Latest / Weird Darkness:True crime & The unexplained / Her murderer was caught by the most UNLIKELY INFORMANT

Transcript

Her murderer was caught by the most UNLIKELY INFORMANT · Weird Darkness:True crime & The unexplained

0:00
Speaker 1: On May 22, 1993, a man named Kurt was carrying
0:03
Speaker 1: some boxes into his new home. He had just moved
0:06
Speaker 1: into this two-story house along with his fiancée, whose name
0:09
Speaker 1: was Kem. Kurt went into the house and he dropped
0:11
Speaker 1: the boxes in the foyer, and then he turned back
0:14
Speaker 1: to head back down to the car to get another load.
0:16
Speaker 1: And as he walked down the steps, he passed his fiancée, Kem,
0:20
Speaker 1: and they smiled at each other. She was making her
0:22
Speaker 1: way up, he was making his way down. But seconds
0:25
Speaker 1: after they passed each other, right as Kurt got back
0:27
Speaker 1: to the car... he felt this incredible pressure and blast
0:30
Speaker 1: wave hit him in the back that almost sent him flying.
0:33
Speaker 2: And then when Kurt turned around, he could not believe
0:37
Speaker 2: what he saw.
0:38
Speaker 1: But before we get into today's story, if you're a
0:40
Speaker 1: fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format,
0:44
Speaker 1: then you've come to the right place because that's all
0:46
Speaker 1: we do, and we upload two, three, even four times
0:49
Speaker 1: a week. So if that's of interest to you, please
0:51
Speaker 1: sneak into the Like Button's house and replace their toothpaste
0:55
Speaker 1: with numbing cream. Also, please subscribe to our channel and
0:58
Speaker 1: turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of
1:00
Speaker 1: our uploads.
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
1:27
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
1:33
Speaker 1: Congregational Church in rural Iowa. Her closest friends had gathered
1:37
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
1:48
Speaker 1: money tree, planted in a little yellow coffee can with
1:51
Speaker 1: envelopes full of cash hanging off of it.
1:53
Speaker 2: Kem and Kurt.
1:54
Speaker 1: Both smiled and began making their way through the crowd
1:57
Speaker 1: to give everybody a big hug and to say thank you.
2:00
Speaker 1: Tonight was a big night for them. All their plans
2:02
Speaker 1: were finally falling into place. Tomorrow, they would pack all
2:06
Speaker 1: of Kurt's belongings into their car, and they would drive
2:09
Speaker 1: 230 miles south from the place where he had been
2:11
Speaker 1: living in Iowa to the city of Bloomington, Illinois, just
2:14
Speaker 1: outside of Chicago, where Kem already lived. And in Bloomington,
2:19
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
2:26
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
2:32
Speaker 1: Kurt really was something special. But it hadn't been easy
2:35
Speaker 1: for them to get to this point.
2:37
Speaker 2: They both had almost no money.
2:39
Speaker 1: Kurt was studying to be a Presbyterian minister and living
2:42
Speaker 1: in Iowa to finish seminary school. And Cam was a
2:45
Speaker 1: single mom living in Bloomington. who had just recently quit
2:48
Speaker 1: her office job because her co-worker was sexually harassing her.
2:52
Speaker 1: She'd taken on off-the-books work as a hairdresser and house cleaner,
2:56
Speaker 1: but she still had to rely on public assistance to
2:58
Speaker 1: make ends meet. The long-distance relationship itself was also just exhausting,
3:03
Speaker 1: with all the driving back and forth. And it didn't
3:06
Speaker 1: help that Cam had contentious relationships with the fathers of
3:10
Speaker 1: both of her kids. Her one-year-old son's father, Dale Fosdick,
3:14
Speaker 1: was always late with his child support payments, and he
3:17
Speaker 1: still acted like he was entitled to walk right into
3:19
Speaker 1: Kem's house anytime he wanted. Kurt had actually recently confronted
3:23
Speaker 1: him about doing that and told him to stop, which
3:25
Speaker 1: Dale did not seem to appreciate. Her seven-year-old daughter's father,
3:29
Speaker 1: Todd Wenger, really wasn't much better. Todd fought with Kem
3:32
Speaker 1: all the time over their custody arrangement, and he and
3:36
Speaker 1: her other ex, Dale, were actually friends, which really annoyed Kem.
