Carol Kennedy and Steve DeMocker - Part 1

Carol Kennedy was a therapist, an artist, and a devoted mother of two. In July 2008, just five weeks after her divorce was finalized, she was brutally bludgeoned to death in her Prescott, Arizona home. Suspicion quickly turned to her ex-husband, Steve DeMocker — a charismatic but financially troubled stockbroker who was deep in debt. With no eyewitnesses, no murder weapon, and a complex trail of circumstantial evidence, prosecutors faced an uphill battle. What followed was a years-long legal saga filled with delays, courtroom drama, and emotional testimony. Through it all, Steve and Carol’s daughters stood by their father, convinced of his innocence — even as the state pushed for conviction.

Listen to part 2 today on Patreon.

Sources:

• Rother, Caitlin. “Then No One Can Have Her”, Pinnacle Books 
• https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/carol-kennedy-her-life-and-art/19/
• Dateline, S22 E27, The Mystery on Bridle Path
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwoX79f-4Cw 
• https://law.justia.com/cases/arizona/court-of-appeals-division-one-unpublished/2021/1-ca-cr-20-0456-prpc.html
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpOrJjbuIJw
• https://www.newspapers.com/image/324359553/ 
• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcFHkKbd_jTIwjryCNgXOfjTk0FzMX_Ka
• https://www.cbsnews.com/video/end-of-the-trail-2/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Tina, and I'm rich. Welcome to love, Mary
Kel just the facts.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
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

(00:40):
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,

(01:04):
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 Carol and asked her to
meet for coffee. Confused, she went. What he suggested next

(01:26):
was even more baffling. He wanted to get back together,
to start dating again, to remarry. Carol shut it down immediately.
She had been there, done that, and she had no
interest in making the same mistake twice. But Carol wouldn't
have long 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, Carol suddenly gasped,

(01:49):
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 oh no,
not again, she thought Carrol 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,

(02:12):
she reached 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

(02:35):
the prime suspect. 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

(02:55):
say it was a textbook investigation, Others say it was
anything but. And when the dust finally settled, one question lingered,
did they get it right? Virginia Carol 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

(03:17):
on to work for the US Postal Service, first as
a mail carrier and later as an auditor. Her mother, Ruth,
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.

(03:37):
She disliked her given name, Virginia, and when she started
elementary school, she made a decision from now on she
would be Carol. It's really young to decide that you
want to go by a different name and stick with it.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
It is I wish I would have thought of that
as a possibility.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
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 (03:58):
I call you Ritchie times. Did your family go along
with it? Did they call you Ricicia?

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah they did.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
That's very nice.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
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 Nashville in the
Miss Angenoux Contest, a pageant based on beauty, personality, poise,
and presents. We'll post a newspaper clipping from that time

(04:28):
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,

(04:52):
but the work wasn't what she imagined, far less glamorous,
far more tedious, and she gave it up not long after.
Carol had all has 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,

(05:16):
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

(05:36):
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

(05:59):
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.

(06:22):
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 (06:33):
Stephen Demacher, whose middle name, strangely enough, was Carol, was
born in January nineteen fifty four in Rochester, New York.
He was the oldest of nine children born to doctor
John and Jan Democher. The Demochers 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

(06:56):
works as a drone pilot for NASA. His sister Mary
as a harp teacher, author, and public speaker. Sharon became
a doctor susan direct's 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 accomplished.

(07:20):
She earned a master's in nursing, taught obstetrical nursing, got
her doctorate in education, 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 low
for bredery now and then and do some laundry, but

(07:42):
these people are.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Very awesome, mississ.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Steve attended a private boarding school in Rochester 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 was later play
a big role in both Steve and Carroll's lives, was
known for being a bit of an experiment and alternative education.

(08:07):
It was founded in nineteen sixty six as a pioneering,
even radical institution focused on experiential learning. So they sound
like they're into kind of like an alternate lifestyle.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
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.
They kept classes going in a run down hotel nearby.
The press dubbed it the 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,

(08:45):
Steve was deeply into outdoor adventure. He did things like
extreme whitewater rafting, mountain climbing, and kayaking. He was also
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.

