September 20, 2022 • 25 mins
Today's guests are producer Jeff Shane and investigative reporter Conor Powell.
Conor is a journalist and podcast host whose latest series is Lords of Soccer, how Fifa stole the beautiful game and the largest corruption scandal in the world. He’s also the host of KT Studios' upcoming podcast, Death Island You can follow Conor on Twitter @conormpowell.
A bitter divorce between a well-to-do couple turns fatal in this he said, she dead mystery. The final outcome will leave you stunned.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Falling in love is the best feeling in the world.
You see stars, you feel Giddy, but sometimes that makes
you do crazy things and sometimes that means murder. Just
because the story starts out with once upon a times
doesn't mean it ends happily ever after. Welcome to crazy
and love, a production of Katie's studios, and I heart radio.
(00:24):
Today's guests are true crime producer Jeff Shane and journalist
and podcast host Connor Powell. Connor is a journalist and
podcast host whose latest podcast is lords of soccer, how
FIFA stole the beautiful game and the largest corruption scandal
in the world. He's also host of Katie Studio's upcoming
podcast death island. You can follow connor on twitter at
(00:49):
Connor M Powell. Episode Forty five the case of the
Horse Lover, the good dentist and the alienation of affection.
In the village of Clemmons, North Carolina, with its many
historical churches and sprawling parks, lived the Turner family. At
(01:12):
the helm was Kirk, a well respected and kind dentist
who built his practice from the ground up. He had
found success. His other half, Jennifer, was a gentle mother
and a great friend. Together the pair built a beautiful life.
They had two children, Ritchie and Wendy, and it's ten
(01:32):
thousand square foot palatial chalet sitting on a thirty five
Acre horse farm. They each had passions. Kirk's was collecting
vintage corvettes and guns. Jennifer's was horses. Over their marriage,
Jennifer had amassed nine steeds and dreamt of starting a
breeding business on the outside looking in. The turners had
(01:55):
it all. But after twenty three years of marriage, Kirk
announced he was leaving Jennifer and she was shocked. Well,
Kirk denied having an affair. Jennifer was not convinced, so
she hired a private investigator. The P I discovered that
her husband had in fact been stepping out with the
(02:16):
family's former banker, a woman named Tanya Colvin. Jennifer could
have been enraged, but instead she was simply distraught. Jennifer
could feel her loving husband and idyllic life slipping through
her fingertips. Here's Jeff. The divorce didn't just shock Jennifer
(02:37):
but also their kids. Son Richie sided with his dad
and moved in with him, and daughter Wendy was away
at college, but supported her mom when Kirk found this out,
he cut her off immediately, and there was a lot
on the line with this divorce. Kirk made an annual
salary of around six fifty dollars and, as we know,
they had a big house with a lot of Nice things.
(02:58):
So when Kirk moved out, Jennifer was suddenly in charge
of this massive property and she started to have to
take care of everything on her own. She spent roughly
twelve hours a day taking care of the House and
the land. But she did end up getting some help.
A judge ordered that her estranged husband, Kirk Hey her
thirty thousand six and eighty three dollars and sixty one
cents a month. All of that really went to taking
(03:21):
care of the Horse Farm and the land around it.
Jennifer surprised everyone by also filing an alienation of affection
lawsuit against the other woman. Connor what even is an
alienation of affection lawsuit? That's a good question, because it's
not something you hear a lot when it comes to
murder cases. An alienation of affection lawsuit can be filed
by a deserted spouse against a third party that he
(03:43):
or she believes is responsible for the marriage's failure. While
this type of tort has been abolished in most jurisdictions,
there are still some states that allow an alienation of
affection lawsuit to be filed. North Carolina is one of
seven states that do allow this. In any case, the
all states that to file suit you must prove three things.
There was love in the marriage, that the love was
(04:06):
alienated and destroyed, and a defendant caused or contributed to
the loss of love and affection. So, basically, Connor this
alienation of affection lawsuit is that you can sue a
mistress who you think destroyed your marriage, which is what
Jennifer believed about Kirk's other woman. Yeah, that's what it
seems to be. Mean it seems to be some type
(04:27):
of legal remedy against a man or woman who one
of the spouses things to essentially ruin the marriage, right,
I mean, that's essentially what the claim is. I would
imagine anyone involved in this would find that a little
petty and, according to the people who knew Jennifer best,
Kirk was not pleased with this lawsuit. He was pressuring
(04:49):
her to drop it, so much so that she felt threatened.
At one point, Kirk told Jennifer. There's more than one
way to end a marriage. Not surprisingly, Jennifer was a
little bit scared. She started carrying on a gun and
she also brought mace into her bedroom and locked herself
in the master suite at night with the Baseball Bat.
What is your thought on marriage is ending amicably or
(05:10):
not so amicably? I mean, do people get driven to
kind of desperate measures like threatening your spouse or suing
the mistress? Well, you know, every marriage and relationship is different,
but I think if if you're cheating on your spouse
and you're also threatening about other ways to end a marriage,
it's probably not a sign that you're in a healthy
relationship to begin with. On September twelve, two thousand and seven,
(05:32):
Kirk and Jennifer were still dealing with their impending divorce
proceedings when family friend Greg Smithson called Jennifer asking if
he could pick up a welder that was stored on
the property. It was heavy, so greg also wondered if
Kirk could come and help. Jennifer said yes. Once they're
the trio started figuring out how to move the welder.
