Carol Kennedy and Steve DeMocker - Part 2 - Love Marry Kill: Just the Facts

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Tina and I'm rich. Welcome to love, Mary Keil.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Just the facts. Should we get back to the case
of Carol Kennedy and Steve Democher.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Absolutely, Would you like to give us a recap?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
No?

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Why don't you go ahead and do that. No, I'll
do it last time. We introduced you to Carol Kennedy,
a devoted mother, artist, yoga instructor, and counselor who spent
years trying to hold together a marriage that was slowly
breaking her down. Her husband, Steve Democher, was once an adventurous,
idealistic man she believed was her solemate, but over time

(00:47):
that image unraveled. He became very materialistic and cheated on
her repeatedly, including with students, coworkers, and his longtime assistant
barb Onnan. He racked up enormous debts while living a
lavish life style, all while accusing Carol of being the
one who was financially irresponsible. Carol finally filed for divorce

(01:07):
in two thousand and seven, and after a long, painful negotiation,
the marriage was officially over in May of two thousand
and eight, but the fighting didn't stop. Steve was behind
on alimony Carol was worried about money. Intentions remained high,
especially as their teenage daughter Charlotte sided with her father.
Then on July second, just ten days before Carol was

(01:27):
set to visit a new romantic interest in Maine, she
was found dead in her home. The scene appeared staged,
a ladder, a toppled bookshelf, and a fatal head wound
that was far too severe to be accidental. Her mother, Ruth,
had been on the phone with her when it happened.
The last thing she heard was Carol saying oh no,
followed by silence. So you mentioned Charlotte, But there was

(01:50):
another daughter too, Katie.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Katie was their oldest daughter. She was in college. She
had just left for a trip abroad. She was going
to study in South Africa, and she had left maybe
three or four days before Carol was killed. On the
day that Carol was killed, Wednesday, July second, her sixteen
year old daughter Charlotte, was spending the day with her boyfriend,
Jake Janisek. Just the day before, Jake had temporarily moved

(02:13):
into Steve's condo. He had been having problems at home
with his parents, and Steve offered to let him stay
while things cooled off that afternoon. Charlotte and Jake had
launched then stopped it safeway to pick up some cookies,
delivering them to Steve's office at UBS Financial Services.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
At four thirty eight.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
PM, Steve logged off his work computer. By four point
fifty two, he was back at his condo, opening the
security gate with his remote. He told Charlotte and Jake
that he was heading out for a long bike ride.
Then he changed into his workout clothes and left just
after five o'clock. And just a reminder that Carol's phone
call with her mom ended right around eight o'clock PM,

(02:52):
and presumably that's when she was killed.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Okay, since we've returned from vacation, our cats have been
they've been having separation.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
No, they won't leave it alone.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Cosmo is in the room and he's making some loud
and meowing noises.

Speaker 4 (03:06):
You hear that.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Don't be alarmed, all right?

Speaker 2 (03:08):
So Steve left for his long bike ride just after
five At five point thirty six. He turned off his
cell phone as the sun began to set, and eight
pm came and went. Steve still wasn't home. Charlotte wasn't
too worried at first, they often ate dinner after eight,
but it started to feel strange that he hadn't returned.
She tried texting and calling him, but got no answer.

(03:30):
She even called Renee Gerard, Steve's girlfriend, to ask if
she knew where Steve might be riding, but Renee didn't know.
Charlotte and Jake eventually dozed off for a bit, then
woke up around nine forty pm. Steve still wasn't home.
It had been dark for nearly two hours. They tried
calling again, but still there was no response. At ten pm,

(03:51):
they decided to head the safeway to grab ingredients for
a late night stir fry. This kind of cracks me up.
The two sixteen year olds. Their dad is missing for
like four a half hours, and they're like, oh.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Let's go get food.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Let let's go make a stir fry.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Well, he had so many women that he was seeing,
so yeah, it probably happened a lot where he just
didn't come home sometimes.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yeah, that's probably true.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
Charlotte's sixteen.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Soon after Charlotte and Jake left for a safeway, Steve
turned his phone back on at ten oh eight pm.
He now had eleven missed calls and three texts, but
he didn't listen to any of the voicemails. Instead, he
called Charlotte, who was still at Safeway, and he explained
that he had gotten a flat tire and his phone
had died. A minute later, at ten oh nine, he

(04:35):
used his remote to open the gate at his condo.
Then he called Renee and told her he couldn't come
over that night. He was tired, dehydrated, and needed a shower.
She was annoyed, not because he wasn't coming over, but
because it sounded like he was making excuses. They hadn't
even planned to see each other that night. Her first
thought was that maybe he had been with another woman.

(04:57):
Steve added another detail to Renee. He said he was bleeding.
He said he had scraped his leg on a branch
during the bike ride, and that his arms were scratched
from walking the bike after he got the flat tire. Meanwhile,
Carroll's brother, John Kennedy, had been trying to get in.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
Touch with Steve.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Ruth, still deeply unsettled by the way her call with Carrol,
had ended, had shared what had happened, and John had
been calling around trying to figure out what was going on.
Steve finally picked up at ten thirty, but before John
could explain much, Steve cut him off, saying, quote, Hey, look,
I'm standing here, dripping wet, just stepped out of the shower,
adding that he had been on a long mountain bike ride.

(05:35):
John finally managed to explain the situation that Ruth had
heard something alarming during her call with Carrol and was worried.
John asked if Steve would drive over and check on Carroll.
Steve said no, I will not they were divorced. He
explained it wouldn't be appropriate for him to check on her,
what if she had someone over After the call. Steve

(05:56):
emerged from his bedroom wearing only a towel and asked
if Charlotte or Ja had any laundry. He then started
a load with just his workout clothes, something he later
told investigators was completely normal for him. Jake noticed that
Steve's scratches were bleeding and asked if he was okay.
Steve said he was just tired. He'd had to walk
over four miles back to his car after his tire

(06:18):
blew out. Steve got dressed ate dinner with Charlotte and Jake,
and then casually mentioned the call from Carroll's brother. At
ten forty eight pm, Charlotte texted her mom's phone saying
she was worried. She tried calling both her cell and
her landline and got no answer. That was unusual because
Carol always answered the landline if she was home.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
And then Ruth, Carrol's mom, calls Charlotte. She tried, she
ignored the call and never called her back.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
Yeah, nice, Charlotte, I know.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Then just before eleven o'clock, Steve told the teens that
a coworker had called to say that he had left
his computer logged in at the office. That was a
big no no in financial services. He also claimed that
he needed to grab something that he had forgotten at work,
so he left again for a short trip into his office.
While he was gone, Charlotte and Jake grew more concerned

(07:07):
about Carol. They started calling around to local emergency rooms,
wondering if maybe Carol had taken Jim Napp in for
some type of medical issue. Jim Napp, just a reminder,
is Carol's friend who was living in her guest house.
When Steve returned, the kids told him someone needed to
go check on Carol, but again Steve refused saying what

(07:28):
if she has someone over? The teens pushed, and finally
Steve relented. He said they could go, but he asked
them to call him as they got close so that
he could make sure that they were safe.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
As they left, Steve.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Called Carol's cell and left a voicemail quote, people are
really worried. If you wouldn't mind calling, I mean, if
you're on a date or whatever, it's totally okay. We
don't want to intrude, but you're not answering anybody's calls.
I'm sure everything is fine, but if you could even
text to let us know you're okay, that would be great.
I think your mom and John are up back worried

(08:00):
and waiting to hear, so please call somebody.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
Bye.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Remind us how long ago had Steve tried to get
back with Carol.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
It was only a few days before that he had
had coffee with her and told her he wanted to
get back together. At eleven fifty five pm, Charlotte called
Steve from the car just as they were pulling on
to Bridle Path, the road that Carol lived on, But
before they could even reach the driveway, they saw it
a sea of red and blue flashing lights up ahead.
Still on the phone, Charlotte rolled down her window and

(08:31):
asked an officer what had happened. She told him, I'm
her daughter. The officer told her, your mother is dead.
Charlotte dropped the phone onto the floor of the car
and burst into tears. After Charlotte dropped the phone in shock,
Jake picked it up and relaid the devastating news to Steve.
On the other end, Jake could hear Steve breathing heavily
as if he were crying. Steve asked to speak with

(08:53):
the officer on the scene. When the officer got on
the line, Steve asked what had happened, but the officer
could only say that Carrol had passed away. He didn't
have any further details. Steve got in his car and
headed toward Carrol's house. On the way, he called his girlfriend,
Renee Girard, and told her the news. He asked if
she could come to the house as well, but Renee

(09:14):
was watching her grandson and couldn't leave. Next, Steve called
John Kennedy, Carroll's brother, without emotions. Steve said, quote, John,
you need to call your mom and tell her that
Carrol is gone. John stunned, tried to ask questions, Steve
simply repeated, she's gone, She's dead. John later recalled Steve,
adding apparently she suffered a fall. After that, Steve tried

(09:37):
calling barbo Nan, his longtime assistant and lover, but she
didn't pick up. Steve arrived at Carroll's house at twelve
twenty three am and tried to comfort Charlotte. Outside the house,
Police Commander Scott Masher spoke with Steve. As they talked,
Masher quietly passed his flashlight up and down Steve's body,
noting several fresh cuts on his left arm and leg.