3:40
Speaker 1: But now, as somebody handed Kim a piece of cake
3:43
Speaker 1: in the church basement, all those problems seemed like they
3:46
Speaker 1: were about to get a whole lot smaller. Kurt was
3:48
Speaker 1: moving in and Kim was about to get her whole
3:50
Speaker 1: life organized. Waiting for her at home in Bloomington, she
3:54
Speaker 1: had a whole collection of Modern Bride magazines so she
3:56
Speaker 1: could plan their wedding. And she and Kurt were actually
3:59
Speaker 1: talking about Kurt maybe adopting her son. And she knew
4:02
Speaker 1: Kurt could very quickly get a job in Bloomington as
4:05
Speaker 1: a pastoral counselor. and they could maybe save some money
4:09
Speaker 1: by only having to pay for one residence now.
4:11
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,
4:20
Speaker 1: she found it very touching that they'd pooled their limited
4:22
Speaker 1: resources to give her and Kurt such a wonderful send-off.
4:26
Speaker 1: The only thing that could make this moment any better
4:28
Speaker 1: would be if Kem's mother, Cricket, was there. But, unfortunately,
4:32
Speaker 1: Kem and Cricket were estranged. Kem wished she could be
4:36
Speaker 1: closer to her mother, but Cricket had a mean streak,
4:39
Speaker 1: and for some reason, she really hated Kurt. Kem finished
4:43
Speaker 1: her cake and then checked the time, and she realized
4:46
Speaker 1: it was time to go, so she tapped Kurt on
4:48
Speaker 1: the shoulder as he was speaking to some friends. They
4:50
Speaker 1: had a lot left to pack tomorrow morning, and they
4:52
Speaker 1: had a long drive ahead of them. So Kem and
4:54
Speaker 1: Kurt made their goodbyes and then headed out of the
4:57
Speaker 1: church holding hands. The next day was Saturday, May 22nd,
5:05
Speaker 1: and Kem and Kurt spent the first part of the
5:07
Speaker 1: day packing and then the second part driving. And then finally,
5:10
Speaker 1: at 10.30pm that night, they pulled their car into the
5:13
Speaker 1: driveway of Kem's two-story house in Bloomington, the home they
5:16
Speaker 1: would now share together. Kem just sat for a second
5:19
Speaker 1: in the passenger seat while Kurt got out of the
5:21
Speaker 1: car and opened up the trunk. They had a lot
5:24
Speaker 1: of stuff to carry in, but Kem was just exhausted
5:27
Speaker 1: and frankly didn't feel like doing it quite yet. So
5:30
Speaker 1: she watched as Kurt went ahead and walked up the
5:32
Speaker 1: front stairs carrying.
5:33
Speaker 2: A box and the money tree.
5:35
Speaker 1: He unlocked the door, he stepped inside, and then a
5:37
Speaker 1: minute later, he came back out empty-handed. And at that point,
5:41
Speaker 1: you know, Kim sighed and decided she better get out
5:43
Speaker 1: and help too. Kurt was halfway back down the stairs
5:46
Speaker 1: as Kim grabbed her own box out of the trunk
5:48
Speaker 1: and walked her way into the house, into the foyer
5:50
Speaker 1: of her home. She put her box down and was
5:53
Speaker 1: about to go back outside and do another trip with
5:55
Speaker 1: Kurt when she paused. There was something she didn't recognize
5:58
Speaker 1: on the floor of the foyer that had not been
6:01
Speaker 1: there when she had left for Iowa. Kurt was outside
6:04
Speaker 1: facing away from the house when an intense wave of
6:07
Speaker 1: pressure hit him from behind. And nearly at the exact
6:11
Speaker 1: same time, this booming sound like some kind of explosion
6:14
Speaker 1: filled his ears. He stumbled forward almost uncontrollably and then whipped.