(05:53):
The conversation started to get personal, so greg excused himself
according to Greg, about two or three minutes later he
heard screaming. Greg Grant back to the shed and found
Jennifer on the ground covered in blood. Kirk was also bleeding.
Greg called nine one one. The nine one one call
(06:13):
is hard to understand, but we listened to it more
carefully and can give you the play by play. In
the call, Greg seems frantic as he explains to the
dispatcher the Jennifer is bleeding excessively and that there is
blood everywhere, but he can't tell where she's actually bleeding from.
The dispatcher asks how she got cut, which greg replies
(06:34):
that he doesn't know. The dispatcher then asks him to
ask Kirk what she does. We hear some muffled conversation
which we can assume is greg asking Kirk what happened.
Greg then returns to the nine one one call and
tells the dispatcher that it had something to do with
a spear. Now, at this point the dispatcher is not
surprisingly a bit confused to hear the mention of a spear.
(06:56):
Jennifer had been nearly decapitated by a knife. In it out,
Kirk was hospitalized from losing so much blood he required
a blood transfusion. But what happened? According to Kirk, when
Greg Left, he presented a couple of legal documents to Jennifer.
The first was a motion for an order that would
force the sale of the farm. The second was an
affidavit from Jennifer's first husband, whom she had been married
(07:20):
to briefly before Kirk. According to the ex the marriage
fell apart because Jennifer was too obsessed with horses. Kirk
said when he did that, Jennifer was enraged and attacked
him and that he had to fight back and kill
her in self defense. So colden, this is where the
story gets pretty wild. Kirk then said that Jennifer attacked
(07:41):
him with a seventh long decorative spear that they kept
in the shed. She apparently picked up the spear and
stabbed him twice, once in the thigh and once again
in the growing area. At five eleven hundred and eighties
seven pounds, Jennifer was strong and athletic, so it seems
possible that she could pick up and wheel such a weapon.
Kirk also kept a four inch knife in his pocket
(08:03):
and he said he was able to pull it out
and protect himself. But what ended up happening is he
ripped the knife across her breastbone up to her neck,
and Jennifer's trachea and whimpipe were cut and her jugular
vein and corroded artery were hit. Her cervical spine was
cut into places. Officials began to find some inconsistencies. For starters,
the blood told a very different story than Kirk was telling.
(08:27):
An investigator said blood spatter was found on the work
table in the shed just inches above the floor. According
to the report, had she been standing as Kirk said,
blood would have sprayed all over the room. The investigator
believed that Kirk knocked Jennifer down and stabbed her while
she was on the ground. Officials also found that at
(08:47):
the crime scene both Kirk and Jennifer's blood had partially dried.
The problem was that Kirk's blood was on top of Jennifer's,
meaning that Jennifer had gotten stabbed first. The question ring,
how did Kirk Get stabbed? The police's theory was that
Kirk ended up stabbing himself with the spear after killing Jennifer.
(09:08):
In so many of these cases you see somebody's stab
or shoot or beat somebody to death and they rarely
ever inflict any harm on themselves to try to cover
it up. That's what's almost unique about this case is
that he did get stabbed and if he did it
to try to make it look like there was a
fight after he murdered her, that's, you know, another level
of like sort of craziness. Yeah, I mean, you would
(09:31):
really have to want it to hurt yourself and hurt
yourself in such a grotesque way with this spear. It
seems so specific. Yeah, I mean, you don't know, when
you're stabbing yourself or again having somebody's stabb you to
try to cover it up, if you're going to survive
a stabbing like that, even if you think you are,
until you get stabbed, until police or an ambulance come, like,
(09:52):
you really don't know if you're going to survive that.
Connor and Katie studios upcoming podcast death island, which you
host and produce, there's a lot of inconsistencies in the
police's story versus the victims story, versus the witnesses stories.
So like, what can you tell us about? Hey, that podcast,
but be how much weight police put into what the witness,
(10:15):
or victim in this case, is saying? Versus what the
forensics of the case a which, in Jennifer and Kirk's case,
says that his blood was on top of hers, which
was implied that he's lying. So death island is a
podcast about an island in Thailand called Koto it's a
diverse paradise with crystal clear water and beautiful beaches and
(10:36):
some of the best diving in the world. It's also
a place where in the last twenty years there has
been a string of just deadly murders, accidents and also
some deaths that just aren't really explained. And the one
thing we see in all of the deaths, whether they
are clear murders or accidents or something other on Kotao,
(10:58):
is that the police there don't really do much of investigation.
If anything, they spend as much time trying to cover
up what happened as they do trying to uncover and
this is a perfect case here with uh with Kirk
and his wife, that there is blood evidence, there's DNA evidence,
there's significant forensic evidence to help figure out what happened.
(11:22):
That's available to police around the world. It's not just
something that we have in the United States anymore and
in a place like Kotao, as we look at in
death island, is that there's a lot of forensic evidence
that says these deaths, particularly some of these so called
accident deaths, that there's a lot more to the deaths
and some of them are probably not accidents but murders.