(09:09):
One summer during college, he stayed in Vermont with a
girlfriend and ended up taking her younger brother on a
mountain climbing chip. On that trip, he rescued a young
woman who had sprained her ankle 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

(09:31):
got sucked into a dangerous vortex and the rapids. She
lost her paddle, then her kayak, and was quickly losing consciousness.
Steve paddled into the vortex, flipped his own kayak, grabbed
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 Carroll

(09:53):
in the early nineteen eighties, he was back in Rochester
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.

(10:15):
They were driven by a desire to do good, to teach,
to help others, to make a meaningful difference in the world.
That'd 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

(10:35):
relationship and even took a romantic trip to Mexico together.
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 Carroll in Nashville, he went over her friends and

(10:55):
family almost instantly. To them, he seemed like everything a
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, where Steve was pursuing his doctorate.

(11:16):
Soon after they got engaged, Carroll's parents, Ruth and ag
came to visit. 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 a g who were quiet,
working class folks from a small family, a little intimidating.

(11:39):
The wedding took place on October tenth, nineteen eighty two,
in the back yard 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 Carroll. But knowing
Steve as well as he did and his history with women,

(12:01):
Sturgis felt compelled to speak up. He pulled Carol aside
and asked if she really knew what she was getting into.
Carol just laughed and said, Oh, don't worry, I can
take care of him.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
It's pretty bold to pull the bride to be aside
and be like, are you sure about this? Like, 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 (12:25):
Yeah, I never told you what your mom said to
me on our wedding day.

Speaker 4 (12:29):
To day.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
You did?

Speaker 1 (12:31):
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 a true member of the extended Democer clan.
Everyone adored her. After graduation, Steve landed a job at Patagonia.

(12:55):
Working with his friend Sturgis. The two ran out to
our programs for Patagonia employees, helping them get hands on
experience with the gear they were selling. Love Patagonia, they
settled in Ohai, California, a peaceful mountain town known for
its spiritual vibe and natural beauty.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Do you remember, oh, I do?

Speaker 1 (13:14):
I remember going with your sister, Yeah, brother in law.
It was a really cool bookstore, the bookstore yet, but
I remember the most too, just a really different vibe
to that city.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
For sure.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
On the surface, it looked like an idyllic life, but
beneath the surface, cracks were beginning to form. Chief 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

(13:48):
chosen denial over confrontation. From California, the couple moved to Vermont.
Harold 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.

(14:09):
Had Carol had any experience with domestic violence.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
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 (14:22):
While in Vermont, Carol 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

(14:42):
institution that once nearly died but had refused to disappear.
We'll be back after a break.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
One of the things about this story that I find
so sad and tragic, and I'm being we're reminded of
it again as we go through there the background, But
it just feels like Steve and Carroll 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 (15:18):
I think you could say that about a lot of
the couples that we cover. Yeah, people don't realize how
much they have to be grateful for.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
Mm hm.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
They always want more, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
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

(15:52):
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,

(16:14):
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

(16:35):
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

(16:56):
was devastated.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
Okay, that's not all right.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
Oh 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.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
It's very uncomfortable, and it.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
Wouldn't be the last betrayal. Steve was known to have
slept 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

(17:39):
affairs became something of an open secret. Complaints began to
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 stands, others were long term affairs. Some

(17:59):
Carol found out, at some she didn't. Years later she
would count at least fourteen that she knew about hikes.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
Why was she so forgiving?

Speaker 2 (18:08):
Well? 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. Carol
would take him back, hoping that this time would be different.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
So they did not have an open marriage.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Oh no, absolutely not.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
And did Carol have any flings of her own?

Speaker 2 (18:28):
There may have been a fling or two.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
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 that
I guess it's okay, then I might as well do
the same.

