesperson
11:55
Speaker 1: Officer Larry Rollins told the Dallas Morning News. Chief Terry
12:01
Speaker 1: Hensley would later add that it was unrealistic to believe
12:04
Speaker 1: Kim would have or could have walked almost a dozen
12:08
Speaker 1: miles unclothed. He had to get there some way, he said,
12:12
Speaker 1: after confirming the department would now investigate the case as
12:16
Speaker 1: a homicide. Detectives at the scene remarked that Kim's body
12:21
Speaker 1: was so badly decomposed they couldn't even tell if he
12:25
Speaker 1: had any bruises, and the several medical examiners who had
12:29
Speaker 1: a hand in the autopsy the following day didn't fare
12:33
Speaker 1: much better. First thing in the morning on Friday, July thirtieth,
12:39
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, Dallas County Chief Medical Examiner doctor Jeffrey
12:43
Speaker 1: Barnard performed an autopsy on the body of eight year
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Speaker 1: old kem Newen alongside others at the Southwestern Institute of
12:52
Speaker 1: Forensic Sciences during the process, which took a couple days.
12:57
Speaker 1: The body was officially identified using dental records. There were
13:03
Speaker 1: no internal organs present in Kim's mummified body. The public
13:07
Speaker 1: version of the finding's notes no doubt a result of
13:12
Speaker 1: the hot, dry conditions of the North Texas summer. While
13:17
Speaker 1: it was considered unlikely almost to the point of certainty,
13:21
Speaker 1: pathologists had to rule out that Kim somehow walked the
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Speaker 1: eleven miles to Mesquite. In Texas, temperatures in July reached
13:30
Speaker 1: the point that walking on concrete or pavement i e.
13:34
Speaker 1: Roads and sidewalks will cause severe burns to bear feet.
13:39
Speaker 1: Kim was wearing no shoes. The soles of Kim's feet
13:43
Speaker 1: showed no injuries. There were no nicks or fractures on
13:48
Speaker 1: Kim's skeleton, meaning that if he'd been shot or stabbed,
13:52
Speaker 1: the death instrument missed his bones, which is not necessarily uncommon,
13:58
Speaker 1: but this could have ruled out the scenario that someone
14:01
Speaker 1: had accidentally hit him with their car and then covered
14:04
Speaker 1: up their negligence by placing Kim in the vacant lot,
14:09
Speaker 1: no neck organs remained, meaning determining a cause of death
14:14
Speaker 1: such as strangulation, was impossible. This method of homicide, however,
14:20
Speaker 1: seemed highly probable in Kim's case. Although his hyoid bone
14:25
Speaker 1: wasn't broken, the killer could have used a ligature, and
14:29
Speaker 1: it's also important to point out, according to an article
14:33
Speaker 1: on Children's Healthcare of Atlanta's website, the bones of children
14:38
Speaker 1: are considerably more flexible than those of an adult. The
14:42
Speaker 1: hyoid bone particularly, could have easily bowed during manual strangulation,
14:48
Speaker 1: as opposed to snapping or fracturing. When the toxicology report
14:54
Speaker 1: came back some time later, only a small volume of
14:58
Speaker 1: naturally occurring ethanol was found in the boy's system. In
15:03
Speaker 1: their final determination, the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office ruled
15:08
Speaker 1: Kim's death as homicidal violence, though the determination appears to
15:13
Speaker 1: have been made because of the nature of his disappearance
15:16
Speaker 1: and where he was found. In contradiction to this narrative,
15:21
Speaker 1: a man who was handling press duties for the Medical
15:24
Speaker 1: Examiner's office said that despite the condition of the boy's body,
15:29
Speaker 1: pathologists would be able to determine a cause of death
15:34
Speaker 1: if they ever did that information has never been released.
15:40
Speaker 1: At William's Chapel in Garland, Texas, on Monday, August second,
15:44
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, one hundred or so folks packed into
15:48
Speaker 1: the small building to memorialize KEM Newen and give their
15:53
Speaker 1: continued support to the Newen family. Mourners arrived to hear
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Speaker 1: the theme song from The Pink Pan, their cartoon the
16:01
Speaker 1: eight year old's favorite. Local police chaplain Ken Ashlock, eulogized
16:07
Speaker 1: the slain child as friends, relatives, neighbors, and search volunteers wept.
