Joan Harmon and Christian “Kit” Martin - Part 2

In November 2015, three people were brutally murdered in the small town of Pembroke, Kentucky – Pamela and Calvin Phillips, and Ed Dansereau. The police quickly homed in on a suspect, Major Christian “Kit” Martin, who lived across the street. Martin was set to be tried in a court martial hearing in just two weeks, and Calvin Phillips was a key witness. But Kit had recently been through an ugly separation from his wife, Joan Harmon, who threatened to “ruin his life”. Did Kit commit these horrible murders, or did Joan follow through on her threat?

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Today's snack: Sanders Sea Salt Caramels (thanks Emily!)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Rich and I'm Tina.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
And if there's one thing we've learned, and over twenty
years of.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Marriage, some days you'll feel like killing your husband and.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Some days you'll feel like killing your wife.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to love, Mary kill Hey babe, Hey Rich?

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

Speaker 1 (00:30):
I'm great? How are you good?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
I'm sorry for calling you babe.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
It's ongoing joke, yes, because I've read somewhere that like people,
younger people don't say honey to their spouse, they say babe.
And so we, jokingly, just to make our kids crunch,
have been calling each other babe lately. It just sounds
so unnatural to me, and I don't really understand it either,
because it's like baby, It's like you know, my baby.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
It is a little weird. But we've been doing this
jokingly for long enough now that it's going to start
sounding natural to us, and then it's going to.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Become Oh no, not for me. No, I don't think so,
probably not. So where are we on the marriage meter today?
Do you feel like killing me? Or am I? Where
am I?

Speaker 2 (01:12):
No? You We're pretty far on the other extreme pretty
the marriage meter.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, you han't got me a nice delly sandwich. For lunch,
which was very sweet.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
As I do that so that I stay on that
side of the marriage meter.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Also, well it made me sleepy though, Okay, like I'm
having some you know, turkey after effects. Oh but I'm
going to perk up here.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Well, you are going to want to be perked up
for part two of this case. It's it's a crazy one.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, we finished off the first day of March Madness
and our whole family did a bracket.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
We're recording on Friday, March twenty first at three twelve pm. Yeah,
round one.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
And you are in the lead in our family.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Shockingly shocking. I'm sure I won't be for long.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Oh you never know.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Do you have Michigan? Did you have Michigan winning last night?
Because Michigan did win last night.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, I have Michigan winning. I think the next round.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Also, I have them to a semi final, I think.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
So what happened was like my bracket. I wear contacts
ninety nine percent of the time this time. If you're like,
allergies are really ramping up, and if you're a contact wearer,
you know that you're your context. Just it's just kind
of a it's a battle and sometimes I wear daily
contact lenses, which I really love, but sometimes I get
like a little masscara on them and it's really annoying

(02:24):
and I can't see all the rest of the day.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
What is the point of this story, Tina?

Speaker 1 (02:28):
So when I was when I was doing my bracket,
I thought it said like Drake was number one, but
they were actually number eleven.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
So you got them going all the way?

Speaker 1 (02:39):
I have them going all the way.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
So I saw your bracket.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Let me just like a Cinderella story. But they they
already they did.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Win the first what. Yeah, it was an upset. It
cracked me up. I saw your bracket.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
I was like, maybe I just have a really good intuition.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
I mean, if if Drake did happen to win the tournament,
that would be amazing.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Well, I would still only win forty dollars, so you know.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Better than a sharp stick in the eye.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Well, who do you have?

Speaker 2 (03:04):
I have Duke going all the way.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
It's probably more likely. But anyway, I hope you filled
out a breath. I think your breck is going well
and you all win a million billion dollars. Did you
bring me a snap? I did bring Did you bring
me the oatmeal raisin cookies I made this week.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
No, I didn't bring you that I actually have. Oh
did you have something?

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Well? I was just going to comment how this week
I don't normally do this, but I made oatmeal raisin
cookies because they're one of my favorites. No one else
wants them, even put nuts in them. So so you
didn't bring those? No, I didn't bring Have you even
had one of those?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
I haven't.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
For rich to resist a homemade cookie, even at oatmeal cookie.
You it's a little rare, you know.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
I just not a big fan, So which bring me?

Speaker 1 (03:48):
I saw the powdered sugar was out of place in
the pantry.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Like a detective. No, I did not make you anything
with Actually.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Sugar was definitely out of place.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
I actually have a snap that one of our kind
listeners sent us. Oh okay, so I stopped by our
post office box and our listener, Emily, who is a
fellow Michigander. She's from Plymouth, Michiganmouth creat it's a beautiful town.
She sent us a really nice thing. So not only
did she include a sack, but she sent us socks. Awesome. Really, Yeah,

(04:21):
so she sent us these lovely socks that say true
Crime on them and they've got like heart with them. Yeah,
it's really they're really cute.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
So really, that was so kind of you. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
And then she also sent us these Sanders milk chocolate sea.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Salt we love, we love those, We love Sanders.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
We do love those, of course.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
And if you're out of state, like Sanders is here
in Michigan, but I think they've branched out quite a bit,
you can find them in a lot of places. Your
sister sends me pictures all the time because they love
Sanders too, and they're in California and you can you
can find their stuff everywhere. But it's really good chocolate.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
And if you can find their bumpy cake, bumpy cake
is really is really awesome. So yeah, so thanks so much, Emily.
That was so nice of you to send this to us.
And yeah, we will enjoy some Sea Salt caramels.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Well I can tell you already that's at eleven out
of ten.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Love them for sure. Well let's take a little break
and have one. As expected. Those were amazing.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
They're really good. They're a favorite around here for sure.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, thanks again, Emily so much.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
And Sanders has a lot of great Easter treats. Go
to Sanderscandy dot com s A N D. E. R
S Candy dot com. They have a lot of special
things for Easter Day. We have a lot of good
holiday treats. Our kids recently told me that the chocolate
bunnies that I always put in their Easter baskets, they
don't like them because they feel creepy eating something that

(05:48):
has a face and ice.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
I can understand that, I guess, so well, should we
get back to our story, We definitely should, all right?
Would you like to give us a recap of what
we heard in part one?

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Sure? In part one, when we were introduced to major
Christian Kit Martin, he and his second wife, Joan, had
a huge fight in September twenty twelve, which led to
Joan making claims that Kit had abused her and her children.
In an emergency protective order hearing, a judge found in
Kit's favor. Joan had a history of making up stories,

(06:21):
and she had apparently coached her children to say that
they had seen Kit hit her. According to Kit and
his daughter Mackenzie, Joan had promised to ruin Kit and
his military career when he asked her for a divorce
and reported a number of allegations against Kit, including sexual assault, abuse,
and molestation of her children, and she accused Kit of

(06:43):
being a spy in addition to finding some apparently classified
materials that Kit had in his possession. This all resulted
in a court martial hearing. One of the witnesses in
that court martial hearing was going to be his neighbor.
Kelvin Phillips was close to Joan word around town was
that they were having an affair, and he was apparently

(07:06):
with her when they found the classified materials. Two weeks
before the scheduled court martiall trial, Calvin and his wife Pam,
and their next door neighbor at Danzaro were all killed.
So if you haven't listened to part one, go back
and listen to part one.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Well, before we go on with the story, I wanted
to do a quick recap of the timeline and think about,
like the most likely sequence of events that happened.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
In this was a little complicated.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah, it was really complicated, and it was different events
happened throughout the course of the day. So Calvin Phillips,
who was fifty eight, was likely killed on the morning
of November eighteenth. The time window that he must have
been killed was fairly narrow, because Pam left for work
around six thirty am, and by ten forty am delivery

(07:54):
truck drivers arrived to find no sign of him. His
body was eventually found at the box of the cellar stairs.
He was wearing a raincoat with the hood tightly cinched,
suggesting that he was killed outside because it was raining
that morning, and then he was possibly dragged to the
back porch using a blue tarp. His body was then
dumped into the cellar, which is interesting because the cellar

(08:18):
was almost hidden, like it's not something that you would
have obviously seen that there was a cellar. So that
makes us believe that only a person familiar with the
house would have known that there was a cellar there
and to have dumped his body down there. His wife,
Pamela Phillips, who was fifty three at the time of
her death, was likely attacked that evening while on the
phone with their friend Marlene La Roque at five point

(08:40):
thirty pm. She had called Marlene when she got home,
and she something startled her when she was on the
phone and the line went dead. Marlene never heard another
word from her. The evidence suggested that there was a
struggle in the kitchen. There was a clump of Pam's
hair found there, and a trail of blood led from
the kitchen toward the back door, so it appeared that

(09:01):
she may have been dragged through the kitchen. Ed Danzero,
there next door neighbor, was sixty three when he died.
He may have seen something that evening, something that made
him grab his gun and rush out. He had been
in the middle of making dinner, but something outside caught
his attention. His abandoned fish filet on the counter, his
open door, and his missing gun all pointed to a

(09:23):
single terrifying moment when he made a decision to intervene,
and he never returned to his house. His cell phone
and his gun were later found in the yard, not
far from bloodstains in the grass, so he had likely
been ambushed and killed near the driveway, probably moments after
Pam was killed. And then came the final act, which
was just before two am. The killer or maybe killers returned.

