March 20, 2025 • 33 mins
On July 6, 1997 in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, Marty LeBouef, Stacie Reeves and Nicole Guidry were all shot execution style in the head. Their bodies were left in the cooler at KK’s Corner. Thedr murders were shocking. And soon, people were talking about another death. One that some people in the community thought could be linked to KK’s Corner’s massacre.
On Saturday, May 17, 1997, not even three weeks before the triple homicide at KK’s Corner, Kevin Abel was fatally shot in the head at home.
Police ruled Kevin’s death a suicide, but Stacie Reeves, who had been dating Kevin, believed that he had been murdered and that his murder could be tied to law enforcement, and possibly to alleged drug deals at KK’s Corner.
Stacie Reeves arrived at that crime scene with her young twin daughters only minutes after police showed up there. She told police that she and Kevin were going on a date that night and that she had been planning to pick him up with her girls. And she said that he owed a LOT of money to drug dealers, who had been taking his truck as collateral.
What really happened to Kevin Abel. Did he kill himself? Who were the drug dealers that he owed money to? And did Kevin’s death have anything to do with the KK’s Corner killings?
If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
from family and community members, their statements should not be
considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
(01:10):
inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
On July sixth, nineteen ninety seven, in Calcashu Parish, Louisiana,
Marty Lebeuf, Stacy Reeves, and Nicole Guildry were all shot
execution style in the head. Their bodies were left in
the cooler at kk's Corner. These at kk's Corner were shocking,
and soon people were talking about another death, one that
(01:50):
some people in the community thought could be linked.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
To the kk's Corner massacre.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
On Saturday May seventeenth, nineteen ninety seven, not even three
weeks before the triple homicide at kk's corner. Kevin Abel
was fatally shot in the head at his home. Police
ruled Kevin's death a suicide, but Stacy Reeves, who had
been dating Kevin, believed that he had been murdered and
that his murder could be tied to law enforcement and
(02:17):
possibly to allege drug deals at Kk's corner. Stacy Reeves
arrived at that crime scene at Kevin's with her young
twin daughters only minutes after.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Police showed up there.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Stacey told police she and Kevin were going on a
date that night and that she had been planning to
pick him up with her girls. And she said that
Kevin owed a lot of money to drug dealers, who
she said had been taking his truck as collateral. We
talked to one of Stacy's friends, the former sheriff's deputy.
We have her full name, but because of concerns about
(02:51):
her safety, she has asked that we call her by
her nickname Missy.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
She was coming to kick him up with her twins,
who are I think two at the time, they were
really young. For she insisted that she would never have
permitted suicide, knowing that she had the Beady.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Who's with him. What really happened to Kevin Abel? Did
he kill himself or could there have been foul play involved?
Who were the drug dealers who he owed money to?
And did Kevin's death have anything to do with the
kk's Corner killings. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five
years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've
(03:29):
learned that there's no such thing as a small town
where murder never happens. I've received hundreds of messages from
people all around the country asking for help with an
unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities.
If you have a case you'd like me and my
team to look into, you can reach out to us
at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight
(03:50):
seven four four six one four five. That's six seven
eight seven four four six one four five, or you
can send us a message on Instagram at Helen gonepod.
This is Helen Gone Murder Line. We got a copy
(04:48):
of the incident report and some civil depositions, and between
those and some interviews we've done, we have found out
a lot of information about the night that Kevin Abel died. Now,
before I go down this road, I just want to
say that so far, none of the evidence that we
have seen has indicated that Kevin Abel's death was anything
(05:08):
other than a suicide. But a lot of people, including
Stacy Reeves, believe that it was, and we want.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
To understand why.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
On the day he died, Kevin had a friend at
his house, a guy named Chad Reeves. Now Chad was
a distant cousin of Stacy's, but according to what Chad
told police, they were not close. Chad wasn't even sure
exactly how they were related. When police asked him, Chad
said that he had reconnected with Kevin the night before
(05:38):
at a bar called Cheers. He had known Kevin when
they were younger, but prior to that, he told investigators,
they had not spoken in eight years. Lake Charles has
a population of almost eighty thousand people, but I see
a lot of the same names keep popping up, so
parts of it seemed to have a distinctly small town vibe.
Chad lived with his mother in Fairview Estates, the same
(06:01):
trailer park as Kevin. He told police that he went
over to Kevin's trailer that afternoon because Kevin was feeling down.
Chad said they were hanging out there watching TV and talking.
In a later deposition, Chad said that Kevin looked like
shit that day. He also said Kevin had been smoking
crack for days, which had turned his lips black. While
(06:25):
they were hanging out, Kevin got a phone call from someone.
Chad said that quote whoever it was must have had
Kevin's car, because Kevin got very mad with them over
the phone and asked them when they were going to
bring his car back.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
End quote.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Then Chad said after Kevin hung up, Kevin had asked
him how to spell the word quit. Chad said he
spelled it out for him qu i t. After that,
he said that a woman called Kevin, and Kevin told
the woman that he was depressed and to come pick
him up. I don't know for sure, but it seems
likely that that woman was Stacy Reeves, since Stacy did
(07:03):
show up there and she said that they were planning
on having a date that night. After that, Kevin went
to the back of the trailer toward his bedroom.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Time went by, the movie.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Ended, and Chad said that he yelled to Kevin that
he was going back to his mother's trailer to get
something to eat. Chad was in the front doorway, putting
his shoes on, getting ready to leave. When he heard
the gunshot, Chad ran into the bedroom. He said that
he saw Kevin lying there and grabbed him to try
to check on him, but he said he could see
that he was in a pool of blood and that
(07:34):
he was clearly dead. Chad said he ran back to
his mother's house and called nine one one. Police came
to the scene, and they found Kevin in his bedroom
with his head facing north and a fatal gunshot wound
to his head. There was a three fifty seven magnum
revolver lying about twelve inches from Kevin's left foot. There
(07:54):
was a bullet hole in the wall and a TV
on top of Kevin's chest. Police believed that Kevin fired
the fatal shot and then he fell back onto the
TV stand. That's when they say he crashed to the
ground and the television kind of toppled on top of him.
Police found cocaine residue in a chrome pipe and gunpowder
residue on Kevin's hands that police said indicated that the
(08:18):
gun had been fired by him recently. They also found
a suicide note nearby. We got a copy of that note.
It read in part quote, this is something I did
because I couldn't face the real world being a crackhead.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
End quote.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
In the note, Kevin apologized to people in his life
for not being able to get off drugs. He mentioned
former girlfriends and friends and people he felt that he
had let down. At the end, it says, PS, if
I have a funeral, play the dance he was talking about,
the Garth Brooks country song. Police found that Kevin had
(08:54):
a heavy crack addiction and then he owed money to
two people, Irving and David Freeman. They're actually cousins, but
people around town refer to them as the Freeman brothers.