6:18
Speaker 2: Around and called out for Kem.
6:21
Speaker 1: But his ears were ringing now and he couldn't really
6:23
Speaker 1: tell if she had answered. There was smoke pouring out
6:26
Speaker 1: from the front door of their house. And instinctively, he
6:28
Speaker 1: just ran into the house, into the foyer to go
6:31
Speaker 1: find Kem. When he got in there, there's all this
6:34
Speaker 1: smoke and chaos. There's shards of broken glass everywhere. And also,
6:38
Speaker 1: he noticed all these little pieces of what looked like
6:40
Speaker 1: metal kind of all over the foyer. Kurt screamed Kem's
6:43
Speaker 1: name over and over. And he looked frantically all around
6:46
Speaker 1: through all the rubble. But it was impossible to see.
6:49
Speaker 1: It was like everything was destroyed in here. And so now,
6:52
Speaker 1: beginning to gasp from all the smoke, he started walking
6:55
Speaker 1: around the foyer, kind of ducking below the smoke as
6:57
Speaker 1: best as he could. And that's when he saw legs
7:01
Speaker 1: on the floor. Minutes later, Detective Larry Shepard of the
7:10
Speaker 1: Bloomington Police Department pulled up outside the two-story house in
7:13
Speaker 1: his cruiser, with his partner beside him and another squad
7:16
Speaker 1: car behind them. Shepard did not usually respond to 911
7:19
Speaker 1: calls because he was a homicide detective, but he had
7:22
Speaker 1: happened to be in the area when dispatch requested officers
7:25
Speaker 1: go check out a report of potentially a shotgun blast
7:28
Speaker 1: on a residential street. However, the second he stepped out
7:32
Speaker 1: of his car and looked at this two-story house, Shepard
7:36
Speaker 1: knew this could not have been a shotgun blast. There
7:38
Speaker 1: was all this black smoke billowing out the front door
7:41
Speaker 1: of the house, and although Shepard couldn't see any fire,
7:44
Speaker 1: he could hear the fire alarm going off inside.
7:47
Speaker 2: And outside, the street was chaos.
7:49
Speaker 1: There were all these people who Shepard guessed must be
7:52
Speaker 1: neighbors shouting and running around. And there was debris everywhere.
7:56
Speaker 1: Broken glass and splintered pieces of wood and chunks of
7:59
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,
8:05
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
8:10
Speaker 1: was yelling the name Kem over and over again as
8:13
Speaker 1: he looked towards the destroyed house. And it was at
8:16
Speaker 1: that point Shepard realized there must be someone or multiple
8:19
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
8:32
Speaker 1: inside the front foyer, he could tell there was no
8:35
Speaker 1: active fire. Just lots of smoke kind of hanging in
8:37
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
8:42
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
8:48
Speaker 1: things pretty quickly, his attention quickly snapped to the body
8:51
Speaker 1: of a woman who was on the ground. And it
8:53
Speaker 1: was immediately clear that there was nothing they could do
8:56
Speaker 1: for her. Literally half of her head was just missing.
9:00
Speaker 1: In his entire career, Shepard had never worked a murder
9:03
Speaker 1: case where the weapon was a bomb. But standing in
9:07
Speaker 1: this blackened, destroyed foyer over the charred body of this woman...
9:12
Speaker 1: Shepard felt sure that that is exactly what he was
9:15
Speaker 1: looking at right now.
9:16
Speaker 2: Around this point, the.
9:18
Speaker 1: Officers from the other squad car had now come up
9:20
Speaker 1: the stairs and into the house. But Shepard told them
9:23
Speaker 1: to get back, go back outside, because the scene was
9:26
Speaker 1: not safe to process yet.
9:28
Speaker 2: They needed the fire department.
9:29
Speaker 1: Here, and they needed the bomb squad, because there could
9:32
Speaker 1: be more explosives.