(09:47):
Pam and Ed's body were loaded into her car. The
vehicle was driven two miles out to Rosetown Road, doused
in kerosene, and set on fire. But then the question
is how did the killer get back? Did they walk back?
But that's where Ed's abandoned car may come into play.
So Ed's car was discovered a few blocks away from

(10:08):
their home. It was positioned near a highway out of town,
so it seemed likely that maybe two people were involved.
Moving multiple bodies and vehicles might have been difficult for
just one person. So perhaps one of the killers had
driven Ed's car to Rosetown Road where they left Pam's car,
then used it to return back to near the Phillips

(10:30):
house and left the car there. So it's very confusing,
though they.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Would still have needed a getaway car, so that's Yeah,
maybe they didn't want to leave any evidence in their
own car. Yeah, so that's why they used Ed's car.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah. I think trying to interpret like the crime scene
and why the killer or killers did what they did
is really baffling, Like why did they leave Calvin's body
at the house? Why did they move Ed's car? So, yeah,
we just don't know.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
So where do you think Pam's body was between the
time that she was murdered until the time that she
was taken out of town?

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah, it's a really good question. I mean, because she
was killed at five point thirty. Ed was probably killed
right around that time as well, But then they weren't
moved until two am.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
So you think Ed was killed because he saw something.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, I mean, he was in the middle of making dinner,
so it must have been right around the same time.
So I can only imagine that the killer or killers
left their bodies either in the back of the house
or somewhere you know, where they wouldn't be visible. But
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
We should mention too that Kit Martin and his girlfriend
Laura Spencer lived like right across the street.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, pretty much directly across from Ed danzero, and then
sort of kitty corner from the Phillips house. It didn't
take long for investigators to zero in on Christian Kit
Martin as their prime suspect. The day after the discovery
of the three bodies, police secured a search warrant for
Kit's home. At the time, Kit was at work at
Fort Campbell, leaving his wife Laura home alone. She was

(12:01):
upstairs when she heard it. Glass shattering, voices, screaming panics
surged through her. She couldn't make out the words, but
the urgency in the voices sent her running. She grabbed
her phone, bolted downstairs, and sprinted for the back door.
The moment she stepped outside, five SWAT team members were there,
Rifles aimed at her head. They barked orders, yelling at

(12:23):
her to put her phone down. She dropped it. Her
hands were shaking. That moment would haunt her for years.
Laura was so shaken by what had happened that she
never again set foot inside the big yellow house on
Main Street. Inside the house, investigators scoured every inch, seizing
anything that might link Kit Martin to the murders. Among

(12:43):
the confiscated items multiple firearms, his home security system, his computer,
and several boxes of documents related to his court martial. Meanwhile,
Kit himself was detained at Fort Campbell. He was locked
in a cell for five days while authority he combed
through his life. His car was searched, his work laptop

(13:04):
was taken. He had no answers and no contact with
the outside world. I can only assume that military law
is very different from civilian law because they were basically
able to just lock him up for five days with
no arrest, no reason.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Just I was just going to ask what evidence pointed
them to Kit right away.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
The only thing was that the subpoena they found at
Calvin and Pam's house that showed that he was going
to be a witness in Kit's court martial trial, which
was only two weeks away. I think that was the
main thing right out of the gate that they found.
When he was finally released, he was handed a strict
set of restrictions. He wasn't allowed to have contact with
Laura and he wasn't allowed to travel beyond thirty miles

(13:46):
from the base. That latter restriction actually made it nearly
impossible for Kit to meet with his lawyers because he
was still preparing for his upcoming court martial trial, which
was now pushed back. It was originally supposed to be
two weeks after them, but it was pushed back to
March of twenty sixteen. So with three people, Dad and Kit,
Martin and the crosshairs, the question remained was he truly

(14:09):
the killer or was there more to the story.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
So Kit wasn't arrested, he was just thrown into some
sort of military jail.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah, pretty much. I mean, like I said, I don't
know military law well enough to know what is allowed
and what isn't allowed. But I think if you're in
the military and they want to detain you, they can
just do it. And yeah, I think they just held
him for five days for no reason. He wasn't under arrest.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
And you said possibly wasn't given food.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
I did read some accounts where he wasn't given food
during that five days, but I'm not sure if that's
true or not. But yeah, it's pretty bad. And then
to release him, but say, well, you can't have contact
with your girlfriend and you can't go more than thirty
miles from the base. Very yeah, very strict.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, And did he he had attorneys that were working
at his court martial case, and I'm curious if he
had access to those attorneys or not.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
Calvin's autopsy revealed the brutal extent of his injuries five
gunshot wounds from forty five caliber bullets, three to the chest,
one to the neck, one to the right clavicle. But
what made these bullets particularly disturbing was their type. They
were rip bullets manufactured by G two Research, designed for

(15:29):
a maximum damage, each round separated into eight razorlike fragments
called trocars, shredding through flesh upon impact. As previously mentioned,
much of the trauma to the lower part of Calvin's
face had occurred before his death, while some of his
other injuries were perry mortem, meaning that happened around the

(15:49):
time that he died. But there was something else. Calvin
had no injuries to his hands, no defensive wounds. If
his killer had beaten him first, been signs of a struggle. Instead,
the evidence suggested something even more chilling. Kelvin was shot first,
then dragged to the cellar stairs and thrown down while

(16:10):
still alive. His face likely smashed against the steps as
he tumbled down, a theory supported by the blood on
the stairs and the tooth found beneath him. Pam and
Et had suffered a different fate. Both have been killed
with twenty two caliber bullets, each sustaining gunshot wounds to
the brain. In Pam's case, there was also a bullet

(16:32):
lodged in her heart. Shockingly, within just a few days
of their murders, police turned the crime scene back over
to the families. Given the sheer's size and clutter of
Calvin and Pam's house, it seemed impossible that investigators had
processed everything thoroughly, and soon it became clear that they hadn't. Matt, Calvin,

(16:53):
and Pam's son traveled home Louisville to help clean out
the house. Joined by Calvin's sister Diana, it was a
daunting task, one that would take months. A week or
so after the murders, as they worked alongside their friend Linda,
they began uncovering evidence that police had somehow overlooked. Linda
was sweeping the kitchen when she spotted something small on

(17:15):
the floor, a single twenty two caliber bullet. Alarmed, they
called the police, who returned to collect it. When they
tested the area where the bullet was found, they also
detected traces of Pam's blood. Both the bullet and the
blood had been missed during the initial investigation. But that
wasn't the most shocking discovery. That same day, Diane made

(17:37):
a fine that would send chills down everyone's spine. On
the top shelf of the built in bookcase in the foyer,
the same place where Calvin's wallet and phone had been found,
she spotted something small and metallic. When she picked it up,
she realized it was a military dog tag. Assuming it
was her brother's dog tag, she clutched it to her

(17:58):
chest and handed it to Man, but when Matt looked
at it, his face changed. Ant Dianne, this isn't my
dad's dog tag. Engraved on the tag was the name
Kit Martin. It was a baffling discovery. If Kit had
been the killer, would he really have left something so
incriminating behind and was it even a real dog tag?

(18:20):
Military dog tags don't use nicknames, meaning it should have
said Christian Martin, not Kit Martin. Not only that, but
it was hanging from a string rather than the standard
issue metal chain. Most soldiers would tell you their dog
tags would never be hung from a string. One could
argue that the tag was planted after the fact, but

(18:41):
police photos from their initial search showed the string dangling
from the shelf. It had been there all along. The
police had just failed to notice it.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
This is one of the most bizarre things about this
case is this dog tag. First of all, the fact
that police didn't find it, like it was sitting right
up next to Calvin's wallet and fun so they and
they found his wallet and phone, but this dog tag
sitting right next to it they just ignored. Second, who, like,
why would Kit Martin leave his dog tag there if

(19:11):
he was the killer? It just makes no sense unless
he was playing some really advanced game of three D
chess and left it there thinking no one would ever
believe I would I would leave it there right.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
Well, like you said, it was on a string, and
it didn't have his birth name on it. It's all
very strange. Can you You can probably have a dog
tag made.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
Oh yeah, you can go anywhere on the internet and
get a dog.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Tag, But is it the same you know, quality gauge
metal and you know, the same font and all that.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure you can get I'm
sure there's a lot of different types of dog tags
you can get made. But yeah, it's just very strange,
just strange.