Irving told police that he sold crack to Kevin on
a regular basis. He said that he would take Kevin's
truck as collateral to make sure that Kevin paid back
(09:14):
the money that he owed. Irving told police that Kevin
was pretty much his best customer. He said that Kevin
would chain smoke rocks of crack like other people smoked cigarettes.
He said that Kevin regularly owed him large amounts of money,
from around fifteen to seventeen hundred dollars at a time
while Irving had the truck. David Irving's cousin told police
(09:36):
that he would sometimes borrow the truck as well. He
would just borrow it from Irving without getting Kevin's permission.
Sometimes Stacy Reeves would pay Kevin's drug debts. Once she
paid David five hundred dollars. Later, David told police about
a strange incident that happened with Kevin's truck. He said
(09:56):
that a police officer showed up at his house once
while he was borrowing Kevin's truck, and that the police
officer demanded that he give it back. Police talked to
this officer, the one who showed up at David's house.
It was a Lake Charles police officer. So this officer
said he was friends with Jennifer Doyle, a woman who
was also dating Kevin at the time. The officer said
(10:19):
sometime in the beginning of April in nineteen ninety seven,
he went to Jennifer Doyle's house and that Jennifer got
a phone call from David. David was asking Jennifer for money.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Money.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
He said that Kevin owed him, so the officer got
Jennifer to hand him the phone. When he identified himself
to David as a police officer, David hung up. The
officer said that when he was at work the next
day that Jennifer called him and asked if he would
go with her to help get Kevin's truck back. So
the officer said he went with Jennifer to David's place
(10:51):
and knocked on David's door. A woman answered the door
and said David wasn't there, So the officer said they
were there to get Kevin's truck. The woman said the
keys were in it, so the officer said he got
into Jennifer's vehicle and drove it back to the police
station while Jennifer drove Kevin's truck. The officer said Jennifer
drove away in Kevin's truck and that he wasn't sure
(11:11):
what happened to the vehicle after that. To me, this
illustrates a couple of things about how things work in
Lake Charles. The fact that a lot of these drug dealers,
police and people connected to drug addicts were all intimately
connected number one, and number two, that sometimes police would
do things to settle disputes that weren't necessarily officially reported.
(11:34):
Because to my knowledge, there was never a stolen vehicle
report made on this truck. This all apparently happened off
the books, and the officer didn't tell anyone about this
truck incident until much.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Later after Kevin Abel's death.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
But as we said last week, Stacey believed that Kevin
had been murdered. Stacy Reeves was convinced that Kevin Abel
had not committed suicide. Her friend Missy, talked to us
about what Stacy told her about Kevin's death. Missy said
(12:11):
that Stacy didn't think the suicide note was legitimate.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Stacey contacted me when Kevin quote unquote committed suicide. She
told me he didn't commit suicide. It was all a
lie because he hated country music and in the suicide
note it was referenced to country music. I think one
of Gurth books was songs. And also the note was
(12:36):
written in the opposite hand that she did not write it,
so she was emotionally just strawed or not.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
In the weeks before her death, Stacy was talking to
people about how she didn't think Kevin committed suicide, and
also about drug deals that she said were going down
in Kk's corner. She said that Kevin owed people drug money,
a lot of money. Stacy seemed to believe that Kevin's
death might have been murdered and that it might have
(13:07):
something to do with drug dealers who were operating inside
kk's corner, and Stacy had been talking to law enforcement
about her suspicions. According to police documents, Stacy's friend, Sheila,
told police that Stacy had recently met with two officers
and talked to him about her fear that her involvement
in Kevin's drug dealing could put her in danger. She
(13:29):
was talking to them about drug deals going on inside
kk's corner. She told them she wanted to work for
the Sheriff's department. One was an officer named Jerome Lestraps.
The other was an Officer Sweeney, but police said they
were unable to locate anyone with that name, so we've
(13:49):
started looking for officer Sweeney. After the kk's murders, Detective
Deluge was looking into these rumors that Stacy could have
been talking to people in law enforcement. Detective Deluge knew
that Jerome less Straps worked narcotics for the calcashu Perras
Sheriff's Department, so he contacted the chief of detectives there,
John Fryar. He asked if Stacy was a confidential informant
(14:12):
for anyone. John said, to his knowledge, Stacy never provided
intel to any of his officers. But later, according to
court documents, Jeromeless Straps said that he had talked to
Stacy about working undercover with the Sheriff's office. He said
when she told him about people dealing drugs and her
(14:33):
suspicion that his death was not a homicide, jerome Le
Strap said he advised Stacy that because she had two
young daughters, this type of work might be dangerous for her.
He said that he told her if she had information
about Kevin's death, that she should get in touch with
a detective in charge of that investigation. We found out
something else, potentially more evidence that the men who came
(14:57):
to the store that night, the ones who Virginia saw
in the black car, may have been targeting Stacy, because
there are things about Stacy's murder that were different from
Marty and Nicole. Now, these differences might not mean anything.
On the other hand, they could be important clues. Marty
and Nicole were both shot in the back of the head.
(15:17):
Stacy was shot in the face. She was also shot
once in the back of the head, but that was
only after her head was turned around from the first shot,
so Stacy was the only one who faced her killer.
We also learned more details about Virginia Johnson, the witness.
She testified that the men she saw that night at
(15:39):
Kk's were there for Stacy. Remember, Virginia went to care
Corner on July fifth. She arrived there at about eleven
forty five pm to get gas. She went in and
bought ten dollars worth of gas from Marty. At that time,
she said, Stacy was mopping up and closing the store.
Nicole was sitting on the counter. While Virginia was in
the store. A black car pulled up to the side entrance.
(16:02):
One man came into the store. He walked straight back
toward the beer coolers. The other one bumped into Virginia
as she was walking out to her car. That's the
guy who she described for the first composite drawing, and
later under hypnosis she remembered more details about the second man.
She later identified Tomas Cisco in a lineup. So we
(16:23):
know all that, But we got a transcript of the
testimony that Virginia gave at Tomasisko's murder trial. She testified
that as she was walking out of Kk's, she heard
Marty and Nicole talking about the guys that came in.
She said she heard Marty say, well, they're here for her,
meaning that the two two men were there for Stacy.
(16:46):
This would presumably mean that the two men were people
who the employees knew and felt comfortable enough letting into
the store after closing. So why were these two men
there for Stacy? These murders happened within a small window
of time. Marty Lebuff drove a green and tan nineteen
(17:07):
eighty seven Ford Bronco. Stacy drove a brown nineteen eighty
six Buick Skylark. Both of those vehicles were parked at
kk's corner all night. Virginia said the car she saw
pull up to Kk's while she was paying for gas
was a sporty, black two door late eighties vehicle similar
to a Chevrolet Spectrum. She said the truck that she
(17:27):
saw was a red mid sized pickup truck. After leaving
kk's corner, Virginia picked her boyfriend up at work. They
both told investigators they drove back past kk's corner. The
boyfriend remembers they were having a conversation about kk's. He
said he glanced down at the clock in his truck.