9:36
Speaker 2: Not long afterwards, Shepard and.
9:38
Speaker 1: The other officers stood on the front lawn as members
9:40
Speaker 1: of the fire department and the state police bomb squad
9:43
Speaker 1: combed through the scene. By this point, Detective Shepard had
9:46
Speaker 1: learned a bit more about what had happened. The dead
9:49
Speaker 1: woman was Kem Wenger, and the man he had seen
9:52
Speaker 1: screaming in the driveway was Kem's fiancée, Kurt Simon. Neighbors
9:56
Speaker 1: said the pair had arrived around 10.30 p.m., and a
9:58
Speaker 1: couple of the neighbors had actually noticed them before the
10:02
Speaker 1: blast went off when they started unloading their car. These
10:05
Speaker 1: neighbors said that they saw Kurt be the first one
10:08
Speaker 1: to go inside the house, and when he did, he
10:10
Speaker 1: went in carrying a box that he had pulled from
10:12
Speaker 1: the back of the car. And then these neighbors said
10:15
Speaker 1: they saw Kurt come out again, empty-handed, 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?
11:00
Speaker 2: What did he put into the trunk? But even more suspicious.
11:03
Speaker 1: Than any of that was what a preliminary sweep of
11:06
Speaker 1: Kem's home had turned up in the basement.
11:08
Speaker 2: And that was wires, gunpowder, 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 2: And at this, Shepard's eyes narrowed.
11:59
Speaker 1: Because according to the neighbor's account, they said Kurt was
12:02
Speaker 1: actually at his trunk, you know, putting something back into
12:05
Speaker 1: the car at the time of the explosion. But Kurt
12:08
Speaker 1: was now claiming that he had actually only just exited
12:11
Speaker 1: the house, basically was on the stairs as the blast happened. Now,
12:15
Speaker 1: this discrepancy could just be a result of confusion or
12:18
Speaker 1: Kurt could be lying to cover up whatever he may
12:21
Speaker 1: or may not have done. But independent of whatever this was,
12:25
Speaker 1: Shepard just told Kurt that right now he was going
12:28
Speaker 1: down to the station for questioning. Several hours later, a
12:41
Speaker 1: little before dawn on Sunday, May 23, 1993, Detective Shepard
12:46
Speaker 1: walked out of the interrogation room in the Bloomington, Illinois
12:48
Speaker 1: police station where he'd just spent more than an hour
12:51
Speaker 1: hammering Kurt Simon with questions about his murdered fiancée. And
12:55
Speaker 1: Kurt had been a pretty difficult interview. He had plenty
12:59
Speaker 1: 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 1: And he said that Kem's estranged mom, Wilma Lewis, who
13:12
Speaker 1: everybody called Cricket, was, quote, every kind of evil. But
13:16
Speaker 1: Kurt had seemed to have no information to offer about
13:19
Speaker 1: what he had actually witnessed before the explosion. He had
13:22
Speaker 1: stuck to a story that he had not seen anything
13:25
Speaker 1: suspicious at all in the foyer, which Shepard found hard
13:28
Speaker 1: to believe. Kurt also had no explanation for why the
13:31
Speaker 1: bomb exploded on Kem and not on him. And he
13:34
Speaker 1: also denied knowing anything about the bomb-making materials that had
13:37
Speaker 1: been found in Kem's basement. Kurt also said he hadn't
13:41
Speaker 1: put anything back in his trunk around the time of
13:43
Speaker 1: the explosion, but he couldn't explain why the neighbors said
13:47
Speaker 1: he had. Shepard ultimately thought Kurt was either the most
13:51
Speaker 1: unobservant person alive, or he was lying. And on top
13:56
Speaker 1: of all that, Kurt had refused to take a lie
13:59
Speaker 1: detector test. However, Shepard still had to let him go home.
14:02
Speaker 1: The detective just didn't have anywhere near enough evidence to
14:05
Speaker 1: arrest Kurt, at least not yet. At this point, the
14:08
Speaker 1: bomb squad was actually still searching the house for any
14:11
Speaker 1: additional bombs. So the crime scene techs had not gotten
14:14
Speaker 1: in yet to begin to start looking for forensic evidence.