(10:00):
Gash above the ankle was still bleeding. Steve asked Masher
what had happened. Masher declined to give details, saying they
wouldn't know anything for sure until the medical examiner arrived. Then,
Steve asked, am I a suspect? That question, along with
the visible injuries, immediately raised red flags for Masher. He
decided to begin recording the rest of their conversation. Steve

(10:22):
told Masher that the divorce had been difficult, but insisted
that things had been improving. He said they had even
had coffee together that past Sunday and were talking about
dating again. Eventually, Masher asked Steve, Charlotte, and Jake to
come down to the station for a more formal interview.
They agreed, though Steve continued to ask if he was
a suspect and even wondered aloud whether he should have

(10:43):
a lawyer present. They arrived at the station around one
thirty am.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
It turned into a long night at the Presscup Police Department. Steve, Charlotte,
and Jake were all interviewed separately by detectives who were
working to piece together everyone's timeline and movements leading up
to Carrol's death. Steve from the start didn't seem eager
to talk. He told one detective he was tired and
would really rather continue the next day. I'd prefer not

(11:08):
to be up all night, he said. The detective replied, Yeah,
I'd prefer not to be up all night either, and
kept going with his questions. As the interview unfolded, Steve's
story began to shift. He gave more than one explanation
about his cell phone, and one version he said he
had turned it off and left it in his car
during the ride, a ride he estimated would normally take

(11:29):
two to two and a half hours, but ended up
lasting four because of the flat tire. In another version,
he said the phone had died when he didn't realize
he had a spare battery until he got back into town.
I was wondering about that because he told Charlotte his
phone died, but then he was calling her on his phone.
Steve also told them he didn't mountain bike that often.
He usually ran, but on this particular night, he decided

(11:52):
to ride a trail that was twenty to twenty five
minutes from his condo. Coincidentally, that same trail happened to
be just a mile or so from Carroll's house. He
admitted it didn't look good. I wish I'd chosen a
different trail, He'd said. Detectives pressed further, was there any
reason his DNA fingerprints or blood might be found at

(12:12):
Carroll's house. No, Steve said, absolutely not, any reason bike
tracks might be found on or behind her property. Again no.
At one point, the detectives gave him an opportunity to
come clean, to admit that maybe things had gotten heated
that there had been an argument that something had gone wrong.

(12:33):
Now would be the time to say, you know what
I went over? We argued she threw something at me.
I got upset and I but Steve cut them off. No,
he said I was not there. Police documented and photographed
the numerous cuts and scratches on Steve's arms, legs, and torso.
Some of the wounds they noted looked consistent with barbed wire,
like the kind that separated the back of Carroll's property

(12:54):
from the open ranch land behind it. Charlotte and Jake
were finally released around five A renee came to pick
them up. Steve stayed much longer, eventually leaving the station
around ten am.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
So later there would be some criticism and Steve's lawyers
would basically accuse the police of having tunnel vision and
only focusing on Steve and not people like Jim Knapp
and potentially other suspects. But you have to think about
the circumstances. So Steve had disappeared for four hours, his
cell phone was turned off, he had cuts on his

(13:28):
leg and arm. I mean, it seems pretty natural that
you would focus in on Steve at that point.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Right, absolutely, And I think it's okay to start with
the husband and then eliminate him. Just questioning someone. It's
not like they arrested him right away, right right. Meanwhile,
back at Carroll's house, Jim Napp was still on the scene.
Around one am, he asked if he could grab his
medications from the guest house before heading to a hotel
for the night. A deputy escorted him inside at one

(13:53):
o four am. After that, Jim checked into the Mariotte
spring Hill Suites. Steve's defense team would later raised questions
about this. Why they asked was Jim Napp allowed to
simply walk away after just a few brief questions at
the scene while Steve was taken in for hours of interrogation,
and why did it take nearly ninety minutes for Jim
to reach the hotel when it should have taken him

(14:15):
less than twenty. Back of the crime scene, investigators began
searching the area around Carroll's house, including the trails behind
the property. It had rained the day before, so any
tracks left behind would likely still be fresh, and they
did find something a set of mountain bike tracks with
shoe prints beside them, as if someone had been walking

(14:35):
the bike. The tracks stopped at a bush. From there,
the shoe prince continued alone, crossing over a barbed wire
fence and leading straight to Carroll's back patio. On the
way out, the same tracks crossed the fence again, circled
around some thick brush, and returned to the spot where
the bike had originally stopped. Photos were taken of the prince,

(14:56):
but crucially, no measuring stick or scale was included, which
is standard procedure. Even more concerning, no plaster casts were made,
so when it rained again, the tracks were washed away,
gone for good. Oh boy. These mistakes would later come
back to haunt the prosecution. Police seized Steve's mountain bike

(15:16):
and brought it to the scene. When they rolled it
next to the tire tracks, it appeared to be a match, but,
as Steve's lawyers would point out later, about ninety percent
of mountain bikes at that time used the same type
of tread, and the gravel was much too coarse to
capture fine details. No unique defects, no definitive match. They
also found no shoes during the search of Steve's condo,

(15:39):
vehicle or office that matched the shoe prints at the scene.
Oh did they find any cycling shoes?

Speaker 3 (15:45):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Not that I am aware of.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Then there was the matter of Steve's work computer. Remember
Steve had told Charlotte and Jake that he had to
return to the office that night because a coworker had
called to say that he'd left his computer logged in,
a major security issue for someone working in finance. But
when police spoke with that coworker, he said that he'd
made no such call, and a check of Steve's computer
confirmed that it had been logged off at four thirty

(16:10):
eight PM, right when Steve left work, several hours before
Carroll's murder. Aside from the tire and two tracks behind
Carroll's house, police found no physical evidence linking Steve to
the crime scene. None of Steve's DNA or fingerprints were
found in or around the house. None of Carroll's blood
was found on his bike, in his car, or at
his condo. One stain in Katie's BMW, the car that

(16:33):
Steve had texted Carol about picking up that evening, looked
suspicious and was sent for testing. It turned out to
be chocolate.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
That's exactly what would happen to me if anyone had
to search my vehicles.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
How looks like blood. Now it's chocolate.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
We'll be back after a break.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
The autopsy confirmed what investigators had already suspected. Carol's death
had been brutal. She had been struck at least ten
times with a blunt object. At least seven of those
blows were to her head. Her skull had been shattered,
broken into more than two hundred fragments horrible. She also
had multiple defensive wounds, bruising on her right hand and forearm,

(17:17):
clear signs that she had fought back. No murder weapon
was ever found, but based on the shape and pattern
of the wounds, the medical examiner believed the most likely
weapon was a golf club, specifically a wood. The wide,
rounded head of a wood matched the crushing injuries found
on Carol's skull. Later, her body was transported to a

(17:37):
forensic anthropologist in Phoenix for a more specialized examination. That
expert came to the same conclusion without ever consulting the
medical examiner. Based on the fracture patterns of Carol's skull,
she also believed the weapon was likely a golf club.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
That sounds so brutal and so aggressive and angry. Right
to destroy someone's skull with a golf club? How many
times you know, would the person have had to swing
at their head?

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, it's definitely a sign of overkill and you know,
kind of a crime of passion.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
You think about that, right that somebody is.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
I hate that term.