It said twelve forty two, but it was ten minutes fast,
(17:49):
so it was actually twelve thirty two at that time.
At twelve thirty two am, they saw that black car
still there and a red truck with a passenger door open.
The store was closed, but the lights inside the store
were still on, which Virginia told police she believed was odd.
She made a comment to her boyfriend that maybe someone
could be robbing the store, but her boyfriend said, all right,
(18:12):
girl whatever. From what she told police, it sounded like
he wasn't taking her too seriously, and so they went home.
Someone else saw the truck too, because a few minutes
before that, another woman who later talked to police, said
she drove through the kk's parking lot at around twelve
fifteen am. She also noticed the red truck and the
(18:34):
black car in the parking lot.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
There were a lot.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Of people going into and out of this parking lot
that night. This was a busy store in a busy area.
Deputy Terry Gillery, who found the bodies in the cooler
the next morning, was also on duty the night of
July fifth.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
He said that he had driven through the parking lot.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
At around eleven PM, he said he saw Stacy behind
the counter and waved at her. Later, at around one
thirty am, the man who folded the morning papers was
in the parking lot. By that time, the black car
and the truck were gone. At two am, Terry Gillery
passed by again he saw the guy who folded the
morning papers in the parking lot. He noticed that Stacy
(19:15):
and Marty's vehicles were still parked there. So whatever happened
at Kk's Corner, it started after Virginia left the store
and after Marty's dad called at midnight to tell him
he had to plate a barbecue left out for him.
Whatever happened happened fast, because at twelve oh six am, Sherwood,
carpenter at the assistant manager, called the store.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
He said the phone kept ringing.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Sherwood says that when no one answered, he figured the
employees had already gone home. Stacey, Marty and Nicole were
almost certainly dead in the cooler by then.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
So what happened during that crucial few minutes.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
We talked to Kenny Klin, the owner of Kk's Corner,
who the initials are named for.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
He said, you know, I don't want you to touch anything.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
I just want you to tell me what you see.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
So then when I walked in the store, eventually, when
I got to the back room where I saw that
Stacey and Marty did their shift report, which is the
paperwork that you do when the shift is over. As
soon as I saw that they had done their shift report,
I told Lucky Lush I said the store was closed.
And he looked at me and he said, what do
you mean. I said, because Stacey and Marty sometimes they
(20:26):
might cheat a little bit. They were experienced a poison.
They knew I would allow it. They may have, you know,
let you say the store, the store closed at midnight.
You know, maybe they might do their paperwork at ten
minutes to midnight, maybe five minutes, just assuming not another
customer will come in. And if another customer would come
in and spend maybe three or four dollars, said they
would just let the next based cash. You're ringing that up,
just as they could get out of there in a
(20:46):
timely manner. So, had they done exactly what they're supposed
to do, which is closed at midnight, do their paperwork,
you don't do the paperwork to You're almost certain that
the stores closed. So when I saw that, I said, well,
you know they had to let somebody in.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
One of the registers, register too, was closed out at
eleven PM. The other register, register one was closed out
at midnight after closing the store, and the Z tape
was still attached to the register. So that was strange,
Kenny said, because what was supposed to happen was that
the employees would detach the Z tape from the register
(21:21):
and then they would go into the office to finish
completing their report.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
They would check to.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
See whether they came up short, whether everything was reconciled,
whether the math worked, how.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Much money was made, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Then the employee would finish up in the office, bring
the clipboard back out, and put the Z tape under
the clipboard. So is it was my understanding from reading
that that what happened was the employee would they'd cash
out the register and excuse me if I don't get
the terminology right, But then the receipt would print out
and they were supposed to take it to the back office,
run the numbers, and then come back and put this
(21:55):
put it back on a clipboard.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Is that right? Oh, they would do that in the
back room.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
That's what I'm saying. When I went to the back.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
A Z tape just closed out the day.
Speaker 5 (22:01):
God, we ran two we ran two ships, the day ship,
and then at night when we closed, they would run
a Z tape which clears.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Everything out for that day. I see.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
And then what they would do is they would take
that tape and let's just for an even amount of money.
Let's just say they did a thousand dollars in sales.
Then they would take everything out of their drawer and
let's just say they start to shift for two hundred dollars,
they would they would put the two hundred dollars back
in the drawer, and then they should have one thousand dollars.
It should balance and they would count one thousand dollars.
They would put that in an envelope, put it down
the safe. There were two slots in the safe. They
(22:31):
would put that down the safe. Then they would take
their Z tape. Then they would and there was a
clipboard in the back, and they would write down there.
I guess, for lack of a better word, to shift reconciliation.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Kenny said, it appears as though Stacy was interrupted in
the middle of this process. This made him believe the
store had been closed, Stacey closed out the register, and then,
for whatever reason, maybe because Stacey and Marty were comfortable
with the people who came in after closing, they let
them stay. It seems as though they were completing their
(23:02):
routine task right before they were interrupted. The very last
thing that employees were supposed to do after reconciling the
registers and cleaning was to punch in their individual four
digit code to set the alarm, and then manually locked
the doors.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
As they leave.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
But as we've said before, that alarm was never set.
There were a total of four phones in and around
the store, Kenny Klein's personal phone in his private office,
a store phone at the front desk, and two payphones outside.
The lines to the two payphones in Kenny's private phone
had all been cut, leaving only the counterphone untouched. So
(23:40):
one natural question to ask, and one that it seems
the police did ask, is if anyone had quit the
store recently or had an issue with anyone at the store.
There was someone who had quit a few weeks before
the murders, Nathaniel Gobert, who stole money on credit cards.
Nathaniel had called Stacy and asked her if he could
come back in. She said that if he did come
(24:02):
back in, they would have to call the sheriff's department.
But police talked to Nathaniel and he had an alibi,
And it turns out that someone else did quit very
suddenly the day before the murders, Miles Addison. Now we
had heard this name before. We had heard that Miles
Addison called in sick and that that's why Marty was
working that night.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
But it turns out Miles didn't just call in sick.
He quit.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Kenny Klein told law enforcement Miles had been working at
kk's corner for between four and six weeks when he quit.
Miles later told police that he called at two thirty
pm on July fourth, thirty minutes before his shift started.