Speaker 1 (19:46):
Five months later, yet another critical piece of evidence surfaced.
While continuing to clean that house. Must have been something
Calvin was kind of a horder. Diane found a spent
forty five caliber shell casing on the back porch. It
had been tucked away in a corner, hidden beneath a
pile of wood, just spet from the cellar door. What

(20:06):
Calvin's body had been dumped.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
Again, It's just crazy that the police turned the house
back over in three days after the investigation and this
was found not very far from where his body was,
So it's just kind of crazy that they didn't they
didn't take more time with the scene.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
It sounds like maybe the police were frustrated by the
scene and knew that any evidence would be really hard
to find, And it sounds like maybe it wasn't the
best kept house, and yeah, the dirt and the grime
and the doghare and whatever.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
Yeah, it seems like they just kind of gave up.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Before shifting our attention back to Kit's court martial trial,
Another shocking twist unfolded in the weeks following the murders.
On December thirty first, just a month after the killings,
Joan Harmon walked into an AT and T store with
her kids in an iPhone in hand. She approached an
employee and asked if he could help unlock the device.
She didn't have the pass code. The employee took the

(21:01):
phone to the back to check its details. What he
found made his stomach drop. The phone belonged to Pamela Phillips.
He recognized her name from the news and immediately called
the police. Meanwhile, back in the store, the security camera
captured Joane's reaction as soon as the employee returned and
informed her that the phone belonged to our murder victim

(21:22):
and that the police were on their way. She quickly
gathered her children and hurried out of the store. Later,
Joan called the officer who had picked up the phone,
offering an explanation. She claimed that her son had found
the phone several days earlier in their front yard next
to a tree. She had admitted that she had tried
multiple times to guess the passcode, triggering a factory reset,

(21:45):
completely wiping any potential evidence that might have been on it.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Did you know that if you put the wrong passcode
in I think it's ten times in a row, you
have the option to reset the phone to its factory settings.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
That's insane, I know, I did not know that. It's
still the case, I believe so, So then can you
gain possession of the phone? Well, I guess it still
has the same number though. Yeah, this discovery should have
sent up major red flags in the investigation. How did
Pam's phone end up in Joan Harmon's hands, and why
was Joan so desperate to gain access to it? Yet,

(22:19):
instead of digging deeper, police did little more than drive
by her house to confirm that yes, there was in
fact to tree in her front yard. Then they simply
accepted her story and moved on. Holy cow, I know,
it's just just crazy. Like if you find a phone,
you don't try to open it, you hand it over
to the police, especially if it's, you know, a murder

(22:41):
victim's phone.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
Well, if her story is true, she didn't know it
was a murder victim's phone, but still, why would you
try to open a phone, you know, multiple times? And
it just it doesn't make sense, And the fact that
the police didn't follow up on it also doesn't make sense.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
Right, We'll be back after a break.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
So the investigation into the murders kept going on, but
in the meantime, Kit's court martial trial finally began in
May of twenty sixteen. Given the option of having his
fate decided by a military judge or a panel of
eight peers, Kit chose the latter.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
Calvin wasn't necessarily an important witness like his testimony. Not
having his testimony do you think that would change the case.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
I don't think it would change it that much because
the only thing he was really going to testify to
is the fact that he was there when Joan found
the classified materials, so it gave a corroboration to that.
But in Kit's mind, he'll say that he wanted Calvin
there because Calvin also said that he never saw any
abuse of the kids, and he never witnessed anything. Joan

(23:51):
never said anything to him about it. Without external corroboration
of Joan's abuse allegations, the prosecution leaned heavily on a
month's behind closed Doors narrative, portraying Kit as someone who
appeared respectable in public but was abusive in private. Joan
and her children once again testified repeated their claims of abuse. However,

(24:13):
inconsistencies emerged between their testimony at this trial and what
they had previously stated at the EPO hearing and the
Article thirty two hearing. Kit's defense team countered with witnesses
who attested to his good character and some who told
of Joan's history of dishonesty. Among them were Jones's first husband,
Carlos Guerra, and Michael Atkins, who was Elijah's father, who

(24:37):
was very much alive despite Jones's past claim that he
had been decapitated. The trial concluded on Friday, March thirteenth,
just one day before Kit's daughter, Mackenzie's wedding. He could
only hope that he could be there for her big day.
Unlike civilian criminal trials, military court martial decisions are made
by panel members casting secret ballots. A guilt verdict requires

(25:01):
a two thirds majority. Kit was acquitted of the most
serious charges, including sexual assault, child rape, aggravator assault, and
threats of murder. However, he was found guilty on two
counts of mishandling classified information and two counts of simple assault,
specifically related to the injuries on Elijah's back that Joan

(25:22):
had photographs of. While the verdict was largely in Kit's favor,
it marked the end of his military career. His sentence
included a formal reprimand forfeiture of all pay and allowances,
ninety days of confinement, and dismissal from the army. Kit
requested permission to attend his daughter's wedding before serving his sentence,

(25:44):
but the judge denied his request. Instead, he was immediately
shackled and taken into custody. Oh boy, seems really harsh, Like, yeah,
it was only a ninety day sentence. It wasn't like
he was in prison for life. Why not let him
take one more day and go to his daughter's wedding.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Probably why you're not a judge.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
Probably why Kit tried to stay optimistic during his ninety
day incarceration. His military career was over, but he still
had Laura. While he was in prison, she had relocated
to Roanoke, North Carolina, and when he was released, he
joined her there. The investigation into the murders of Pamela
and Calvin Phillips and ed Danzero remained open, but Kit

(26:24):
saw no reason to believe that he would be charged.
He spent the following year working with the National Coalition
for Men, advocating for soldiers that he believed had been
wrongfully convicted due to false testimony. His work took him
between North Carolina and Washington, d c. Where he met
with senators and members of Congress to discuss the consequences

(26:44):
of politically motivated reforms to the Uniform Code of Military Justice,
particularly regarding sexual assault cases. Meanwhile, he and Laura bought
an old house that he spent his free time renovating.
In twenty seventeen, Kit learned of a growing pilot shortage.
Airlines were actively seeking military trained pilots, and those with

(27:05):
experience could quickly advance from first officer to captain. Although
Kit was already licensed to fly rotor wing aircraft or helicopters,
he needed additional training to qualify for fixed wing aircraft.
He dedicated ten months to training before securing a job
with Pacific Southwest Airlines, a regional carrier operating under American Airlines.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
When Kit went to apply for jobs after his court
martial and jail time was up, do you think that
he had to devulge that information on his application with
the airlines?

Speaker 2 (27:40):
It's a really good question. Yeah. I don't know if, like,
when you have a conviction like that under military law,
if that carries out, if you have to.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Is your military life separate from civilian life?

Speaker 2 (27:51):
Yeah, I'm not sure. You would think that if you
were applying for a job as a pilot, if you
had a felony on your record or something serious like assault,
that that would probably prohibit you from being hired. But
I'm not sure. As months turned into years without an arrest,
Matt Phillips and his aunt Diane refused to let the
case fade into obscurity. They relentlessly pressured law enforcement and

(28:15):
politicians demanding justice. Their efforts were tireless. They made frequent
television appearances, erected billboards advertising a one hundred thousand dollars reward,
They wrote letters, They directly lobbied Kentucky Attorney General Andy
Basheer to take action. Their persistence finally paid off. In
May twenty eighteen, the district attorney took the case to

(28:38):
a grand jury, seeking an indictment against Kit Martin. The
prosecution's case hinged on a single witness, Detective Scott Smith,
the lead investigator. Smith testified that Kit had a clear
motive to prevent Calvin Phillips from testifying at his upcoming
court martial. He presented ballistics evidence, claiming that bullets and

(28:59):
shell casings found that the crime scene could be traced
back to Kit's firearms. He also cited cell phone data,
which according to him, placed Kit's phone on Rosetown Road
around the same time that Pam's car was set on
fire in the early morning hours. That was all it
took the grand jury handed down an indictment. There was

(29:19):
just one problem. Much of Smith's testimony was misleading, and
in some cases it was flat out false.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
The day after the grand jury indictment. Kit Martin was
on a layover in Louisville, midway through a four day
trip for work. Meanwhile, Acrosstown, Matt Phillips received a dramatic
and unsettling phone call from the Attorney General's office late
that night. The voice on the other end wasted no time. Quote,
you need to leave your house in the next thirty seconds.