Speaker 3 (18:15):
Yeah, it's not a good term.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
There was one more potentially important piece of evidence. Under
the fingernails of Carol's left hand, investigators found a small
amount of foreign material. It was tested and found to
contain male DNA, but it didn't match Steve. When detectives
heard the medical examiner's opinion that Carol may have been
killed with a golf club, they immediately recalled seeing something

(18:38):
during the initial search of Steve's condo, an empty Callaway
golf club headcover sitting on a shelf in his garage.
They checked the photos from that day to be sure,
and there it was a Callaway headcover, but no club
in Steve's bag. That was missing one that raised red flags.
But by then Steve's condo had already been turned back
over to him, so investigators had to secure a second

(19:01):
search warrant to return and look again. When they did,
the headcover was gone. They would later learn what happened
to it. Steve had given the headcover to his lawyer,
John Sears. He knew the police were interested in it,
but since the specific item hadn't been listed on the
original search warrant. Sears wasn't sure if he was legally
obligated to turn it over. He consulted the Arizona Bar Association,

(19:24):
who told him that neither suspects nor their attorneys are
required by the constitution to help law enforcement build their case.
The burden, they said, is on the government. Sears placed
the headcover in a safe and left it there until
investigators specifically asked for it.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
So there wasn't a golf club missing.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
There was no golf club that didn't have a cover
on it, so they had an extra cover, but no
golf club that it went to. But we don't know
if a golf club was missing or now golf club
sets can have different numbers of golf clubs in them.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
I did not know that. Yeah, I thought there was
like a standard number of like there was thirteen clubs
in a back.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
I mean, there are rules about how many you can carry,
but a lot of people have more or less close. Eventually,
detectives learned that Steve had a custom callaway seven would
made five years earlier, a club that would have matched
the missing headcover, but that club was never found. When questioned,
Katie told police she thought her dad may have given
a golf club to Carol to sell in a garage

(20:22):
sale at one point, but no one knows if that
was the same club or where it ended up. Katie
Demacher was still in Europe when she learned the devastating
news about her mom. She hadn't yet left for South Africa,
so she booked the earliest flight home and arrived on
July fourth. That evening, she had dinner with her dad, Charlotte,
and Jake. At the dinner table, the conversation turned to

(20:44):
who could have possibly killed Carol, and it was Steve
who floated a theory maybe Barbo Nan, his former assistant
and longtime on again, off again girlfriend, had something to
do with it. He pointed out that Barb never liked Carol,
she had seen her as competition, and now after splitting
their book of business at ubs, Barb had walked away

(21:04):
with only thirty percent, not the fifty percent she felt
she deserved. If Steve went down for Carroll's murder, Barb
could potentially scoop up the rest of his business, a
massive financial win for her. Whether Steve truly believed that
or not, one thing is clear he planted that seed,
because when Katie sat down with detectives and they asked
if anyone might want to harm her mom, she brought

(21:27):
up Barb almost word for word. She also mentioned Jim Knapp,
describing him as romantically kind of interested in her mom,
adding another name to the list of possible suspects. But
the one person Katie couldn't fathom being responsible was her father.
She told investigators that both of her parents were nonviolent.
They didn't even spank the kids when they were young.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
To her, the.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Idea of her dad hurting her mom was simply inconceivable.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
Steve wasn't the only one thinking that barbo Non could
be a suspect. When Barba heard about Carroll's murder the
day after it happened, her reaction wasn't just shock, it
was fear. She immediately realized she might be seen as
a suspect. She hired a lawyer right away, who advised
her not to speak with police unless they could guarantee
in writing that she wasn't a target of the investigation.

(22:14):
That refusal to cooperate raised suspicions, but eventually police did
issue a letter stating that Barb was not a target,
and she agreed to be interviewed. On July twelfth. Her
alibi for the night of the murder was confirmed through
her cell phone records. She was at home, just as
she had claimed. Still, Barb had some eye opening things
to say during that interview. She told detectives that during

(22:37):
Steve and Carroll's divorce, Steve had made multiple offhand comments
about wishing Carroll was dead. She also shared that about
six months earlier, Steve had started injecting himself with a
human growth hormone in getting testosterone shots, something that concerned her.
Rob's relationship with Steve didn't end with Carroll's murder. A

(22:58):
couple of weeks after her murders, Steve invited her to
go hiking and camping with him. She turned him down,
saying she was afraid of him by that point, But
later that month, when she went to La Joya by
herself to get some distance, Steve flew out and showed
up at her hotel. They ended up hooking up again
that night. Steve told her his version of what happened
the night Carol died, how he'd gone for a long

(23:20):
bike ride, gotten a flat tire, and how his phone
had died, but Barb didn't buy it, and all the
time that she'd known him, Steve had never let his
phone die. He always carried a spear, battery and biking
it just wasn't his thing. Three months after Carroll's death
in October, Steve made one final play. He asked Barb
to marry him. She didn't say yes. In fact, she

(23:41):
didn't see him again after that. If Steve was hoping
to steer suspicion away from himself, Jim Napp made an
awfully convenient target, and unfortunately for Jim, his behavior in
the days after Carroll's death didn't help his case. On
July third, just one day after the murder, Jim was
overheard talking to a cash share It safeway about the
crime scene. He mentioned how much blood there was. The

(24:04):
problem is that Jim hadn't been inside the house, and
at that point police had been extremely tight lipped about
the details. A concerned friend of Carroll's who overheard the
conversation called the police. Later, an officer would clarify that
he had spoken to Jim earlier that day to let
him know that he could return to the house, and
had warned him that there was a lot of blood

(24:25):
in Carroll's office. He hadn't wanted Jim to stumble and unprepared,
but by then the damage was done. The seed of
suspicion had already been planted. Jim seemed genuinely shaken by
Carroll's death, and he couldn't stop talking about it. He
was emotional, erratic, and often inappropriate. One day, he was
loudly speculating at a Mexican restaurant about Steve being the

(24:47):
only possible killer. Unfortunately for him, Charlotte's boyfriend Jake worked
at that restaurant and messaged Charlotte about what was going on.
She showed up and confronted Jim on the spot. Jim
I told anyone who would listen that Steve had a
history of abuse. He claimed Steve had once dragged Carol
by the hair and he had beaten her while she

(25:08):
was pregnant. The problem was Jim hadn't even known the
Demockers back then, and there was no evidence to support
these claims. Despite Steve's many faults, no history of violence
toward Carol had ever surfaced. Jim also started bombarding people
with emails. He shared his theories about Steve with friends,
often copying Katie and Charlotte on the email. Carroll's friend

(25:29):
Catherine told him to stop, saying it was it appropriate.
In response, Jim blasted out a sarcastic apology, copying dozens
of people, seemingly to embarrass her. He later apologized more sincerely,
and Catherine chalked it up to grief. Well, that is
very strange behavior, I.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Know, especially copying the daughters on that.

Speaker 3 (25:49):
That's just really not cool.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Katie became increasingly uncomfortable with Jim's behavior. She told detectives
that he had been leaving bizarre, possibly drunken voicemails and emails,
including one where he wrote, quote, I know your dad
is screening these emails. That's why I can't get through.
Then came the issue of the guest house. Technically it
belonged to Steve, and the Democra family told Jim he

(26:12):
needed to move out. He refused. In August, they forcibly
evicted him, leaving his belongings outside. Jim claimed his washer
and dryer had been damaged by exposure and demanded five
thousand dollars in compensation. As the executor of Carroll's estate,
Katie had to deal with it. Jim emailed her, pleading
his case and writing, Katie, I loved your mom deeply.

(26:35):
She was my coach, my confidant, and my friend. He
made a point to clarify that their relationship had never
been romantic. Eventually, Katie agreed to pay part of the
damage claim, if only to put an end to the drama.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
With suspicion mounting and knowing that the death penalty was
a possibility, Steve Democher quietly began laying the groundwork to disappear.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Oh boy.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Police had already confiscated his passport, but just now, nine
days after Carol's murder, Steve submitted an application for a
new one, claiming his original was lost. On the forum
where it asked for details, he wrote, quote, don't know
for certain. It is simply missing from my file at
home and we cannot find it. That's a felony, by
the way, to lie on a passport application.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
I'd say, well, did the police have probable cause to
take his passport away? He hadn't been charged with anything yet.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
It's a good question.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
I know he was definitely considered a suspect, and so
I assume that police can do that, But I don't know,
I never looked into that, whether police can just take
your passport away.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
What a crazy move that is? I know, like the
police aren't going to find out about that.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Yeah, And somehow, despite passports usually taking four to six
weeks or even two to three weeks if you get
expedited service, Steve's new passport was issued on July sixteenth.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
Maybe they expedite them if you're a criminal.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
Maybe so.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Then in August, Steve had a package delivered to his
UBS office. Inside were four books. You're going to love
these book titles. First one How to Be Invisible, The
Essential Guide to protecting your personal privacy, your assets, and
your life. And then there was also Cover your Tracks
without changing your identity, How to Disappear until you want
to be found, and then of course the classic The

(28:15):
International Fugitive Secrets of Clandestine Travel over Seas and finally
Advanced Fugitive Running, Hiding and Surviving and Thriving Forever I.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
Met in one of those books, the tip was like,
and don't go on hands and buying any books about
becoming invisible or becoming a survivalist.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
You know, that's all.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
They sound like great books, though, unfortunately for Steve, if
you get a mail at an investment firm. A lot
of investment firms have strict compliance policies. Financial advisors can't
open their own mail. So a coworker opened the package,
saw the titles, and, knowing that Steve's wife had recently
been murdered, alerted the police.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
I am learning so many things today I didn't I
wouldn't have thought that was a.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Thing I wouldn't have either. That same month, Steve purchased
a motorcycle and outfitted it with several metal locking cases.
Inside the cases, he stashed fifteen thousand dollars in cash,
a loaded handgun with two extra magazines, a DVD of
street maps of Mexico, energy bars and beef jerky, and
a prepaid cell phone. And he gave a second prepaid

(29:20):
cell phone to.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
Katie, who does he think he is?