16:14
Speaker 1: After the graveside's service, it was clear residence Anger had
16:19
Speaker 1: not waned. One volunteer vowed that they would hunt for
16:23
Speaker 1: Kim's killer as intensely as they had looked for him. Meanwhile,
16:29
Speaker 1: the Garland Police reported that they had neither suspects nor
16:33
Speaker 1: a motive, and refused to say whether they found any
16:37
Speaker 1: evidence at the scene. When specifically asked by a reporter
16:42
Speaker 1: if there were tire tracks or footprints anywhere nearby, Chief
16:46
Speaker 1: Terry Hensley answered no comment. The cops had kept some
16:51
Speaker 1: information close to the chest before the discovery of Kim's body.
16:56
Speaker 1: The Chevy Blazer witnessed driving slowly by the boy arguably
17:01
Speaker 1: a terrible mistake on their part. If they found anything
17:06
Speaker 1: after searching the scene around Kim's body as they led
17:10
Speaker 1: trained dogs through the waist high grass is anyone's guess.
17:15
Speaker 1: If there was ever a time in the investigation to
17:18
Speaker 1: keep mum, this was it. And after calling on the
17:22
Speaker 1: public to come forward, that's exactly what the Garland Police did.
17:27
Speaker 1: There's someone out there that has noticed a person they
17:30
Speaker 1: know acting strangely since Kim disappeared. Chief Hensley said at
17:35
Speaker 1: a press conference, people don't do this kind of thing
17:38
Speaker 1: without other people knowing it. The press, too went silent.
17:44
Speaker 1: Coverage of Kim Newen's case abruptly stopped, besides spots in
17:49
Speaker 1: the Dallas Morning News on August twelfth announcing a one
17:53
Speaker 1: thousand dollars crime Stoppers reward for information leading to the
17:57
Speaker 1: arrest and indictment of a suspect, and then again on
18:00
Speaker 1: the twenty eighth announcing that Crime Stoppers and the Garland
18:03
Speaker 1: Police had raised the reward to ten thousand dollars. In
18:09
Speaker 1: downtown Dallas. In the first few days of September nineteen
18:13
Speaker 1: ninety three, a three day seminar on crimes against children
18:18
Speaker 1: was held for doctors, social workers, prosecutors, and law enforcement
18:24
Speaker 1: their authorities and experts spoke about the realities of child abuse, abduction,
18:30
Speaker 1: and murder, among other topics. Dallas Policeman Lieutenant Bill Walsh
18:37
Speaker 1: said that it was much more common for children to
18:39
Speaker 1: be killed by someone close to them than a stranger
18:42
Speaker 1: and opportunist. For the rarer instances where the latter is
18:47
Speaker 1: the case, crimes such as the murder of kem Newen, likely,
18:52
Speaker 1: law enforcement experts had developed a profile of probable perpetrators.
18:58
Speaker 1: Director of Case manage for the National Center of Missing
19:02
Speaker 1: and Exploited Children, Bill Ermini described these profiles, which he
19:08
Speaker 1: called necessarily vague but nonetheless helpful to police. Child molesters
19:15
Speaker 1: who prey on kids they know either marry to get
19:18
Speaker 1: close to their victims, Ermini said, or tend to live
19:23
Speaker 1: alone or with their parents. They are generally sexually abused themselves.
19:30
Speaker 1: These types, who Ermini labeled pedophiles, move around a lot,
19:35
Speaker 1: usually collect pornography, and spend little time around folks their
19:40
Speaker 1: own age. Ermini called the second type of sexual abuser
19:45
Speaker 1: situational child molesters. They are much more likely to murder
19:50
Speaker 1: their victims who they do not know. Are social misfits,
19:55
Speaker 1: sexually inexperienced, and Ermini said sometimes preferred detective magazines to
20:02
Speaker 1: pornography publications that usually featured scantily clad women in the
20:08
Speaker 1: process of being murdered by a man on the cover,
20:13
Speaker 1: the pages on the inside filled with sensationalized and exploitative material.
20:19
Speaker 1: Presumably Ermini meant they used these detective magazines for arousal purposes.
20:26
Speaker 1: The seminar, which was the fifth annual gathering of its kind,
20:30
Speaker 1: lasted from September second to the fourth. Although Lieutenant Walsh
20:36
Speaker 1: told the Dallas Morning News that stranger abductions weren't a
20:40
Speaker 1: primary point of discussion there due to their rarity, something
20:44
Speaker 1: happened just a few miles north on the seminar's last
20:48
Speaker 1: day that, along with kem Newen's kidnapping and murder a
20:52
Speaker 1: month and a half before, seemingly contradicted the policeman's comment.
20:58
Speaker 1: Seven year old Ashley Nicole Estelle was abducted from a
21:02
Speaker 1: park in Plano as he repaired watches and clocks for customers.
21:09
Speaker 1: Rudy Nowen's eyes were glued to the screen of a
21:12
Speaker 1: small television that sat directly in front of his workspace.