(29:49):
Get on the highway, go in a direction you don't
normally take. Once you're in a car, call me back.
Understandably shaken, Matt grabbed his computer, phone charger and a
handgun before rushing out the door. When he called back,
he was told the moment had finally come. Kit Martin
was about to be arrested. Since Kit was in Louisville,

(30:12):
authorities claim they were concerned for Matt's safety. Taking no chances,
Matt drove all the way to Cincinnati and checked into
a hotel for the night. Do you think he stopped
at Skyline Chili? Perhaps in an absurd overreaction. The Attorney
General's office knew exactly where Kit was and why he
was in Louisville for work, just like any other routine layover.

(30:35):
There was no indication that he posed any danger to
Matt Phillips, a man he didn't even know. But the
spectacle didn't stop there. Rather than making a quiet, straightforward arrest,
authorities orchestrated a dramatic takedown. Multiple officers descended on Muhammad
Ali International Airport, publicly handcuffing Kit in front of his

(30:58):
crew members and passenger. Attorney General Andy Basheer defended the decision,
claiming that a arresting Kit at the airport was the
safest option for both officers and the public, but the
reasoning didn't hold up. Instead, the move seemed more like
political theater, especially considering Basher was in the middle of

(31:18):
a gubernatorial campaign with a primary election just two weeks away,
and if that was the goal, it worked. The media
latched onto the story, amplifying it with sensational headlines. The
public took notice, and in November twenty nineteen, Andy Basheer
was elected as Kentucky's next governor.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
The whole thing makes me so irritated, like the fact
that they called Calvin's son and got him in a
panic because kid's going to come over and kill you
when there's just no evidence to show that, and they
could have been watching Kit the whole time anyway. So yeah,
the whole thing is just very irritating.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
Kit Martin was slept with a staggering three million dollar
cash bond. I don't know if I ever heard one
that high, one million dollars for each victim. His family
initially assumed they'd need to come up with about ten
percent of that amount to secure his release before trial,
but the judge had other plans. By setting it as

(32:18):
a cash bond, he ensured they would need the full
three million dollars, an impossible sum. Kit would remain behind
bars until his day in court. When Kit's attorney got
his hands on the grand jury testimony from Detective Scott Smith,
he was furious. The most damning piece of evidence cell
phone location data. Smith had testified that Kit's phone was

(32:42):
on Rosetown Road at two am, the exact time Pam's
car was set on fire. That Smith claimed placed Kit
at the scene. But there was just one problem. The
claim was completely false. Kit's legal team brought in a
cell phone expert to analyze the data and the findings
or damning not for Kit, but for detective Smith. In

(33:04):
his report, the expert concluded, my review of the above
information shows that Lieutenant Smith's grand jury testimony is often
not supported by the cast reports, is misleading, and it
relates to the actual data, contradicts the data, and excludes
evidence in the report which refutes his testimony. Any statements

(33:27):
or claims that a device had to be in a
very specific location, narrow area, or along a particular roadway
are unfounded and shown a distinct lack of knowledge, understanding,
or honesty about the underlying data. In reality, Pembroke was
a rural area with few cell phone towers, making precise

(33:48):
location tracking nearly impossible. At best, the data could place
Kit's phone within a fifty to sixty mile radius, nowhere
near the pinpoint accuracy that Smith had claimed.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
So the whole like the distance between the crime scene
where Calvin, Pamela, and Edward killed and where Pam's car
was found was about two miles, and so Detective Smith
is basically testifying that, oh yeah, Kit's phone was exactly
here where the car was burning, when there was really
no way.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
To get himpling it to that accuracy exactly. Armed with
this evidence, Kit's attorney was confident he had grounds to
get the case dismissed. He filed emotion arguing that the
indictment was based on false testimony, but the judge wasn't swayed.
He ruled that the cell phone evidence was just one
piece of the grand jury's decision. Other evidence had been

(34:39):
presented as well, but the truth was the cell phone
data had been the linchpin of the case, and without it,
the foundation of the indictment was weak.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
I did read that Detective Smith later agreed that his
testimony was incorrect, but he basically said, oh, I just
made a mistake or I misunderstood the data.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
I think self data is like a lot of the
other evidence that we have in these cases, like blood
spatter and you know, just any number of evidence, like
some DNA testing. It.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
It's just it can be so confused that it's so hard.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
And it's still a relatively new science. So yeah, I
can understand why that's problematic evidence. Yeah. As the trial
date loomed, prosecutors made Kit martin and offer plead guilty
to three counts of conspiracy to commit murder, and he'd
receive a sentence of five to thirteen years with immediate
parole eligibility. He could potentially walk free much sooner. Kit

(35:41):
didn't hesitate he turned it down. His attorney saw the
deal for what it was a sign that the prosecution
wasn't confident in their case. If they truly believed Kit
was a triple murderer, why offer him a sentence that
could put him back on the streets in just a
few years. And the lead up to the trial, two
key developments unfolded. First, Joan and Elijah, who had once

(36:04):
been central figures in Kit's life, were both subpoenaed to testify,
but through their attorneys, they informed the court that they
planned to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights against self incrimination.
Oh that's frustrating. Yeah, this presented a strategic opportunity for
Kit's defense. The judge could force them to take the stand,

(36:24):
where they'd have to invoke the Fifth in front of
the jury. That kind of moment could be powerful. Seeing
two potential suspects refused to testify might plant serious doubt
in the juror's minds and bolster KITT's alternative perpetrator defense.
But there was another option. The judge could simply excuse
them from testifying altogether, robbing the defense of a crucial moment.

(36:48):
That's exactly what he did. Then came another major blow
to Kit's case, Judge Atkins ruled that four witnesses could
testify that just weeks before his murder, Calvin or Pam
Phillips had told them that if anything happened to them,
authorities should look at Kit Martin. Kit's defense immediately objected.

(37:09):
These were hearsay statements, which are generally inadmissible in court,
but there are exceptions. One of them applies if the
defendant caused the death of the person who made the statement.
Kit's lawyers argued that the prosecution had no evidence of
any direct threats from Kit to Kelvin, so the hearsay
shouldn't be allowed. The judge disagreed the testimony would be allowed.

(37:34):
With two major pre trial rulings going against them, Kit's
defense team knew they were in for an uphill battle.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Kit's trial finally began in June twenty twenty one. To
break things down clearly, let's take a closer look at
four key areas of evidence. Ballistics, cell phone data, hearsay testimony,
and Kit's own security camera footage. Let's start with the
ballistics evidence. This is a crucial element in the prosecution's case.

(38:02):
If you recall Calvin Phillips was killed with a forty
five caliber weapon using specialized rip bullets designed for maximum damage.
A single forty five caliber shell casing was later found
on the back porch five months after the murders.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Keep in mind, I don't know much about weapons, but
these rip bullets are they accessible to the public? This
isn't a military very inaccessible.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
Yeah, but they're not common at all, and no bullets
of that type were found in Kit's housor in his
truck or anywhere. Investigators compared the recovered bullets and the
bullet fragments from bullets test fired from Kit's clock forty five.
The results no match. The markings on the evidence bullets
were noticeably different from those fired from Kit's gun. However,

(38:49):
the differences weren't strong enough to completely rule out his
gun either. Then there was the shell casing found months later.
This was a different story. Ballistics confirmed that the casing
was definitively fired from Kit's clock. Prosecutors seized on this detail,
calling it the next best thing to a smoking gun,
clear proof that Kit's weapon had been used at the

(39:11):
crime scene, but there were serious problems with that theory. First,
the shell casing was found five months after the murders,
which that alone raises doubts. Was it overlooked for months
or was it potentially planted to frame Kit? Joan had
access to Kit's clock. Kit kept the gun in his
truck and he believed that Joan knew that and had

(39:33):
access to it around the time of the murders. Also,
Kit and Joan had fired the block at Calvin's house before,
if you remember in part one we talked about Calvin
had a backyard shooting range and had even hosted a
concealed carry class that Joan attended using Kit's clock, So
it's entirely possible that shell casings from Kit's gun were

(39:55):
left on the property long before the murders. There was
also a he technical detail that contradicted the prosecution's claim.
The recovered shellcasing had a brass primer, but the rip
bullets used to kill Calvin were normally manufactured with a
nickel primer, so it's very subtle detail. But the shell

