Carol Kennedy and Steve DeMocker - Part 1 - Love Marry Kill

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Rich and I'm Tina.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
And if there's one thing we've learned and over twenty
years of marriage.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
It's a some days you'll feel like killing your husband, and.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Some days you'll feel like killing your wife.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to love, Mary Kill, Hey Tina, Hey Rich?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
How are you?

Speaker 1 (00:29):
I'm okay? How are you?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
I am doing good excellence.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
We're recording this on Monday, August fourth, and we just
got back from a vacation.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Have you recovered yet?

Speaker 3 (00:39):
No?

Speaker 1 (00:40):
I have not, have you?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
It really is true what they say when you take
a vacation, you need like a vacation to recover from
your vacation.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
There's so many different vacations, you know. There's vacations where
you sit on a beach for a week. There's vacations
when you go skiing or whatever. But you know, we
were pretty active and we drove. We drove a lot.
You drove, You drove a lot. I was passenger a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Well it was a nice time, but now it's time
to get back to real life.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Okay. If you insist I really unplugged last.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Week, yeah you did, but.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
You did not you were working away in this case,
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
I get up earlier than most of our family members.
And I actually really enjoy the early morning hours. And
so I would get up at like seven am and
work for a couple hours, and I really, yeah, I
actually enjoyed that.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Good. You make me sound like a slacker, like you're
working on the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Well, you work on the opposite end of the day.
You stay up late and work and I go to
bed early.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Well, happy August.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
It's August already. Yeah, I can't believe it.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
The all season. Yeah, someone told me. Our friend Chess
told me the other day that the Lions had their
first game. You didn't talk about that at all.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
We were on vacation, yeah, and I think we were No,
I think we were driving at that time. So no,
I didn't watch it. But pre season I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
So it doesn't bother you at all.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
No, it doesn't. Preseason means absolutely nothing.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Okay, if you say so, I say so. It's our
anniversary month, it sure is. Do you know when our
anniversary is?

Speaker 2 (02:10):
I think I remember that. Yeah you do.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Why don't you prove it to everyone listening that you.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Know in August twenty seconds?

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Okay you do know?

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, Yeah, I can't believe you wouldn't think I would
know that.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Well, most a lot of men don't, or you you know,
might forget in the moment. Are you going to be
in town that week?

Speaker 2 (02:27):
It's indelibly etched into my brain. I believe I'll be
in town. Yeah, I think I have a trip next
week and then after that no travel for a while.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
To say this, oh, really.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
A lot sounds so disappointed.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
We've a lot of together time, and you know it's
I don't mind too much when you're traveling a little bit.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Well, usually talk about this at the end, but I
did want to mention it up front for once, because
I know there are some of you that probably don't
listen to the very end. If you're enjoying the show
and you want to support what we do, the best
way to do that is by becoming a partner in crime,
in other words, joining our patron program at patreon dot
com slash love Mary Kill. Not only is it a

(03:08):
nice way to show your support, but you also get
some great benefits. For five dollars a month, you can
listen to ad free, You get episodes on Saturday, two
days before anyone else gets to listen, and when we
do multipart episodes like Today's you don't have to wait
a week for part two, and you get a monthly
bonus episode exclusively for our partners in crime. It's a

(03:28):
simple way to support the research, writing and production that
goes into every episode, and it helps us to continue
doing the show the way that we love to do
it again. Patreon dot com slash Love Marykill is where
you can go and sign up. We really appreciate it,
and we really appreciate you.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Another way you can support the podcast is by leaving
us a five star review on Apple or Spotify or
wherever you listen, and engaging with our content on social media,
giving it likes, leaving a comment following us. That all
really helps us be seen and your engagement really does
matter so much. Thank you so much for your support.
As always, well, I have.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
A snack for you today that our lovely friend and
listener Carla sent to us.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
We got Carla's lovely package today.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Such a nice package. There were more than just snacks
in there. There were all these nice little gifts and it.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Was so a couple of silly things that really made
us chuckle.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
But she sent us two things from BUCkies, which we
talk about Buckeyes, a lot, even though we've never been
to a Bucki's and we didn't get to go to
one on our road.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Trip but now, but we did go to a lot
of gas stations.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
We did. But she sent us some Steakhouse beef jerky,
which she says it's a little bit of spicy and
some praline pecans a little bit of sweet.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Amazing.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah, let's give them a try. What did you think
about those lovely snacks?

Speaker 1 (04:49):
I thought they were amazing and Carla left us sweet
little notes on everything and just the best. We love
you so much for doing that for us, Carla, that
was just above and beyond totally.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
They were really good. I love the steakhouse jerkey, really
good flavor. Yeah, pecans yummy.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
I need to go use the new toothbrush that Carla
sent me though when we were on vacation. The thing
I missed most other that are sweet cats, was my
water flosser. Carlo works in a dentist office, and she'll
be happy to know that. I believe that I have
impeccable dental but if you don't have a water floster,
I really recommend getting a water flosser. But thank you

(05:25):
so much for the snacks. Carla and the rest of
the things in the package, they were amazing. One thing
that Carlo put in the package and a few other
people have sent them to along with their packages, is
a magnet, like either something that matters to them or
from their estate. And I would really love to start
a collection of magnets. So if anyone else would like
to send us a magnet, I'm horrible about asking anyone

(05:45):
for anything, but you can send packages or you know,
a small trinket or whatever to LMK pod po box
one one one Dexter, Michigan for eight one three zero.
Well on with the show. I know you've been dying
to tell me about this case I have.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
In the summer of two thousand and eight, fifty three
year old Carol Kennedy was finally beginning to feel at peace.
After five long years of separation, arguments and drawn out
divorce proceedings, her marriage to Steve Demacher was officially over,
and for the first time in a long time, Carol
felt hopeful about what came next. Just days earlier, she

(06:21):
and Steve had shared a surprisingly pleasant dinner with their daughters,
twenty year old Katie and sixteen year old Charlotte, before
heading to the Phoenix airport to see Katie off on
a study abroad trip to South Africa. Carol had even
confided in a friend afterward, for the first time in ages,
being around Steve hadn't creeped her out. Her relationship with
Charlotte was improving too. The divorce had strained their bond,

(06:44):
especially since Charlotte had always been closer to her dad.
But as Carol waved goodbye to her oldest daughter at
the airport, surrounded by a rare moment of family harmony,
she allowed herself to feel something she hadn't felt in
a while, optimism, and then Steve ruined it. Just a
few days later, he called Carroll and asked her to
meet for coffee. Confused, she went. What he suggested next

(07:07):
was even more baffling. He wanted to get back together,
to start dating again, to remarry. Carroll shut it down immediately.
She had been there, done that, and she had no
interest in making the same mistake twice. But Carroll wouldn't
have longed to enjoy this new chapter of her life.
On the evening of July second, during her nightly phone
call with her mother Ruth in Nashville, Carroll suddenly gasped,

(07:29):
oh no. Ruth would later describe the tone in her
daughter's voice as startled, alarmed, but not terrified, as if
something or someone unsettling had just appeared. Oh no, not again,
she thought Carroll might have meant. Then the line went dead.
Ruth tried calling back over and over, no answer. Panicked,
she called Steve, no answer there either. Finally, she reached

(07:53):
out to the Prescott, Arizona police and begged them to
check on her daughter. An officer arrived about an hour later.
No one came to the door. He walked the perimeter
with a flashlight, scanning windows until he saw her. A
woman on the floor, blood pooled around her head. Carol
Kennedy was dead, bludgeoned to death in her own home.
Her ex husband, Steve Demacher, quickly became the prime suspect.

(08:17):
He had claimed that he had been out for a
mountain bike ride that evening, not far from Carroll's home,
but for several key hours surrounding her murder, no one
could reach him on his cell phone. From the start,
police zeroed in on Steve, But did they jump to conclusions?
Did they ignore other leads in their rush to build
a case against the ex husband. Some say it was
a textbook investigation, Others say it was anything but, And

(08:41):
when the dust finally settled, one question lingered, did they
get it right? Virginia Carrol Kennedy was born in July
of nineteen fifty four in Nashville, Tennessee, the second of
two children to Ruth and Alvin A. G. Kennedy. Her
father was a former Army staff sergeant who went on
to work for the US Postal Service, first as a
mail carrier and later as an auditor. Her mother, Ruth,

(09:04):
held a few public sector jobs, including one with the
Tennessee Department of Education, before eventually moving into the private
sector with the American Association for State and Local History.
From a young age, Carol had a strong sense of self.
She disliked her given name, Virginia, and when she started
elementary school, she made a decision from now on she

(09:24):
would be Carol. It's really young to decide that you
want to go by a different name and stick with it.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
It is I wish I would have thought of that
as a possibility.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
When I was that young. I said I wanted to
go by Richie. And that lasted like about a month,
and I was like, I hate Richie.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
I call you Ritchie all the time. Did your family
go along with it? Did they call you Richie?

Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Yeah they did.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
That's very nice.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
The Kennedy family were regular church goers, and Carol developed
a sense of spirituality early in life. She was bright,
well liked by her classmates, and seemed destined for something special.
At fifteen, she was chosen to represent in Nashville in
the Miss Angenoux Contest, a pageant based on beauty, personality, poise,
and presents. We'll post a newspaper clipping from that time

(10:09):
where you can see a photo of young Carol looking
confident and composed. The article mentions that she traveled to
Acapulco that summer for the finals and won a collection
of very nineteen seventies prizes, an Instant hairsetter, a Carmen
makeup mirror, a Kodak Instomatic camera, and a Panasonic portable phonograph,
among others. Following that, Carol signed with a local modeling agency,

(10:33):
but the work wasn't what she imagined, far less glamorous,
far more tedious, and she gave it up not long after.
Carol had always been close to her older brother John,
but After high school, the two drifted apart. John struggled
with heroin addiction and, in his words, became a quote
worthless type of SOB for a lot of years. For
nearly two decades, they were estranged. Eventually, though they reconnected,

(10:57):
and despite living in different states, they remained close for
the rest of Carol's life. After graduating high school in
nineteen seventy two, Carroll enrolled at Peabody College now part
of Vanderbilt University, where she pursued a degree in education.
She lived at home and finished her degree in just
three years. She was eager to move out, start her

(11:17):
adult life and be independent. It wasn't long after she
started college that she met Tom, a charming young man
working in pharmaceutical sales after dropping out of school. The
two quickly fell in love and got engaged. Carol's mother, Ruth,
liked Tom well enough, but thought her daughter was too
young to be getting married, and Ruth may have been right.
The marriage lasted only a year and a half, still

(11:40):
it ended amicably. After college, Carol spent a year at
the Hartwood School in Massachusetts, where she immersed herself in
timber framing, gardening, carpentry, and herbalism, earthy, hands on skills
that would continue to shape her lifestyle. She later taught
school for a while in Richmond, Virginia, before returning to
Nashville in nineteen eighty one and becoming a certified yoga instructor.

(12:03):
Not long after, Carol took a trip to New York.
When she returned, she told her best friend and roommate, Debbie,
that she had met someone, an incredible man named Steve Democher.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
Stephen Demacher, whose middle name, strangely enough, was Carol, was
born in January nineteen fifty four in Rochester, New York.

Speaker 4 (12:21):
He was the.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
Oldest of nine children born to doctor John and Jan Democher.
The Demokers were an ambitious and accomplished family. Steve's youngest
sibling won a Pulitzer Prize for his photography documenting the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and now works as a drone
pilot for NASA. His sister, Mary is a heart teacher,
author and public speaker. Sharon became a doctor susan direct's

(12:46):
research protection programs at Pace University, and the list doesn't
stop there. Their father, John, was a radiologist with his
own private practice who also consulted for other hospitals. Their mother,
Jan was just as a co pomplished. She earned a
master's in nursing, taught obstetrical nursing, got her doctorate in education,

(13:07):
and later earned a master's in divinity to become a minister.
She also worked part time as a chaplain at a
nursing home, all while raising nine kids. Wow, I don't
do anything, take a lobe of bredery now and then
and do some laundry. But these people are sound very
awesome misressive. Steve attended a private boarding school in Rochester

(13:28):
and graduated in nineteen seventy two. He then enrolled at
Prescott College, a small, progressive liberal arts school in Arizona,
where he majored in wilderness leadership. Prescott College, which would
later play a big role in both Steve and Carroll's lives,
was known for being a bit of an experiment in
alternative education. It was founded in nineteen sixty six as

(13:50):
a pioneering, even radical institution focused on experiential learning. So
they sound like they're into kind of like an alternate lifestyle.
In nineteen seventy four, while Steve was still a student,
the college abruptly went bankrupt and shut down but a
scrappy group of faculty and students refused to let it die.

(14:10):
They kept classes going in a run down hotel nearby.
The press dubbed it a college that wouldn't die, and
indeed it survived. It's still around today with a mission
centered on justice, sustainability, and experiential learning. While at Prescott,
Steve was deeply into outdoor adventure. He did things like
extreme whitewater rafting, mountain climbing, and kayaking. He was also

(14:34):
deeply involved with the ladies. It was the early seventies
a time of free love and experimentation, and Steve fully
embraced it. By all accounts, he dated a lot of women,
had a lot of sex, but wasn't looking for anything exclusive.
One summer during college, he stayed in Vermont with a
girlfriend and ended up taking her younger brother on a

(14:55):
mountain climbing chip. On that trip, he rescued a young
woman who had sprained her ink four hundred feet up
on a rock wall, carrying her to safety. That wasn't
the only time Steve would risk his life to save someone.
Several years later, during a group kayaking trip, a woman
got sucked into a dangerous vortex and the rapids. She

(15:15):
lost her paddle, then her kayak, and was quickly losing consciousness.
Steve paddled into the vortex, flipped his own kayak, rabbed
her limp body, and somehow managed to right his boat
and steer them both to shore. Once they made it out,
the woman came to By the time Steve met Carol
in the early nineteen eighties, he was back in Rochester

(15:36):
pursuing a PhD in education. His focus was on critical
social theory, a discipline that explores how power and inequality
are embedded in society, with the goal of challenging injustice
and promoting social change. From the start, it seemed like
Steve and Carroll shared not just a spark, but a purpose.
They were driven by a desire to do good, to teach,

(15:58):
to help others, to make a meaningful difference in the world.
They had plenty in common intelligence, a deep love of nature,
a strong sense of spirituality and connectedness, and so it's
no surprise that during Carroll's visit to New York, the
two hit it off immediately. They began a long distance
relationship and even took a romantic trip to Mexico together.

(16:19):
When Carroll returned home, she told her roommate quote, I
have found my soulmate. There is just a knowingness. I
feel it and I know it. He is my person
that I'm supposed to go through life with. When Steve
visited Carol in Nashville, he went over her friends and
family almost instantly. To them, he seemed like everything a

(16:39):
woman could want. Smart, charming, outdoorsy, ambitious, a perfect match
for Carol. After a few months of long distance dating,
Carroll packed up her life and moved to New York
to be with him. She enrolled in grad school at
the University of Rochester, Whereceived was pursuing his doctorate. Soon
after they got engaged, parents, Ruth and Ag came to visit.

(17:02):
They were much more comfortable with this relationship than her
first marriage, but also a bit overwhelmed. The Demockers were
warm and welcoming, but also large in number, highly accomplished,
and to Ruth and Ag, who were quiet, working class
folks from a small family, a little intimidating. The wedding
took place on October tenth, nineteen eighty two, in the

(17:23):
backyard of Steve's parents' home in Webster, New York, overlooking
Lake Ontario. It was a beautiful setting for what looked
like the start of a beautiful life. Steve's best friend
from college, Sturgis Robinson, came to the wedding and immediately
hit it off with Carol. But knowing Steve as well
as he did, and knowing his history with women, Sturgis
felt compelled to speak up. He pulled Carol aside and

(17:45):
asked if she really knew what she was getting into.
Carrol just laughed and said, Oh, don't worry, I can
take care of him.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
It's pretty bold to pull the bride to be aside
and be like, are you sure about this? I don't
know exactly what he said to her, but you know,
I think he was implying that Steve was kind of
a womanizer.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
Yeah, I never told you what your mom said to
me on our wedding day to daid, why are you laughing?
Carol earned her master's degree in education in nineteen eighty three,
focusing on counseling and human development. Steve finished his PhD
in nineteen eighty six. During that time, they lived in
a guesthouse on the Democra family property, and Carol became

(18:28):
a true member of the extended democer clan. Everyone adored her.
After graduation, Steve landed a job at Patagonia. Working with
his friend Sturgis. The two ran outdo our programs for
Patagonia employees, helping them get hands on experience with the
gear they were selling. Love Patagonia, they settled in Ohai, California,

(18:49):
a peaceful mountain town known for its spiritual vibe and
natural beauty.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Do you remember, oh Hi?