Speaker 4 (18:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
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 sick and she
believed it was her life's work to help him heal

(19:03):
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 ranch land behind it where people hiked and biked.
The views of the surrounding mountains were breathtaking. As they

(19:25):
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

(19:46):
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 the and
their shared love of the outdoors. On the surface, things
looked serene, stable, fulfilled, but big changes were coming. In

(20:08):
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 AG Edwards,
leaving behind academia for the world of high finance.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
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 (20:36):
I'm not sure if it had anything to do with that.
I think it had. It 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 (20:53):
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
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,

(21:17):
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

(21:37):
opportunity 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

(21:57):
to him instead. That what a weasel, I know, Sturgis
confronted Steve in disbelief, but Steve flatly denied it. He
denied everything and gaslt 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

(22:18):
as the charming, adventurous idealist that he had once known,
but as someone far more calculating. As 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

(22:41):
family began to see a change. He came off as arrogant,
self absorbed, and increasingly hard to trust.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
Approximately how old is Steve during this time of change.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
I think he was in his mid forties by this time.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
In nineteen ninety eight, a woman named Barb O'Nan moved
to Prescott with her husban and started working at A G. 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,

(23:16):
nearly two hours away by car He and Carol owned
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 lounging at the pool together, the

(23:38):
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. She said, I feel just

(24:00):
like Carol rubbed Catherine the wrong way deeply, but still
she kept her suspicions to herself. Eventually, though Carol 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. That's so bold

(24:21):
and gross of them.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
I know, like right in front of Carroll's friend.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
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 why would why would he propose? It

(24:49):
doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
It doesn't make any sense, does it.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
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,

(25:13):
Steve's income at Ubs had soared and he was earning
over a million dollars a year, with Barb still his 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

(25:34):
were smart, strong willed, and spirited, Much like their parents.
Carol made their education a 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

(25:55):
Waldorf Method, but I think it's pretty amazing, right, very expensive?

Speaker 4 (26:01):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (26:01):
Really, I think so ya. 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 where Katie
could thrive, and she did. She graduated as class salutatorian

(26:25):
and went 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, making excuses. Then came a story that

(26:48):
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 Demokra home, picking fights
with their own care and getting into their things. Steve
was fed up, so one day he lured the cat
into the guesthouse and locked it inside. Then, according to

(27:09):
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 was horrified. She asked if Carol knew.

(27:31):
Steve said no, he hadn't told her, and Catherine knew
without question that Carol would have been just as disturbed,
if not more so. Wow, that's a.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
Horrible It's really disturbing, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
I give myself one horrible an episode if you're counting.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
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.

Speaker 4 (27:56):
What As a.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
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 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

(28:18):
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
exact same way.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
I would just like to state that I think that
is completely normal behavior.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
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 (28:53):
So was he having affairs on top of his affairs?

Speaker 4 (28:56):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (28:56):
Huh? That was the moment Carol finally admitted to her
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

(29:19):
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

(29:41):
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 the thirty percent. It
was during these tense negotiations that Barb saw something she

(30:04):
hadn't 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,

(30:26):
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 Carol's death, they occasionally rekindled
their affair. Their business separation was scheduled to be finalized
in July two thousand and eight, but that too would
be delayed by Carol's death. As if juggling a wife

(30:49):
and a longtime mistress warn't enough, Steve was also actively
using online dating services. He signed up for Great Expectations
and Upscale matchmaking service, as well as altfriendfinder dot Com,
which was more geared toward casual hookups.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
Will you know an awful lot about these dating websites.
It's making me a little uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
Sir, 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

(31:28):
exceptionally good at making people's deaths look like accidents. She
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 Carol'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

(31:51):
laying the groundwork for an eventual cover story, no one knows.
In November two thousand and seven, Steve started seeing yet
another woman. Rene 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

(32:12):
to be more than just another fling. Over the next
few years, their relationship would become very important to Steve.
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

(32:34):
she stepped away from teaching at Prescott College. With more
time and emotional energy, she threw herself into her creative work.
By two thousand and four, as she approached her fiftieth birthday,
Carrol 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

(32:57):
show his support. Carrol was thrilled. Not long after, she
started working part time at a local gallery called Van
Go's Ear. It's a great name for a gallery.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
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 arguments spilled into
the gallery. The tension became too much. In two thousand
and seven, with genuine regret, the gallery owners let Carol go.

(33:28):
Her personal life, they said had become too much of
a distraction. 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. We'll
post some pictures of Carol's art on our social media.