(11:43):
And that's really why we're looking at Kotao as a
story and it's also why it got its name death island,
because it's a place where tourists go to have a
great time and then they just sort of end up
dying in all sorts of crazy ways, and I won't
tell you too much about how they die, but it's
been happening for twenty years now and the one common
(12:03):
thing that connects all of the cases on Kotao is
really sloppy, lazy police work when there's clear physical and
forensic evidence. So you think in this case of Jennifer
and Kirk, the police should weigh what he's saying but
also look at the forensic evidence to kind of paint
an accurate picture? Yeah, I mean I think at this
point in police investigations that we have a lot of
(12:27):
evidence about how blood spladder works, how DNA works, you know,
the movements of people and where blood ends up on
the on the wall and things like that. If somebody
gets stabbed, that probably doesn't lie, whereas human beings, particularly
if you're accused of murder, you probably are more likely
to lie. And so police, I think, have, uh, you know,
every reason to be suspicious of what Kirk is describing
(12:50):
as the sequence of events before Jennifer got killed. We're
going to take a break. We'll be back in just
a moment. Yeah, nearly two months after her death, Kirk
(13:15):
was charged with first degree murder. At the trial, the
defensive star witness was Turner Family Friend Greg. Greg was
described as assault to the earth, beer drinking boy who,
despite not having a formal education, was full of life experiences.
Despite their differences, Greg and Kirk became best friends. The
(13:37):
Defense Thought Greg held the key to the he said,
she said, case, but the prosecution thought differently. According to them,
Greg was a liar who had helped his friend cover
up a brutal murder. When Greg finally took the stand,
he was visibly nervous. Take a listen, greg was so
(14:06):
nervous he broke his glasses. The prosecution pointed out that
Greg told police that it was about eight pm when
he heard the screams and saw the bloody mess in
(14:28):
the shed, but he didn't call nine on one until
that's about ninety minutes that are unaccounted for. It it
was theorized that in that time Kirk and greg came
up with a murderous plan. Greg explained the time mixed
up with a simple he got confused, which under the circumstances,
might be understandable. He did say he was certain he
(14:49):
gave Jennifer CPR. You could even hear him on the
nine on one call of saying it. The only problem
was that there were no signs Jennifer had chess compressions.
Greg also would have been called it in blood. If
he had knelt over her and given her the yard,
she would have had bloody handprints on her chest, neither
of which were there. Yeah, that tricky forensic evidence popping
up here again. Right. I mean, if you're giving chest
(15:11):
compressions to somebody, you're going to be covered in blood
and you're gonna see that on the body. And so
when you say you've done something to save somebody's life
and it doesn't appear that you did, there's some inconsistencies
in your story. At the trial, Kirk took the stand
as well. Have a listen. Do you remember going into
your pocket and getting your knife? I remember ah going
(15:40):
like this. Do you remember dinner for Falling? Do you
remember standing over her? I remember looking at asking her eyes.
You do remember your wife's eyes being open when you
killed her? I remember her laying on the floor and
seeing her eyes and they were open. The defense looked
(16:00):
to the blood evidence as proof that Kirk was innocent.
They pointed the jury to the fact that Kirk kept
his knife in his front right pocket, which was smeared
with blood. Their DNA tests revealed that inside the pocket
where traces of Kirk's blood and Kirk's loan, meaning Kirk
must have already been stabbed when he reached in to
get the knife in self defense. So I guess to
(16:21):
clarify on this, what they're saying is that if he
really had killed Jennifer one with the knife, there wouldn't
be any blood in the pocket because his hands would
have been clean when he pulled the knife out and
because his blood was in there. Jennifer had already attacked
him with a spear and he was, you know, flailing
around trying to get the knife out, and that's definitely possible.
There's probably other circumstances that might have happened as well.
(16:43):
They might have got into a fight, they might have
been screaming and yelling. She might have hit him, or
maybe he hit her first. Like it's hard to know
exactly what happened before you start stabbing people, because there's
there's definitely a possibility that other things happened as well.
F are six hours of deliberation, the jury found Kirk
not guilty. Kirk was overcome with joy. Wendy, his daughter,
(17:08):
stormed out of the court room. When asked about the verdict,
Juror said that they thought the blood in the pocket
was all the proof they needed. They also seemed to
love Greg and thought the prosecutor was too angry. At
least two of the jurors also carried pocket knives, one
the exact same model that Kirk had and another carried
(17:28):
an even bigger knife. A few years later, in two
thousand and ten, Jennifer's sister filed a civil suit against Kirk.
It was eventually dropped before going to trial, which implied
that it had been settled. In two thousand and eighteen,
Kirk filed a suit against the State Bureau of Investigation
claiming they framed him for murder. That case was settled
out of court to the tune of two thousand dollars. So,
(17:51):
whether or not kirk killed his wife, Jennifer, he ended
up having to probably pay her sister something for it,
but then ended up getting from the State Bureau of Investigation.
It's kind of seems gross in that sense. Yeah, I
mean this is a guy who had a lot of
money and the option to pay a civil suit to
Jennifer's sister or to go to jail having been convicted
(18:12):
of murder. As painful as it might be to pay
somebody Um, it's way more painful to be in prison.