Speaker 2 (29:23):
Then he took Renee Gerard, his girlfriend, to a remote
area near his golf course, where they buried a go
bag with clothing, more cash, and survival gear. He told
her he was thinking about fleeing to Mexico or maybe
vanishing into the wilderness. He even made a plan with
Charlotte if the police came looking for him at the condo.
She was supposed to use a code word Raspberry to

(29:45):
warn him. Searches of Steve Democher's computers revealed a disturbing
digital trail. Back in February two thousand and eight months
before Carol's death, Steve had installed an anonymizer application. The
tool was designed to mask online activity, hiding internet searches,
spoofing IP addresses, and deleting temporary files like cookies and

(30:07):
browser history. The software deleted files, but it didn't overwrite
the disk space, which meant that investigators were able to
recover fragments of Steve's browsing history. What they found was
deeply troubling. Just three days after the divorce was finalized
on June first, Steve searched for payment of life insurance
benefits in the case of homicide, tips from a hitman

(30:29):
on how to kill someone, how to stage a suicide,
how to kill and make it look like suicide, and
how to make a homicide appear.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
Suicide an idiot.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
On his computer, detectives found a folder labeled book Research,
a nod perhaps to Steve's claim that he wanted to
become a writer, But the contents of that folder weren't
creative fiction. There were eighteen files, including one that depicted
a room diagram of a staged homicide scene, complete with
furniture tipped over, eerily similar to how Carol's body was discovered.

(31:02):
There was also a link to Practical Homicide Investigation, a
real crime scene textbook showing a page on how to
stage a crime scene. Steve had also visited amateur writing
sites like writingworld dot com, but notably, investigators couldn't find
any actual writing, no stories, no outlines, not even a paragraph.

(31:22):
So it almost seemed like Steve's whole writing thing was
him laying the groundwork for an excuse as to why
he was googling things he shouldn't be googling, just like us.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
Not just like us, Well, we google very suspicious things
all the time, we do. But how long does rigor
mortis take to set in?

Speaker 2 (31:40):
Oh, we totally do. But in his case, it just
felt like he was pretending to be a writer just
so he had an excuse for googling some of these things.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
What if you have been making this podcast for three
years is some sort of an alibi?

Speaker 2 (31:53):
But then play in a very long game, in the
long game exactly. And then there was the matter of
carbon monoxide. In March, Steve had searched for use of
carbon monoxide in suicide. Around that same time, he found
a company that sold and delivered gas in bulk, but
to purchase carbon monoxide, he needed to provide a Federal
Employer ID number. He obtained one using the name doctor

(32:15):
Stephen C. Democher, doing business as DBD Research and Consulting,
and began filling out a purchase order. He listed his
home address for delivery, but when the company requested a
formal gas storage plan before proceeding with the delivery, Steve
dropped the effort and never followed through. Even as suspicions
swirled around him, Steve Democher wasted no time trying to

(32:38):
collect on Carroll's life insurance policies. The couple had taken
out two policies a decade earlier, totaling seven hundred and
seventy thousand dollars. Despite their separation and eventual divorce, Steve
remained the listed beneficiary, and he had continued making the
premium payments even after they split. Just weeks after Carroll's death,

(32:58):
Steve filed a claim, but because he was considered a
suspect in her murder. The insurance company denied his request.
That didn't stop him. Between August two thousand and eight
and January two thousand and nine, Steve submitted five separate claims.
Each one was rejected, but Steve wasn't done. When the
straightforward approach didn't work, he began looking for more creative

(33:21):
and more questionable ways to get his hands on the money.
In early October, an article ran in the local paper
with the headline police hoped to make a rest in
Kennedy murder. Soon Steve's mother saw it online and got excited.
Assuming they were talking about someone else. She called Steve
and he calmly told her, I think they're talking about me, mom,

(33:41):
and he was right. Despite having no murder weapon and
no hard forensic evidence linking him to the crime scene,
police arrested Steve Demacher and charged him with first degree murder.
At his first court appearance on October twenty fourth, two
thousand and eight, prosecutors announced that they intended to seek
the death penalty. They also asked the judge to deny

(34:02):
Steve bail and to bar him from having any contact
with his daughters. This last request created an unusual legal dilemma.
Under Arizona law, victims are granted special rights, including the
right to meet with prosecutors and be kept in the
loop about the case. But the prosecution argued that if
Katie and Charlotte retained these rights, any information they received

(34:24):
could be passed along to their father and potentially compromise
the case. So the girls were forced to choose either
keep their legal rights as victims or give them up
in order to stay in touch with their dad. They
chose their dad.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
They both did.

Speaker 3 (34:38):
They both did.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Judge Thomas Lindbergh was appointed to preside over the trial.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
A bail hearing for Steve Demacher was held on December
twenty third, two thousand and eight. His family was hopeful
that he might be home for Christmas, but the hearing
stretched over several days and was paused for the holidays
and didn't conclude until January. During the hearing, the prosecution
laid out a broad version of their theory. Steve, they said,
was drowning in debt. He wanted out of the alimony

(35:15):
payments he'd been ordered to make for the next eight years,
and he wanted access to these seven hundred and seventy
thousand dollars in life insurance still in his name. They
argued that Steve had carefully planned the murder, researching how
to kill someone and stage it to look like an accident.
On July second, he rode his bike to Carroll's house
with a backpack containing gloves and overalls. They said he

(35:38):
waited until she returned from her run, ambushed her during
her phone call with Ruth, and bludgeoned her to death
with a golf club. Afterward, he disposed of his bloody clothes,
possibly in a bonfire, and later made plans to flee
the country, all pointing to consciousness of guilt. The defense
countered that the computer searches were nothing more than research

(35:59):
for a novel that Steve had once talked about writing.
They pointed out that the shoe prints near the bike
tracks didn't match any shoes that Steve owned, and the
tire treads could have belonged to nearly any mountain bike.
Was that the trail behind her house did people often,
It was.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Used quite a bit, but I think we mentioned earlier
it had rained the day before, and so any tracks
that they found were pretty fresh.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
Okay, no physical evidence linked Steve to the crime. Not
a drop of Carroll's blood was in his car, condo
or on his bike. There was no evidence of a bonfire,
and no record of Steve buying any protective clothing like
gloves or overalls. And most compellingly, there was male DNA
under Carroll's fingernails that did not match Steve. The defense

(36:44):
argued this alone should exonerate him, and they claimed that
this and other exculpatory evidence hadn't been properly presented to
the grand jury. Judge Thomas Lindberg agreed. He ruled that
the prosecution had not met the legal threshold to bind
Steve over for trial. He found that they had presented misleading, incomplete, prejudicial,

(37:05):
and erroneous information to the grand jury, and ordered the
case to be sent back. Prosecutors regrouped and presented the
case again, this time following the judge's guidance. In February
two thousand and nine, the grand jury once again indicted
Steve on the same charges. In January of two thousand
and nine, Jim Knapp's ex wife and Saxeurad grew concerned.

(37:29):
Jim had been scheduled to watch their sons, but he
never showed up and he wasn't responding to calls or emails.
That wasn't like him. Worried and contacted one of Jim's
close friends, a man named Sean, and asked if he
would check on him. Jim had been staying at a
friend's condo, and Sean agreed to stop by. He brought
another friend with him. When they arrived, the scene was unsettling.