(33:52):
We'll be back after a break.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
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 Debby, worried
Carol might be suicidal. When she asked her directly, Carol said, no,
absolutely not, She would never do that because of her girls.
There was a heartbreaking process for a woman who had

(34:22):
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 meant letting go of a belief that had to
find her adult life. The emotional toll took a physical
one too. Carol lost a significant amount of weight and

(34:42):
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 before her death, she began

(35:04):
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.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
Soul no relation to the Starsky and Hunch actor. In
case you were wondering, Thank.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
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

(35:39):
was excited for 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 (35:51):
I would think so too, But they 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 (35:59):
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. Carrol 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

(36:19):
before either of them filed to a 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.

(36:42):
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 shite and high end restaurants. He
paid for a massive family reunion in the Adiron Decks

(37:05):
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 goal trip, took the
girls on lavish shopping sprees and Phoenix, and bought himself
plenty of expensive athletic gear along the way. And yet,
despite all of this, Steve kept telling Carol that she

(37:27):
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

(37:51):
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 (38:02):
That's right, the.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
Divorced 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,
others filled with cruel insults. Carol suspected he was spying

(38:23):
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 believed Steve
was entering the house while she was away, letting himself in,
stooping around, possibly even tampering with things. So this is

(38:45):
going to 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 it 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 just has shown me
how horrible and just volatile that these relationships become, and

(39:10):
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 yea, and won't let her go.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
And it's just, yeah, it sounds like a really common scenario.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
It's really scary.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah, it is. It's almost like they become like obsessive
and they become very toxic.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
And volatile, 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. 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

(39:51):
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 (39:59):
Yes, really good at manipulating people.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
Charlotte had big dreams of becoming a neurosurgeon and hoped
to attend an out of state college, but as the
legal battle wore 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,

(40:24):
someone who I unconditionally have loved all my life, may
damage the rest of my life.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
It's really sad to read that, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Retrospect ya. 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. Carrol received

(40:52):
nearly two hundred thousand dollars from one of Steve's four
oh one K accounts, 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 (41:07):
Oh yeah, This whole divorce settlement just kind of boggles
my mind.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
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?

(41:33):
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 (41:50):
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 Knapp. 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

(42:13):
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 would

(42:33):
often stop by the main house in the evenings for
a glass of wine and conversation. But Jim Knapp 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

(42:56):
Wowie 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
from 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

(43:18):
actually agreed to 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. What

(43:40):
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
step rating from his wife, Jim began dating a woman

(44:02):
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,

(44:23):
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

(44:43):
Jim had been to rehab in the past. She broke
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,

(45:06):
saying that he was dying. Carol, by all accounts, never
saw this side of Jim, so.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
That relationship was before he'd moved in with Carol.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
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

(45:37):
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

(45:59):
en 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

(46:21):
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

(46:43):
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

(47:04):
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,

(47:25):
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 Catherine 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

(47:45):
from a wild bore attack, and her Beshan Freeze Daisy
had been vomiting a wild boar attack. That's something we
don't need to worry about here.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
Well we have coyotes though, Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
Next, Carol stopped at Safeway to grab a few growth.
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

(48:18):
with 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

(48:41):
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 six pm, she
messaged him again, quote, you never replied to let me

(49:04):
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 divorce was finalized, and
Carol was making an effort to reconnect, even through small

(49:24):
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 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,

(49:47):
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 foo 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

(50:08):
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

(50:29):
said that Carol sounded genuinely worried. Then, at seven 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

(50:49):
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,

(51:11):
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

(51:32):
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 (51:50):
Sure I was going to help you.

Speaker 4 (51:52):
Oh yes, my name is Roth Kennedy, and I'm calling
from Nashville, Tennessee. I was all on the phone with
my daughter and she SCRAMed and said, oh no, and
the phone's down dead, and is there anything you can
do to can you go check? I'm just at my.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
Way sand 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 we
were just having our conversation and all of a sudden,
Teachers screamed and said, oh no, And then I.

Speaker 4 (52:27):
Haven't been able to get her to answer the phone back.
So you know, Sprite, something bad's.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
Happened, okay, Ruth. And who does your daughter live with?

Speaker 4 (52:38):
She's recently divorced, she's alone.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Ruth sounds just like such a sweet lady, such a cutie.