So I'm sure to a certain extent he's relieved that
he wasn't convicted and that the only thing punishment he
essentially had to deal with was paying some money to
Jennifer's sister. And as an investigative reporter, I mean you've
probably covered a lot of trials in your career. I'm
(18:34):
curious what your take is on the jury, because I
always thought the jury is just supposed to be impartial
and look at evidence and facts, but in this case
it sounds like they personally attached themselves to greg and
also probably related to Kirk, because they themselves are knife carriers.
I mean, is that allowed or is that? You can't
really stop that, I guess. Or what do you make
of that? Yeah, I mean I think you need jury,
(18:55):
just like any prosecution or defense or even judge, brings
their own history and I c s into the courtroom.
You know, juries are supposed to set that aside, but
if somebody has a personal experience with carrying a knife
around and what that might be like to bring it
out in self defense or to keep it in your pocket,
you know they're not going to forget that stuff. So
I guess it's not surprising that, you know, members of
(19:18):
the jury would think that Kirk was innocent. But it
does seem that they overlooked, or at least set aside,
a whole lot of other physical evidence that would maybe
paint a very different story and and focus solely on
the personal connection that they had with Kirk as well,
which it does seem as if that there is a
lot more to this case than just whether or not
(19:38):
there was blood on a pocket knife as you pulled
it out of your pocket right there's so much more
going on that seems like they almost simplified it too much.
You know, I think if you're a defense attorney, you
want to simplify it and paint the picture that best
serves your client, and prosecutions, I think want to do
that as well, as much as they can, where they
want to simplify the narrative, the story, the mode of particularly,
(20:01):
I think both lawyers on each side or are trying
to simplify it for juries that, you know, maybe aren't
as experienced as other people who cover trials or participate
as defense or UM prosecution attorneys. You want to make
it simple for them and that that simplification. I think
you see that here in this case. Yeah, I also
think this is a good example of the defendant, and
(20:24):
Gregg in this case, are able to be in court
and the jury is able to connect with them and
feel their presence, whereas Jennifer, the victim, is just that
she's a victim, and so the jury is not able
to really feel a connection with her and ultimately they
sided with Kirk. Yeah, I think you're right, and I
mean I think that, you know, the humanization of Kirk
(20:44):
is pretty clear in this whereas there isn't any real
humanization of Jennifer um in the way that the trial was,
you know, conducted. Let's stop here for another break. Yeah,
(21:16):
with the once enviable family irrevocably torn apart, the couple's daughter, Wendy,
still has no relationship with her father or brother. Wendy
likes to remember her mother when she was happiest, riding
a horse with her blonde hair blowing in the wind.
It's a memory she holds tight. Kirk is still practicing
(21:36):
dentistry in North Carolina. Well, Colnord, thanks for joining us
and in addition to the Death Island podcast that we've discussed,
you also have another podcast that's out now called lords
of soccer. What can you tell us about that? Yeah,
if you're a fan of true crime, the Lords of
soccer is all about the largest criminal corruption case in
(21:57):
global history, and that's the case that was brought by
US prosecutors against FIFA. These are the guys that run
the World Cup. That really the most powerful sporting enterprise
in the world, and the U S Department of Justice
have prosecuted more than fifty people as part of this.
But the lords of soccer is really more than just
a two thousand fifteen criminal case. It's actually about FIFA's
(22:21):
long history of racism, sexism and a criminal enterprise that
was running for decades. That also led these these soccer
businessmen to do deals with some of the most violent
dictators in the world, from South American dictators to Middle
Eastern dictators. And so this story, the Lords of soccer,
(22:42):
is a true crime story about a huge amount of
corruption that also, unfortunately, led to a huge amount of
death and loss of life around the world, all in
the pursuit of soccer profits. And it's really interesting, Connor,
because myself personally I am not a soccer on but
you can really get into this story and this podcast
(23:03):
without knowing much about the sport. Yeah, it's not a
soccer podcast, it's not a sports podcast. It's definitely a
look at how criminal enterprises start and how they grow.
And when the Department of Justice filed charges against all
these soccer officials, they described FIFA, the guys who run
the World Cup, as a criminal, Mafia like organization. I mean,
(23:25):
if you think about that, that's kind of a crazy
thing to say about Major League baseball or the NFL
or any or the NBA. Right I mean that's what
FIFA is, that's the that's there. Sort of peers, but
that's exactly what prosecutors described FIFA back in two thousand
and fifteen. And the reality is is their criminal enterprise,
their criminal activity, goes back for decades and that's what
(23:49):
lords of soccer is all about. And tell us, Connor,
where we can find the podcast. So lords of soccer,
how FIFA stole the Beautiful Game, is available pretty much
anywhere where you listen to podcasts, and it's this read
it and Um, produced by IHEART radio and I heeart media. Great,
and where can we find you on social media? I
am on twitter at Connor C O N O R
(24:09):
M Powell, PO W E L L all, one word.
So Connor M Powell, and I'll be tweeting about lords
of soccer, about crazy and love and also about the
upcoming podcast that we have coming out this fall called
death island, about this string of just sort of horrific
murders and deaths on the beautiful Thai island of Kotel.
(24:33):
Shameless plug. If you're enjoying crazy and love, leave us
a review and listen to season three of our hit series,
the piked and massacre episodes there every Wednesday, wherever you
get your podcasts, and don't forget to follow us on
Instagram at Katie underscore studios. Crazy and love is produced
(24:53):
by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Graves and me Courtney Armstrong,
editing sound designed by Jeff Bach. Crazy in love is
a production of I heart radio and Katie Studios. For
more podcasts from I heart radio, visit the I heart
radio APP apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Stay Safe, lovers,
Falling in love is the best feeling in the world.