He told an employee that he was tired of working
till midnight and that if he kept having to work
till midnight that he would quit. He said it was
(24:48):
the fourth of July weekend and then he wanted to
go out and party.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Miles normally worked three pm to midnight.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
He was scheduled to work on Saturday, but after he quit,
Marty took his shift at twelve oh six am on
July sixth, Sherwood Carpenter, the manager of Kk's, called the
store because the alarm had not been set. No one answered,
so the killers probably came into Kk's corner right before
midnight and a few minutes later everyone was dead. They
(25:18):
cut the phone lines, kicked down the door to the office,
and robbed the money out.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Of the safe.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
They pulled the VHS tape out of the VCR that
was recording the security camera footage, and they left. The
store's owner, Kenny Klin, confirmed that the tapes in the
store were labeled one through thirty one, one for each
day of the month, and all of the other tapes
were still on the shelf. Only the surveillance video from
that night, tape number five, July fifth, was taken. And
(25:46):
even though Deputy Deluge said that there was no physical
evidence in this case, it turned out there were some
things left behind. Police found eight nine millimeters shell casings
and six bullets. They also found hairs on the bodies.
These hares were tested and they did not match Tomas
Cisco's hair, but according to court documents, police did not
(26:09):
test any other suspects. The defense attorneys specifically asked about
Miles Adison, Richard mclvin, and another man. Police admitted they
didn't test any of these people. Police looked through the
surveillance tapes they were trying to see if they could
see anything suspicious. They only had thirty days worth of tapes.
After thirty days they were recorded over and when they
(26:31):
looked through the tapes, they found that even though it
was store policy for the doors to be locked at
twelve am, in practice that did not always happen. They
hit another roadblock though, when they tried to figure out
as someone had been casing the store of the day before,
because the tape for July fourth was there, but it
turned out it hadn't been updated. Another employee said on
(26:54):
the day before the murders, because Miles Addison had quit
so suddenly and she was scrambling to find a replacement
for him, she forgot to put in the surveillance tape
that day.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
But what about the other physical evidence?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Police found a cigarette inside the cooler near Nicole's body.
It was partially burned down, like it had been partially smoked.
So what happened to that evidence? We still don't know
(27:28):
what happened to some of the evidence that was found
at the scene. We are still pouring through civil lawsuits
and other Foyer request to try and figure out what
happened to it. A lawsuit filed by Stacy Reeves's family
alleged that Stacy's life life was in danger, that Stacy
believed the death of Kevin Abel, who was described as
(27:48):
her boyfriend, had been falsely ruled a suicide, and that
Stacy had reported certain individuals who were involved with drug
trafficking to the police. That because of that situation, her
life was in danger, and that the police failed to
protect her, and Stacy believed that Sheriff Wayne Mcalvin's son,
(28:09):
Richard was involved. Remember Sheriff Wayne Mcalvin held a press
conference and said he would hunt down anyone who spread
untrue rumors about his son, Richard Mcalvin, who once again
has been cleared by law enforcement. At that same press conference,
Richard Mcalvin said he didn't know any of the victims,
but Stacy's friend, Missy, said that Richard and Stacy definitely
(28:32):
knew each other.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
This was years before all this drama happened, and she
introduced me to Richard Mcalvin and Kevin Abel and they left,
and she said you know who that was? And I
said no. She goes, that was your boss's son, and
I told I made a joke. I said, safety, I
got a tone of bosses. What's the boss you're talking about.
(28:54):
She said, oh, the main boss, Cheff mcklvin's son. And
I said, oh, okay, And I kind of brushed it
off because it didn't matter to me.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
You know, a lot of the reporting on kk's Corner
has been focused on two people, Richard mcelvin and Thomas Cisco.
But what if neither of them were involved? Was there
anyone else who police were looking at early the investigation,
anyone else who would have had a reason to hurt
Stacy or to rob kk's Corner. There was someone else
(29:25):
who police believed could have been the second gunman, A
man named Chris, who had lived with Thomas Cisco at
one point, was an early suspect.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
The former district.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Attorney Rick Bryant said that, in his opinion, Chris looked
like the composite drawing, but he said that Chris had
an alibi. Police questioned the employee who quit kk's Corner,
Miles Addison, several times. On July eighth, Miles Addison took
a polygraph test and he failed it. Miles gave a
(29:57):
videotape statement he completely denied having anything to do with
or any knowledge of the killings at kk's corner. They
talked to Miles Addison's mother, who told police at first
that Miles had come home in the early morning hours
of July six, but apparently later said she wasn't sure
exactly when he came home that night, or if he
came home at all. Later, when police talked to Miles,
(30:18):
he told detectives he had talked to his mom about
what she said. Apparently she was sleepy when she talked
to the officers and she was wrong about him not
coming home. Miles said that on Saturday, July fifth, he
got up at around two pm. He went to visit
some downstairs neighbors. They watched TV and smoke some pot.
That went on until about nine pm.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
He said.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Three friends of his showed up and they went riding
around for a little while. Then they dropped him back
at his apartment complex, and a few minutes later a
friend of his name Mike, showed up with two women,
Nicole and Sarah. He said the four of them went
to eat at a place called Checkers. They were riding
around smoking pot, stopped by a convenience.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Story to get some cigarettes and candy.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
He said that they dropped him off back at his
place at around eleven forty five pm.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Detectives spoke to the other three people.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
They basically said the same thing that they showed up
to pick Miles up, rode around in smoke Pot, made
a couple of stops, and dropped him back at his
place at around eleven forty five pm. The apartment complex
where Miles lived was a little over two miles from
kk's corner, according to Google Maps, about a five minute drive.
There were also some conflicting stories from other people who
(31:27):
police talked to about Miles's activities on July fifth. Shane
Robinson said on July fifth, Miles came over and asked
to borrow his truck. He said that Miles left at
ten thirty pm and that he never saw him again
that night. But the way the interviews worded it doesn't
actually specify if Miles borrowed the truck and brought it
(31:47):
back and then left without it, or if he left
with it at ten thirty. It's very confusingly worded. Miles
did admit he knew about drug dealing at Kk's Corner.
He admitted to investigators during the time he worked there
that he stole cigarettes and dealt drugs. He said he
dealt LSD, pot and cocaine. He said Marty sometimes sold
(32:07):
drugs out of the store as well. Miles also admitted
he let his friends come in and steal merchandise from
the store. He said he would also sometimes let them
buy stuff but undercharge them for it. Miles Addison failed
three different light detector tests. The questions that he failed,
according to law enforcement documents, were whether he had knowledge
(32:28):
of the events at kk's Corner, whether he knew who
had committed the murders, and whether he was present at
the time of the murders.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Again, he denied.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yet anything to do with these murders or any knowledge
of them, and he was never charged in connection with them.