(37:51):
The lights were off, but the front door was ajar
There was broken glass on the porch, damaged to the
front window, and what looked like a small bulot hole
in the screen door. Cautiously, the two men entered the condo,
calling out for Jim. The living room was unusually messy,
with more broken glass and two spent bullet casings on
the floor. The bedroom door was closed. Sean decided not

(38:15):
to open it. Instead, he stepped back outside and called
nine one one. When police arrived and entered the primary bedroom,
they found Jim Nap lying on the floor near the closet.
He had been shot once in the chest. A nine
millimeter semi automatic pistol was lying by his left hip.
Gun shot residue on his shirt and around the wound
indicated that the shot was fired at close range, and total,

(38:38):
investigators found five bullet casings, all matching Jim's gun. Four
bullets had traveled through the condo through a chair, the walls,
the window, and the screen door. All had been fired
from inside. Despite the chatok scene and the absence of
a suicide note, police ultimately determined that Jim had died
by suicide. What do you think about that?

Speaker 2 (38:59):
I think it's probably true. I think Jim was very troubled.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
There were five bullet casings, though.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
I think he had just randomly fired around the apartment
or the condo and then shot himself.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
Okay. There were no signs of forest entry, no bullets
or shell casings found outside, and no evidence of another shooter.
It appeared that Jim had fired several rounds randomly then
turned the gun on himself. Toxicology results later revealed six
prescription medications in his system, including antidepressants, anxiety meds, sleeping pills,
and painkillers. Jed had been spiraling in the months following

(39:36):
Carroll's murder. He'd lost his closest friend, his health was declining,
and he was nearly broke, with just one hundred and
seventy seven dollars to his name when he died. He
had recently told a friend that he had seen an
attorney to ensure his sons would inherit what little he
had in case anything happened to him. It's possible he
tried to stage the scene to look like something other

(39:57):
than suicide. A couple of weeks later, friends and only
gathered for a celebration of life in true Jim Knapk fashion.
The dress code was casual, a low hush shirts, shorts,
and sandals instead of flowers. Guests were asked to donate
to his Surfrider Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the
world's oceans and beaches. Steve Demacher wasn't done trying to

(40:19):
get his hands on Carroll's life insurance money, all seven
hundred and seventy thousand dollars of it. He needed the
cash for his legal defense, which was expected to run
over a million dollars, and after being denied five times,
Steve and his legal team came up with a new plan.
When you want that money to go to your children,
but o if you're Steve. Apparently, in March two thousand

(40:41):
and nine, Steve formally disclaimed himself as the beneficiary of
Carol's life insurance policies. On paper, it looked noble like
he was stepping aside so his daughters could receive the
money instead, and technically he was. That move allowed the
funds to be released to the contingent beneficiaries, Katie and Charlotte.
But don't get the wrong idea, this wasn't some selfless act.

(41:03):
Behind the scenes, Steve was doing everything he could to
persuade Katie, who was also the executor of her mom's estate,
to hand over the money to his lawyers. What followed
was a deeply uncomfortable power struggle between father and daughter,
a conversation captured in a recorded call that we're going
to partially recreate with a little true crime theater.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
You will be playing the part of Katie and I
will be playing the part of Steve Democker.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
All right, I need to be sure that I can
make sure that Charlotte goes to college.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
I understand your concern, but that is unfortunately at this
point that has to be down the scale of priorities
below bond first defense.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
Second, the amount of money that I was planning to
set aside for Charlotte is not going to significantly impede
upon any of that.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
Sweetie. Let me be as direct as I can, and
I don't want to get into a fight, but I
want to make sure we're clear with each other. We
may need every penny of it for defense, and I
need to make certain that you understand that there will
be no impediment to that if that's what we need.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
And I need to make sure you understand that I
am trying to take care of my little sister.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
I understand that you're trying to do that, but we're
going to get an acquittal here, and if we don't.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
You don't know that. I'm really sorry to be that harsh.
Of course, that's what we all want, but you cannot
say beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is
what is going to happen. I'm setting aside money that
I'm not just going to hand over.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
How what are you talking about doing?

Speaker 1 (42:31):
Maybe you should get your lawyer to explain it to
you a little better. Hey, Hey, hey, before criticizing me
and my decisions.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
Sweetie, the only reason those resources will come under your
control will be if I give them up.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
If you can take them for yourself, go for it.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
These are resources that otherwise wouldn't come until this is
all over, and we need them now for the defense.
And so this is a completely legal and appropriate way
that the attorneys have constructed. But we need your cooperation,
and if you're going to exert control here, I'm asking
you simply to step aside and don't exert this.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
Sort of I'm not going to do that.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
Oh pumpkin. I'm counting on you. My life is in
the balance.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
Stop saying that it's the truth. It's not true. I
have some decisions to make now, and you can't always
play the daddy card, sweetie.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
I will make certain, first of all ninety nine percent
probability here that if we can get me out and
back to work, whether or not there's a civil suit
against the county that succeeds, as long as I'm acquitted
and back to work, I will take care of both
of you as I always have, and if for some
reason I'm not able to, my family will. But the
resources we have at our disposal right now have to

(43:38):
go to this without any interference, and I need to
know that from you. As long as we're clear that
if we need it it comes to my defense or
my bond, I have to be out and I have
to be acquitted. The two go hand in hand. I
need to get out so I can raise money so
that I can help with my defense.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
I need to take care of my little family right now.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
I need you to stop. To not be part of
the problem here, Kate. On top of everything else we're
battling here, don't you enter here and become something.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
I am not the problem? How dare you? There are
some things that I'm not your daughter about anymore. When
I'm the executor of this estate, I'm mom, I'm not Katie.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
Very tense conversation. As you can tell, you did a
great job as Katie.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
I didn't like you very much there. You were good
at being that night. Jer key, good my job. Yeah.
So the conversation ended on a tense but heartbreaking note,
both saying I love you before hanging up, But the
damage had been done despite her resistance. A few weeks later,
the money, through a maze of transfers, made its way
from Hertford Life insurance to Carol's trust, then to Katie's

(44:41):
personal checking account, then to her grandparents, and finally to
Steve's lawyers. And Steve didn't just manipulate his daughter. He
also enlisted his girlfriend, Renee Gerrard. He convinced Katie to
step down as trustee of her mom's trust and hand
it over to Renee, Oh my gosh, who he was
sure would be carry out his wishes. That move ensured

(45:02):
that no one would stand in his way when it
came to accessing the money.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
If he didn't already hate Steve, this whole thing just
makes me hate him so much.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
A prosecution expert and trust law would later testify that
both Katie and Renee had breached their legal duties as trustees.
A trustee is obligated to manage funds according to the
trust's intent, and paying for Steve's defense the man accused
of murdering Carroll was most definitely not the intended purpose
of Carroll's trust. Just feeling my blood pressure rise in

(45:34):
a litment over here, yeah, for sure, infuriating.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
In June of two thousand and nine, a shocking twist
landed in the inbox of Steve Demacher's attorney, John Sears.
It was an anonymous email, and it claimed to reveal
what really happened the night that Carol Kennedy was murdered.
Sears immediately contacted the County attorney's office and said he
had information that supported his client's innocence. The email read,

(45:59):
in part, I can't tell you who I am, but
I can tell you what really happened the night Kennedy
was killed. Nap was running his mouth to Kennedy about
a prescription drug deal he was in. Two men and
one woman were sent to do them both. It was
going to be a home invasion gone bad. She tried
to run out a side door, but one man got
her with an ASP. An ASP, by the way, I

(46:19):
didn't know what that was. It's inexpandable baton, like the
kind that police carried. She didn't stay down and there
was a fight. The second man had an axe handle
he got from her bedroom instead of his ASP. They
tried to go back for it, but the cops were
already there. Nap was not killed by any of the
men or woman. This wasn't one crazed man with a
golf club. The people you're looking for are major prescription

(46:41):
drug suppliers in Phoenix, connected to Mexico, Canada, and some
other offshore operation. That's all I can say.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
What do you make of that note?

Speaker 1 (46:50):
I'm not so sure about that.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
The county prosecutor assigned an investigator to follow up. When
the investigator met with Steve and his lawyer to show
them the email, Steve reportedly began weeping. He said the
message confirmed what he had already heard from a voice
in the prison.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
Vent yep.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
According to Steve, just a few weeks earlier, a mysterious
voice came through the air vent in his cell a
fellow inmate who told him the same story that Jim
Knapp was involved in a prescription drug ring and that
Carol was killed as a result. Steve didn't know the
name of the inmate who gave him this information, and
when the investigator offered to interview people in the jail

(47:29):
to try to identify who had spoken to Steve, Steve declined,
saying he didn't want to be moved to protective custody.