Speaker 1 (18:54):
I do? I remember going with your sister, Yeah, brother
in law.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
It was a really cool bookstore, the books yet.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
But I remember the most too. Just a really different
vibe to that city.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
For sure.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
On the surface it looked like an idyllic life, but
beneath the surface, cracks were beginning to form. Steve confided
to Sturgis that he had an affair with a coworker
at Patagonia, something that went against the company's core principles.
It's unclear whether the affair was the reason Steve left
the company, but it's possible. It's also unclear if Carol
ever knew. Sturgis suspected she did, but she may have

(19:28):
chosen denial over confrontation. From California, the couple moved to Vermont,
Carol taught psychology at a community college, then became a
psychological counselor at another nearby school. In a local newspaper
article announcing her new role, Carol mentioned that one of
her personal goals was to write a book about domestic violence.

(19:49):
Had Carol had any experience with domestic violence.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
I don't believe so, but I think in her education
she just really developed an interest in helping people, and
I think that was one of the areas that she
really felt strongly about.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
While in Verman, Carrol gave birth to their first child,
a daughter, Katie, born in May nineteen eighty eight. Just
a few months later, the family packed up once again
and moved across the country to Prescott, Arizona, where Steve
had accepted a faculty position at his alma mater. He
was now a sociology professor at Prescott College, the same

(20:22):
institution that once nearly died but had refused to disappear.
We'll be back after a break.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
One of the things about this story that I find
so sad and tragic, and I'm being reminded of it
again as we go through there the background, But it
just feels like Steve and Carol had everything you could
ever want in life like they had. They were both healthy,
they were into outdoors, they were helping people, They had
two beautiful, healthy daughters, and it just seems like they
had so much going for them.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
I think you could say that about a lot a
lot of the couples that we cover. Yeah, people don't
realize how much they have to be grateful for. They
always want more, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Right after the move to Arizona, Carol also joined the
faculty at Prescott College. Both she and Steve quickly became
popular professors at the small alternative school. Steve taught courses
on topics like the politics of food and sexual imagery
and advertising interesting. He also led groups of students on
outdoor adventures, kayaking, whitewater rafting, wilderness expeditions. He had a

(21:32):
magnetic personality and his classes were always in high demand.
Carol's classes were more introspective, more soulful. She taught yoga, psychology,
painting from the heart, and a course called dream Work,
which helped students explore the meaning behind their dreams wow.
Her students adored her. Many described her classes as life changing,

(21:54):
and Carol herself as a mentor and role model. In
nineteen ninety, Steve was promoted to dean of the resident
degree program, reportedly the youngest dean in the country at
that time. From the outside, everything seemed to be going
remarkably well. They were a power couple, smart, outdoorsy, passionate
about teaching and personal growth. But the cracks that had

(22:15):
started back in California weren't going away. Steve's affair at
Patagonia hadn't been a one time mistake, and whether Carol
had known about that fleeing or not, she soon became
aware of others. In nineteen ninety one, just days before
giving birth to their second daughter, Charlotte, Carol discovered that
Steve had been having an affair with their midwife. She

(22:36):
was devastated.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
Okay, that's not all right, No.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
That's totally not alright. One night, she called her best
friend Debbie in tears, barely able to speak through the sobs.
I don't know what she did if she still used
this midwife, but I'm assuming she had to. It was
only a couple a few days before giving birth. I
can't even imagine how. It's very uncomfortable, and it wouldn't
be the last betrayal. Steve was known to have slept

(23:01):
with at least two Prescott College students who had worked
for the couple as nanny's. Over time, Steve's behavior started
raising alarms. Even at a place like Prescott, a liberal,
free spirited school often dubbed a hippie college, lines were
being crossed. During Steve's five year tenure as dean, his
affairs became something of an open secret. Complaints began to

(23:23):
pile up, formal allegations of sexual harassment and abuse of power.
His reputation as a respected educator was giving way to
something far more troubling. Steve had many flings over the years,
somewhere one night stans. Others were long term affairs. Some
Carol found out about, some she didn't. Years later she
would count at least fourteen that she knew about hikes.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
Why was she so forgiving?

Speaker 2 (23:48):
While each time the pattern was the same, discovery, confrontation, apologies,
Steve would swear that he was a changed man, that
he was working on himself, that he needed help take
him back, hoping that this time would be different.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
So they did not have an open marriage.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
Oh no, absolutely not.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
And did Carol have any flings? Of her own.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
There may have been a fling or two.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
Think by the time you get to the tenth affair,
then it just I would think, if you're going to
forgive him, then yeah, there's this sense of well then
I guess it's okay. Then I might as well do
the same.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
I would think so too, Carol in her mind, So
she didn't stay with Steve because she was weak. She
stayed because she believed that Steve was her soulmate. So
she believed he was the man that she was meant
to go through life with. She had promised to love
him in sickness and in health, and to her, Steve's
infidelity wasn't just betrayal. It was a sickness, and she
believed it was her life's work to help him heal

(24:43):
from that. Soon after Charlotte was born, Steve and Carroll
bought a one and a half acre plot of land
in Williamson Valley, a rugged scenic area just outside of Prescott.
It was peaceful and secluded, surrounded by fruit and nut trees,
with open ranchland behind it where people hiked and biked.
The views of the surrounding mountains were breathtaking. As they

(25:05):
designed their dream home. Steve and a few college buddies
built a temporary lodging on the property, a small structure
that would eventually become a guesthouse once the main home
was finished. By nineteen ninety seven, their dream house was complete.
It had four bedrooms, four bathrooms, vaulted ceilings, and plenty
of space for the family to grow. The guesthouse was

(25:27):
converted into Carroll's art studio and Steve's workout room. It
was everything that they'd envisioned. Life in the valley had
its own kind of rhythm. Steve and Carroll regularly took
Katie and Charlotte hiking and camping, passing down their shared
love of the outdoors. On the surface, things looked serene, stable, fulfilled,

(25:47):
but big changes were coming. In nineteen ninety five, after
seven years at Prescott College, Steve made a dramatic career shift.
He and his best friend Sturgis enrolled in a stockbroker
training program at aged Way, leaving behind academia for the
world of high finance.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
Do you think him leaving academia behind had anything to
do with wanting to have more affairs, more freedom where
you know, as a dean of a university it's frowned
upon to have affairs, especially with students.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
I'm not sure if it had anything to do with that.
I think it had came from a desire to I
think he became more materialistic. And I don't know if
the changing careers caused him to become more materialistic or
if he wanted more things like he just wanted. It
seems like he wanted to be kind of a different person.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
It was a move with much greater earning potential, but
it raised eyebrows. Steve's mother, who had been proud of
his work in education, asked him why he was giving
up on helping people. Steve told her, I'm still helping people.
I'm helping them invest wisely so they can retire five
to ten years earlier than they would have otherwise. But
it didn't take long for another side of Steve to emerge,

(26:57):
one that Sturgis hadn't fully seen before. About six months
into their new roles, Sturgis had developed a promising relationship
with a senior broker who was about to retire. The
broker had promised to hand over his entire book of business,
roughly forty million dollars in client assets to Sturgis, it
would be a massive step up, a life changing opportunity

(27:18):
for a new broker. On a Friday, the broker sent
a message to all of his clients introducing Sturgis as
his successor. But when Sturgis began calling those clients the
following Monday, he was stunned to learn that Steve had
already called every single one of them over the weekend.
He did not, and convinced them to move their accounts
to him instead. Do you believe that?

Speaker 1 (27:41):
What a weasel?