14:17
Speaker 1: They actually hadn't even been able to remove Kem's body yet.
14:20
Speaker 1: Shepard knew the day ahead was going to be very busy.
14:23
Speaker 1: Other members of his team had spent the entire night
14:26
Speaker 1: canvassing the neighborhood and notifying and questioning Kem's family members.
14:31
Speaker 1: And now Shepard was sure there was going to be
14:33
Speaker 1: quite a few interrogations for him to conduct. He'd already
14:36
Speaker 1: been awake for 24 hours by this point, but he
14:39
Speaker 1: knew there was not going to be any sleep soon.
14:41
Speaker 1: So he walked to the office coffee pot and poured
14:44
Speaker 1: himself a cup of coffee and stood there drinking it
14:47
Speaker 1: and thinking about how he was going to nail Kurt
14:49
Speaker 1: Simon for murder. Meanwhile, the bombing itself was making huge
14:54
Speaker 1: news all across Illinois.
14:56
Speaker 2: By about 9 a.m.
14:57
Speaker 1: On Sunday morning, so less than 12 hours after the explosion,
15:01
Speaker 1: There were all these reporters milling around the front entrance
15:04
Speaker 1: of the police station, and some were even going in
15:07
Speaker 1: and out of the lobby trying to talk to people
15:09
Speaker 1: and get any information. And Detective Shepard knew this story
15:12
Speaker 1: was only going to get bigger because the Illinois State
15:15
Speaker 1: Bomb Squad had just called in the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
15:19
Speaker 1: and Firearms, or ATF, to help them process the scene.
15:23
Speaker 1: And all that meant there was going to be an
15:25
Speaker 1: enormous amount of pressure on Shepard, who was leading the investigations.
15:30
Speaker 1: And this pressure was especially stressful this morning because the
15:34
Speaker 1: case he'd thought he'd had against Kem's fiance, Kurt Simon,
15:38
Speaker 1: was starting to fall apart. In all their interviews with
15:41
Speaker 1: Kem's friends, everyone had said Kem and Kurt had a
15:44
Speaker 1: good relationship and were excited to start their life together.
15:48
Speaker 1: The crime scene unit had searched Kurt's car where neighbors
15:51
Speaker 1: claimed they had seen him place something in the trunk
15:53
Speaker 1: right after the explosion or manipulate something back there, you know,
15:57
Speaker 1: maybe a detonator. But the crime scene techs had found
16:00
Speaker 1: nothing suspicious at all back there. Shepard's partner had checked
16:03
Speaker 1: out Kurt's story that he had spent the entire week
16:06
Speaker 1: previous to the explosion in Iowa, where he lived, and
16:10
Speaker 1: he was moving here to Bloomington to live with Kem.
16:13
Speaker 1: And they had found out that that story was true.
16:16
Speaker 1: He really had been in Iowa. And so this made
16:18
Speaker 1: Shepard's theory that Kurt had assembled the bomb in Kem's
16:22
Speaker 1: basement a lot less likely, since Kem was home all
16:25
Speaker 1: week and Kurt wasn't there. Plus, Kem's babysitter had given
16:29
Speaker 1: police two additional pieces of information that really widened the
16:33
Speaker 1: suspect pool. First, she said that the spare key to
16:36
Speaker 1: Kem's house had recently gone missing. And the second thing was,
16:40
Speaker 1: because the spare key was gone, Kem had gotten locked
16:44
Speaker 1: out at some point and had to cut.
16:46
Speaker 2: A hole in the screen in the back door to
16:48
Speaker 2: 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.
16:56
Speaker 2: Or if they, you know, had the key, if they
16:57
Speaker 2: stole the key.