(40:16):
casing that was found likely came from a different type
of bullet than the ones that killed Calvin, so it's
very possible that the shellcasing and the bullet were two
separate things. Does that make sense.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
Calvin had been shot five times, right, and how many
of the bullets were found or casings were found from
those five shots.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
The only shellcasing that was found was this one that
was found five months later. I don't know how many
bullets were found. I know at least some bullets were
found from that from him being.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Shot, and we think that he was shot outside.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
I think so at least some of the times he
was shot were outside. I think there was one bullet
found in the basement, so he was at least shot
once after being leave in the cellar. Yet correct. Right,
Let's shift gears to the murders of Pamela Phillips and
at Danzero because those involved a completely different weapon, a
twenty two caliber gun. So Kit did own three twenty

(41:14):
two caliber firearms. Investigators test fired rounds from each and
compared them to the bullets found at the crime scene.
Their conclusion was they couldn't rule out that Kit's guns
were the murder weapon. Now that might sound damning, but
in reality it didn't really mean anything. The bullets had
markings that were typical of most twenty two caliber guns,

(41:35):
which means that they could have come from one of
Kit's or from almost any other twenty two caliber firearm.
So while the prosecution framed the ballistics evidence as incriminating,
a closer look revealed a murky, inconclusive picture. Now let's
talk about the cell phone data, which was another key
piece of evidence that at first glance seemed to work

(41:57):
against Kit, but when you examine it closely, had actually
pointed in his favor. We've already discussed how Detective Smith
misled the grand jury, whether intentionally or not. He testified
that KITT's phone could be placed on Rosetown Road at
two am, right when Pamela Phillips's car was set on fire,
but that was completely false. Given the limited number of

(42:19):
cell towers in rural Pembroke, it was impossible to pinpoint
a phone's exact location with any degree of accuracy, so
the prosecution's claim simply wasn't supported by the data. Then
there was another critical detail, one that should have helped
Kit's defense. Remember how pam Phillip's phone turned up in
Joan's possession. While Joan claimed her son had found it

(42:42):
in their yard, the police didn't question her story. They
believed that Kit must have tossed it there. As he
drove by, possibly to frame her. If that were true,
it meant that Kit had possession of both his own
phone and Pam's phone up until whenever he allegedly threw
hers into Jones Yard, But the location data told a

(43:03):
different story. On November nineteenth, the day after the murders,
both Kit's and Pam's phones were turned on and pinging
off of cell phone towers. However, they moved in completely
different directions At the same time. Kit's phone was traveling
south from Pembroke to Fort Campbell, where he worked. Pam's phone,

(43:23):
on the other hand, was heading northeast, first connecting two
towers in Elkton and then Russellville. So that's a big
problem for the prosecution's theory because Kit couldn't be in
two places at once. So this was clear objective evidence
that someone else had possession of Pam's phone after the murders,
and yet instead of investigating that lead, prosecutors doubled down

(43:45):
on their case against Kit.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
Where was Laura Spencer at the time of the murders.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
When Calvin was killed in the morning, Laura was at work.
She had left early that morning because she had clinicals.
She taught nursing. Soul is definitely gone at that point
in time. She came home in the afternoon. She and
Kit were together that afternoon. They both told the story
that they had dinner together. It was their anniversary, so

(44:13):
they spent some special time together. And then she and
Kit were home that night as well. When Pam's body
or Pam's car was burned.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
Two people would have been necessary for these murders to
take place. I would assume. I think that's why I'm
asking about Laura. Could she have been an accomplice right now?

Speaker 2 (44:32):
It's a good question.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
And also Pam's phone was actively moving.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
Right the day after the murders. We'll be back after
a break.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
The hearsay testimony presented a trial didn't look great for Kit.
The prosecution brought forward four witnesses who claimed that just
weeks before their deaths, Calvin and Pam had told them,
if anything what happens to us, the police should take
a close look at Kit Martin. One of the most
compelling witnesses was Pam's coworker, Penny Case. She recalled a

(45:10):
conversation in which she asked Pam why she and Calvin
weren't planning to visit her family in Michigan for Thanksgiving.
According to Penny, Pam's response was chilling. Quote call and
I are not going to leave the house at the
same time. We're afraid if we do, we'll come back
and Kit will be in our house waiting for us.
Penny startled, pressed further, do you really think Kit would

(45:32):
hurt you? Pam's replied, yes, I do. If anything happens
to us, tell the police. All they need to do
is look at that Yahoo across the street. The testimony
certainly painted Kit in a bad light, but keep in
mind that none of the witnesses recalled Pam or a
Calvin mentioning any specific threats from Kit. They testified only

(45:53):
to Calvin and Pam's fears, not to anything Kit had
actually said or done. Also, the timing of these statements
was significant. They were made shortly after private investigator Mary
Martin's visited Calvin for the second time. Meeting Calvin knew
that Kit was looking into his potential court martial testimony

(46:14):
and his relationship with Joan. This raised an important question.
Were Calvin and Pam genuinely afraid of Kit or were
they reacting to the legal and personal entanglements between them,
so Calvin and Pam were still friendly with Joan.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
I honestly don't know the nature of Joan's relationship with Pam.
She and Calvin were very close, Like we said, there
were rumors around town that they were having an affair,
and so I think that she and Calvin were still
friendly at this time, but I don't know for sure.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
One of the key points of contention at trial was
Kit's timeline and how his home securities camera factored into it.
Kit had two security cameras, one on the back porch
where which recorded any movement in or out through the
rear of the house, and one facing the driveway, which
also captured part of the Phillips driveway across the street. However,

(47:11):
on the day of the murders, the driveway camera wasn't working.
Kit later discovered that the wire had been cut, though
it was never proven who was responsible. Kit did not
have a camera covering his front door, and that door
itself became a major issue during the trial. Kit claimed
that his front door was practically inoperable. He explained that

(47:34):
when he moved into the house, it had been sitting
vacant for two years and the wooden door frame had warped.
In an effort to fix it over time, he had
installed multiple dead bolt locks, used a door stop to
keep the door straight, and nail parts of the door
into place, and wedged insulation around it. According to Kit,

(47:55):
this maid using the front door nearly impossible, which was
critical to his defense because if he couldn't use the
front door or the front windows, which she said were
also blocked, then he couldn't have left the house to
commit the murders without being seen on his security camera.
The prosecution dismissed Kit's claims as nonsense, but they never

(48:17):
actually proved that the door was functional. They presented no
video or photos of the door being used. There was
no testimony about the door from investigators who searched Kit's
house the day after the murders, and no physical evidence
contradicting Kit's claims. It wasn't just Kit's word either. A
contractor who worked on Kit's home testified that the front

(48:40):
door was extremely difficult to open. Laura Enerson Austin also
confirmed that in the time they lived there, they never
saw anyone use the front door. With that in mind,
let's examine the timeline of events starting with the morning
of November eighteenth. We know that Calvin was killed somewhere
between six thirty am and ten fifty am. Kit had

(49:03):
a window of opportunity between seven twenty three am and
nine to eleven AM when he was home alone. But
Kit's security camera never recorded him leaving the house during
that time. Did the security camera show him leaving at
some point during the.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
Day, Yeah, I mean the camera showed him when he
left for work at nine to eleven AM. So all
the other times that we can talk about with Kit
coming and going, we're all captured on that back door
security camera.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
Well, next, let's take the evening of November eighteenth. Pam
was likely killed around five thirty PM while she was
on the phone with Marlen. The rock Ed was probably
killed around the same time or shortly after. At five
twenty three pm, Laura's kids left for dinner at Chick
fil A, leaving Laura and Kit home alone to celebrate
their anniversary. For Kits to have killed Pam and Ed,

(49:56):
he would have had to leave through the front door,
which we already talked to was basically unusable, and he
would have had to sneak out without Laura noticing and
be gone for at least thirty to forty minutes unless
Laura was with him.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Yeah, if Kit was the killer and Laura was his accomplice,
then all you could throw all of this out the window.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Laura testified that Kit was with her all evening, making dinner,
spending special time together because it was rare for them
to be home alone without the kids and watching TV. Additionally,
we know that Pam's car was moved by the killer
between six pm and seven pm. Marlene le Rock saw
the car parked facing the house at six pm. When
she returned at seven pm, the car the car had

(50:39):
been turned around. She's very observed. I don't know if
I would notice our neighbor's car being I think she
was on alert.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
Because she was, she could figure she could tell something
with weird girls, the phone call and the door was open,
and I think she This is a little bit of
an aside, but I think she became very close to
being the fourth victim. So I think she like because
she stepped into the house at one point when the
killer was probably there, and then she backed out and
decided not to But yeah, she knew the timeline of one.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
Yeah, that's that is scary. This means the killer had
to have been gone for at least thirty minutes, which
contradict Laura's testimony that Kit was home with her the
entire time. Lastly, let's look at the early morning hours
of the nineteenth when Pam's car was set ablaze. We
know the fire on Rosetown Road was set around one
forty five am. The prosecution's examination of Kit's phone showed