And honestly, I don't even know if police were being
straight with him when they told him which questions he failed.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
We know they're allowed to lie to people.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
We have reached out to Miles Addison, but after some
initial questions, he declined to answer any more and appeared
to block our number. Next week in our final KKs
Corner episode. We're going to take a look at the
trial documents, specifically the closing arguments, and get details on
which officers Stacy Reeves was meeting with regularly in the
(33:14):
last weeks of her life. And we're going to try
to find out what happened to that physical evidence, who
was smoking that burnout cigarette in the cooler on the
night three people were brutally murdered.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line
is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced
by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her
researchers sticks and James Wheaton for legal review. Noah Camer
mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song is by
(33:50):
Ben Salek, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and L. C.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Crowley.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the
iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you
are interested in seeing documents and materials from the case,
you can follow the show on Instagram at Helen gonepod.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
If you have a case you'd like me and my
team to look into.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
You can reach out to us at our Helen Gone
Murder line at six seven eight seven four four six
one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four
six one four or five.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
School of Humans
School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
from family and community members, their statements should not be
considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
(01:10):
inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
On July sixth, nineteen ninety seven, in Calcashu Parish, Louisiana,
Marty Lebeuf, Stacy Reeves, and Nicole Guildry were all shot
execution style in the head. Their bodies were left in
the cooler at kk's Corner. These at kk's Corner were shocking,
and soon people were talking about another death, one that
(01:50):
some people in the community thought could be linked.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
To the kk's Corner massacre.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
On Saturday May seventeenth, nineteen ninety seven, not even three
weeks before the triple homicide at kk's corner. Kevin Abel
was fatally shot in the head at his home. Police
ruled Kevin's death a suicide, but Stacy Reeves, who had
been dating Kevin, believed that he had been murdered and
that his murder could be tied to law enforcement and
(02:17):
possibly to allege drug deals at Kk's corner. Stacy Reeves
arrived at that crime scene at Kevin's with her young
twin daughters only minutes after.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Police showed up there.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Stacey told police she and Kevin were going on a
date that night and that she had been planning to
pick him up with her girls. And she said that
Kevin owed a lot of money to drug dealers, who
she said had been taking his truck as collateral. We
talked to one of Stacy's friends, the former sheriff's deputy.
We have her full name, but because of concerns about
(02:51):
her safety, she has asked that we call her by
her nickname Missy.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
She was coming to kick him up with her twins,
who are I think two at the time, they were
really young. For she insisted that she would never have
permitted suicide, knowing that she had the Beady.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Who's with him. What really happened to Kevin Abel? Did
he kill himself or could there have been foul play involved?
Who were the drug dealers who he owed money to?
And did Kevin's death have anything to do with the
kk's Corner killings. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five
years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've
(03:29):
learned that there's no such thing as a small town
where murder never happens. I've received hundreds of messages from
people all around the country asking for help with an
unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities.
If you have a case you'd like me and my
team to look into, you can reach out to us
at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight
(03:50):
seven four four six one four five. That's six seven
eight seven four four six one four five, or you
can send us a message on Instagram at Helen gonepod.
This is Helen Gone Murder Line. We got a copy
(04:48):
of the incident report and some civil depositions, and between
those and some interviews we've done, we have found out
a lot of information about the night that Kevin Abel died. Now,
before I go down this road, I just want to
say that so far, none of the evidence that we
have seen has indicated that Kevin Abel's death was anything
(05:08):
other than a suicide. But a lot of people, including
Stacy Reeves, believe that it was, and we want.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
To understand why.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
On the day he died, Kevin had a friend at
his house, a guy named Chad Reeves. Now Chad was
a distant cousin of Stacy's, but according to what Chad
told police, they were not close. Chad wasn't even sure
exactly how they were related. When police asked him, Chad
said that he had reconnected with Kevin the night before
(05:38):
at a bar called Cheers. He had known Kevin when
they were younger, but prior to that, he told investigators,
they had not spoken in eight years. Lake Charles has
a population of almost eighty thousand people, but I see
a lot of the same names keep popping up, so
parts of it seemed to have a distinctly small town vibe.
Chad lived with his mother in Fairview Estates, the same
(06:01):
trailer park as Kevin. He told police that he went
over to Kevin's trailer that afternoon because Kevin was feeling down.
Chad said they were hanging out there watching TV and talking.
In a later deposition, Chad said that Kevin looked like
shit that day. He also said Kevin had been smoking
crack for days, which had turned his lips black. While
(06:25):
they were hanging out, Kevin got a phone call from someone.
Chad said that quote whoever it was must have had
Kevin's car, because Kevin got very mad with them over
the phone and asked them when they were going to
bring his car back.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
End quote.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Then Chad said after Kevin hung up, Kevin had asked
him how to spell the word quit. Chad said he
spelled it out for him qu i t. After that,
he said that a woman called Kevin, and Kevin told
the woman that he was depressed and to come pick
him up. I don't know for sure, but it seems
likely that that woman was Stacy Reeves, since Stacy did
(07:03):
show up there and she said that they were planning
on having a date that night. After that, Kevin went
to the back of the trailer toward his bedroom.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Time went by, the movie.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Ended, and Chad said that he yelled to Kevin that
he was going back to his mother's trailer to get
something to eat. Chad was in the front doorway, putting
his shoes on, getting ready to leave. When he heard
the gunshot, Chad ran into the bedroom. He said that
he saw Kevin lying there and grabbed him to try
to check on him, but he said he could see
that he was in a pool of blood and that
(07:34):
he was clearly dead. Chad said he ran back to
his mother's house and called nine one one. Police came
to the scene, and they found Kevin in his bedroom
with his head facing north and a fatal gunshot wound
to his head. There was a three fifty seven magnum
revolver lying about twelve inches from Kevin's left foot. There
(07:54):
was a bullet hole in the wall and a TV
on top of Kevin's chest. Police believed that Kevin fired
the fatal shot and then he fell back onto the
TV stand. That's when they say he crashed to the
ground and the television kind of toppled on top of him.
Police found cocaine residue in a chrome pipe and gunpowder
residue on Kevin's hands that police said indicated that the
(08:18):
gun had been fired by him recently. They also found
a suicide note nearby. We got a copy of that note.
It read in part quote, this is something I did
because I couldn't face the real world being a crackhead.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
End quote.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
In the note, Kevin apologized to people in his life
for not being able to get off drugs. He mentioned
former girlfriends and friends and people he felt that he
had let down. At the end, it says, PS, if
I have a funeral, play the dance he was talking about,
the Garth Brooks country song. Police found that Kevin had
(08:54):
a heavy crack addiction and then he owed money to
two people, Irving and David Freeman. They're actually cousins, but
people around town refer to them as the Freeman brothers.
Irving told police that he sold crack to Kevin on
a regular basis. He said that he would take Kevin's
truck as collateral to make sure that Kevin paid back
(09:14):
the money that he owed. Irving told police that Kevin
was pretty much his best customer. He said that Kevin
would chain smoke rocks of crack like other people smoked cigarettes.
He said that Kevin regularly owed him large amounts of money,
from around fifteen to seventeen hundred dollars at a time
while Irving had the truck. David Irving's cousin told police
(09:36):
that he would sometimes borrow the truck as well. He
would just borrow it from Irving without getting Kevin's permission.