21:17
Speaker 1: The abduction of Ashley Estelle, tragically found to be a
21:22
Speaker 1: murder the following day consumed rudy, especially when ten days later,
21:28
Speaker 1: a twenty three year old convicted child molester named Michael
21:32
Speaker 1: Nauie Blair was arrested and charged with her murder. Garland
21:37
Speaker 1: police detectives working his son's case were immediately interested in
21:41
Speaker 1: the man as well. Ultimately, they could find no evidence
21:46
Speaker 1: that Blair was involved in Kim's murder, but there were
21:49
Speaker 1: still reasons to suspect him. Perhaps, when Blair opened up
21:54
Speaker 1: about his past crimes, most of which he would never
21:58
Speaker 1: be held accountable for, it came to light that although
22:02
Speaker 1: he preferred to rape little girls, he also raped little boys.
22:07
Speaker 1: After he was convicted of Ashley's murder, according to d
22:11
Speaker 1: magazine's Jacques Hilburn, Michael Blair was quote particularly interested in
22:17
Speaker 1: the specifics of kem noen end quote in his article
22:23
Speaker 1: titled did this creep really kill Ashley Estelle? Hilburn said
22:27
Speaker 1: Blair admitted to driving near the scene where Kim's body
22:31
Speaker 1: was found, just as he was observed doing in Ashley's case. Interestingly,
22:38
Speaker 1: on the day Kim's body was found, police and Mesquite
22:41
Speaker 1: had to arrest a man who had refused to move
22:44
Speaker 1: his car from the Interstate six thirty five access road.
22:49
Speaker 1: The man, whose name was never released, had stopped to
22:53
Speaker 1: watch the investigation. This situation is eerily similar to how
22:59
Speaker 1: Blair first came upon the radar of police for the
23:03
Speaker 1: murder of Ashley Estelle. When Blair was arrested for her murder,
23:09
Speaker 1: Rudy Neen hoped authorities also had the guy who killed
23:13
Speaker 1: his son, but again there was nothing linking Michael Nawie
23:18
Speaker 1: Blair to the murder of Kem Newen. Months after Kim's murder,
23:35
Speaker 1: the Garland Police had a metal sign erected at the
23:38
Speaker 1: corner of Thornhill Lane, where the street meets Castle Drive.
23:43
Speaker 1: The sign bright red print on white and bolted to
23:47
Speaker 1: a seventy five pound pole set in concrete red. On seven,
23:53
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety three, Kem Newen was abducted from this location
23:57
Speaker 1: and murdered. If you have any information on this offense,
24:01
Speaker 1: please call to zero five to zero eight, six eleven
24:06
Speaker 1: miles away, not far from where Kim's body was found.
24:10
Speaker 1: A similar sign was put in place by the Texas
24:13
Speaker 1: Transportation Department at the request of Garland Police in December
24:19
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety three, both signs disappeared. Detective Joe McDonald
24:25
Speaker 1: of Garland theorized that the sign on Castle Drive and
24:29
Speaker 1: Thornhill Lane was taken down by someone in the neighborhood
24:33
Speaker 1: trying to sell their house. The theory, based seemingly upon
24:38
Speaker 1: the detective hearing that several houses in the area were
24:41
Speaker 1: up for sale, did not explain why the sign in
24:45
Speaker 1: Mesquite was gone. The vacant, unkempt lot there where it
24:50
Speaker 1: once stood was hardly affected by its presence. McDonald, it
24:56
Speaker 1: should be noted, had been the sole policeman working Kim's
24:59
Speaker 1: case for months. The detective also thought that perhaps a
25:04
Speaker 1: resident who couldn't stand to think about the crime every
25:08
Speaker 1: day when they drove by it took it down. Rudy Newen, however,
25:13
Speaker 1: believed that Kim's killer took the signs, perhaps macob trophies
25:19
Speaker 1: taken by the twisted individual capable of killing a child,
25:23
Speaker 1: or perhaps whoever murdered him frequently drove by the areas
25:28
Speaker 1: and felt remorse when he saw them. Whatever the case,
25:33
Speaker 1: authorities decided not to replace them, since they said the
25:37
Speaker 1: signs had run the course of their usefulness. The following July,
25:44
Speaker 1: as the anniversary of Kim's death neared, the Nunn family
25:48
Speaker 1: still mourned as if the murder had occurred yesterday, and
25:52
Speaker 1: the cops weren't any closer to finding the boy's killer
25:56
Speaker 1: than they were while taking the missing person's report. No suspects,
26:01
Speaker 1: no motive, no leads. Since Kim didn't speak, it was
26:07
Speaker 1: hard for Rudy Neuen to understand why someone had to
26:10
Speaker 1: kill his son. He wouldn't be able to tell, let
26:15
Speaker 1: alone provide a description, Rudy said. Kim's mother, Sarah was
26:20
Speaker 1: stuck in a perpetual cycle of sadness followed by anger.