16:58
Speaker 1: So Shepard's suspect list effectively had gone from Kurt to
17:02
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
17:43
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 Kim,
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 1: They weren't sure if the killer had to be, you know,
18:34
Speaker 1: right nearby to detonate it or if maybe it had
18:36
Speaker 1: been remote operated so the killer could be farther away
18:40
Speaker 1: or maybe the bomb.
18:40
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. And Todd seemed a little
19:11
Speaker 1: nervous because he kept wringing his hands while he spoke.
19:15
Speaker 1: He said that he and Kem did fight about child
19:17
Speaker 1: support costs. And he said he had been very frustrated
19:20
Speaker 1: with her because he didn't feel like she was always fair.
19:22
Speaker 2: During their divorce.
19:23
Speaker 1: But he insisted that that did not mean he wanted
19:26
Speaker 1: to hurt her. He said their problems were common for
19:29
Speaker 1: most divorced couples. Shepard did not put much stock in
19:32
Speaker 1: that assertion because in his experience, divorce or breakup plus
19:37
Speaker 1: 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 his moments. He said he'd been
19:51
Speaker 1: with his daughter and his new girlfriend, and both of
19:53
Speaker 1: them would definitely vouch for him, along with several people
19:56
Speaker 1: who had seen them during the day. By the time
19:58
Speaker 1: Shepard sent Todd home, he really wasn't sure which of
20:01
Speaker 1: the exes, Todd or Dale, he thought was a better
20:04
Speaker 1: candidate for his killer. Both had clearly been fighting with
20:07
Speaker 1: Cam or had real tension with Cam. but both had
20:11
Speaker 1: alibi witnesses. So, Kem's fiancée, Kurt, might have had the
20:16
Speaker 1: opportunity to plant the bomb if it was set shortly
20:19
Speaker 1: before the explosion, but he had no clear motive. As
20:22
Speaker 1: for Todd and Dale, they seemed to have plenty of motive,
20:25
Speaker 1: but no real opportunity. And so Shepard decided his next
20:29
Speaker 1: move should be to talk again to Kem's family. Maybe
20:32
Speaker 1: they would be able to help him sort out his
20:33
Speaker 1: flawed suspect list. On Sunday evening, so almost 24 hours
20:44
Speaker 1: after the explosion, Detective Shepard knocked on the door of
20:47
Speaker 1: the home.
20:48
Speaker 2: Where 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, like,
21:13
Speaker 1: way over the top. As Joanie welcomed Shepard inside and
21:17
Speaker 1: offered him a seat on the couch, you know, she
21:18
Speaker 1: was crying. Her reaction to the death of her sister
21:21
Speaker 1: seemed very genuine. But Cricket was not crying or showing
21:25
Speaker 1: 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.
21:34
Speaker 2: An arrest yet. She was furious.
21:37
Speaker 1: about her child's life insurance policy, which apparently Kem had
21:41
Speaker 1: not added her to as a beneficiary, which meant that
21:44
Speaker 1: Cricket was not going to be paid any money despite
21:47
Speaker 1: her child being killed. You know, as Shepard's seeing this,
21:50
Speaker 1: he thought about how Kurt had insisted in his interrogation
21:54
Speaker 1: that Cricket was a horrible person, that she was evil. Now,
21:58
Speaker 1: at the time, Shepard had not really taken that seriously
22:01
Speaker 1: because he figured Kurt was trying to throw suspicion off
22:04
Speaker 1: of himself. And lots of people don't like their mother-in-laws.
22:07
Speaker 1: But now he was reconsidering. He felt like he was
22:09
Speaker 1: witnessing someone who could be just as bad as they
22:12
Speaker 1: were described to be. And then when Shepard actually asked
22:15
Speaker 1: Cricket about her relationship with her now deceased daughter, Cricket
22:20
Speaker 1: went off, but not about her relationship really with Kem,
22:23
Speaker 1: but more about Kurt and how Kurt had ruined Kem's life.
22:28
Speaker 1: She said Kurt was a terrible partner for Kem and
22:31
Speaker 1: that he had destroyed the best relationship she ever had
22:34
Speaker 1: which Cricket said was with Dale Fosdick, the father of
22:37
Speaker 1: Kem's son. She also said that Kurt had destroyed her, Cricket's,
22:41
Speaker 1: 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
23:49
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 2: But he'd come away with.