Sometimes Stacy Reeves would pay Kevin's drug debts. Once she
paid David five hundred dollars. Later, David told police about
a strange incident that happened with Kevin's truck. He said
(09:56):
that a police officer showed up at his house once
while he was borrowing Kevin's truck, and that the police
officer demanded that he give it back. Police talked to
this officer, the one who showed up at David's house.
It was a Lake Charles police officer. So this officer
said he was friends with Jennifer Doyle, a woman who
was also dating Kevin at the time. The officer said
(10:19):
sometime in the beginning of April in nineteen ninety seven,
he went to Jennifer Doyle's house and that Jennifer got
a phone call from David. David was asking Jennifer for money.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Money.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
He said that Kevin owed him, so the officer got
Jennifer to hand him the phone. When he identified himself
to David as a police officer, David hung up. The
officer said that when he was at work the next
day that Jennifer called him and asked if he would
go with her to help get Kevin's truck back. So
the officer said he went with Jennifer to David's place
(10:51):
and knocked on David's door. A woman answered the door
and said David wasn't there, So the officer said they
were there to get Kevin's truck. The woman said the
keys were in it, so the officer said he got
into Jennifer's vehicle and drove it back to the police
station while Jennifer drove Kevin's truck. The officer said Jennifer
drove away in Kevin's truck and that he wasn't sure
(11:11):
what happened to the vehicle after that. To me, this
illustrates a couple of things about how things work in
Lake Charles. The fact that a lot of these drug dealers,
police and people connected to drug addicts were all intimately
connected number one, and number two, that sometimes police would
do things to settle disputes that weren't necessarily officially reported.
(11:34):
Because to my knowledge, there was never a stolen vehicle
report made on this truck. This all apparently happened off
the books, and the officer didn't tell anyone about this
truck incident until much.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Later after Kevin Abel's death.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
But as we said last week, Stacey believed that Kevin
had been murdered. Stacy Reeves was convinced that Kevin Abel
had not committed suicide. Her friend Missy, talked to us
about what Stacy told her about Kevin's death. Missy said
(12:11):
that Stacy didn't think the suicide note was legitimate.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Stacey contacted me when Kevin quote unquote committed suicide. She
told me he didn't commit suicide. It was all a
lie because he hated country music and in the suicide
note it was referenced to country music. I think one
of Gurth books was songs. And also the note was
(12:36):
written in the opposite hand that she did not write it,
so she was emotionally just strawed or not.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
In the weeks before her death, Stacy was talking to
people about how she didn't think Kevin committed suicide, and
also about drug deals that she said were going down
in Kk's corner. She said that Kevin owed people drug money,
a lot of money. Stacy seemed to believe that Kevin's
death might have been murdered and that it might have
(13:07):
something to do with drug dealers who were operating inside
kk's corner, and Stacy had been talking to law enforcement
about her suspicions. According to police documents, Stacy's friend, Sheila,
told police that Stacy had recently met with two officers
and talked to him about her fear that her involvement
in Kevin's drug dealing could put her in danger. She
(13:29):
was talking to them about drug deals going on inside
kk's corner. She told them she wanted to work for
the Sheriff's department. One was an officer named Jerome Lestraps.
The other was an Officer Sweeney, but police said they
were unable to locate anyone with that name, so we've
(13:49):
started looking for officer Sweeney. After the kk's murders, Detective
Deluge was looking into these rumors that Stacy could have
been talking to people in law enforcement. Detective Deluge knew
that Jerome less Straps worked narcotics for the calcashu Perras
Sheriff's Department, so he contacted the chief of detectives there,
John Fryar. He asked if Stacy was a confidential informant
(14:12):
for anyone. John said, to his knowledge, Stacy never provided
intel to any of his officers. But later, according to
court documents, Jeromeless Straps said that he had talked to
Stacy about working undercover with the Sheriff's office. He said
when she told him about people dealing drugs and her
(14:33):
suspicion that his death was not a homicide, jerome Le
Strap said he advised Stacy that because she had two
young daughters, this type of work might be dangerous for her.
He said that he told her if she had information
about Kevin's death, that she should get in touch with
a detective in charge of that investigation. We found out
something else, potentially more evidence that the men who came
(14:57):
to the store that night, the ones who Virginia saw
in the black car, may have been targeting Stacy, because
there are things about Stacy's murder that were different from
Marty and Nicole. Now, these differences might not mean anything.
On the other hand, they could be important clues. Marty
and Nicole were both shot in the back of the head.
(15:17):
Stacy was shot in the face. She was also shot
once in the back of the head, but that was
only after her head was turned around from the first shot,
so Stacy was the only one who faced her killer.
We also learned more details about Virginia Johnson, the witness.
She testified that the men she saw that night at
(15:39):
Kk's were there for Stacy. Remember, Virginia went to care
Corner on July fifth. She arrived there at about eleven
forty five pm to get gas. She went in and
bought ten dollars worth of gas from Marty. At that time,
she said, Stacy was mopping up and closing the store.
Nicole was sitting on the counter. While Virginia was in
the store. A black car pulled up to the side entrance.
(16:02):
One man came into the store. He walked straight back
toward the beer coolers. The other one bumped into Virginia
as she was walking out to her car. That's the
guy who she described for the first composite drawing, and
later under hypnosis she remembered more details about the second man.
She later identified Tomas Cisco in a lineup. So we
(16:23):
know all that, But we got a transcript of the
testimony that Virginia gave at Tomasisko's murder trial. She testified
that as she was walking out of Kk's, she heard
Marty and Nicole talking about the guys that came in.
She said she heard Marty say, well, they're here for her,
meaning that the two two men were there for Stacy.
(16:46):
This would presumably mean that the two men were people
who the employees knew and felt comfortable enough letting into
the store after closing. So why were these two men
there for Stacy? These murders happened within a small window
of time. Marty Lebuff drove a green and tan nineteen
(17:07):
eighty seven Ford Bronco. Stacy drove a brown nineteen eighty
six Buick Skylark. Both of those vehicles were parked at
kk's corner all night. Virginia said the car she saw
pull up to Kk's while she was paying for gas
was a sporty, black two door late eighties vehicle similar
to a Chevrolet Spectrum. She said the truck that she
(17:27):
saw was a red mid sized pickup truck. After leaving
kk's corner, Virginia picked her boyfriend up at work. They
both told investigators they drove back past kk's corner. The
boyfriend remembers they were having a conversation about kk's. He
said he glanced down at the clock in his truck.
It said twelve forty two, but it was ten minutes fast,
(17:49):
so it was actually twelve thirty two at that time.
At twelve thirty two am, they saw that black car
still there and a red truck with a passenger door open.
The store was closed, but the lights inside the store
were still on, which Virginia told police she believed was odd.