26:26
Speaker 1: And then came another long period of silence in the
26:29
Speaker 1: press in January of nineteen ninety six, when nine year
26:34
Speaker 1: old Amber Hagerman was kidnapped and killed in nearby Arlington.
26:38
Speaker 1: Then Winds were forced to relive the tragedy of the
26:42
Speaker 1: abduction and murder of their son. Then, more than a
26:46
Speaker 1: year later, during the four year anniversary month of Kim's death,
26:51
Speaker 1: another tragedy occurred. On Sunday, July sixth, nineteen ninety seven,
26:58
Speaker 1: Rudy Newen left worker and locked himself inside his room.
27:03
Speaker 1: Since Independence Day, when a seven year old boy disappeared
27:07
Speaker 1: while riding his bike around his father's apartment complex in
27:11
Speaker 1: far North Dallas. Rudy's nightmares had returned. In them, he
27:16
Speaker 1: sees his boy in a field. Kim, his face half
27:21
Speaker 1: eaten by insects, says to his.
27:24
Speaker 2: Father, they left me there. I died.
27:28
Speaker 1: When he learned that Sunday that searchers had found the
27:31
Speaker 1: missing boy, Jonathan Harrison, deceased, Rudy nen broke. Even though
27:38
Speaker 1: the cops said the death appeared an accident, Rudy couldn't
27:42
Speaker 1: help but think of Kim. Grief bubbled back up to
27:46
Speaker 1: the surface, and it could no longer be partially staved
27:49
Speaker 1: off by keeping busy. It was debilitating until a ruling
27:55
Speaker 1: was official. The fear that another child murderer had done
27:59
Speaker 1: his work, or maybe the same child murderer had done
28:03
Speaker 1: it again, paralyzed Rudy. After all, his son's killer was
28:08
Speaker 1: most likely still out there on the loose somewhere. On
28:13
Speaker 1: another day, Rudy might have locked himself in Kim's room
28:17
Speaker 1: instead of his own. He often did as he replayed
28:21
Speaker 1: the disappearance, searches, and ultimately the discovery of Kim's body
28:26
Speaker 1: over and over again in his head. But after seven
28:31
Speaker 1: year old Jonathan Harrison's death, being surrounded by Kim's things
28:36
Speaker 1: was too much to bear. Kim's case remains unsolved today,
28:42
Speaker 1: and because it hasn't been reported on by traditional news
28:46
Speaker 1: sources for decades now, it's unclear if the Garland Police
28:51
Speaker 1: have revisited the case since the initial investigation. In the
28:56
Speaker 1: case of seven year old Jonathan Harrison, it was determined
29:00
Speaker 1: that he had indeed died as the result of a
29:03
Speaker 1: terrible accident when he disappeared. Jonathan became the first child
29:09
Speaker 1: to trigger the Amber Plan, which required police to coordinate
29:14
Speaker 1: with local television and radio broadcasters to alert the public
29:18
Speaker 1: when a child went missing. The plan, which has changed
29:23
Speaker 1: some and is now known as the Amber Alert, was
29:26
Speaker 1: inspired by several relatively high profile crimes in the Dallas,
29:31
Speaker 1: Fort Worth Arlington areas, including Kem Newen's and Ashley Estelles,
29:37
Speaker 1: but it was set in motion after the abduction and
29:40
Speaker 1: murder of Amber Hagerman, who it is named after. Next
29:45
Speaker 1: time on Gone Cold Amber's story. If you have any
29:51
Speaker 1: information about the nineteen ninety three kidnapping and murder of
29:55
Speaker 1: eight year old Kem Newen, please call the Garland Police
29:59
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30:06
Speaker 1: you have not already, look for Gone Cold on Instagram, Facebook,
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Speaker 1: Texas logo. If you'd like to support the show and
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Speaker 1: who support us there. It's a huge deal to us.
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Speaker 1: If you're not in a position to help Gone Cold
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Speaker 1: financially but would like to in some other way, well
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Speaker 1: The more folks who find us and listen, the greater
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Speaker 1: chance someone with information about a case here's the show
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Speaker 1: and comes forward with what they know. Every little bit helps,
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Speaker 1: and we appreciate y'all support immensely, however you choose to
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Speaker 1: give it. Sources for this episode can be found in
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Speaker 1: the episode's show notes. Thanks for listening, y'all,