(51:33):
that before going to bed, he had set an alarm
for one ten am. At first glance, that looks really
bad for Kit. Was he setting the alarm so he
could go dispose of the bodies. Kit's explanation is that
he had a kerosene heater that he had just started
using for this season. Their regular propane heat didn't cut

(51:54):
it during the colder months. When using the kerosene heater,
he would get up at least once a night to
check on it. Laura confirmed in her testimony that Kit
normally did this, and the weather had gotten colder in
the days leading up to November eighteenth, so it would
make sense that he was starting to use the kerosene
heater at that point. Laura said that she remembered Kit

(52:16):
getting up when his alarm went off at one ten am.
She also said that when she got up around two
am to use the restroom, she saw Kit in the den,
either watching TV or on his computer. Even if her
time estimate was off by fifteen minutes. Either way, Kit
still couldn't have been out on Rosetown Road setting fire
to the car. It is kind of weird, though, that

(52:38):
he was up on his computer at two am.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Well, I mean, he got up to check on the
kerosene heater and then apparently he couldn't get back to
sleep or decided just to chill out for a bit
before going back to bed.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
The prosecution argued that Kit could have sneaked out to
commit the murders and later burned Pam's car, but in
their versions of events, he would have to do it
without noticing and by using the front door, which several
people said was unusable, or, as.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
You pointed out, that Laura could have been an accomplice
and could have been lying for him as well.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
While the timeline was an airtight proof of Kit's innocence,
it raised serious doubts about whether he could have committed
the crimes as alleged. One more quick thing about the
evidence presented by the prosecution. There was no forensic evidence
other than the forty five shell casing found five months
after the fact that linked Kit Martin to the crime scene.

(53:30):
None of his DNA was found. Despite lab testing of
several samples taking at the crime scene and from a
Danzero's car, most of the samples taken at the crime
scene could be identified as belonging to the victims. There
was one sample that showed a major DNA profile match
to Pam and a minor DNA profile for an unknown person. Pam,

(53:54):
at Kelvin, and Kitt were all excluded from that sample.
There were hairs found AD's car that were deemed microscopically
similar to Kit's hair, but none that had enough DNA
for testing, and labeling a hare as microscopically similar is
essentially meaningless. Many people have hair with similar microscopic characteristics.

(54:19):
No testing was done to compare any samples to other
potential suspects, such as Joan or people close to Joan,
like her boyfriend or her son.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Lisa Petrie, the manager of the diner where Joan worked,
testified that Joan was acting unusually excited the day after
the murders. According to Lisa Joan couldn't stop talking about
the case. She was strangely happy, almost obsessed with it.
One particular comment stood out to Lisa. Joan said that
whoever had killed Calvin had let his pet snakes loose

(54:52):
in the house. This was an especially bizarre statement because
nothing about snakes had been reported in the news, and
the police report made no mention of snakes. Lisa Petrie
was so unnerved by Joan's behavior and her comments that
she called Detective Scott Smith to report it. Smith spoke
to her and noted that there were no pet snakes

(55:13):
inside the residence or any evidence that there had been
snakes inside the residence. Then, like so many other things
in this case that didn't support Kit Martin's guilt, Smith
dropped it and didn't go digging any further. There actually
was evidence that Calvin kept snakes, most likely in the
shed behind his house or in his warehouse. His friend

(55:33):
Marlene Laroque said that Calvin kept venomous snakes as a
security measure to deter intruders. Kit also remembered Joan saying
something about Calvin snakes at some point, So what happened
to the snakes and why would Joan say that there
was never any other mention of snakes, Like no one
ever said anything about finding any snakes or anything. So

(55:54):
if there were snakes, they were set loose and they
just vanished into the wilderness.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
So there was no evidence that snakes had lived in
the house. There weren't snake cages or.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
No, like I said. If he did have snakes, they
were probably in his warehouse or in the shed behind
his house. But I never heard anything about any evidence
of like snake cages or anything. Not long after the murders,
Lisa and the owner of the diner finally decided to
fire Joan. They had wanted to for a long time,
but they were afraid that she would retaliate. They had

(56:25):
grown fed up with her rudeness to customers and coworkers,
and her overt flirtation with male customers in an attempt
to get bigger tips. When they finally fired her, they
were so concerned about her reaction that they had a
police officer on site, worried that she might do something
erratic or dangerous. At the time of the murders, Jones's

(56:45):
boyfriend was William Stokes, a man with two brothers in
law enforcement. One brother was a volunteer firefighter who was
among the first on the scene when Pam's car was
found burned. The other brother was a Christian County sheriff's
deputy who had been at both crime scenes. Kit's defense
team issued a subpoena for William Stokes to testify. However,

(57:07):
the private investigator hired to serve him was unable to
locate him, and so the subpoena was never delivered. The
defense closed their case with Kit taking the stand in
his own defense. He wanted the jury to hear directly
from him, hoping to convince them that the alleged motive
for the crime that he wanted to stop Calvin from
testifying at his court martial was simply not true. According

(57:31):
to Kit, Calvin's testimony would have actually helped his case,
not heard it. Calvin had been close to Joan, yet
he had never mentioned anything about her claims of abuse,
sexual assault, or molestation. To reinforce this point, KITT's court
martial defense team had even subpoenaed Calvin to ensure that
he would testify. Why would I go through the trouble

(57:51):
of subpoenaing him, Kit argued, only to turn round and
kill him. After seven hours of deliberation, the jury returned
with their vertise guilty on all counts the following day.
During the penalty phase, they recommended life in prison without
the possibility of parole, a sentence that the judge upheld.

(58:12):
Following the verdict, Kit issued a final statement quote, I've
always been willing to give my life for my country,
and now they have taken it. Kit's defense team swiftly
filed an appeal, arguing multiple points of legal error. They
contended that the hearsay statements should never have been admitted,
that Joan and Elijah should have been compelled to testify,

(58:34):
and that key alternative perpetrator evidence had been unfairly excluded. Additionally,
they challenged the validity of the forty five caliber shell
casing found by Diana Phillips five months after the murders,
arguing that it should never have been allowed as evidence.
That last point raises serious concerns. Diana had reportedly failed

(58:56):
a polygraph test about discovering the shellcasing. While the exact
questions and her responses remain unknown, the fact that investigators
were skeptical enough to administer a polygraph and that she
failed cast stoubts on the integrity of that piece of evidence.
Diana and her nephew Matt had been pushing hard for
Kit's arrest, firmly believing that he was the killer. Could

(59:20):
they have planted the shellcasing themselves or did someone else
plan it and then tip them off to its location.
Diana had said that she found the shellcasing while cleaning,
but the security camera footage from when she found the
shellcasing Diana and Matt had installed security cameras after the murders.
The security camera shows her crawling around on the porch

(59:41):
on her hands and knees for thirteen minutes before finding
the shell casing. She wasn't cleaning, She was clearly looking
for something. The truth behind those questions remains a mystery. Ultimately,
the Kentucky Supreme Court denied Kit's appeal. However, two justices dissented,
calling the u evidence against him underwhelming. Although Kit was

(01:00:04):
already tried, convicted, and serving his sentence, some new evidence
arose in late twenty twenty three that Detective Smith said
further reinforced Kit's guilt. During a phone call from prison
with his sister, Kit asked her to recover a box
that he had hidden inside the stairs of the Raleigh,
North Carolina house that he had lived in after the murders.

(01:00:26):
He didn't tell his sister what was in the box,
but according to Detective Scott Smith, he was definitely urgent
that his sister find it before the house was sold.
Detectives flew to Raleigh and recovered the box, which they
said contained a twenty two caliber AR fifteen and a
silencer that fit both the AR fifteen and the Glock

(01:00:47):
forty five that prosecutors believed was used to kill Calvin Phillips.
This is an interesting find because one question has always
been how no one heard gunshots coming from the Phillips home.
While all the homes in that area aren't super close together,
they're also not very far apart. It's about one hundred
feet between Calvin and Pam's house and the house next door.