Speaker 2 (27:42):
I know? Sturgis confronted Steve in disbelief, but Steve flatly
denied it. He denied everything, and gaslit his best friend,
and just like that, their decades long friendship began to unravel.
For Sturgis, it was the moment he began to see
Steve clearly not as the charming, adventurous idealists that he
had once known, but as someone far more calculating. As

(28:05):
Steve began raking in more money, his values started to shift.
He became obsessed with luxury, designer clothes, expensive vacations, flashy gear,
and of course, his appetite for women never went away.
People who had known Steve for years, friends former colleagues,
even family began to see a change. He came off
as arrogant, self absorbed, and increasingly hard to trust.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
Approximately how old is Steve during this time of change.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
I think he was in his mid forties by this time.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
In nineteen ninety eight, a woman named Barb on'non moved
to Prescott with her husband and started working at AG Edwards.
She became Steve's assistant, and within a couple of years
the two were in a full blown relationship. It would
become the longest romantic relationship Steve ever had outside of
his marriage to Carol. Steve frequently traveled to Phoenix for work,

(28:57):
nearly two hours away by car. He and Carol a
condo there which they had rented to one of Carroll's friends,
a woman named Catherine. When Steve needed to be in
Phoenix for a few days, he would stay at the condo,
and often Barb would come too, supposedly to work with Steve.
Catherine started to notice things. She'd see Steve and Barb

(29:17):
lounging at the pool together. The way they interacted it
didn't seem professional. She suspected something was going on between them,
but she wasn't sure. And she didn't want to stir
the pot without proof. And then came the moment that
really stuck with her. One day, Catherine saw Barb parading
around the condo wearing one of Carroll's swimsuits, laughing and joking.

(29:39):
She said, I feel just like Carol rubbed Catherine the
wrong way deeply, but still she kept her suspicions to herself. Eventually, though,
Caroll told Catherine that she knew Steve was having an
affair with Barb. Catherine apologized for not saying something sooner.
In truth, the science had been there for a while.

(30:00):
That's so bold and gross of them.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
I know, like right in front of Carol's friend.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
Yeah. In two thousand and four, Steve left a G.
Edwards and took a job at Ubs, and he took
Barb with him. That same year, Barb and her husband divorced.
Once the divorce was final, Steve proposed to her. Barb
was shocked she knew that Steve was still married to Carol.
She declined, why would why would he propose? This doesn't

(30:29):
make any sense.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
It doesn't make any sense, does it.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
At some point, Steve in a moment that says so
much about who he was becoming. Made a list, a
literal list, comparing Carol and Barb pros and cons side
by side, and at the bottom of the page he wrote,
Barb wins game, set, match, tournament. I'll be right back.
I need to go throw up. By two thousand and seven,

(30:53):
Steve's income at UBS had soared and he was earning
over a million dollars a year, with Barb still assistant,
taking home thirty percent of that. While Stephen Carroll's marriage
was rocky, sometimes painfully so, there was one thing that
they both held sacred, their daughters. No one ever doubted
how much they loved and adored them. Katie and Charlotte

(31:15):
were smart, strong willed, and spirited. Much like their parents.
Carol made their education their priority. She enrolled them in
schools that followed the Waldorf Method, a teaching philosophy that
emphasizes holistic development intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual through creativity, imagination,
and hands on learning. I don't know much about the

(31:36):
Waldorf Method, but I think it's pretty amazing, right, but
very expensive?

Speaker 3 (31:41):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Really, I think so.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
For a few years, Carol even homeschooled Katie. Katie was
whip smart, but easily bored and prone to challenging authority,
and teaching her wasn't easy. Eventually, Carol realized she couldn't
be both Katie's mother and her teacher, so she found
a private prep boarding school whe Katie could thrive, and
she did. She graduated as a class salutatorian and went

(32:05):
on to attend Occidental College in Los Angeles, with her
sights set on law school. Through it all, Carol was
still trying to save her marriage. She convinced Steve to
go to counseling and pushed him to seek treatment for
sex addiction, but each time he found a way to
avoid doing the real work, dismissing the therapy, downplaying the problem,

(32:26):
making excuses. Then came a story that revealed a darker
side of Steve, something that deeply unsettled those who heard it.
It involved a cat. A neighborhood cat had been coming
around the Demoker home, picking fights with their own cat
and getting into their things. Steve was fed up, so
one day he lured the cat into the guesthouse and

(32:47):
locked it inside. Then, according to his own telling, he
chased the animal around with an object. Accounts vary as
to whether it was a shovel, a kayak, pet paddle,
or a baseball bat, but he beat the cat to death.
He told the story to Catherine, Carroll's friend and former tenant,
laughing as if it were some hilarious anecdote. Catherine is horrified.

(33:10):
She asked if Carol knew. Steve said no, he hadn't
told her, and Catherine knew without question that Carol would
have been just as disturbed, if not more.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
So.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
Wow, that's horrible.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
It's really disturbing, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
I give myself one horrible an episode if you're counting.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
In two thousand and three, Steve told Carol he wanted
to buy a condo on a golf course in Prescott
and move out. Not to end the marriage, he said,
but simply to get some sleep. What As a stockbroker
in the Mountain West, Steve had to be up before
dawn around four am, usually to catch the markets open
in New York. With the girls in the house and
the dogs barking, he claimed it was impossible to get

(33:49):
the rest that he needed. He said he would still
be around, just not sleeping there. Surprisingly, Carol agreed, she
understood the sleep issue, and part of her thought it
might be good for Steve to have his own space,
especially for his more obsessive tendencies, like constantly organizing drawers
or making sure every can in the pantry faced the

(34:09):
exact same way.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
I would just like to state that I think that
is completely normal behavior.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
I thought you might have something to say about that.
But it didn't take long for Carol to realize that
something else was going on. After Steve moved into the condo,
she discovered he was still seeing Barbo Non and it
became clear that this new arrangement had less to do
with getting better sleep and more to do with carving
out private space for his many affairs.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
So was he having affairs on top of his affairs?

Speaker 3 (34:36):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (34:37):
Huh? That was the moment Carol finally admitted to herself
that she wasn't going to fix Steve, that no amount
of love, counseling, or second chances would change who he was.
It was time to start taking care of herself. But
even with that realization, it would be three more years
before either of them filed for divorce. They remained stuck
in limbo, some days trying to patch things up, other

(35:00):
days living entirely separate lives. While Steve and Carroll's marriage
was falling apart, so was his relationship with Barb. What
began as a business breakup turned personal. Barb had worked
as Steve's assistant for years, but she was also a
licensed broker, and she wanted to strike out on her own.
She believed that she was entitled to fifty percent of

(35:22):
Steve's book of business, after all, she had helped to
build it, but Steve disagreed. He insisted that their long
standing arrangement where she received thirty percent of his gross earnings,
was more than fair. Negotiations dragged on for months, turning bitter. Eventually,
Barb agreed to walk away with thirty percent. It was
during these tense negotiations that Barb saw something she hadn't

(35:45):
seen in all her years with Steve, his temper. Steve
was known for being calm, controlled, always in command, but
Barb described two incidents that frightened her. In one, Steve
got inches from her face, speaking aggressively. In another, he
slammed his fists on his desk in a sudden outburst
of rage. He never hit her, never raised a hand,

(36:07):
but in those moments, she said, she feared that he could.
Despite the emotional and professional fallout. Steve and Barb's relationship
never fully ended. Even after Carroll's death, they occasionally rekindled
their affair. Their business separation was scheduled to be finalized
in July two thousand eight, but that too would be
delayed by Carroll's death. As if juggling a wife and

(36:29):
a long time mistress weren't enough, Steve was also actively
using online dating services. He signed up for Great Expectations
and Upscale matchmaking service, as well as adult FriendFinder dot Com,
which was more geared toward casual hookups.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
Will you know an awful lot about these dating websites?
It's making me a little uncomfortable, sir.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
I am just a good researcher. He was casting a
wide net and leading multiple lives. One woman he dated
off and on for about two years was a novelist.
During their time together, Steve claimed that he was working
on a book of his own. He said it was
about a hit man, a man who hadn't set out
to be a killer, but who discovered that he was
exceptionally good at making people's deaths look like accidents. She

(37:14):
encouraged him to pursue the idea and even offered to
give feedback, but Steve never sent her a single page,
not even an outline. After Carrol's death, investigators searched his
computers and found no trace of this supposed manuscript. Whether
it was a real writing project, a disturbing fantasy, or
laying the groundwork for an eventual cover story, no one knows.

(37:36):
In November two thousand and seven, Steve started seeing yet
another woman, Renee Girard. Renee was a massage therapist, five
years younger than Steve, and yes, he was still seeing
Barb at that point and still married to Carol and
likely involved with others as well, But Renee would prove
to be more than just another fling. Over the next
few years, their relationship would become very important to Steve.

