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Speaker 3: Dan Zufanski, Good Evening. She thought she had married her soulmate.
Speaker 3: But when Carol Kennedy could no longer tolerate her husband's
Speaker 3: reckless womanizing and out of control spending, the artist, therapist
Speaker 3: and mother of two had to let him go. Just
Speaker 3: weeks after the divorce, Carol was found in her Arizona
Speaker 3: Ranch home, bludgeoned to death with a golf club. Her ex,
Speaker 3: Stephen Democher, was the prime suspect, yet it took the
Speaker 3: authorities months to arrest him and years to convict. Packed
Speaker 3: with twists and turns, this powerful real life account reveals
Speaker 3: every bizarre detail of this compelling case. Best Selling author
Speaker 3: and award winning journalist Caitlyn Rother presents an unforgettable story
Speaker 3: of love turned to obsession and a family torn apart forever.
Speaker 3: The book that we're featuring this evening is then no
Speaker 3: one can have her with my special guest, journalist and
Speaker 3: author Caitlyn Rother. Welcome back to the program and thank
Speaker 3: you for agreeing to this interview. Kaitlyn Rother, Hey, thanks
Speaker 3: for having me back. Thank you for coming on back.
Speaker 3: Congratulations on the new book, another her incredible tale. So
Speaker 3: let's start right with the incredible portrait that you do
Speaker 3: paint in this book of Virginia. Carol Kennedy. She's born
Speaker 3: in nineteen fifty four. Tell us about her upbringing which
Speaker 3: shapes the kind of incredible personality that she is and
Speaker 3: that you basically showcase in this book.
Speaker 7: Well, Carol was born in Nashville, Tennessee, to working class
Speaker 7: parents who mom was a secretary and dad work carrier
Speaker 7: and later as an auditor, and you know, just a
Speaker 7: really nice family. She had also had a brother, and
Speaker 7: mom really loved classical music, so she always had that playing.
Speaker 7: And Carol, I guess, from a young age, was pretty
Speaker 7: you know, knew what she wanted. And she was brought
Speaker 7: up also in this religious family, and she was very spiritual,
Speaker 7: very early. Wanted to be baptized at nine years old,
Speaker 7: sooner than her mom would have liked, but you know,
Speaker 7: went along with it. Carol also was ambitious and well
Speaker 7: liked and respected by her peers. And she was even
Speaker 7: a teenage model, so she had everything going from her
Speaker 7: for her even from a very young age, and seemed
Speaker 7: like she knew where she wanted to go and what
Speaker 7: she wanted to do. But along the way, you know,
Speaker 7: she picked up a number of pretty unusual talents and skills,
Speaker 7: you know, going to carpentry school, she learned how to
Speaker 7: be a yoga instructor, so she ended up being a therapist,
Speaker 7: and she later brought out her artistic side and started
Speaker 7: doing monoliths printing. But she she really seemed to have
Speaker 7: her wits about her and her you know, she knew
Speaker 7: what she wanted. She was a strong person and a
Speaker 7: smart person.
Speaker 3: Now she gets married, talk about responsible person. By She
Speaker 3: did get engaged early and to a man named Tom,
Speaker 3: and it only lasts about eighteen months. So just tell
Speaker 3: us about a little bit about this period in her life.
Speaker 7: I don't know too much about it other than the
Speaker 7: fact that she married young and it was over pretty quickly.
Speaker 7: She left town with him and came back and she
Speaker 7: was single, so it didn't last long. He was a
Speaker 7: good guy from a good family. I don't really know,
Speaker 7: I interviewed her mom about her mom didn't really know
Speaker 7: too much about it, other than that he was a
Speaker 7: nice guy. It was just, you know, she was young
Speaker 7: and it didn't last.
Speaker 3: Now, you introduce a character that's important in Carol's life
Speaker 3: early on and then later as they reconnect, and this
Speaker 3: woman's name Debbie. So tell us a little bit about
Speaker 3: the relationship to Debbie and Carol have and when they reconnect.
Speaker 3: What's the circumstances when they reconnect.