You see stars, you feel Giddy, but sometimes that makes
you do crazy things and sometimes that means murder. Just
because the story starts out with once upon a times
doesn't mean it ends happily ever after. Welcome to crazy
and love, a production of Katie's studios, and I heart radio.
(00:24):
Today's guests are true crime producer Jeff Shane and journalist
and podcast host Connor Powell. Connor is a journalist and
podcast host whose latest podcast is lords of soccer, how
FIFA stole the beautiful game and the largest corruption scandal
in the world. He's also host of Katie Studio's upcoming
podcast death island. You can follow connor on twitter at
(00:49):
Connor M Powell. Episode Forty five the case of the
Horse Lover, the good dentist and the alienation of affection.
In the village of Clemmons, North Carolina, with its many
historical churches and sprawling parks, lived the Turner family. At
(01:12):
the helm was Kirk, a well respected and kind dentist
who built his practice from the ground up. He had
found success. His other half, Jennifer, was a gentle mother
and a great friend. Together the pair built a beautiful life.
They had two children, Ritchie and Wendy, and it's ten
(01:32):
thousand square foot palatial chalet sitting on a thirty five
Acre horse farm. They each had passions. Kirk's was collecting
vintage corvettes and guns. Jennifer's was horses. Over their marriage,
Jennifer had amassed nine steeds and dreamt of starting a
breeding business on the outside looking in. The turners had
(01:55):
it all. But after twenty three years of marriage, Kirk
announced he was leaving Jennifer and she was shocked. Well,
Kirk denied having an affair. Jennifer was not convinced, so
she hired a private investigator. The P I discovered that
her husband had in fact been stepping out with the
(02:16):
family's former banker, a woman named Tanya Colvin. Jennifer could
have been enraged, but instead she was simply distraught. Jennifer
could feel her loving husband and idyllic life slipping through
her fingertips. Here's Jeff. The divorce didn't just shock Jennifer
(02:37):
but also their kids. Son Richie sided with his dad
and moved in with him, and daughter Wendy was away
at college, but supported her mom when Kirk found this out,
he cut her off immediately, and there was a lot
on the line with this divorce. Kirk made an annual
salary of around six fifty dollars and, as we know,
they had a big house with a lot of Nice things.
(02:58):
So when Kirk moved out, Jennifer was suddenly in charge
of this massive property and she started to have to
take care of everything on her own. She spent roughly
twelve hours a day taking care of the House and
the land. But she did end up getting some help.
A judge ordered that her estranged husband, Kirk Hey her
thirty thousand six and eighty three dollars and sixty one
cents a month. All of that really went to taking
(03:21):
care of the Horse Farm and the land around it.
Jennifer surprised everyone by also filing an alienation of affection
lawsuit against the other woman. Connor what even is an
alienation of affection lawsuit? That's a good question, because it's
not something you hear a lot when it comes to
murder cases. An alienation of affection lawsuit can be filed
by a deserted spouse against a third party that he
(03:43):
or she believes is responsible for the marriage's failure. While
this type of tort has been abolished in most jurisdictions,
there are still some states that allow an alienation of
affection lawsuit to be filed. North Carolina is one of
seven states that do allow this. In any case, the
all states that to file suit you must prove three things.
There was love in the marriage, that the love was
(04:06):
alienated and destroyed, and a defendant caused or contributed to
the loss of love and affection. So, basically, Connor this
alienation of affection lawsuit is that you can sue a
mistress who you think destroyed your marriage, which is what
Jennifer believed about Kirk's other woman. Yeah, that's what it
seems to be. Mean it seems to be some type
(04:27):
of legal remedy against a man or woman who one
of the spouses things to essentially ruin the marriage, right,
I mean, that's essentially what the claim is. I would
imagine anyone involved in this would find that a little
petty and, according to the people who knew Jennifer best,
Kirk was not pleased with this lawsuit. He was pressuring
(04:49):
her to drop it, so much so that she felt threatened.
At one point, Kirk told Jennifer. There's more than one
way to end a marriage. Not surprisingly, Jennifer was a
little bit scared. She started carrying on a gun and
she also brought mace into her bedroom and locked herself
in the master suite at night with the Baseball Bat.
What is your thought on marriage is ending amicably or
(05:10):
not so amicably? I mean, do people get driven to
kind of desperate measures like threatening your spouse or suing
the mistress? Well, you know, every marriage and relationship is different,
but I think if if you're cheating on your spouse
and you're also threatening about other ways to end a marriage,
it's probably not a sign that you're in a healthy
relationship to begin with. On September twelve, two thousand and seven,
(05:32):
Kirk and Jennifer were still dealing with their impending divorce
proceedings when family friend Greg Smithson called Jennifer asking if
he could pick up a welder that was stored on
the property. It was heavy, so greg also wondered if
Kirk could come and help. Jennifer said yes. Once they're
the trio started figuring out how to move the welder.