She made a comment to her boyfriend that maybe someone
could be robbing the store, but her boyfriend said, all right,
(18:12):
girl whatever. From what she told police, it sounded like
he wasn't taking her too seriously, and so they went home.
Someone else saw the truck too, because a few minutes
before that, another woman who later talked to police, said
she drove through the kk's parking lot at around twelve
fifteen am. She also noticed the red truck and the
(18:34):
black car in the parking lot.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
There were a lot.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Of people going into and out of this parking lot
that night. This was a busy store in a busy area.
Deputy Terry Gillery, who found the bodies in the cooler
the next morning, was also on duty the night of
July fifth.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
He said that he had driven through the parking lot.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
At around eleven PM, he said he saw Stacy behind
the counter and waved at her. Later, at around one
thirty am, the man who folded the morning papers was
in the parking lot. By that time, the black car
and the truck were gone. At two am, Terry Gillery
passed by again he saw the guy who folded the
morning papers in the parking lot. He noticed that Stacy
(19:15):
and Marty's vehicles were still parked there. So whatever happened
at Kk's Corner, it started after Virginia left the store
and after Marty's dad called at midnight to tell him
he had to plate a barbecue left out for him.
Whatever happened happened fast, because at twelve oh six am, Sherwood,
carpenter at the assistant manager, called the store.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
He said the phone kept ringing.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Sherwood says that when no one answered, he figured the
employees had already gone home. Stacey, Marty and Nicole were
almost certainly dead in the cooler by then.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
So what happened during that crucial few minutes.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
We talked to Kenny Klin, the owner of Kk's Corner,
who the initials are named for.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
He said, you know, I don't want you to touch anything.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
I just want you to tell me what you see.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
So then when I walked in the store, eventually, when
I got to the back room where I saw that
Stacey and Marty did their shift report, which is the
paperwork that you do when the shift is over. As
soon as I saw that they had done their shift report,
I told Lucky Lush I said the store was closed.
And he looked at me and he said, what do
you mean. I said, because Stacey and Marty sometimes they
(20:26):
might cheat a little bit. They were experienced a poison.
They knew I would allow it. They may have, you know,
let you say the store, the store closed at midnight.
You know, maybe they might do their paperwork at ten
minutes to midnight, maybe five minutes, just assuming not another
customer will come in. And if another customer would come
in and spend maybe three or four dollars, said they
would just let the next based cash. You're ringing that up,
just as they could get out of there in a
(20:46):
timely manner. So, had they done exactly what they're supposed
to do, which is closed at midnight, do their paperwork,
you don't do the paperwork to You're almost certain that
the stores closed. So when I saw that, I said, well,
you know they had to let somebody in.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
One of the registers, register too, was closed out at
eleven PM. The other register, register one was closed out
at midnight after closing the store, and the Z tape
was still attached to the register. So that was strange,
Kenny said, because what was supposed to happen was that
the employees would detach the Z tape from the register
(21:21):
and then they would go into the office to finish
completing their report.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
They would check to.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
See whether they came up short, whether everything was reconciled,
whether the math worked, how.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Much money was made, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Then the employee would finish up in the office, bring
the clipboard back out, and put the Z tape under
the clipboard. So is it was my understanding from reading
that that what happened was the employee would they'd cash
out the register and excuse me if I don't get
the terminology right, But then the receipt would print out
and they were supposed to take it to the back office,
run the numbers, and then come back and put this
(21:55):
put it back on a clipboard.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Is that right? Oh, they would do that in the
back room.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
That's what I'm saying. When I went to the back.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
A Z tape just closed out the day.
Speaker 5 (22:01):
God, we ran two we ran two ships, the day ship,
and then at night when we closed, they would run
a Z tape which clears.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Everything out for that day. I see.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
And then what they would do is they would take
that tape and let's just for an even amount of money.
Let's just say they did a thousand dollars in sales.
Then they would take everything out of their drawer and
let's just say they start to shift for two hundred dollars,
they would they would put the two hundred dollars back
in the drawer, and then they should have one thousand dollars.
It should balance and they would count one thousand dollars.
They would put that in an envelope, put it down
the safe. There were two slots in the safe. They
(22:31):
would put that down the safe. Then they would take
their Z tape. Then they would and there was a
clipboard in the back, and they would write down there.
I guess, for lack of a better word, to shift reconciliation.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Kenny said, it appears as though Stacy was interrupted in
the middle of this process. This made him believe the
store had been closed, Stacey closed out the register, and then,
for whatever reason, maybe because Stacey and Marty were comfortable
with the people who came in after closing, they let
them stay. It seems as though they were completing their
(23:02):
routine task right before they were interrupted. The very last
thing that employees were supposed to do after reconciling the
registers and cleaning was to punch in their individual four
digit code to set the alarm, and then manually locked
the doors.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
As they leave.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
But as we've said before, that alarm was never set.
There were a total of four phones in and around
the store, Kenny Klein's personal phone in his private office,
a store phone at the front desk, and two payphones outside.
The lines to the two payphones in Kenny's private phone
had all been cut, leaving only the counterphone untouched. So
(23:40):
one natural question to ask, and one that it seems
the police did ask, is if anyone had quit the
store recently or had an issue with anyone at the store.
There was someone who had quit a few weeks before
the murders, Nathaniel Gobert, who stole money on credit cards.
Nathaniel had called Stacy and asked her if he could
come back in. She said that if he did come
(24:02):
back in, they would have to call the sheriff's department.
But police talked to Nathaniel and he had an alibi,
And it turns out that someone else did quit very
suddenly the day before the murders, Miles Addison. Now we
had heard this name before. We had heard that Miles
Addison called in sick and that that's why Marty was
working that night.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
But it turns out Miles didn't just call in sick.
He quit.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Kenny Klein told law enforcement Miles had been working at
kk's corner for between four and six weeks when he quit.
Miles later told police that he called at two thirty
pm on July fourth, thirty minutes before his shift started.
He told an employee that he was tired of working
till midnight and that if he kept having to work
till midnight that he would quit. He said it was
(24:48):
the fourth of July weekend and then he wanted to
go out and party.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Miles normally worked three pm to midnight.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
He was scheduled to work on Saturday, but after he quit,
Marty took his shift at twelve oh six am on
July sixth, Sherwood Carpenter, the manager of Kk's, called the
store because the alarm had not been set. No one answered,
so the killers probably came into Kk's corner right before
midnight and a few minutes later everyone was dead. They
(25:18):
cut the phone lines, kicked down the door to the office,
and robbed the money out.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Of the safe.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
They pulled the VHS tape out of the VCR that
was recording the security camera footage, and they left. The
store's owner, Kenny Klin, confirmed that the tapes in the
store were labeled one through thirty one, one for each
day of the month, and all of the other tapes
were still on the shelf. Only the surveillance video from
that night, tape number five, July fifth, was taken. And
(25:46):
even though Deputy Deluge said that there was no physical
evidence in this case, it turned out there were some
things left behind. Police found eight nine millimeters shell casings
and six bullets. They also found hairs on the bodies.