Speaker 3 (47:36):
So just think about that.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
Steve claims that there's someone in jail who could exonerate him,
but he didn't want that person tracked down because it
might mean spending some time in solitary.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
That seems highly improbable, I would say.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
So. Investigators looked into the email. It had been sent
from a freshly created account at an Internet cafe in Phoenix,
the person who sent it paid in cash, and there
was no security camera in the building. In other words,
it was a dead end. But if this was part
of some elaborate plot to cast out on Steve's guilt,
it had the desired effect. It added just enough mystery

(48:11):
to keep durors guessing, or at least that was the hope.
As the trial approached, prosecutors were increasingly worried that Judge
Thomas Lindberg might be biased in Steve Demacher's favor. The
judge had already made several pre trial rulings that frustrated
the state. He barred the prosecution from introducing evidence about
Steve's extramarital affairs, his use of human growth hormone, and

(48:33):
even complaints against him related to his work as a
financial advisor, all of which prosecutors believed spoke to motive
or character.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
Do you know what the complaints against him were?

Speaker 2 (48:44):
No, I read about it in the book that I
researched this case on. There wasn't a lot of detail there,
but financial advisors, it's not uncommon to have complaints against you,
but he did have a few. But what really raised
eyebrows came during a hearing about whether the state would
pursue the death penalty. Judge Lindberg remarked, quote, I don't
believe we're going to get there, implying that he didn't

(49:05):
think the evidence justified a death sentence. The prosecutor pushed back,
saying quote, I'm really really concerned that you have, at
least to some extent, made up your mind in this case,
that you have prejudged the case to some extent, that
you're no longer impartial, and that you have some bias.
In response, the state filed a motion to have Lindberg
removed from the case. A hearing was held on the issue,

(49:27):
but in the end the motion was denied and Judge
Lindbergh remained on the case.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
Do you think he seemed biased.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
Just based on the comments that he made beforehand, I
don't think we're going to get there. It seemed like
he was sort of judging or prejudging the case a
little bit. Jury selection finally got underway in May of
twenty ten. Because of the state was still pursuing the
death penalty at that point, the process was long and tedious,
finding jurors who could be fair and impartial. And who

(49:55):
were also open to the possibility of imposing the death sentence.
Took week and then, in a surprising twist, prosecutors announced
they were dropping the death penalty. They said it was
out of respect for Carroll's surviving family members who were
opposed to it. Steve's defense team wasn't thrilled with this
move by the state. That's because conventional wisdom says that

(50:16):
jurors who are willing to impose the death penalty tend
to be more prosecution friendly, more likely to convict. Once
the death penalty was off the table, the defense asked
the court to scrap the jury that had been seated
and start fresh, but Judge Lindbergh denied the request. The
same jury would stay. As the trial began, the state
started stacking up circumstantial evidence. One notable moment came when

(50:39):
an FBI expert took the stand to talk about the
shoe prints found next to the bike tracks behind Carrol's home.
He had run the prince through the FBI's footwear database.
I didn't know such a thing existed, and he found
just three potential matches, all from the same brand, Losportiva.
The specific models were the Ultranoord, the Imagen, and the

(50:59):
Pike Peak. A check of Steve's credit card records revealed
that he had purchased a pair of Losportiva Pike's Peak
shoes back in April of two thousand and six, just
over two years before Carol's murder, and only three hundred
and forty nine pairs of those shoes in Steve's size
had been sold in the US by that time.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
There's so much data there in that sentence.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
It really is.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
It blows my mind that the FBI have a database.
They can run a photo through it and say, Yep,
there's only these three shoes.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
Is Sportiva a right?

Speaker 2 (51:31):
Steve's attorneys pointed out that he ran regularly and wore
through shoes quickly, about one pair every six months, so
it was entirely plausible that those shoes had long since
been discarded. Still, for the jury, it may have been
one more piece of the puzzle, placing Steve near the scene.
On June sixteenth, day eight of the trial, the prosecution

(51:51):
was hitting its stride. Witnesses had been called, exhibits entered,
and the state was steadily building its case. But then
something unexpected happened that brought the entire trial to a
screeching halt. That day, Judge Thomas Lindbergh called for an
early lunch break, which struck some in the courtroom as
a bit unusual. A short while later, back in his chambers,
he suddenly collapsed. A nearby deputy saw what happened and rushed.

Speaker 3 (52:15):
To his aid.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
Judge Lindbergh was taken to the hospital, where doctors discovered
the cause a brain tumor.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
The trial was immediately suspended for weeks. Everything was on
hold while a new judge could be appointed. Eventually, Judge
Warren Darrow was assigned to take over. More than a
month after the abrupt interruption, the trial resumed on July
twenty first. One of the defense's key strategies was to
undermine the credibility of the investigation, to plant the idea

(52:44):
that police had zeroed in on Steve too quickly and
then fumbled the forensics. They found a surprising ally in
the prosecution's own witness, County medical examiner doctor Philip Keene.
During his testimony, doctor Keene revealed that when he transported
Carroll's box to Phoenix for further examination by a forensic anthropologist,

(53:04):
He did so in the back of his personal pickup truck.
The body, sealed in a body bag, had been strapped
down with a bungee cord for the hour and a
half ride through the Arizona heat. He admitted that the
Phoenix temperatures in July often soar above one hundred degrees,
and acknowledged somewhat sheepishly, that this wasn't the ideal procedure

(53:25):
for the defense. It was a gift, an opportunity to
highlight carelessness, raised questions about the chain of custody and
suggests that key evidence might have been compromised.

Speaker 3 (53:35):

Speaker 1 (53:44):
As the trial moved forward, the prosecution continued chasing down
leads tied to the mysterious anonymous email, the one that
claimed Carroll's murder was the result of Jim Knapp's involvement
in a prescription drug ring. The judge had ruled that
the email couldn't be a ex excluded so investigators needed
to discredit it. They sent it to the FBI's Behavior

(54:05):
Analysis Unit in Quantico. Their assessment the email was bogus.
The scenario described didn't match what was found at the
crime scene. No professional hit team would show up without
weapons and improvise with a golf club or axe handle.
The FBI believe the email was an attempt to exonerate
Steve and likely written by someone close to him. Investigators

(54:28):
started comparing writing styles. A noted something interesting. This syntax, grammar,
and punctuation of the anonymous email closely resembled emails Charlotte
had written to her mom. Lowercase letters at the beginning
of sentences, run on thoughts, misplaced commas, all very familiar. Meanwhile,
Steve's girlfriend, Renee, was reaching her limit. She had stood

(54:51):
by him through the investigation and even acted as trustee
of Carroll's estate, helping funnel insurance money to Steve's legal defense,
but by now she felt used, manipulated, and done so.
In September nineteenth, Renee came clean. In exchange for immunity
from conspiracy and evidence tampering charges, she agreed to reveal

(55:11):
the truth about the email. She told investigators that during
a prison visit, Steve had written out the entire email
and held it up to the glass partition for Charlotte
to copy. He claimed the information came from a mysterious voice.
In the event, an anonymous prison source and insisted it
had to be shared anonymously or no one would believe it.

(55:33):
Renee and Charlotte had been uncomfortable with the plan, but
at the time Steve was facing the death penalty, they
were desperate to help. Now, with Renee's confession in hand,
prosecutors approached Charlotte and told her they knew everything. They
offered her immunity as well, and Charlotte agreed to testify.
What a piece of dirt this guy is?

Speaker 3 (55:53):
Oh, totally.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
I mean he uses everyone around him to his benefits.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
They just can't fathom putting your child in danger like that.
I know, had she not gotten immunity, she could have
been prosecuted.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
With a revelation about the fabricated email, the trial came
to a screeching halt. Suddenly there were potential new charges
on the table, tampering with evidence, forgery, fraud, conspiracy, even
contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Steve's defense team
now claimed they had a conflict of interest. After all,
they had unknowingly been used to help Steve orchestrate the

(56:26):
email hoax, and they were also involved in the convoluted
insurance money transaction another potential criminal matter, they petitioned to
withdraw from the case. Prosecutors opposed the motion, but the
issue escalated all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court,
which ultimately ruled that the defense team had to be
allowed to step down. That left Judge Warren Darrow with

(56:49):
no choice but to declare a mistrial in November twenty ten.
One familiar face in the courtroom that day was Judge
Thomas Lindbergh, once the original judge on the case. He
had collapsed in the trial just a few months earlier
due to a brain tumor. Now gone and visibly ill,
he watched quietly from the gallery as the trial he
started was officially declared over. He would pass away just

(57:11):
a few months later at age fifty eight. Steve, now
out of money and officially declared indigent, was appointed a
new team of public defenders, a cruel irony given the
links that he had gone to in order to funnel
the seven hundred and seventy thousand dollars in life insurance
money towards his defense. That money was gone and the
trial had to start all over.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
That's one of the things that was a waste, I know,
just such a waste like the seven hundred and seventy
thousand dollars which should have gone to Charlotte and Katie. Right,
it's just up in smoke.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
And that's what I meant. I didn't mean, like, you know,
it was too bad that he didn't have the money
towards his defense, just so sad that he didn't want
to take care of his daughters and their education and
you know, helping them start out in life. After the mistrial,
Steve's new attorneys interviewed nine ers from the original trial.
Five said that they were leaning toward acquittal, toward conviction,

(58:01):
and one was undecided. And that was before the defense
had even presented its case. It gave Steve's new team
reason to believe that a second trial might go their way.
I don't love that these jurors had to be interviewed
after the first trial.