(01:01:09):
Calvin was killed on a Wednesday morning. Pam and Ed
killed Wednesday early evening, around five thirty or six, so
it's surprising that no one reported hearing gunshots, So a
silencer might help to explain that. Emilio Corsetti, who wrote
the book I Will Ruin You, which was my primary
source for this case. He's been a staunch advocate for

(01:01:30):
Kit Martin's innocence. When news of this new evidence came
out in twenty twenty four, he wrote a blog about it,
downplaying the significance of this so called bombshell. He teas
that quote, there are details about this new evidence that
I'm not ready to share just yet, that will be
done at the appropriate time and venue. Oh now, I

(01:01:51):
haven't seen any more from him on that topic since
that blog, which was almost a year ago is April
twenty twenty four. But even without these secret details he
claims to have, he makes some good points in the blog. First,
during Kit's trial, the prosecution was so sure that they
already had the twenty two caliber gun that killed Pam
and ed it was one of the three twenty two

(01:02:13):
caliber weapons that they had already seized from Kit. They said.
Now Detective Smith is telling the news media that he
believes this new weapon is the murder weapon, So it
raises the question were they not convinced they had the
right weapon before. Also, they said that Kit's glock forty
five was used to kill Calvin. Why would he put
one murder weapon in his gun safe where it would

(01:02:35):
be easily found, and the other one he would go
to great lengths to height under the stairwell of his
new home. It just doesn't make sense that he would
have two murder weapons and he would treat them both
so differently. Lastly, Detective Smith and others made a big
deal about Kit owning a silencer, saying there's no reason
for someone to own one, But in his blog, Corsetti

(01:02:56):
points out that silencers are perfectly legal in Kentucky and
that many people like to use them, either for hearing
protection or because they don't want to disturb people nearby.
And lastly, silencers don't completely eliminate the noise of a
gun firing. At best, they reduce it by twenty five
to thirty five percent. Detective Scott Smith, a key figure

(01:03:19):
in Kit's indictment and conviction, is a controversial figure. His
testimony before the grand jury, as one cell phone expert
put it, quote, shows a distinct lack of knowledge, understanding,
or honesty about the underlying data. In other words, he
either misrepresented the evidence or simply didn't understand it. Beyond that,
Smith failed to pursue multiple leads that didn't align with

(01:03:41):
the theory that Kit was the killer. He ignored Lisa
Petrie's report about Jones's giddy behavior after the murders and
her eerie comment about snakes. He overlooked the fact that
Joan had possession of Pam Phillip's phone, repeatedly trying to
guess the passcode until she wiped it clean. Smith made
a classic investigative error, whether intentional or not, of deciding

(01:04:04):
on a suspect first and dismissing evidence that pointed elsewhere.
Perhaps most shocking, during the two years he led the investigation,
Smith never once called Kit In for an interview. He
never asked him about the one ten am alarm or
any other key details. Even if he believed Kit was lying,
an interview could have opened new investigative paths. And there's more.

(01:04:28):
At the time, Smith was a defendant in a civil
case accusing him and other Kentucky State Police officers of
falsifying evidence and withholding exculpatory information in a separate case.
The outcome of that lawsuit remains unclear, but it raises
serious questions about Smith's credibility. We've talked a lot about

(01:04:48):
Kit Martin and Joan Harmon in this case, but I
want to make sure we don't forget about the victims.
Calvin Phillips filled his time on earth with a zest
for life and laughter. He traveled the world both in
the military as well as a private citizen, having seen
numerous continents, countries, and people all over the US and
the world, never ceasing to be amazed at nature, God's beauty,

(01:05:11):
or simple things that make the world great. Pamela Phillips
made the most of her time as a mother, coworker,
and citizen. She spent a near decade devoting her time
as a stay at home mom, and then re entered
the workforce with vigor. She was active in the community
and often spent her free time to better those in need.
Both were loving parents, active citizens, and extremely important to

(01:05:33):
those who knew them dearly and had the privilege to
call them family or friends. Edward Danzero was a gifted
jazz pianist who spent most of his life spreading love, music,
and warmth to all those around him. With a zeal
to live every day to its fullest, Ed could turn
each chance encounter into a genuine connection, which is why

(01:05:54):
he was known in the community as an extraordinary host, son, father, partner,
and friends ed never differentiated between anyone blood or not.
Rest in peace. Calvin Pam and ed Well said, just
a few updates I was able to find since the
trial ended. Kit's daughter Mackenzie, who was pregnant when she

(01:06:16):
testified at her dad's trial, gave birth to a girl
that she and her husband named Nora. James. Kit's son Chase,
has a three year old daughter named Riley. He owns
a landscaping business, and Kit's youngest son, Zachary, was studying
to be a veterinarian. Joan's first husband, Carlos Guerra, after
he got his citizenship, hired an attorney to file divorce

(01:06:38):
papers and attempt to gain custody of his girls, se
and Alma. The divorce was finalized in April of twenty sixteen,
and Carlos was granted visitation rights Joan and her kids.
They've kept a low profile on social media. In prison,
Kit teaches ged classes to other inmates. He's involved in

(01:06:58):
a Bible study group, and has been learning to play
the guitar, as well as taking violin lessons from other inmates.
In twenty twenty three, while still waiting for the outcome
of his appeal, he told Laura not to wait for
him any longer. Laura moved from North Carolina to Wisconsin,
where she is working as a travel nurse. There's an

(01:07:18):
active Facebook group called Free Christian Kit Martin that has
over two thousand members who believe that Kit is innocent.
There's a few things I want to talk about here. First,
do you think that Kit Martin committed these murders?

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
Well, I have a question for you. First, Okay, what
was your source?

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
My main source was a book called I Will Ruin
You by Emilio Corsetti.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
The third, do you think that mister Corsetti told the
story in he told the whole story? And was he
biased in telling the story?

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
So it's a good question. So, first of all, it
wasn't my only source. There was a dateline on the case.
I read a bunch of newspaper articles and other articles
about the case. Emilio Corsetti clearly believes that Kit is
innocent and was wrongfully convicted of this crime. But his
book is very well sourced. I believe it's very accurate.

(01:08:13):
So you can be accurate and still have a slant,
you know, or an opinion on the case. And he
clearly has an opinion. But I do believe that all
of the facts laid out in his book are accurate.

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
As the evidence you presented very well as did mister Corsetti.
I mean to me, it seems like there is definitely
reasonable doubt and I don't know if I would have
found him guilty, yeah, had I been a juror.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
But do you think, like, take that aside, the reasonable
doubt question, do you think that he did it? Though
in your heart of hearts, even if you think there
was reasonable doubt and you wouldn't have convicted him.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
Well, again, the evidence was presented to me, I don't
think so. Yeah, I think that you know, the the
evidence against you know, like Joan Joan, you know, knowing
his weapons, having access to his weapons. But then Joe
would have had to have had an accomplice, was you know,
was it her boyfriend? I would hope that she wouldn't

(01:09:05):
have gotten her son involved. I don't know what's your opinion.

Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
This case has been like a roller coaster foraly. When
I was researching it, like I started, the first thing
I did was watch the Dateline episode which leaned heavily on.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
Was Kit featured in the episode. He was Yeah, I
think I would like to hear his voice. I would
mean to see him. I haven't even seen a picture.
I don't know why. That always seems to me like
I could make a better.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
Yeah, he was featured in the episode. They did have
an interview with him, but they also featured heavily Calvin
and Pam's son Matt, and Calvin's sister Diana, who were
very clearly of the opinion that Kit they kick committed
the crime. So for me, it's been a roller coaster.
Like I say, when I started, I was like, oh, yeah,
he probably did it, And then as I read the book,
I was firmly convinced that he didn't do it. But

(01:09:51):
then the things that make me wonder are the hearsay evidence.
Does make me wonder a little bit. If four people
all testified to the fact that Calvin or Pam were said, Hey,
if anything happens to us, it was kitch.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
I am wondering what happened there, because you portrayed kid
as a pretty you know, like it seemed like he
was a good guy. He was pretty honest, right, court
martials seemed a little bit of a fiasco. Yeah, So yeah,
I am curious what happened with the relationship with Kelvin
and Pam.

Speaker 2 (01:10:20):
Right for them to be that afraid of him that
it feels like there's something there. The other thing, the
whole setting the alarm at one ten am. I know,
Kid has an explanation for it, and it sounds like
it is something he legitimately did get up and check
on the kerosene heater, But it does seem like quite
a coincidence that, oh yeah, he set his alarm for
one ten am and the bodies were moved at one

(01:10:43):
thirty or one forty five.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
Sitting an alarm at one ten instead of one is
a little strange. But I would think if your intent
was to go, you know, do this heinous act, would
you need to set an alarm? Would you be falling asleep?
Mm hmm, yeah, you know what I mean. Like, I
think he would be like nervous and like formulating in
your mind, like how am I going to do this?

(01:11:05):
I don't think you would need to set an alarm?

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
Yeah, I agree. And then the other thing that makes
me wonder a little bit is the fact that they
found this silencer and this gun that Kit apparently had
hidden and told his sister to go to go and
get it. I mean that that does seem suspicious to me.

Speaker 1 (01:11:22):
But if it was the murder weapon, why would he
have kept it?

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):
And where had it been? So did the police searched
his house?