(05:53):
The conversation started to get personal, so greg excused himself
according to Greg, about two or three minutes later he
heard screaming. Greg Grant back to the shed and found
Jennifer on the ground covered in blood. Kirk was also bleeding.
Greg called nine one one. The nine one one call
(06:13):
is hard to understand, but we listened to it more
carefully and can give you the play by play. In
the call, Greg seems frantic as he explains to the
dispatcher the Jennifer is bleeding excessively and that there is
blood everywhere, but he can't tell where she's actually bleeding from.
The dispatcher asks how she got cut, which greg replies
(06:34):
that he doesn't know. The dispatcher then asks him to
ask Kirk what she does. We hear some muffled conversation
which we can assume is greg asking Kirk what happened.
Greg then returns to the nine one one call and
tells the dispatcher that it had something to do with
a spear. Now, at this point the dispatcher is not
surprisingly a bit confused to hear the mention of a spear.
(06:56):
Jennifer had been nearly decapitated by a knife. In it out,
Kirk was hospitalized from losing so much blood he required
a blood transfusion. But what happened? According to Kirk, when
Greg Left, he presented a couple of legal documents to Jennifer.
The first was a motion for an order that would
force the sale of the farm. The second was an
affidavit from Jennifer's first husband, whom she had been married
(07:20):
to briefly before Kirk. According to the ex the marriage
fell apart because Jennifer was too obsessed with horses. Kirk
said when he did that, Jennifer was enraged and attacked
him and that he had to fight back and kill
her in self defense. So colden, this is where the
story gets pretty wild. Kirk then said that Jennifer attacked
(07:41):
him with a seventh long decorative spear that they kept
in the shed. She apparently picked up the spear and
stabbed him twice, once in the thigh and once again
in the growing area. At five eleven hundred and eighties
seven pounds, Jennifer was strong and athletic, so it seems
possible that she could pick up and wheel such a weapon.
Kirk also kept a four inch knife in his pocket
(08:03):
and he said he was able to pull it out
and protect himself. But what ended up happening is he
ripped the knife across her breastbone up to her neck,
and Jennifer's trachea and whimpipe were cut and her jugular
vein and corroded artery were hit. Her cervical spine was
cut into places. Officials began to find some inconsistencies. For starters,
the blood told a very different story than Kirk was telling.
(08:27):
An investigator said blood spatter was found on the work
table in the shed just inches above the floor. According
to the report, had she been standing as Kirk said,
blood would have sprayed all over the room. The investigator
believed that Kirk knocked Jennifer down and stabbed her while
she was on the ground. Officials also found that at
(08:47):
the crime scene both Kirk and Jennifer's blood had partially dried.
The problem was that Kirk's blood was on top of Jennifer's,
meaning that Jennifer had gotten stabbed first. The question ring,
how did Kirk Get stabbed? The police's theory was that
Kirk ended up stabbing himself with the spear after killing Jennifer.
(09:08):
In so many of these cases you see somebody's stab
or shoot or beat somebody to death and they rarely
ever inflict any harm on themselves to try to cover
it up. That's what's almost unique about this case is
that he did get stabbed and if he did it
to try to make it look like there was a
fight after he murdered her, that's, you know, another level
of like sort of craziness. Yeah, I mean, you would
(09:31):
really have to want it to hurt yourself and hurt
yourself in such a grotesque way with this spear. It
seems so specific. Yeah, I mean, you don't know, when
you're stabbing yourself or again having somebody's stabb you to
try to cover it up, if you're going to survive
a stabbing like that, even if you think you are,
until you get stabbed, until police or an ambulance come, like,
(09:52):
you really don't know if you're going to survive that.
Connor and Katie studios upcoming podcast death island, which you
host and produce, there's a lot of inconsistencies in the
police's story versus the victims story, versus the witnesses stories.
So like, what can you tell us about? Hey, that podcast,
but be how much weight police put into what the witness,
(10:15):
or victim in this case, is saying? Versus what the
forensics of the case a which, in Jennifer and Kirk's case,
says that his blood was on top of hers, which
was implied that he's lying. So death island is a
podcast about an island in Thailand called Koto it's a
diverse paradise with crystal clear water and beautiful beaches and
(10:36):
some of the best diving in the world. It's also
a place where in the last twenty years there has
been a string of just deadly murders, accidents and also
some deaths that just aren't really explained. And the one
thing we see in all of the deaths, whether they
are clear murders or accidents or something other on Kotao,
(10:58):
is that the police there don't really do much of investigation.
If anything, they spend as much time trying to cover
up what happened as they do trying to uncover and
this is a perfect case here with uh with Kirk
and his wife, that there is blood evidence, there's DNA evidence,
there's significant forensic evidence to help figure out what happened.
(11:22):
That's available to police around the world. It's not just
something that we have in the United States anymore and
in a place like Kotao, as we look at in
death island, is that there's a lot of forensic evidence
that says these deaths, particularly some of these so called
accident deaths, that there's a lot more to the deaths
and some of them are probably not accidents but murders.