(37:59):
As her relationship with Steve continued to deteriorate, Carol began
to rediscover herself through art. She had always dabbled sketching, painting,
making prints, but had never fully embraced the identity of artists.
That began to change in the early two thousands, after
she stepped away from teaching at Prescott College. With more
time and emotional energy, she threw herself into her creative work.

(38:22):
By two thousand and four, as she approached her fiftieth birthday,
Carol had created enough pieces to mount a gallery show
in Prescott, despite their rocky separation. Steve came to the opening,
praised her work enthusiastically, and even bought several pieces to
show his support. Carol was thrilled. Not long after, she
started working part time at a local gallery called Van

(38:44):
goz Eer. It's a great name for a gallery.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
She sold other artists' work and also displayed her own.
She was great with customers and even better at connecting
people with pieces that moved them. But Steve couldn't stay away.
He'd often show up unannounced, and their own arguments spilled
into the gallery. The tension became too much. In two
thousand and seven, with genuine regret, the gallery owners let

(39:08):
Carol go. Her personal life, they said had become too
much of a distraction. Oh still, Carol didn't stop creating.
In fact, her work deepened. Friends noticed that as her
life with Steve grew more painful, her art reflected that shift.
Her color palette darkened, her subjects grew more introspective. Moody shadowed.

(39:28):
We'll post some pictures of Carol's art on our social
media We'll be back after a break.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
The strain wasn't just showing up on canvas. Carol was
battling depression. She leaned on her friends, calling often for
emotional support. At one point, her longtime friend Debbie, worried
Carol might be suicidal. When she asked her directly, Carol
said no, absolutely not, She would never do that because
of her girls.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
It was a.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
Heartbreaking process for a woman who had believed so deeply
in her marriage, so thoroughly convinced that Steve was her soulmate,
the man she was destined to help heal. Letting go
wasn't just about ending a relationship and met letting go
of a belief that had to find her adult life.
The emotional toll took a physical one too. Carol lost

(40:21):
a significant amount of weight and was diagnosed with Graves disease,
an autoimmune disorder that's often triggered or worsened by stress.
As she slowly started reclaiming her independence, her friends encouraged
her to start dating again. Prescott wasn't exactly the best
place for that. The median age there is over sixty,
so Carol gave online dating a try. About a year

(40:43):
before her death, she began seeing a man who lived
in Malibu, but that relationship didn't last long. Then, in
early two thousand and eight, she met David's soul no.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
Relation to the Starsky and Hunch actor.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
In case you were wondering, Thank you so much for
making that clarification. David had a home in Arizona, about
thirty five miles from Carrol's, but he spent most of
his time on the coast of Maine restoring a sailboat
for a long voyage. They saw each other several times
while he was in Arizona and hit it off quickly.
When he returned to Maine in May, they kept in
close contact, calling and emailing frequently. Carol was excited for

(41:21):
the first time in a long time. It felt like
the possibility of a new chapter. I would think getting
rid of the dead weight that was her husband would
feel pretty good.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
I would think so too, But they, you know, they
were still intertwined because of the daughters and financial stuff.
As we'll see, it was hard to make a clean
break out.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
Yeah, I can understand that she was planning a trip
to Maine to visit David and see his boat. Her
flight was scheduled toward July twelfth, two thousand and eight,
but she never made it. Carol was killed on July second,
just ten days before she was finally set to sail
into something new. Although Steve had moved out back in
two thousand and three, it would be three more years

(42:00):
before either of them filed for divorce. Steve filed first,
but quickly withdrew his petition. In the end, it was
Carol who had to take the final step. She filed
in two thousand and seven, and things got ugly fast.
Despite Steve's substantial income, his spending was completely out of control.
As his earnings increased, his expenses seemed to grow even faster.

(42:22):
In two thousand and seven, Carol began tracking his financial
activity and was stunned by what she found. In just
a few months, Steve had taken a trip to Saint Martin,
another to Zurich and Italy, and spent three days at
a luxury hotel in New York City with Katie and Charlotte,
taking them to Broadway shows and high end restaurants. He
paid for a massive family reunion in the Adiron Decks

(42:46):
at a seventeen thousand square foot vacation rental with fourteen bedrooms.
He leased a new BMW for Katie, treated his dad
and brothers to a week long goll trip, took the
girls on lavish shopping spreees in Phoenix, and brought himself
plenty of expensive athletic gear along the way. And yet,
despite all of this, Steve kept telling Carol that she

(43:08):
was the one putting him in debt. Then came the
two thousand and seven financial crisis, the most severe economic
downturn since the Great Depression. As a stockbroker, Steve was
hit hard. His income dropped significantly, but his spending habits
didn't change. He just kept going, racking up more and
more debt. Meanwhile, Carol was scrambling to stay afloat. She

(43:31):
took a job as a counselor at Pia's Place, a
recovery center for women battling addiction. She also picked up
part time work in the print lab at Yavapai College.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
That's right, The.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
Divorce negotiations were grueling. Financial stress, emotional manipulation, and constant
uncertainty made everything worse. Steve's behavior became increasingly erratic. He
would send Carol long, rambling emails, some professing his undying
love filled with cruel insults. Carol suspected he was spying

(44:04):
on her, hacking into her email, monitoring her messages to friends,
to her attorney, and to David's soul. No connection to
Starsky and Hutch. There's no concrete evidence to confirm that,
but Carol believed it was happening. She also believes Steve
was entering the house while she was away, letting himself in,
stooping around, possibly even tampering with things. So this is

(44:26):
gonna sound stupid, but I've been watching The Valley, which
is a show on Bravo, and this sounds really similar
to something that's happening with a couple that's divorcing over
that show. And I know, I'm very fortunate because obviously
we have a good relationship and I've never been divorced before.
But it just has shown me how horrible and just

(44:48):
volatile that these relationships become, and how men when woman
is trying to start over, to start the new light,
that's when you know, men, the abuser just holds on tighter. Yeah,
it won't let her go, and.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
It's just, yeah, it seems like a really common scenario.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
It's really scary yeah, it is.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
It's almost like they become like obsessive and they become
very toxic and volatile.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
And it's that combination of you know, love bombing and
the abuse, like it just vacillates between the two of
them over and over.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
Right.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
The divorce also took a toll on the girls, especially Charlotte,
who was only sixteen at the time of Carol's death.
She had always been closer to her dad and grew
increasingly angry at Carol, blaming her for dragging out the
divorce and jeopardizing her financial future. So as a sixteen
year old, obviously the dad is manipulating the girls with
the gifts and the trips and all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Yes, Steve was really good at manipulating people.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
Charlotte had big dreams of becoming a neurosurgeon and hope
to attend an out of state college, but as the
legal battle war on, she began to fear that her
mother's refusal to accept Steve's settlement offers might ruin those plans.
At one point, Charlotte wrote to Carroll in an email quote,
now my future and the quality of my education and
degree is in jeopardy. It's hard to realize that my mom,

(46:05):
someone who I unconditionally have loved all my life, may
damage the rest of my life.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
It's really sad to read that, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
Retrospect?

Speaker 3 (46:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
Carol, in turn, felt that Steve was deliberately driving a
wedge between her and her youngest daughter. Eventually, Charlotte moved
into Steve's condo to get away from the conflict and
refuse to spend time with Carol until the divorce was finalized.
When the settlement finally came through in May two thousand
and eight, nobody was happy. Carol received nearly two hundred
thousand dollars from one of Steve's four oh one K accounts,

(46:36):
but she would be responsible for the taxes and early
withdrawal penalties. She also inherited a portion of Steve's debt,
reportedly close to half a million dollars. It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
Oh yeah, this whole divorced settlement just kind of boggles
my mind.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
She got the family home on Bridle Path, but Steve
had taken out multiple mortgages on it and the property
was underwater, worth less than what she owed. Steve was
ordered to pay alimony, but because Charlotte now lived with him,
Carol was required to pay him child support. Carol was
growing increasingly anxious. How was she going to make ends meet.