24:01
Speaker 1: Less clarity and now five suspects. Kem's fiancee, Kurt, her exes,
24:05
Speaker 1: Dale Fosdick and Todd Wenger, her co-worker, Phil Hartman, and frankly,
24:10
Speaker 1: Cricket herself. At this point, it was late on Sunday
24:13
Speaker 1: night and Shepard had been awake since Saturday morning. And
24:16
Speaker 1: so he decided the best thing he could do now
24:18
Speaker 1: was just go home and get some sleep. That way
24:21
Speaker 1: he could come back with a clear head on Monday
24:23
Speaker 1: morning and maybe.
24:24
Speaker 2: 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.
25:39
Speaker 1: Had shown distinct damage to Kem's right hand, Shepard knew
25:43
Speaker 1: that what likely happened was that she had spotted the
25:45
Speaker 1: package and picked it up with her right hand, which
25:48
Speaker 1: then triggered the explosion. And this was actually the single
25:52
Speaker 1: most important thing the feds had been able to determine,
25:55
Speaker 1: that the bomb was motion-activated.
25:58
Speaker 2: This was huge because it.
25:59
Speaker 1: Meant the bomber did not have to be at or
26:02
Speaker 1: even near Kem's house to trigger the explosion manually, which
26:06
Speaker 1: meant they could have left this thing there any time
26:09
Speaker 1: during the weekend.
26:10
Speaker 2: This also explained.
26:11
Speaker 1: Why there were a bunch of wires and bomb-making materials
26:14
Speaker 1: found in the basement. Because if the bomb had been
26:16
Speaker 1: built somewhere else and transported to Kem's house in, say,
26:19
Speaker 1: a car, the bomb could have exploded along the way.
26:23
Speaker 1: So what likely happened was that Kem's killer was brought
26:26
Speaker 1: a partially finished bomb to Kem's house that would not
26:29
Speaker 1: detonate as they carried it, and then they put the
26:32
Speaker 1: final touches on it right on site once it was
26:35
Speaker 1: actually in position in the foyer. This also meant the
26:38
Speaker 1: bomber had to be pretty sophisticated because building a bomb
26:41
Speaker 1: like this took technical skill. It took some intelligence and
26:44
Speaker 1: real attention to detail because if you don't have those things, you.
26:48
Speaker 2: Can set off the bomb and kill yourself.
26:50
Speaker 1: And so in Shepard's mind, this likely took Kem's mother, Cricket,
26:54
Speaker 1: right off the table. She just did not strike him
26:57
Speaker 1: as organized enough or really coherent enough to build this
27:00
Speaker 1: type of bomb. She just seemed way too scatterbrained. Kem's exes,
27:05
Speaker 1: Dale Fosdick and Todd Wenger, both worked with machines for
27:08
Speaker 1: a living, so they were definitely still in. And her fiancé, Kurt,
27:12
Speaker 1: was highly educated, so he was still in. Shepard wasn't
27:15
Speaker 1: sure about Phil Hartman, the co-worker who Kem had accused
27:18
Speaker 1: of sexually harassing her. He had reached Phil by phone
27:20
Speaker 1: that morning, and Phil had told him he was working
27:23
Speaker 1: in Louisiana 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. So
27:46
Speaker 1: Phil was still in, but less so. As Shepard stood
27:50
Speaker 1: there in the blackened, destroyed foyer, looking at the partially
27:53
Speaker 1: burned pages of Modern Bride magazines that had been blown
27:56
Speaker 1: all over the room, he thought about the fact that
27:59
Speaker 1: whoever had done this had to have been very comfortable
28:02
Speaker 1: in Kem's house. They had gotten inside the house at
28:05
Speaker 1: some point and then clearly spent time in the basement
28:08
Speaker 1: tinkering with the bomb. Then they came up and they're
28:10
Speaker 1: in the foyer setting the bomb up. I mean, that's
28:13
Speaker 1: someone who's pretty confident they're not going to get caught
28:15
Speaker 1: doing all this inside the house. 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
29:47
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.