(11:43):
And that's really why we're looking at Kotao as a
story and it's also why it got its name death island,
because it's a place where tourists go to have a
great time and then they just sort of end up
dying in all sorts of crazy ways, and I won't
tell you too much about how they die, but it's
been happening for twenty years now and the one common
(12:03):
thing that connects all of the cases on Kotao is
really sloppy, lazy police work when there's clear physical and
forensic evidence. So you think in this case of Jennifer
and Kirk, the police should weigh what he's saying but
also look at the forensic evidence to kind of paint
an accurate picture? Yeah, I mean I think at this
point in police investigations that we have a lot of
(12:27):
evidence about how blood spladder works, how DNA works, you know,
the movements of people and where blood ends up on
the on the wall and things like that. If somebody
gets stabbed, that probably doesn't lie, whereas human beings, particularly
if you're accused of murder, you probably are more likely
to lie. And so police, I think, have, uh, you know,
every reason to be suspicious of what Kirk is describing
(12:50):
as the sequence of events before Jennifer got killed. We're
going to take a break. We'll be back in just
a moment. Yeah, nearly two months after her death, Kirk
(13:15):
was charged with first degree murder. At the trial, the
defensive star witness was Turner Family Friend Greg. Greg was
described as assault to the earth, beer drinking boy who,
despite not having a formal education, was full of life experiences.
Despite their differences, Greg and Kirk became best friends. The
(13:37):
Defense Thought Greg held the key to the he said,
she said, case, but the prosecution thought differently. According to them,
Greg was a liar who had helped his friend cover
up a brutal murder. When Greg finally took the stand,
he was visibly nervous. Take a listen, greg was so
(14:06):
nervous he broke his glasses. The prosecution pointed out that
Greg told police that it was about eight pm when
he heard the screams and saw the bloody mess in
(14:28):
the shed, but he didn't call nine on one until
that's about ninety minutes that are unaccounted for. It it
was theorized that in that time Kirk and greg came
up with a murderous plan. Greg explained the time mixed
up with a simple he got confused, which under the circumstances,
might be understandable. He did say he was certain he
(14:49):
gave Jennifer CPR. You could even hear him on the
nine on one call of saying it. The only problem
was that there were no signs Jennifer had chess compressions.
Greg also would have been called it in blood. If
he had knelt over her and given her the yard,
she would have had bloody handprints on her chest, neither
of which were there. Yeah, that tricky forensic evidence popping
up here again. Right. I mean, if you're giving chest
(15:11):
compressions to somebody, you're going to be covered in blood
and you're gonna see that on the body. And so
when you say you've done something to save somebody's life
and it doesn't appear that you did, there's some inconsistencies
in your story. At the trial, Kirk took the stand
as well. Have a listen. Do you remember going into
your pocket and getting your knife? I remember ah going
(15:40):
like this. Do you remember dinner for Falling? Do you
remember standing over her? I remember looking at asking her eyes.
You do remember your wife's eyes being open when you
killed her? I remember her laying on the floor and
seeing her eyes and they were open. The defense looked
(16:00):
to the blood evidence as proof that Kirk was innocent.
They pointed the jury to the fact that Kirk kept
his knife in his front right pocket, which was smeared
with blood. Their DNA tests revealed that inside the pocket
where traces of Kirk's blood and Kirk's loan, meaning Kirk
must have already been stabbed when he reached in to
get the knife in self defense. So I guess to
(16:21):
clarify on this, what they're saying is that if he
really had killed Jennifer one with the knife, there wouldn't
be any blood in the pocket because his hands would
have been clean when he pulled the knife out and
because his blood was in there. Jennifer had already attacked
him with a spear and he was, you know, flailing
around trying to get the knife out, and that's definitely possible.
There's probably other circumstances that might have happened as well.
(16:43):
They might have got into a fight, they might have
been screaming and yelling. She might have hit him, or
maybe he hit her first. Like it's hard to know
exactly what happened before you start stabbing people, because there's
there's definitely a possibility that other things happened as well.
F are six hours of deliberation, the jury found Kirk
not guilty. Kirk was overcome with joy. Wendy, his daughter,
(17:08):
stormed out of the court room. When asked about the verdict,
Juror said that they thought the blood in the pocket
was all the proof they needed. They also seemed to
love Greg and thought the prosecutor was too angry. At
least two of the jurors also carried pocket knives, one
the exact same model that Kirk had and another carried
(17:28):
an even bigger knife. A few years later, in two
thousand and ten, Jennifer's sister filed a civil suit against Kirk.
It was eventually dropped before going to trial, which implied
that it had been settled. In two thousand and eighteen,
Kirk filed a suit against the State Bureau of Investigation
claiming they framed him for murder. That case was settled
out of court to the tune of two thousand dollars. So,
(17:51):
whether or not kirk killed his wife, Jennifer, he ended
up having to probably pay her sister something for it,
but then ended up getting from the State Bureau of Investigation.
It's kind of seems gross in that sense. Yeah, I
mean this is a guy who had a lot of
money and the option to pay a civil suit to
Jennifer's sister or to go to jail having been convicted
(18:12):
of murder. As painful as it might be to pay
somebody Um, it's way more painful to be in prison.
So I'm sure to a certain extent he's relieved that
he wasn't convicted and that the only thing punishment he
essentially had to deal with was paying some money to
Jennifer's sister. And as an investigative reporter, I mean you've
probably covered a lot of trials in your career. I'm
(18:34):
curious what your take is on the jury, because I
always thought the jury is just supposed to be impartial
and look at evidence and facts, but in this case
it sounds like they personally attached themselves to greg and
also probably related to Kirk, because they themselves are knife carriers.