(47:14):
The divorce was finalized in May two thousand and eight,
but the fighting never really stopped up until the day
Carol died on July second. There were long, relentless threads
of emails between the two, arguing about money, the girls,
the house, and everything in between.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
In January two thousand and eight, while Carol was still
in the thick of her divorce battle with Steve, she
reconnected with an old friend, Jim Nap. Carol had known
Jim for years. Their kids had gone to school together,
and he had always been a familiar face around town.
At the time, Jim had just gone through a divorce
and a custody fight of his own. On top of that,
he told Carol he had been diagnosed with cancer. He

(47:53):
needed a place to stay, and Carol, who was struggling financially,
needed help with expenses, so she invited Jim to move
into the guest house on her property. It seemed like
a good arrangement. Carol liked having a man around, especially
given how secluded her home was. The two quickly became
confidants leaning on each other through their respective divorces. Steve

(48:14):
would often stop by the main house in the evenings
for a glass of wine and conversation. But Jim Napp
wasn't your typical house guest. He was a bit of
an odd duck, a free spirited surfer dude from Hawaii,
full of lofty business ideas, uncertain medical issues, and a
questionable track record with women. Let's start with his business plan.
Steve had been exploring the idea of buying a Maui

(48:36):
Wawie Hawaiian coffee and smoothie franchise, the one located right
in Prescott. He had even negotiated a price with the
current owner. But Jim had a mountain of debt, mostly
for medical bills, and seemed to be hoping that Carol
would help fund the purchase. At one point, he even
mentioned to the shop owner that Carol's divorce settlement would
make the deal possible, though it's unclear whether Carol ever

(48:59):
actually agreed to death help. Given her own financial strain,
it's unlikely. Ultimately Jim backed out of the deal in
early two thousand and eight. Then there were the health concerns.
Jim had at some point been diagnosed with skin cancer,
but whether it was a serious, ongoing illness or a
single incident involving the removal of a spot, that's not clear.

(49:20):
What is clear is that Jim often told people he
was dying, while others suspected he was exaggerating. He also
dealt with ulcers, digestive problems, anxiety, depression, and chronic sleep issues.
He had prescriptions for all of it, and was likely
addicted to painkillers or at the very least over medicating himself.
After separating from his wife, Jim began dating a woman

(49:43):
he met online who lived in Montana. Based on his
profile and chats, she expected a fit, outdoorsy guy, but
when they met in person, she was surprised. Jim appeared pale, sluggish,
and out of shape. During their visits, she said he
often seemed out of it, likely in her view, due
to the medications. The second time they met in person,

(50:04):
he told her he wanted to marry her. She liked him,
but she felt like it was far too soon. Their
next meeting was a trip to Hawaii. Again, Jim seemed detached.
At times, he would disappear for hours with no explanation.
She grew increasingly concerned about his drug use. When she
returned to Montana, she called Jim's brother and learned that
Jim had been to rehab in the past. She broke

(50:27):
things off, and Jim did not take it well. He
was furious that she had contacted his family and accused
her of abandoning him when he needed her most. The
emails that followed were angry, sometimes veiled with threats. She
stopped responding, but Jim kept writing and even reached out
to her family asking for money to help with medical bills,

(50:47):
saying that he was dying. Carol, by all accounts, never
saw this side of Jim, so.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
That relationship was before he'd moved in with Carol.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
I think it was yes, okay. To Carol. Jim was
a close friend, someone she trusted, but others, including her daughters,
saw something different. Katie later recalled one night when Jim
had had too much to drink, She and Carol helped
him to bed, and as they did, he playfully tugged
at Carol's clothes. It didn't escalate, and no one thought
much of it at the time. Carol never told anyone

(51:17):
that Jim had made advances, but some people close to
her believed that Jim might have been in love with her,
maybe even obsessed. In late June two thousand and eight,
just weeks after their divorce was finalized, Carol, Steve, Katie,
and Charlotte all came together for dinner. It was a
farewell gathering. Katie was leaving for a study abroad program,
first to Europe, then on to South Africa. She had

(51:40):
enrolled in courses on political economics and apartheid history at
the University of Cape Town, and she planned to volunteer
at a child soldier rehabilitation center in Uganda. Everyone in
the family was proud of her, excited and supportive. After dinner,
they all went together to the Phoenix airport to see
Katie off, and for a moment, just a moment, it

(52:01):
felt like a family again. Everyone was kind, polite. Carol, Steve,
and Charlotte stood together, arms wrapped around one another, waving
as Katie disappeared through airport security. Later, Carol told her
friend Catherine that it was the first time in a
long while that she'd felt actually comfortable around Steve, like maybe,
just maybe things had turned a corner. But then Steve

(52:24):
ruined it. He asked her to meet for coffee and
pleaded with her to take him back. Carol was stunned.
After everything, after all the therapy, the betrayals, the years
of trying to let him go, and finally choosing herself.
She didn't say yes, She didn't entertain the idea, but
she walked away feeling confused and shaken. That brings us

(52:44):
to Wednesday, July second, two thousand and eight. It started
as a completely normal day. Carol went to work at
Pia's place, the Recovery Center where she worked as a counselor.
Around two thirty in the afternoon, she and Steve exchanged
a few text messages about Katie's BMW. Katie had left
the car in Carol's garage before leaving for South Africa,

(53:06):
and Steve said he needed to pick it up. He
asked when he could come by to get the keys.
Carol told him he could stop by that evening. She
left work around four thirty, called her friend Katherine on
the way home, and ran a couple of errands. She
picked up some special food for her two dogs at
the animal hospital. Her Boston Terrier Ike was still recovering

(53:26):
from a wild bore attack, and her bechan freeze Daisy
had been vomiting a wild boar attack. That's something we
don't need to worry about here.

Speaker 1 (53:35):
Well, we have coyotes though.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Yeah, that's true. Next, Carol stopped at Safeway to grab
a few groceries. When she got home, she checked her
email and had a quick call with her accountant about
lingering details from the divorce. Then, at six thirty pm,
she sent Steve an email challenging a claim that he
had made that Carol supposedly owed him eighty three hundred dollars. Steve, meanwhile,

(53:58):
was six thousand dollars overdue in alimony payments. He had
essentially said, once you pay me what you owe, then
I'll pay what I owe you. Carol replied, clearly frustrated. Quote,
your assertion and information here is inaccurate and incorrect. Even
though the divorce had been finalized two months earlier, their
financial disputes were not over. After sending the email, Carol

(54:21):
changed into her running clothes and headed out for her
usual three mile run on the trails behind her house.
Early on, she ran into two neighbors on horseback and
stopped to chat briefly before continuing on her route. When
she returned, she noticed that Steve still hadn't responded to
her text about the BMW. At seven oh six pm,
she messaged him again, quote, you never replied to let

(54:44):
me know if you were coming to get it. It
was unusual, Steve almost always had his phone with him
and typically responded quickly. At seven to twelve pm, she
texted Charlotte to ask about her day and her new job.
Their relationship had been improving since the devorce was finalized,
and Carol was making an effort to reconnect, even through small,

(55:05):
everyday messages. They exchanged a few texts, including one about
a storm that had come through the day before. Their
conversation ended with three simple but powerful words, I love you.
At seven to twenty five, Carol texted Steve again, this
time about shipping details for Katie's belongings. They had planned
to ship some items overseas to lighten her travel load. Again,

(55:28):
she got no response. At seven point thirty six, Carol
used her cordless landline to call her mother, Ruth in Nashville.
They spoke almost every night. Carol worried about her mom
living alone after her father's death, and Ruth, in turn
worried about her daughter, especially with Carol. Living by herself
in such a remote area, Carol had a habit of

(55:49):
not locking her doors, something that always made Ruth nervous.
They spoke for about twenty five minutes. Carol tried not
to burden her mom too much with her ongoing stress,
but on that call she vented. She mentioned Steve's missed
alimony payments, her concerns about money, and her mounting anxiety
about how she was going to stay afloat. Ruth later

(56:10):
said that Carol sounded genuinely worried. Then, at seven point
fifty nine PM, as they were wrapping up the call,
Ruth heard her daughter exclaim oh no, and then silence.
No click, no crashing sound, no dial tone, just silence. Ruth, alarmed,
asked Carol, are you okay? What's the matter? But there

(56:30):
was no reply. Eventually the line went dead. In the
initial chaos, Ruth described the oh no to the nine
to one one dispatcher as a scream, but later she
clarified it wasn't a scream. It was more a gasp,
a reaction of sudden, fearful recognition. She said it sounded
like oh no. Not again. After the call went dead,

(56:51):
Ruth Kennedy tried calling Carol back several times. No answer,
not even the answering machine. Growing increasingly panicked, she called
Steve's condo. Charlotte and her boyfriend Jake were there playing
video games. Charlotte glanced at the caller ID, but let
it go to voicemail. Ruth left a message for Steve,
explaining what had happened and begging him to go check

(57:13):
on Carol. Next, she called Steve's cell phone. Still no answer.
Another message. With no one else to turn to, Ruth
called the Prescott Police Department. It was eight fourteen PM,
just fifteen minutes after the call with her daughter had
ended so abruptly.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
Sheriff Upspring hus going to help you. Well, yes, my
name is Ruth Kennedy and I'm calling from Nashville, Tennessee.
I was all on the phone with my daughter and
she screamed and said, oh no, and the phone's down, dad,
And is there anything you can do? Just can you
go check. I'm just at my way sands.