30:37
Speaker 2: Of Kem's house.
30:38
Speaker 1: They picked up a bag that was sitting on their
30:40
Speaker 1: passenger seat, which contained a partially completed pipe bomb and
30:43
Speaker 1: some tools. With this in hand, they got out of
30:46
Speaker 1: the car and they walked up to the front door
30:49
Speaker 1: and they pulled a key from their pocket. This was
30:51
Speaker 1: the same key they had stolen from under the doormat
30:54
Speaker 1: a few months earlier. They used the key to unlock
30:56
Speaker 1: the front door and they let themselves inside. The killer
30:59
Speaker 1: then walked down to the basement, where they took all
31:01
Speaker 1: the various items from the bag and placed them on
31:04
Speaker 1: the counter, and they got to work. The killer was
31:07
Speaker 1: not worried about getting caught. They knew this neighborhood very well,
31:11
Speaker 1: and everybody in this neighborhood knew them, and they would
31:13
Speaker 1: not find it suspicious at all to see them there. Plus,
31:16
Speaker 1: they knew they would have an alibi for the time
31:18
Speaker 1: period when the bomb actually would go off. Once the
31:22
Speaker 1: bomb was mostly assembled, the killer gathered up most of
31:25
Speaker 1: their things. They left behind some random supplies in the basement,
31:28
Speaker 1: but figured it didn't really matter since the explosion would
31:31
Speaker 1: take care of everything. Feeling very confident in their worksmanship
31:34
Speaker 1: so far, the killer walked back upstairs and placed the
31:38
Speaker 1: nearly completed bomb on the floor in the foyer. And
31:41
Speaker 1: then as they completed the final steps, they could feel
31:45
Speaker 1: sweat beating on their forehead because if they did anything wrong,
31:48
Speaker 1: the bomb would go off. But the killer got it
31:51
Speaker 1: all done and they stood up very slowly and carefully
31:54
Speaker 1: and walked back out through the front door. But before
31:57
Speaker 1: they could get in their car and drive away, they
32:00
Speaker 1: saw one of the neighborhood girls playing in the yard
32:02
Speaker 1: next door and the girl looked at them and waved
32:05
Speaker 1: and said hello. And the killer, who felt like they
32:08
Speaker 1: belonged there and no one will remember me, they waved back. Well,
32:12
Speaker 1: the little girl remembered that interaction, and she would tell
32:16
Speaker 1: Detective Shepard who she saw leaving Kem's house. It was
32:19
Speaker 1: none other than Kem's ex-boyfriend and the father of her son,
32:22
Speaker 1: Dale Fostick. Dale was very upset that Kem had broken
32:27
Speaker 1: up with him and was now seeing Kurt. He had
32:30
Speaker 1: also heard from Cricket, who he was still very close with,
32:33
Speaker 1: that Kurt had talked about adopting his own son, and
32:36
Speaker 1: this enraged him. He couldn't stand the idea that his
32:40
Speaker 1: own boy might grow up calling another man dad. So
32:43
Speaker 1: he used the electronic skills and the tools he'd acquired
32:47
Speaker 1: from his hobby of building model airplanes to build a
32:50
Speaker 1: pipe bomb. And so ultimately, Dale was caught, because of
32:54
Speaker 1: his entitlement, to feel like he could just stroll into
32:57
Speaker 1: Kemp's house anytime he wanted. Because he did that all
33:00
Speaker 1: the time, despite her saying not to. he became a
33:03
Speaker 1: familiar face in the neighborhood. And that's why that.
33:06
Speaker 2: 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. Thank you so much
33:35
Speaker 2: for watching. Let me know what you thought of today's
33:37
Speaker 2: episode in the comments.
33:39
Speaker 1: And remember, we have a whole playlist of true crime
33:41
Speaker 1: episodes ready 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.