Speaker 7: Well, they knew each other when they were both in
Speaker 7: their respective relationships that I was just talking about with
Speaker 7: Carol's first husband. Debbie was also with another guy and
Speaker 7: they the two men knew each other, and so they
Speaker 7: were hanging out as a foursome. Carol and Debbie met
Speaker 7: at a restaurant where they both worked, and so Carol
Speaker 7: left and you know, went on her way and came
Speaker 7: back to town looking for a roommate with her dog,
Speaker 7: and by chance, you know, basically ended up living back
Speaker 7: with her friend Debbie. So they've known each other, they've
Speaker 7: known each other for a long time, and they stayed
Speaker 7: really close pretty much through the end of Carol's life.
Speaker 3: Now, while they after they've reconnected, this is when Carol
Speaker 3: meets Steve in New York. So tell us the circumstances
Speaker 3: upon which Carol meets Steve.
Speaker 7: Well, Carol was away, Debbie didn't know exactly how they met,
Speaker 7: but it seems that they met someplace up in the
Speaker 7: New York area, because that's where Steve was actually going
Speaker 7: to graduate school. He was in a PhD program at
Speaker 7: Rochester University studying critical social theory. And so Carol came
Speaker 7: back and she was just like raving about this mister wonderful,
Speaker 7: that you know, guy that she met. And so I
Speaker 7: guess they were seeing each other long distance, and they
Speaker 7: went off to Mexico, and Carol came back and just said,
Speaker 7: you know, I just really feel in my gut that
Speaker 7: this is this is the one. This is the guy.
Speaker 7: He's my soulmate. So he came to visit, and Debbie
Speaker 7: really liked him too, and said, wow, he's intelligent, he's athletic,
Speaker 7: he's ambitious, he really seems to carry you know, an
Speaker 7: adore Carol my good friend. And so you know, she
Speaker 7: told me that she really liked him a lot too,
Speaker 7: and thought, wow, Carol really really was in love, and
Speaker 7: it was it was all good at that point.
Speaker 3: At that time as well, she was very attracted to him.
Speaker 3: We haven't completely painted the portrait of her too. Is
Speaker 3: that they're both vegetarians, so that's probably a very interesting
Speaker 3: thing to attract each other as well, and that she
Speaker 3: really he was an outdoors guy, but they were really
Speaker 3: a healthy living They had that in common, that they're
Speaker 3: healthy living aspects of their of their life. And also
Speaker 3: that she was really immersed in all kinds of things
Speaker 3: that we will be considered her spiritual development, yoga and
Speaker 3: art work, and so she had had a rich community
Speaker 3: of people that felt the same way. So she was
Speaker 3: always sociology and counseling and art and spirituality and yoga,
Speaker 3: and so the kinds of personality she was, she had
Speaker 3: that reflected and Steve didn't She She saw her a
Speaker 3: soulmate in terms of how they felt about each other.
Speaker 3: But there was a lot in common as well. That
Speaker 3: was part of that decision, wasn't it.
Speaker 7: I'm not sure how much he was really into this,
Speaker 7: you know, the he wasn't into therapy or anything, but
Speaker 7: her friend Debbie was ultimately became a therapist, and so
Speaker 7: did Carol. But I do know, yes, the healthy living
Speaker 7: thing was definitely a connection. I don't know that much
Speaker 7: about Steve, but I didn't in terms of spirituality, but
Speaker 7: I didn't hear that from anybody, but I do know
Speaker 7: there was something. There was a great attraction, I know that.
Speaker 7: And they were both intelligent, very intellectual people, and I
Speaker 7: got the feeling that they were both drawn to kind
Speaker 7: of an alternative way of life, like you said, being
Speaker 7: vegetarian and wanting to live on the la land, you know,
Speaker 7: off the land, and and being very nature conscious rock
Speaker 7: climbing and hiking and you know, exercising. Steve was involved
Speaker 7: with outward bound and kayaking, and you know he was
Speaker 7: also early on helped his he had He was the
Speaker 7: oldest of nine siblings, and he apparently was a mentor
Speaker 7: to them, you know, taking them places and you know,
Speaker 7: showing them how to how to learn how to do
Speaker 7: these dangerous kinds of outdoors activities and you know, the
Speaker 7: kayaking and all that other stuff. So they definitely saw
Speaker 7: something in each other early on that drew them to
Speaker 7: each other, and they both thought each other was their soulmates.