I mean, is that allowed or is that? You can't
really stop that, I guess. Or what do you make
of that? Yeah, I mean I think you need jury,
(18:55):
just like any prosecution or defense or even judge, brings
their own history and I c s into the courtroom.
You know, juries are supposed to set that aside, but
if somebody has a personal experience with carrying a knife
around and what that might be like to bring it
out in self defense or to keep it in your pocket,
you know they're not going to forget that stuff. So
I guess it's not surprising that, you know, members of
(19:18):
the jury would think that Kirk was innocent. But it
does seem that they overlooked, or at least set aside,
a whole lot of other physical evidence that would maybe
paint a very different story and and focus solely on
the personal connection that they had with Kirk as well,
which it does seem as if that there is a
lot more to this case than just whether or not
(19:38):
there was blood on a pocket knife as you pulled
it out of your pocket right there's so much more
going on that seems like they almost simplified it too much.
You know, I think if you're a defense attorney, you
want to simplify it and paint the picture that best
serves your client, and prosecutions, I think want to do
that as well, as much as they can, where they
want to simplify the narrative, the story, the mode of particularly,
(20:01):
I think both lawyers on each side or are trying
to simplify it for juries that, you know, maybe aren't
as experienced as other people who cover trials or participate
as defense or UM prosecution attorneys. You want to make
it simple for them and that that simplification. I think
you see that here in this case. Yeah, I also
think this is a good example of the defendant, and
(20:24):
Gregg in this case, are able to be in court
and the jury is able to connect with them and
feel their presence, whereas Jennifer, the victim, is just that
she's a victim, and so the jury is not able
to really feel a connection with her and ultimately they
sided with Kirk. Yeah, I think you're right, and I
mean I think that, you know, the humanization of Kirk
(20:44):
is pretty clear in this whereas there isn't any real
humanization of Jennifer um in the way that the trial was,
you know, conducted. Let's stop here for another break. Yeah,
(21:16):
with the once enviable family irrevocably torn apart, the couple's daughter, Wendy,
still has no relationship with her father or brother. Wendy
likes to remember her mother when she was happiest, riding
a horse with her blonde hair blowing in the wind.
It's a memory she holds tight. Kirk is still practicing
(21:36):
dentistry in North Carolina. Well, Colnord, thanks for joining us
and in addition to the Death Island podcast that we've discussed,
you also have another podcast that's out now called lords
of soccer. What can you tell us about that? Yeah,
if you're a fan of true crime, the Lords of
soccer is all about the largest criminal corruption case in
(21:57):
global history, and that's the case that was brought by
US prosecutors against FIFA. These are the guys that run
the World Cup. That really the most powerful sporting enterprise
in the world, and the U S Department of Justice
have prosecuted more than fifty people as part of this.
But the lords of soccer is really more than just
a two thousand fifteen criminal case. It's actually about FIFA's
(22:21):
long history of racism, sexism and a criminal enterprise that
was running for decades. That also led these these soccer
businessmen to do deals with some of the most violent
dictators in the world, from South American dictators to Middle
Eastern dictators. And so this story, the Lords of soccer,
(22:42):
is a true crime story about a huge amount of
corruption that also, unfortunately, led to a huge amount of
death and loss of life around the world, all in
the pursuit of soccer profits. And it's really interesting, Connor,
because myself personally I am not a soccer on but
you can really get into this story and this podcast
(23:03):
without knowing much about the sport. Yeah, it's not a
soccer podcast, it's not a sports podcast. It's definitely a
look at how criminal enterprises start and how they grow.
And when the Department of Justice filed charges against all
these soccer officials, they described FIFA, the guys who run
the World Cup, as a criminal, Mafia like organization. I mean,
(23:25):
if you think about that, that's kind of a crazy
thing to say about Major League baseball or the NFL
or any or the NBA. Right I mean that's what
FIFA is, that's the that's there. Sort of peers, but
that's exactly what prosecutors described FIFA back in two thousand
and fifteen. And the reality is is their criminal enterprise,
their criminal activity, goes back for decades and that's what
(23:49):
lords of soccer is all about. And tell us, Connor,
where we can find the podcast. So lords of soccer,
how FIFA stole the Beautiful Game, is available pretty much
anywhere where you listen to podcasts, and it's this read
it and Um, produced by IHEART radio and I heeart media. Great,
and where can we find you on social media? I
am on twitter at Connor C O N O R
(24:09):
M Powell, PO W E L L all, one word.
So Connor M Powell, and I'll be tweeting about lords
of soccer, about crazy and love and also about the
upcoming podcast that we have coming out this fall called
death island, about this string of just sort of horrific
murders and deaths on the beautiful Thai island of Kotel.
(24:33):
Shameless plug. If you're enjoying crazy and love, leave us
a review and listen to season three of our hit series,
the piked and massacre episodes there every Wednesday, wherever you
get your podcasts, and don't forget to follow us on
Instagram at Katie underscore studios. Crazy and love is produced
(24:53):
by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Graves and me Courtney Armstrong,
editing sound designed by Jeff Bach. Crazy in love is
a production of I heart radio and Katie Studios. For
more podcasts from I heart radio, visit the I heart
radio APP apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Stay Safe, lovers,
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