Speaker 3 (52:44):
Pay.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
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 oh no, followed
by silence. The house was dark, no lights on, no response.

(53:07):
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. It was someone's home,
the guest house. No one was inside. Back at the

(53:28):
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. She
was lying face down on the floor of the back bedroom,
a pool of blood beneath her head. Not knowing if

(53:50):
the killer might still be inside, Tainter backed away and
returned to his patrol car to call for backup. At
nine ten pm, As additional officers are a white Ford
ranger pulled up on the scene. The driver introduced himself
as Jim Knapp. He explained that he lived in the
guest house and asked what was going on. Rather than
telling him what they'd found, officers started asking questions. Had

(54:14):
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. She took their
older son to hockey practice while Jim watched a movie
with their younger son, Alex. His ex wife returned home

(54:36):
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 Carol, he said, was the
night before. She had come out to the guest house
to say good night around eight or nine 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,

(55:00):
and Jim volunteered an opinion. Carroll'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. No injuries
or visible blood, no signs of a struggle. Inside the house,
officers swept through each room, no one else was there.

(55:23):
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 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

(55:45):
looked like an accident, had Carol fallen off the ladder
and hit her heat on the desk, But something didn't
add up. The ladder was facing the wrong way, its
rungs were on the opposite side from where Carol lay,
The blood spatter didn't align with a 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

(56:07):
severe to have come from a simple fall. To investigators,
it was obvious this was a staged scene, a deliberate
attempt to make Carol's violent death look like an accident,
and that alone revealed something important. Whoever killed Carol didn't
just want her dead. They wanted her death to look
like an accident. Then came another intriguing detail. In the

(56:28):
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. Had someone waited there,
cloaked in darkness, for Carol to return home? And I'm
afraid that is where we're going to end part one.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
So Carol had been home for a while.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
Yeah, she went for a run, I think at like
six point 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 (57:01):
Did she go running the same time every night?

Speaker 2 (57:04):
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.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
Yeah, 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 4 (57:20):
Then.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
I actually have the same question. I looked that up
and the sunsets in Prescott, Arizona in July around seven
forty five or so.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
Okay, interesting because here the sun wouldn't set until yeah,
nine to thirty probably right.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
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 (57:47):
I mean it started out, you know, like these cool
people who you know, really liked education and were out doorsy,
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 mid life
crisis is coming.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
Upon h 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 I
just don't.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
It's a fair question for sure, we talk about narcisism
almost every case, but he does seem like a narcissist.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
Maybe he fought his narcissistic tendencies more than he just
kind of gave into them.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
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 really.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Maybe he didn't. It wasn't that he wanted to set
an example, but he felt competitive as the old and
felt like he had something to prove. Being the dean
of a university is a pretty great.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
Job too, though, Yeah, I would think.

Speaker 4 (59:09):
So.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
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 six thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
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.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
Out, 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 (59:53):
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 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 (01:00:14):
Did Carol have any assets?

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
I don't know exactly what I mean. She had the house,
but again the house was underwaters, so I think she
was in real trouble financially. She had like obviously the
account that she got there was his four to 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

(01:00:37):
wasn't enough to 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.

Speaker 4 (01:00:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
I think Ruth was implying that, like, oh no, not again,
because I had been coming over and maybe Ruth felt like, oh,
Steve had come in again, and Carol was like, oh no.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
So it's interesting that there wasn't a name used, right,
They 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, and there was no sound. So, yeah,
it is hard to know what that could possibly mean.
Do you think that the line was cut or the
fact that you didn't hear a noise that is weird

(01:01:29):
other than the oh no and then it was cut.
Could he have just someone have unplugged the phone.

Speaker 4 (01:01:34):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
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 4 (01:01:41):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
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 (01:01:50):
We could have hung up the phone at the receiver potentially,
but I.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
Don't think that's how they were. 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 (01:02:08):
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 (01:02:16):
It's really od that she heard silence.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
Yeah, yeah, that's kind of one of the baffling things
about this. I think. Well, 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 Lovemrykill if you'd
like to listen to part two right now.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of
Love Mary Kill.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
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Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
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