Speaker 7: So it started out really nice.
Speaker 3: What did Elvin and Ruth, Carol's parents think of Steve, Well,
Speaker 3: early on.
Speaker 7: I think they saw he was all right. They came
Speaker 7: to the to the wedding and met his parents and
Speaker 7: family up in you know, a suburb of Rochester, and
Speaker 7: they were a little bit intimidated because Steve came from
Speaker 7: a much socio economically, you know, better off. So Steve's
Speaker 7: father was a doctor. Steve's mother had multiple degrees. Also,
Speaker 7: Steve's family in general was pretty accomplished and pretty educated,
Speaker 7: went to private schools. So but I think initially she
Speaker 7: wrote a letter to Steve because she's you know, they
Speaker 7: were engaged and got married. She didn't really approve of
Speaker 7: Carol living you know together outside of marriage, so she
Speaker 7: wrote him to say, you know, thank you for doing
Speaker 7: the right thing. And I guess Steve didn't write back.
Speaker 7: So Carol's mom didn't really know what to make of him.
Speaker 7: But once she met him, I think she thought, no,
Speaker 7: he seemed okay.
Speaker 3: Yes. And John and Janice, her his parents, they they
Speaker 3: thought highly of Carrol as well.
Speaker 7: You know, I wasn't able to interview them, so it
Speaker 7: seemed that they you know, liked her based on their
Speaker 7: comments in court. They said, you know, I didn't John
Speaker 7: didn't speak when I was there. Only his only Jan
Speaker 7: Steve's mother, but I assumed that they you know, they
Speaker 7: liked her. They adopted her, not adopted officially, but you know,
Speaker 7: brought her into the family. Steve and Carol lived on
Speaker 7: the property out of his parents at his parents' house
Speaker 7: while he and Carol were both in graduate school at
Speaker 7: Rochester University. So they must have gotten along. I know Carol.
Speaker 7: I believe she you know, built him a nice garden
Speaker 7: while she was there, So it seems that she became,
Speaker 7: you know, part of their family.
Speaker 3: Now this will link up into what we talk about
Speaker 3: sex addiction and Steve's cheating ways in the marriage. But
Speaker 3: what I thought was a little out of character. But
Speaker 3: but you know, maybe just a little bit unusual was
Speaker 3: their outward sexuality and what she had said about Steve
Speaker 3: and what its impact was probably on this relationship with
Speaker 3: them going back and forth, and we'll talk about that
Speaker 3: a little bit later. So tell us a little bit
Speaker 3: about their sort of it seemed unusual their sexuality and
Speaker 3: telling people about it.
Speaker 7: Well, I heard this from one person, and that was
Speaker 7: Steve's former best friend, Sturgis Robinson, that he noticed he
Speaker 7: was you know, he knew Steve when they went to college.
Speaker 7: Together at Prescott College. They were for for about twenty
Speaker 7: five years before they had a falling out. But when
Speaker 7: you know, when they came Steve and Carol, you know,
Speaker 7: were jumping ahead here in the story, but when they
Speaker 7: came back to live in Prescott, when they after they
Speaker 7: were married and they were having kids and Steve was
Speaker 7: working at the college as a professor and Carol started
Speaker 7: working there as well. Sturg just said that they were
Speaker 7: both pretty open about the fact that they were, you know,
Speaker 7: to do each other and and had good sex. And
Speaker 7: you know, I think that that was you know, it
Speaker 7: was a different kind of a place. I mean, Prescott
Speaker 7: College is a pretty alternative place, and I don't want
Speaker 7: to say it was a hippie college, but it was
Speaker 7: I think the generation after that, and it was, you know,
Speaker 7: they were of the age where I think things were
Speaker 7: more open, and I don't know that it was all
Speaker 7: that unusual, but I know they were pretty open and
Speaker 7: relaxed about it. I wouldn't say that, you know, they
Speaker 7: weren't inhibited about it, and I don't want to. I
Speaker 7: don't want to make it sound like it's something dirty,
Speaker 7: you know, That's all. I mean. They were married and
Speaker 7: they enjoyed each other.