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
They searched his house the day after the murders.

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
So yeah, I don't know necessary if it were the
murder weapon. I don't know. Know I'm sounding like I am,
I am biased, but I mean I would think if
it were the murder weapon, he would have disposed of
it and that had it moved and yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
But on the other hand, so those are the things
that make me wonder a little bit. But on the
other hand, like the dog tag found that just there's
no way if Kit Martin committed these murders that he's
going to leave a dog tag with his name on
it at the scene. That just doesn't make any sense.
That just seems so clearly planted by someone else.

Speaker 1 (01:12:02):
Yeah, And that wasn't even planted, it was it was
kind of left out in the open, Yeah, which is strange.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
That was left right by Calvin's wallet and his phone.
That and the fact that Pam or that Joan had
Pam's cell phone like that again makes no sense that
she had the cell phone, she brought it into the
AT and T store, she kind of freaked out.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
What do you think her intent was in bringing it
to the AT and T store rather than bringing it
to the police.

Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
The only thing I can think of is that she
really wanted to get in the phone to see what
was on it, or maybe to you know, get rid
of anything that was incriminating. And maybe she thought, oh,
if I take it into the AT and T store,
maybe they'll just be able to unlock it for me
without questioning it. And so yeah, that's the only thing
I can think of.

Speaker 1 (01:12:46):
But that whole thing, yeah, I would probably just just
dispose of it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
But yeah, it's very very baffling.

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):
I don't really see a motive to kill Pam and
Kelvin though, especially Pam, Like why would he come back
to kill Pam several hours later?

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
Yeah, that is also a very good question. Did the
person come back, whoever killed them, did they come back
to kill Pam or did they come back for another
reason and then Pam happened to come home and they
killed her because she walked in on them. The whole
thing is just baffling too. In one interview that I
saw with Kit. He sort of implied that Calvin was

(01:13:25):
involved in some shady stuff, and I didn't include any
of that in the story because there was no I
didn't find any you know, anything to basically, you know,
prove that statement. But there is a possibility that it
could have been a different person uninvolved with the whole
Kit Martin Joan Harmon thing. It could have been somebody
that had a beef with Calvin and killed them for

(01:13:48):
another reason. We just don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
So Colin was supposed to testify in two weeks time, right,
and I don't know. I just I just don't think
that it doesn't seem like a motive.

Speaker 2 (01:13:59):
It doesn't his testimony, even if he was going to
it just didn't seem like his testimony was that damning.
We knew that Kit had that wherever this classified information
came from, Kit was probably going to get in trouble
for it, because even if it was just accidentally taken home,
you can't do that if you're in the military. So
I don't know. I just don't know that Calvin's testimony

(01:14:21):
would have made much of a difference one way or another.

Speaker 1 (01:14:24):
Yeah, unless there was some other beef there that we
don't know about.

Speaker 2 (01:14:27):
Yeah, this case is definitely one of the most baffling
cases I've researched. I do firmly believe that he should
not have been convicted one way or another. I just
don't believe that the evidence was there to convict him
beyond a reasonable doubt. Thanks once again to Julie for
recommending this case. I really appreciate it because I really
loved researching this case.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
The other day, one of our wonderful listeners sent something
to me that was kind of funny. It was you
probably saw it. I posted it on Instagram. It was
like a new meme, like my emergency contact and it
shows your emergency contact doing something you know, silly or
you know, not very serious. And in this case, it
was like the husband was looking in the refrigerator for

(01:15:16):
a jar of I think it was ketch up. Yeah,
First of all, how do you spell ketch up?

Speaker 2 (01:15:22):
I spell it c A T s up?

Speaker 1 (01:15:26):
Do you?

Speaker 2 (01:15:27):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
It does go back and forth.

Speaker 2 (01:15:29):
It's the weirdest thing.

Speaker 1 (01:15:30):
It is so weird that there's two ways to spell ketch.

Speaker 2 (01:15:32):
Up I know and c AT s up. How is
that pronounced ketch up? That doesn't doesn't make any sense.
But any way, we digress.

Speaker 1 (01:15:38):
But it just maybe me left because this does happen
in our house all the time. What is it with men?
And why can't you find things? Because you, like, you're
supposed to be the hunters and gatherers in our society.

Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
Do you know why that is? I'll tell you why
it is. Okay, it's because you put the things away,
so you know where the things are because you put
them away.

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
But you live in this house and it's not like
I'm like, hm, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna trick
him and put things because this literally happened the other day, right,
and you were It's so funny because you always come
to like you're absolutely positive it's not there. Item, it's
not there. You always could be like this this look
of like I got her, this time I got her.

(01:16:21):
And it was you were looking for antistamyia. Yes, and
you're like me, you said you bought and I was like, okay,
I can tell you where it is or I will
go and show you. And and it was there, wasn't it?

Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
Yes, it was there.

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
But while I'm roasting oak ahead is because.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
So you you were aware of the antiistamine and the
fact that it was in a box right, right, I
was looking for something that was in a little tube
or a little like liquidy type form, So I was
looking for something completely different than the box that it
actually was intch That's fine, makes.

Speaker 1 (01:16:57):
Sense, yes, But I also want to say that I
lose things, Like I was laughing on myself last night
because I spent thirty percent of my day looking for
things that I personally have misplaced.

Speaker 2 (01:17:10):
That's true.

Speaker 1 (01:17:11):
So you never lose like an air pod, right, my phone?
You never lose your phone, And I am constantly losing
the things that I myself misplaced.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
That is true. Why do you think that is?

Speaker 1 (01:17:24):
I don't know it really it annoys the heck on.

Speaker 2 (01:17:27):
Me because you're searching for your AirPods for months before
you finally gave up.

Speaker 1 (01:17:32):
Right because I think I left them in a hotel
that we stayed at. That's the only thing that makes
sense because when I do, and it was driving me
banianas because I mean, I really loved my AirPod press
and actually you were kind enough the other day and
you're like, just buy a new pair, right, So that
was that. I really am so grateful that I have
them back. Yeah, and there's a feature now like that

(01:17:54):
I haven't turned it on. I shouldn't even tell you
that this exists because you always come up to me
when I have them on always, like you know, sim
listening to a podcast or whatever, and you know I
always get a little annoyed. But there's a new feature
where if you approach me, like my EarPods are supposed
to know turn off, but I haven't turned that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:12):
Interesting. I thought you were gonna say the feature was
like if the AirPods detect the voice of a really
important person like your husband, that they would just automatically
let that voice through and shut down. That would be cool.

Speaker 1 (01:18:25):
Sure, sure, that would be great. I also think it's funny,
like whenever someone else empties the dishwasher, like no one
ever wants to empty the dishwasher. I don't know why
that's everyone's least favorite word. It is. People always put
things back in the wrong spot, and you know, yeah,
and then I have to go hunting, So I know
that's kind of payback, right.

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
See that goes to what you said earlier, though you
are you are the one who knows where everything goes.
That's why you know where to find things, and none
of the rest of us too. So you're very particular
about things being in the right place.

Speaker 1 (01:18:57):
Not even that particular, but it's like, I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:19:01):
Think you're pretty particular. Before we go, I have to
give a shout out to a listener. Her name is
Olivia Rodrigo. I don't know for sure that she is
a listener, but I was talking to my friend Dave
the other day and he said that he heard that
Olivia Rodrigo listens to true crime podcasts to relax, so
I can only assume she listens to us.

Speaker 1 (01:19:19):
So well, then I need to give a shout out
to my best friend, Jennifer Garner. Thanks for listening, Jen,
We love you well.

Speaker 2 (01:19:24):
I wanted to tell Olivia, if you are listening, just
if you could give us a shout out on your
social media or something that would help us out a lot,
so that would be that would be cool.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
You are so strategic, you are a marketing genius, sir.

Speaker 2 (01:19:38):
I hear that she has a lot of follows.

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
Catch us like wildfire.

Speaker 2 (01:19:42):
Now we have a lot of followers. She does too,
so it's a good exchange of shout outs.

Speaker 1 (01:19:46):
I'm sure it's very similar. I'm sure we're really going
to boost her career. Yeah, yeah, I know she needs
some help there.

Speaker 2 (01:19:53):
Yes, well, thank you all so much for listening.

Speaker 1 (01:19:57):
We really appreciate, appreciate all of you, not just celebrity
so you're all celebrities to us, Yes you are. We
really do love hearing from you guys on especially like
if you're listening on Spotify. I love that new comment section,
so leave us a comment, Please follow, subscribe, like, or
find us on social media. Send us an email at
lovemarykilat gmail dot com. Until next time, don't kill your

(01:20:21):
wife and don't kill your husband,