These hares were tested and they did not match Tomas
Cisco's hair, but according to court documents, police did not
(26:09):
test any other suspects. The defense attorneys specifically asked about
Miles Adison, Richard mclvin, and another man. Police admitted they
didn't test any of these people. Police looked through the
surveillance tapes they were trying to see if they could
see anything suspicious. They only had thirty days worth of tapes.
After thirty days they were recorded over and when they
(26:31):
looked through the tapes, they found that even though it
was store policy for the doors to be locked at
twelve am, in practice that did not always happen. They
hit another roadblock though, when they tried to figure out
as someone had been casing the store of the day before,
because the tape for July fourth was there, but it
turned out it hadn't been updated. Another employee said on
(26:54):
the day before the murders, because Miles Addison had quit
so suddenly and she was scrambling to find a replacement
for him, she forgot to put in the surveillance tape
that day.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
But what about the other physical evidence?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Police found a cigarette inside the cooler near Nicole's body.
It was partially burned down, like it had been partially smoked.
So what happened to that evidence? We still don't know
(27:28):
what happened to some of the evidence that was found
at the scene. We are still pouring through civil lawsuits
and other Foyer request to try and figure out what
happened to it. A lawsuit filed by Stacy Reeves's family
alleged that Stacy's life life was in danger, that Stacy
believed the death of Kevin Abel, who was described as
(27:48):
her boyfriend, had been falsely ruled a suicide, and that
Stacy had reported certain individuals who were involved with drug
trafficking to the police. That because of that situation, her
life was in danger, and that the police failed to
protect her, and Stacy believed that Sheriff Wayne Mcalvin's son,
(28:09):
Richard was involved. Remember Sheriff Wayne Mcalvin held a press
conference and said he would hunt down anyone who spread
untrue rumors about his son, Richard Mcalvin, who once again
has been cleared by law enforcement. At that same press conference,
Richard Mcalvin said he didn't know any of the victims,
but Stacy's friend, Missy, said that Richard and Stacy definitely
(28:32):
knew each other.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
This was years before all this drama happened, and she
introduced me to Richard Mcalvin and Kevin Abel and they left,
and she said you know who that was? And I
said no. She goes, that was your boss's son, and
I told I made a joke. I said, safety, I
got a tone of bosses. What's the boss you're talking about.
(28:54):
She said, oh, the main boss, Cheff mcklvin's son. And
I said, oh, okay, And I kind of brushed it
off because it didn't matter to me.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
You know, a lot of the reporting on kk's Corner
has been focused on two people, Richard mcelvin and Thomas Cisco.
But what if neither of them were involved? Was there
anyone else who police were looking at early the investigation,
anyone else who would have had a reason to hurt
Stacy or to rob kk's Corner. There was someone else
(29:25):
who police believed could have been the second gunman, A
man named Chris, who had lived with Thomas Cisco at
one point, was an early suspect.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
The former district.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Attorney Rick Bryant said that, in his opinion, Chris looked
like the composite drawing, but he said that Chris had
an alibi. Police questioned the employee who quit kk's Corner,
Miles Addison, several times. On July eighth, Miles Addison took
a polygraph test and he failed it. Miles gave a
(29:57):
videotape statement he completely denied having anything to do with
or any knowledge of the killings at kk's corner. They
talked to Miles Addison's mother, who told police at first
that Miles had come home in the early morning hours
of July six, but apparently later said she wasn't sure
exactly when he came home that night, or if he
came home at all. Later, when police talked to Miles,
(30:18):
he told detectives he had talked to his mom about
what she said. Apparently she was sleepy when she talked
to the officers and she was wrong about him not
coming home. Miles said that on Saturday, July fifth, he
got up at around two pm. He went to visit
some downstairs neighbors. They watched TV and smoke some pot.
That went on until about nine pm.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
He said.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Three friends of his showed up and they went riding
around for a little while. Then they dropped him back
at his apartment complex, and a few minutes later a
friend of his name Mike, showed up with two women,
Nicole and Sarah. He said the four of them went
to eat at a place called Checkers. They were riding
around smoking pot, stopped by a convenience.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Story to get some cigarettes and candy.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
He said that they dropped him off back at his
place at around eleven forty five pm.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Detectives spoke to the other three people.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
They basically said the same thing that they showed up
to pick Miles up, rode around in smoke Pot, made
a couple of stops, and dropped him back at his
place at around eleven forty five pm. The apartment complex
where Miles lived was a little over two miles from
kk's corner, according to Google Maps, about a five minute drive.
There were also some conflicting stories from other people who
(31:27):
police talked to about Miles's activities on July fifth. Shane
Robinson said on July fifth, Miles came over and asked
to borrow his truck. He said that Miles left at
ten thirty pm and that he never saw him again
that night. But the way the interviews worded it doesn't
actually specify if Miles borrowed the truck and brought it
(31:47):
back and then left without it, or if he left
with it at ten thirty. It's very confusingly worded. Miles
did admit he knew about drug dealing at Kk's Corner.
He admitted to investigators during the time he worked there
that he stole cigarettes and dealt drugs. He said he
dealt LSD, pot and cocaine. He said Marty sometimes sold
(32:07):
drugs out of the store as well. Miles also admitted
he let his friends come in and steal merchandise from
the store. He said he would also sometimes let them
buy stuff but undercharge them for it. Miles Addison failed
three different light detector tests. The questions that he failed,
according to law enforcement documents, were whether he had knowledge
(32:28):
of the events at kk's Corner, whether he knew who
had committed the murders, and whether he was present at
the time of the murders.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Again, he denied.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yet anything to do with these murders or any knowledge
of them, and he was never charged in connection with them.
And honestly, I don't even know if police were being
straight with him when they told him which questions he failed.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
We know they're allowed to lie to people.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
We have reached out to Miles Addison, but after some
initial questions, he declined to answer any more and appeared
to block our number. Next week in our final KKs
Corner episode. We're going to take a look at the
trial documents, specifically the closing arguments, and get details on
which officers Stacy Reeves was meeting with regularly in the
(33:14):
last weeks of her life. And we're going to try
to find out what happened to that physical evidence, who
was smoking that burnout cigarette in the cooler on the
night three people were brutally murdered.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line
is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced
by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her
researchers sticks and James Wheaton for legal review. Noah Camer
mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song is by
(33:50):
Ben Salek, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and L. C.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Crowley.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the
iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you
are interested in seeing documents and materials from the case,
you can follow the show on Instagram at Helen gonepod.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
If you have a case you'd like me and my
team to look into.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
You can reach out to us at our Helen Gone
Murder line at six seven eight seven four four six
one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four
six one four or five.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
School of Humans
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