Speaker 3: So yes, absolutely, I just wanted to, you know, paint
Speaker 3: you know, the complete picture, as you do in this book.
Speaker 3: So she's a very complicated person. It's a very intelligent person, artistic. Again,
Speaker 3: you know, we talk about all the friends and the
Speaker 3: kind of close relationships she has. He's very unique.
Speaker 7: But I think that I forget what I was gonna say, Oh,
Speaker 7: I know later on. I mean, it seemed to me
Speaker 7: that that their sexual relationship with the glue that helped
Speaker 7: them together, because but that comes later more so, I think,
Speaker 7: but I think from the beginning they were pretty close,
Speaker 7: and I think that kept them together. I think that
Speaker 7: was one of the things that was you know, kept
Speaker 7: this relationship, probably one of the good things about it
Speaker 7: that held them together or even maybe at times when
Speaker 7: they should have let go. So I think that's the
Speaker 7: best quay.
Speaker 3: Now we skipped over this. But they meet, they have
Speaker 3: a great relationship, and so it isn't too long before
Speaker 3: they have wedding plans, they get married, and now they're
Speaker 3: having children. So how do they get to Prescott from
Speaker 3: where they were at their parents where at his parents place,
Speaker 3: living in the guest house. So what happens after school
Speaker 3: and and what happens tell us a little bit about
Speaker 3: motherhood and parenthood for Stephen Carroll.
Speaker 7: So Carol gets her a graduate degree. She's got a
Speaker 7: master's in education, so she's, you know, a therapist, and
Speaker 7: Steve is getting a PhD in critical social theory, which
Speaker 7: is actually also a doctorate in education, but it's just
Speaker 7: called something different social critical critical social theory. It's kind
Speaker 7: of an obscure field. I had to look it up
Speaker 7: and see what it was. But the first job he
Speaker 7: had out of graduate school, actually the guy I just mentioned,
Speaker 7: his former best friend, helped him get a job at Patagonia,
Speaker 7: which is an out you know, recreation, outdoor equipment and
Speaker 7: clothing manufacturer, and they are located in Ventura, where I
Speaker 7: actually worked for the La Times for a years. So
Speaker 7: I remember driving by that office and I can't remember
Speaker 7: if we were there at the same time, but so
Speaker 7: he worked there for I think about a year, and
Speaker 7: Carol was working she was working with some domestic violence
Speaker 7: victims and she was working I believe also at a
Speaker 7: community hospital there. And then Steve left unders under a
Speaker 7: little bit of a cloud, I think, based on what
Speaker 7: Sturgist told me, getting involved with someone at work while
Speaker 7: he was married, which was browned upon by the owner's wife,
Speaker 7: who was pretty involved in the culture and in the company.
Speaker 7: So he ended up getting a job at Prescott College
Speaker 7: as a sociology professor, and they so they moved to
Speaker 7: Prescott and back to where he had gone to college.
Speaker 7: So he's back at his alma mater, and within a
Speaker 7: short order, actually he's promoted to dean. But Carol comes
Speaker 7: to work there also, and she's teaching yoga, psychology and
Speaker 7: dream work, and they have their first daughter, actually before
Speaker 7: they get to Prescott, Katie is born, and then they
Speaker 7: have a second daughter, Charlotte, while they're living in Prescott.
Speaker 3: Now with this is TWLL, I would is ironic and
Speaker 3: this might be just a little bit out of place,
Speaker 3: but I've the idea that one of her big she
Speaker 3: had a lot of ambitions. Again we'll talk about artwork
Speaker 3: a little bit later, but one of the things she
Speaker 3: really wanted to do was to write a book about
Speaker 3: domestic violence.