Speaker 2 (58:16):
Well, they didn't have to be, they chose to be interviewed,
But I know what you mean.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
It is a little bit makes me feel icky.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Yeah, I mean, you're right, if you're a juror, you
should be. I mean, they didn't have to talk, but
at the same time, they probably felt obligated to talk.
And you know, it should really be your own opinion.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
Seems very untoward to me.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
Yeah, there's something a little bit icky about it.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
One of the biggest obstacles for the prosecution was the
DNA evidence, or rather the lack of it. There were
no fingerprints, no hair, no fibers, and no DNA linking
Steve de Mocker to the scene of Carroll's murder. But
what they did find under Carroll's fingernails was even more troubling,
male DNA that didn't match Steve. Despite testing samples from

(58:58):
everyone who might reasonably have come into contact with Carroll, friends, family,
co workers, even emergency responders, investigators came up empty. Whoever
this was, they were unidentified and potentially a huge problem
for the prosecution's case. The unknown profile came to be
known as Mister Six's zero three, named after the evidence

(59:21):
tag number assigned to the DNA sample. As they prepared
for the second trial, investigators had an idea one if
this DNA wasn't left during the crime, but instead was
the result of contamination during the autopsy. They pulled the
files for the three autopsies performed immediately before Carroll's and
had blood samples tested. In February twenty eleven, the crime

(59:43):
lab called with an answer. Mister six zero three was
identified as Ronald Berman, a man who had died of
natural causes and whose autopsy had taken place just before Carroll's.
I don't remember the case this happened in it in
a different case and all.

Speaker 2 (59:59):
It's just so crazy, and it's crazy that they thought
to do this too. That it's good that they thought
to do this, because otherwise it would have been a
big problem, I think with their case.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
But so it must have been like a negligible amount
of DNA, really, right, I guess it was a striking
example of procedural sloppiness and another talking point for the defense.
But at least it solved the mystery of the unknown
male DNA, removing what had been one of the most
troubling pieces of evidence undermining the state's case.

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
After years of delays, jury selection for Steve's retrial finally
began in July twenty thirteen. This time around, the prosecution
streamlined their case. They trimmed their witness list, focused on
core facts, and ditched some of the more convoluted elements
from the first trial. Their case was still circumstantial, no weapon,
no direct evidence, no confession, but they believed the pattern

(01:00:53):
of Steve's behavior before and after the murder told the story.
The state argued that there was a clear motive money.
Prosecutors highlighted Steve's extravagant lifestyle in the months leading up
to the murder. In just three months, he averaged fifteen
hundred dollars per month on clothing, eleven hundred dollars in
cash withdrawals every month, eight hundred dollars on restaurant meals,

(01:01:15):
six hundred dollars for golf club membership, five hundred dollars
for electronics, one hundred and sixty dollars for haircuts, and
one hundred and twenty dollars in SPA treatments. That's every month.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
I don't think it sounds that crazy. No, I don't think.

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
Eeen hundred dollars a month on clothing.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
Well, you haven't that much in like ten years. No,
I mean it's a lot, but if you're you know,
a professional, I'm not saying. I mean, you know, I
don't spend that much. But I don't think it sounds
that crazy. I don't think it's as crazy as you
might think.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
It's so maybe not, But he was spending a lot
more than he was making. Yeah, he was also leasing
three BMWs, one for himself, one for each daughter, and
regularly splurging on trips and sports gear, all while paying alimony.
At the time of Carol's death, Steve was in the
hole by nearly four hundred thousand dollars. Steve's defense stuck
to its original position. No physical evidence tied Steve to

(01:02:05):
the scene. No trace of blood, DNA, or even fiber
from Carroll's house, in his car, his condo, or his laundry.
No golf club had ever been recovered. The tire and
shoe prints weren't definitively matched to Steve. The investigation, they said,
had been sloppy and biased from day one, full of shortcuts, oversights,
and tunnel vision. With the DNA mystery resolved, the defense

(01:02:27):
team leaned into an alternate theory. Jim Knapp was the killer.
They argued that Jim was mentally unstable, furious at Carroll
for not helping him launch his Maui Wowie Smoothie franchise,
and harboring romantic feelings that she didn't return. But their
theory had one major flaw. The timeline phone records showed

(01:02:48):
that Jim was at his ex wife Anne's home the
night of the murder at seven fifty eight pm, his
cell phone pinged off a tower near her house as
he checked his voicemail. Carroll's call with her mother was
abruptly cut off just one minute later at seven point
fifty nine, which was the presumed time of the attack.
The defense tried to argue that the call may have

(01:03:08):
ended for some other reason than that Jim could have
left later and still made it to Carol's home. After all,
he showed up suspiciously just as the police were arriving.
But it was a long shot.

Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
I mean, the.

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
Fact that he could say for sure he was at
his ex wife's home the minute before that phone call
ended pretty much clears him. Steve's defense also said that
his post murder behavior preparing to flee orchestrating the anonymous
email telling the voice in the vent story wasn't evidence
of guilt, but the desperate actions of a man terrified

(01:03:41):
of being wrongly convicted. In closing arguments, prosecutor Jeff Pauport
staged a theatrical moment. He wheeled in a rolled up
rug from home, then dramatically beat it with a golf
club in front of the jury, a vivid reenactment of
the brutality of Carol's murder when dust flew everywhere. His wife,
who was sitting and the audience, was horrified.

Speaker 3 (01:04:01):
Afterwards, she scolded.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
Him, if I had known you were going to do that,
I would have vacuumed it first. The jury deliberated for
three full days before returning with a verdict. As the
courtroom filled in anticipation, Charlotte and Katie hugged their grandmother Ruth,
in a moment that captured the heart wrenching divide in
their family. Then the sisters quietly took their places behind
their father Steve on the defense side. Ruth sat across

(01:04:25):
from them on the prosecution side.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
That is heartbreaking.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
It is really sad, But at least they still maintained
a relationship.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
That is good.

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
So these threats that you write in the middle of
these scripts are really aggressive and not very nice.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
Rich, I don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
Yeah, so he's in all caps, and it's like, don't
look well, look at the script, look at me.

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
Sometimes you have to be kind of direct. What do
you think the verdict is going to be? Because I
know you haven't looked ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
I'm sure he was guilty. Well, you are positive he
was guilty because I did look ahead. What are you
going to do about it?

Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
Wow, it's pretty rude. Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
The verdict was guilty on all accounts. Though the case
was built on circumstantial evidence, the jury found the puzzle
pieces compelling, Steve had a clear financial motive and emotional
motive and no credible alibi. Sentencing was scheduled for January
twenty fifteen, three months after the conviction. Outside the courtroom
that day, Steve's mother, Jan approached Carol's mother Ruth. She

(01:05:23):
pressed a small medallion into Ruth's hand.

Speaker 3 (01:05:25):
It said peace.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
Jan told her, quote, I'll never believe that Steve killed Carol.
Ruth didn't respond. She understood if their roles were reversed,
she might feel the same. At the sentencing hearing, prosecutors
pushed for the maximum possible sentence. They said Steve should
never be allowed to walk free again, and demanded more
than seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in restitution to

(01:05:49):
return the stolen insurance funds to Carol's trust. Justice, they argued,
wouldn't be complete without financial accountability. Ruth couldn't attend the
hearing in person. Her health had declined and she was
no longer able to travel from Nashville, but she wrote
a letter to the court and asked that Carroll's photo
be displayed as her words were read aloud.

Speaker 3 (01:06:09):
On Steve's behalf.