Speaker 4 (57:49):
Now did you call her or did she call you?
And this occurred She called me to night, and which
she called me every night because I'm eighty three and
she worries about me, and so we were.

Speaker 3 (58:01):
Just having our con the question and then all of
a sudden she just sprained and said, oh no. And
then I haven't been able to get her to answer
the phone back. So, you know, Sprite, something bad to.

Speaker 4 (58:13):
Happened, okay, Ruth?

Speaker 3 (58:16):
And who does your daughter live with? She's recently devolised,
she's alone.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Ruth sounds just like such a sweet lady, such a
cutie pie. Police said they would send someone out for
a welfare check and call her back. Deputy Matthew Tainter
was out on patrol when he got the call. He
made a traffic stop first, then headed toward the house
on Bridle Path. He arrived at eight fifty two pm,
nearly an hour after Ruth had heard her daughter say

(58:42):
oh no, followed by silence. The house was dark, no
lights on, no response At the front door. Tainter shined
his flashlight through the windows. Everything looked quiet. He walked
around to the back and spotted a separate structure that
he assumed was a garage. The door was unlocked, gun drawn.
He stepped inside but quickly realized it wasn't a garage.

(59:04):
It was someone's home, the guest house. No one was
inside back at the main house, he tried the patio doors.
They were unlocked, but Tainter didn't want to enter alone,
unsure if anyone was inside, so he continued circling the house,
shining his flashlight through each window, and that's when he
saw her. In the last room he checked, he found Carol.

(59:24):
She was lying face down on the floor of the
back bedroom, a pool of blood beneath her head. Not
knowing if the killer might still be inside, Tainter backed
away and returned to his patrol car to call for
back up. At nine ten pm, as additional officers arrived,
a white Ford ranger pulled up on the scene. The
driver introduced himself as Jim Knapp. He explained that he

(59:47):
lived in the guest house and asked what was going on.
Rather than telling him what they'd found, officers started asking questions.
Had Carol been home when he left that day? No,
he said she had already gone to work. What was
his relationship to her best friends? He said? Jim said
that he had been at the house until about one
or two PM, then went to his ex wife's house.

(01:00:10):
She took their older son to hockey practice while Jim
watched a movie with their younger son, Alex, his ex wife,
returned home around eight thirty or eight forty five, and
that's when he headed home. He stopped it safeway on
the way back. The last time he saw Carrol, he said,
was the night before. She had come out to the
guest house to say good night around eight or nine

(01:00:30):
that morning. She had left him a note on his
truck window, quote thinking of you all day. She often
left small supportive messages like that. Still unaware of what
had happened, Jim volunteered an opinion. Carol's ex husband, Steve,
he said, was a sneaky, manipulative man, and if something
had happened to Carol, he's the one they should be
looking at. Police looked Jim over and inspected his truck.

(01:00:54):
No injuries or visible blood, no signs of a struggle.
Inside the house, officers swept through each room, no one
else was there. Then they turned their attention to the
crime scene. Carroll's body was found in the back bedroom.
Blood was spattered throughout the room, mostly around her head
and on the leg of a nearby desk. A bookcase

(01:01:15):
had toppled over and lay next to her body. A
cordless phone was on the floor. A few feet away,
near the doorway, there was a ladder. At first glance,
it might have looked like an accident, had Carol fallen
off the ladder and hit her head on the desk.
But something didn't add up. The ladder was facing the
wrong way, its rungs were on the opposite side from

(01:01:36):
where Carol lay, The blood spatter didn't align with the fall,
and the ladder, along with the bookcase, had clearly been
moved after the fact. And the injury to Carol's head
it was far too severe to have come from a
simple fall. To investigators, it was obvious this was a
staged scene, a deliberate attempt to make Carroll's violent death

(01:01:57):
look like an accident, and that alone revealed something important.
Whoever killed Carol didn't just want her dad. They wanted
her death to look like an accident. Then came another
intriguing detail. In the laundry room, officers noticed something strange.
Of the four light bulbs in the ceiling fixture, one
was missing and the other three had been partially unscrewed.

(01:02:18):
Had someone waited there, cloaked in darkness, for Carol to
return home. I'm afraid that is where we're going to
end part one.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
So Carol had been home for a while.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
Yeah, she went for a run I think at like
six thirty, and she got back a little bit after seven,
and then the phone call with her mom went dead
at like seven fifty nine, almost eight, So I think
she had been back for like maybe forty five minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
Did she go running the same time every night?

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
I think she usually did. It was kind of a
habit that she went every day. I'm not sure if
it was the exact same time, but probably consistent. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
So the light bulbs being unscrewed, like you said, it
seemed like maybe someone was waiting for you. But it's July,
so it probably wasn't really dark.

Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
Then.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
I actually had the same question and I looked that up,
and the sunsets in Prescott, Arizona in July around seven
forty five or so.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
Okay, interesting because here the sun wouldn't set until yeah,
nine to thirty, probably.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Right, Yeah, yeah, probably not so. Yeah, I think it
may have been getting dark around the time she came
back from her run. What's your impression of Steve at
this point in the story.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
I mean it started out, you know, like these cool
people who you know, really liked education and were out
dorsy and you know, he worked for Patagonia and he
seemed like a really cool guy. But yeah, something I
guess around his fortieth birthday he was feeling a midlife
crisis is coming upon.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
Yeah, maybe I kind of wonder liked his did his
change of career? What was the cause and what was
the effect was? Did he change careers because he had
changed himself and wanted a different lifestyle or did he
change careers and then start making a lot of money
and then did that cause him to change?

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
I just don't that's a fair question. For sure. We
talk about narcisism almost every case, but he does seem
like a narcissist.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
Maybe he fought his narcissistic tendencies more then he just
kind of gave into them.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
Yeah, that could be. I mean, I think maybe he
was the oldest of nine kids, and his family were
obviously very intelligent, goal oriented, very goal oriented, So he
probably really wanted to set an example for his family,
and then maybe at some point he just decided this
is who I read.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
Maybe he didn't It wasn't that he wanted to set
an example, but he felt competitive as the oldest and
felt like he had something to prove. Being the dean
of a university is a pretty great job.

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
Too, though, Yeah, I would think so.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
I was a little confused about their financial situation and
the divorce settlement. Like you said, like at one point,
he was like, you owe me eight thousand dollars, and
she's like, well, you owe me sick thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
So yeah, it's just so you know, these divorces, especially
in these situations where there's a lot of money at
stake where he you know, he was making almost a
million dollars a year at some point, it just gets
so complicated and there's so many ins and out.

Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
So many accounts and investments. Yeah, but then the debts too.
It seems really unfair. I don't know how you break
that up. I know, you are getting divorced and you
have a fair amount of debt, Like who was responsible
for that debt? It seems unfair when it seems like
he was the spender in the relationship and that she
would be settled with any of that debt.