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
His mother, several siblings, and both daughters spoke. Katie, now
twenty six, described her father as loving and kind, someone
who had taught her compassion and forgiveness. Charlotte, twenty three,
spoke through tears about the pain of losing her mother
and the added devastation of potentially losing her father to
missing her wedding, never meeting her future children. Steve addressed

(01:06:33):
the court himself. He said, quote, I did not kill Carol.
We loved each other for more than twenty years. Our
marriage was over, but not our affection for each other.
I'm incapable of violence against her. He pleaded for leniency,
insisting that locking up an innocent man would not serve justice,
but the court disagreed. Steve was sentenced to life in

(01:06:54):
prison without the possibility of parole for murder, plus twenty
one additional years for the related charges. He was also
ordered to pay more than seven hundred thousand dollars in
restitution to Carroll's trust, which I'm sure he'd probably never
paid because he was indigent. By that point, justice, at
least in the eyes of the court, had finally been served.

(01:07:14):
Steve's attorney filed a notice of appeal in February twenty fourteen,
with the formal appeal submitted a year later in March
twenty fifteen. The case was reviewed by the Arizona State
Supreme Court, which ultimately denied the appeal in July twenty seventeen. Today,
Steve Demacher is serving a life sentence without the possibility
of parole at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Douglas,

(01:07:37):
five miles from the Mexico border and two hundred and
seventy miles from the town of Prescott, where his life
once looked very different. Despite the devastating events they endured,
Katy and Charlotte have both gone on to build impressive
lives for themselves. Katy graduated from Berkeley Law School in
twenty fifteen. She clerked for the U. S District Court
for the Northern District of California, then was selected for

(01:08:00):
the prestigious Department of Justice Honors Program in twenty seventeen.
She worked as a trial attorney for the DOJ for
nearly eight years, and as of June twenty twenty five,
serves as the Senior Assistant Attorney General for the State
of Colorado. She also got married in twenty seventeen. Charlotte
was inspired by her father's career in wealth management and

(01:08:21):
earned a finance degree from Arizona State University. After working
for several years at a boutique investment bank, she went
on to found a financial literacy app called Penny, later
rebranded as a Sender. She also co founded a company
called Refresh Data, providing real estate insights in Colorado, and
currently serves as chief operating officer for a company that

(01:08:44):
offers e contract solutions for real estate transactions in the
state of Colorado. Carol Kennedy was many things, a mother,
an artist, an educator, a counselor, a psychotherapist, and a
mentor to many. Her life was full of creativity, compassion,
and quiet strength. She was taken far too soon at
the age of fifty three. Rest in peace, Carol, Rest

(01:09:06):
in peace.

Speaker 1 (01:09:07):
Do Charlotte and Katie see their dad?

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
I don't know that and I don't know if they
believe he is innocent still. They obviously stood behind him
through the entire trial, but in the you know, I
watched a dateline and a forty eight hours for this case,
and some of Steve's family members appear in it basically
defending him. They don't appear in anything, so I assume
they just don't want to talk.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
About Yeah, And I don't blame them for that at all.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
No, I don't blame them either.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
Do you.

Speaker 3 (01:09:35):
I think I know the answer to this.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
But do you believe that Steve killed Carol? And maybe
the harder question is do you believe there was enough
to convict him?

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):
I believe that he killed Carol? And yeah, I think
there was enough evidence.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
I think there was too, even though there was no DNA,
you know, all the physical evidence, but there was so
much circumstantial evidence.

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
I mean, circumstantial evidence is evidence. Absolutely, Steve was in
a significant amount of debt, but he also had the
means to get himself out of that debt.

Speaker 3 (01:10:05):
Yeah he had it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
Sounds like he was pretty good at what he did.
He had a great career, he had a good life,
and yeah, he.

Speaker 2 (01:10:11):
Had great earning potential. I mean, his problem with debt
was that he spent too much. If he had just
you know, scaled back a little bit on spending, he
could have gotten out of debt easily and had a
you know, successful career and then fine financially.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
And Carol had every right to move on with her
life and forget about ye Steve, and just the fact
that he ended her life so selfishly.

Speaker 3 (01:10:35):
And yeah, it's just.

Speaker 2 (01:10:37):
Well, I do wonder you know about the motive. I
was going to ask you about that, because I think
the prosecution their theory was that his motive was primarily financial,
but I'm not so sure about that because of what
you just said. He could have gotten himself out of debt.
He was making a lot of money. So what do
you think his motive was.

Speaker 1 (01:10:54):
I think he was jealous that that Carol was going
to move on with her life. This is what happens
in so many of the cases. You know, the man
can have multiple affairs and you know, do whatever he wants,
but as soon as the woman is done stands up
for herself, Yeah, the man has a hard time.

Speaker 3 (01:11:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11:12):
A lot of people in the book that I read speculated,
People that knew Steve speculated that no one had ever
said no to him before, Like, no one had ever
turned him down before. He was he was a good
looking guy. He had a lot going for him. He
was very persuasive, manipulative, some might say, and women, you know,
he didn't have a lot of women turning him down.
And I think having Carol finally say no and she

(01:11:35):
was done, I think that may have, you know, tipped
him over the edge. Jim Napp was kind of an
interesting person in this case, kind of a tragic figure
in some ways, but also, you know, not the greatest guy,
or he doesn't come off as being the greatest guy,
like he seemed to have some issues with women. But
what do you think about Jim's role in this case?
Do you think that do you First of all, do

(01:11:56):
you think it's possible that Jim may have killed Carol?

Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
I think you did a great job telling this story,
but I'm not really sure I know who Jim is. Yeah,
he seems kind of like a shadowy figure in a
lot of ways, and.

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
A little bit of a paradox, like he kind of
comes off as a little bit of a just an odd,
kind of goofy guy, but sometimes he comes off as
a little bit of a you know, not a great guy.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
It's sounds like he was taking advantage of Carol in
this situation, like staying in her guest house and probably
not you know, giving her anything in return.

Speaker 3 (01:12:28):
Yeah, yeah, that could be.

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):
I have read that a lot of Jim's family and
friends are upset about the way he's portrayed, especially in
like the TV show so Dateline forty eight hours, because
I think those shows they want to they want to
add drama, that they want to make things so.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
Like kind of try not to do that in our
case is usually.

Speaker 3 (01:12:46):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:12:47):
I think you know, he was a great red Herring,
right he was, Yes, And.

Speaker 2 (01:12:51):
I think he was portrayed as being maybe worse than
he was in real life.

Speaker 1 (01:12:55):
Well no, thanks to Steve. I mean, Steve really portrayed
him like that, right with the whole you know, whisper
in the prison and you know.

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
Oh yeah, he definitely perpetuated those those things.

Speaker 1 (01:13:06):
Yeah, and his defense I'm sure was very happy to have,
you know, try to make Jim take the fall.

Speaker 3 (01:13:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
Before we close, I do want to mention my main
source for this case. I did watch forty eight hours
in Dateline and read several articles, but the main source
was a book by Caitlin Rother called Then No One
Can Have Her Kitlyn Rother also wrote the book Death
on Ocean Boulevard about the strange case of Rebecca Zahaw
that we covered way back in twenty twenty two. And

(01:13:31):
I just want to say both books are really good,
among the best true crime books I've read, very well researched,
very well written.

Speaker 1 (01:13:38):
Well, I'm going to go look at her list of
works really quick and get a jumpstart on my next
case before you grab it.

Speaker 3 (01:13:43):
You should.

Speaker 1 (01:13:44):
I love reading a good true crime and we both
kind of do it because we both really do enjoy
learning about these stories and telling the stories. And I
try to like let the story unfold for me, and
I think you do the same.

Speaker 3 (01:13:57):
Oh, I do, definite.

Speaker 1 (01:13:58):
I do love you know, a good book. I try
not to. I think we both do it the same way.
We don't watch the TV shows until we've read the
book and digested the story.

Speaker 3 (01:14:07):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:14:08):
And if I was going to say, if you're interested
in learning more about if you really liked this case
and thought it was interesting, read her book, because there
was a lot of things I left out, Like I
know This was a long episode, but there were things
that I thought were interesting that I just felt like
I can't. I can't add more to it, but it's
definitely worth a read.

Speaker 1 (01:14:24):
Yeah, thank you so much for listening to this episode
of Love Mary Kill.

Speaker 2 (01:14:35):
Please rate, review, follow, and subscribe, Find us on social media,
or send us an email at Lovemarykill at gmail dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:14:43):
Please consider supporting us on Patreon dot com slash love Marykill.
For five dollars a month. You get early ad free
access and a monthly bonus episode.

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
Join us next Monday for another episode of Love Mary Kill.

Speaker 4 (01:15:02):
Atta back to

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Carol Kennedy and Steve DeMocker - Part 2

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