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
Yeah, she seems really unfair. I think I think she
just got tired of trying to like all the negotiating.
He probably had someone more professional in his in his
corner in terms of lawyers and things like that, and
she probably, you know, just gave in at some point
and it didn't It didn't seem like a fair settlement
from what I've read. But again, it's so complicated, it's
hard to say exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
Did Carol have any assets.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
I don't know exactly what I mean. She had the house,
but again houseouse underwaters, so I think she was in
real trouble financially. She had like obviously the account that
she got there was his four oh one K, which
was like two hundred thousand dollars, and she had to
pay taxes on that. But at the end of it,
she probably still had you know, a significant chunk of
money in that account, but it certainly wasn't enough to

(01:06:18):
you know, keep her going. Yeah, what do you think
of Carol's saying oh no to her mom. I'm kind
of intrigued by that what that could have meant. And
the way, like I said, Ruth described it. At first
she said she screamed, but then later she said no,
it was more like like, oh no, not again. Yeah,
I think Ruth was implying that, like oh no, not again,

(01:06:40):
because Steve had been coming over and maybe Ruth felt like, oh,
Steve had come in again, and Carol was like, oh no.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
So it's interesting that there wasn't a name used, right,
Like she shouldn't say oh no, Steve or be like,
oh Steve's here again, mom or something like that. It
was just an oh no, yeah, and there was no
sound yep. So yeah, it is hard to know what
that could possibly mean. Yeah, do you think that the
line was cut or the fact that you didn't hear

(01:07:08):
a noise that is weird other than the oh no
and then it was cut? Could he have just someone
have unplugged the phone?

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
I don't. I mean I never read anything about that
that the crime scene that the phone was unplugged or anything,
So I don't really know, but I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
I don't know if you're on remember she was on
a cordless phone, so the phone could have just no,
I guess a chordless like I don't really remember how
cordless phone were.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
We could have hung up the phone at the receiver potentially, but.

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
I don't think that's how they were. No, Maybe could
you have just unplugged the phone and that would yeah,
that probably would have ended the call. Or just you
know the little thingy that went into the wall, if
you could have just taken that out of the wall,
it would have ended the call.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
Yeah, But then I would think that Ruth would have
heard like a dial tone or something. It sounds like
she just heard silence for at least some period of time.

Speaker 1 (01:07:56):
It's really on that she heard silence.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's kind of one of the baffling
things about this. I think we'll be sure to come
back for part two because I promise you this case
just gets more and more interesting as we go. And
remember join us on patreon dot com slash love Mary
Kill if you'd like to listen to part two right now.

(01:08:19):
So we were having a little discussion during our break
about whether people would want to hear about our vacation
or not. I know, some sometimes maybe hearing about people's
vacation isn't the most exciting thing, right, or we can
probably hit on a couple of highlights, right, Okay, sure,
Because really our vacation in some ways was kind of
a journey through our past, because we went to.

Speaker 1 (01:08:39):
A lot of places your past.

Speaker 2 (01:08:41):
The special So we went to some places that were
kind of important to us early in our relationship.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
Yeah, it made me a little emotional at some points
because you know, it's been a while since I've lived
in Illinois and you had visited Wisconsin in Chicago. So yeah,
it was great to revisit some of those places.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
And you've got really emotional when we found the Missus
Fishers potato chips. You wept with joy. It was really tough.

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
Well, it's actually not true. I was very happy to
see them. We've talked about this at least once before that.
Missus Fishers is a potato chip factory in Rockford, Illinois.
It's a kind of a unique chip and growing up
it was like my family, like my dad and mom,
like we weren't. I don't think his kids really allowed
to have them. They hid them from us, you know,

(01:09:26):
that kind of thing. So that's probably one of the
instance why I love them. But the recipe had changed
when a few years ago they took took out the
good stuff, so I hadn't had them since they took
out the transpats, and I wasn't sure, if you know,
they would hold up. But there's they're still really good.
I enjoyed them and it was sweet to me. I
don't know, the whole family seemed to enjoy them. We

(01:09:49):
went to one gas station where when we were in
the Rockford area and they didn't have them. I was like,
oh no, I didn't want to like make you guys
go to like sixteen different locations, but I was willing
to do it if I had to. Sure, But we
found some at the second store, and they have more
flavors than they used to. They have barbecue and salt
and vinegar, and they had these dark chips that were

(01:10:11):
really good. Okay, I'm probably talking about this too much
that I can tell, like my voice is really excited,
but yeah, it was. It was really fun to go
back to some of those places.

Speaker 2 (01:10:20):
Yeah. I think going to the House on the Rock
was really fun, and I'm glad our kids, I think
both enjoyed it as well.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
So they did.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
If you're not familiar with the House on the Rock,
it's in Wisconsin.

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):
It's a mad man it's a.

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
Madman's dream or nightmare or something like. This guy Alex
Jordan Jordan he built it and he just kept like
he kept adding to it and he kept buying like
collections of crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):
Stuff, music boxes, like these huge, you know, music boxes.
I'm not sure he invented there. What's the word, Yeah,
he built the music boxes or if he has.

Speaker 2 (01:10:57):
Some saw these like big like they're they're like automatic
music machines, like where it could be like a whole
orchestra in a room and you put in a little
token and it starts playing like a symphony and it's
just crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
Well, and some of the machines are like Rube Goldberg
kind of life machines. The thing that I don't know
if I realized, is that it's really close to Frank
Lloyd write'es tally Essen, right, And we didn't have time
to tour Taliessen, but I really would like to see Taliessen.
But they're two very different, you know people, really intense men.

(01:11:32):
I think they I don't think they were friends.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
Yeah, and you have this crazy like carousel that was
just just wild, Like the whole thing just felt like
it just like you said, a crazy man's dream.

Speaker 1 (01:11:43):
We went to Chicago and then we went to We
spent a lot of time on Wisconsin. We went to
the Wisconsin Dells, which is an interesting place.

Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
It's very touristy but also very beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:11:56):
Right, and I think that a lot of people go there,
you know, for the water parks and stuff, and we
actually didn't go to a water park. We stayed in
these really cool it's really cool treehouse type thing that
I thought was really cool. But we took a boat
ride and we saw which is Which is Gold. We
took the Upper Dells tour. There's a Lower Dells tour
and there's like these duck boats that go around, but

(01:12:18):
we took the Upper Dells tour because I'd seen pictures
of Which is Gold. We've never visited there before. It
was stunning, one of the most amazing natural things I've
ever seen. Yeah, it was just really really grew me away.

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
Just these kind of crazy like rock.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
Walls and.

Speaker 2 (01:12:34):
Stuff that just really incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:12:36):
Yeah, and then we ended up in Door County, which
is very similar to Michigan's Upper Michigan. It's like the
Traverse City area that we visit a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:12:46):
Yeah, lots of cherries and touristy towns, but not but
cool towns like artsy and interesting. Show had a really
good time.

Speaker 1 (01:12:53):
It was some really great family time.

Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:12:55):
We went to a nice outdoor play in Door County,
which is really cool and everyone and enjoyed it though.

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
Yeah, that was really fun. Yeah, we did a lot
of cool things.

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
Yeah, it was really nice. A lot of driving, thirteen
hundred miles of driving.

Speaker 1 (01:13:07):
That was a lot of The drive home was a
little rough, but I mean, I know we're all adults now,
but everyone did great. There were no meltdowns. I was
the ride home. I was like, oh my god, someone's
gonna melt down, and our listeners will be happy to
know that. Rich did not play Jeth Throw Toll's greatest
hits like the whole Way There and back. But I

(01:13:28):
did tune out a little. I tend to tune out
when you're playing music. But it was kind of fun
because well I was.

Speaker 2 (01:13:32):
Playing on Spotify like my playlist, and the kids would
add their songs to the jam and so their songs
would come on and it was nice.

Speaker 3 (01:13:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:40):
I read a couple of good books overbreak. One is
called Broken Country and the other. Actually I did not
read two books. I read one and a half and
only halfway through the other one. It's called Don't Let
Him In by Lisa Jewel, and so far that one's
really good too.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
It was awesome to not read true crime books. I did.
I am working on a case that I'm excited to
tell you guys about, but I didn't work too much
on the podcast, which was really nice.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
It was a very nice trip. Then we are back
now and happy to be back at it. Thank you
all for listening, and thank you again Carla for the
nice package that you sent with the snacks and the gifts.
That was so kind of you.

Speaker 1 (01:14:17):
And thank you to Elizabeth who sent me a very
nice email today that I might have needed to read. Yeah,
not all the comments we get are good comments. They
don't always make us feel warm and fuzzy inside. But
Elizabeth sent a really nice email and I really appreciated it.
A lot of you send us nice messages all the time,
and we really do appreciate you, guys. We read your

(01:14:38):
messages and they really are one of the things that
keep us going on this journey.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:42):
Absolutely, Until next time, don't kill your husband and don't
kill your wife.

Speaker 2 (01:15:01):
The topick, the

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Carol Kennedy and Steve DeMocker - Part 1