Speaker 7: So I thought, yeah, I was really touched when I
Speaker 7: read this because Carol's mom and I talked on the
Speaker 7: phone and she was really sweet and sent me this
Speaker 7: packet of stuff that she had gone through her you know, belongings,
Speaker 7: and had sent me a kind of a selection of things,
Speaker 7: you know, some cards that Carol had sent her because
Speaker 7: I could see her handwriting, and some emails that Carol
Speaker 7: had written. And actually this newspaper article which was kind
Speaker 7: of yellowed and old, where Carol had been interviewed by
Speaker 7: a small community paper back when I guess Steve was
Speaker 7: probably still working on his PhD and Carol was working
Speaker 7: in I think they were in Vermont, and then she
Speaker 7: was also teaching and working in New York. And the
Speaker 7: reporter interviewed about this teaching and she got hired at
Speaker 7: this college, and at that time she said that it
Speaker 7: was one of her goals that she wanted to write
Speaker 7: a book about domestic violence. And so when I saw that,
Speaker 7: I just kind of felt like, Wow, I felt almost
Speaker 7: like I had her blessing because that's essentially what I
Speaker 7: was doing by writing her story.
Speaker 3: Now at the college, at Prescott College, he has a
Speaker 3: really good run there, if you say, for five years,
Speaker 3: I believe, And then there's a storm cloud again, And
Speaker 3: what's that attributable to? What are the rumors flying around?
Speaker 3: What's his behavior consisting of that? What happens?
Speaker 7: Yeah, Well, what I was told by people who you know,
Speaker 7: went to the college work at the college which lived
Speaker 7: in town. And mind you, this was tricky because everybody,
Speaker 7: you know, it's a very small town. Everybody knows each other,
Speaker 7: everybody knows each other's business. So I used, you know,
Speaker 7: the investigators' reports. I went through hundreds and hundreds and
Speaker 7: thousands of pages of transcripts of interviews with witnesses that
Speaker 7: the detectives had interviewed. And also, you know, I did
Speaker 7: my own interviews, but there were people who you know,
Speaker 7: were scared to have me use their names because they
Speaker 7: were you know, didn't want to be They didn't want
Speaker 7: to be identified in such a small town. But basically,
Speaker 7: what I was told was that it seemed pretty well
Speaker 7: known that Steve was womanizing Carol also called Debbie and
Speaker 7: told her, you know, right around the time when she
Speaker 7: was pregnant with Charlotte, that he was even having an
Speaker 7: affair with the midwife who was delivering Charlotte. And there,
Speaker 7: you know, people's memories aren't perfect, but they thought it
Speaker 7: was when she was still pregnant with Charlotte. The midwife,
Speaker 7: whose name I did not include in the book for
Speaker 7: privacy reasons, she told police that it was after the
Speaker 7: Charlotte was delivered, So I don't have any way to
Speaker 7: know for sure, but Steve was womanizing. Steve was having
Speaker 7: sex with nanny's babysitters, students, the midwife, apparently some staff
Speaker 7: members at the college, and there were some complaints filed
Speaker 7: not only because of the way that he interacted with
Speaker 7: the women at the college, but also just the way
Speaker 7: he seemed to let the power. Because I mentioned he
Speaker 7: was promoted from professor to dean, the way that the
Speaker 7: power went to his you know, seemed to affect the
Speaker 7: way he conducted himself. So he was apparently very manipulative
Speaker 7: and people were put off by that, and so he
Speaker 7: didn't have a great reputation. I guess he wasn't all
Speaker 7: that well liked by people who he worked with. He
Speaker 7: did have a group of guys that he played poker with,
Speaker 7: and one of them helped him leave the college and
Speaker 7: move on to the finance world. When you're ready to
Speaker 7: get to that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well let's talk about that again. His friend Sturgis
Speaker 3: Robinson comes into play, and then there's a big shift,
Speaker 3: and let's talk about that shift. And then after that,
Speaker 3: I've pose a question for you on how does Carol
Speaker 3: feel about this? Just different direction for her husband.
Speaker 7: Well, what Steve decided is that one day, I guess
Speaker 7: he told his mom that he wanted to move from
Speaker 7: academics into finance, and she said, well, why do you
Speaker 7: want to stop helping people? And I you know, I
Speaker 7: got this from her statement that she made at the
Speaker 7: sentencing hearing, and that was about the only thing that
Speaker 7: she agreed to give to me. She did not want
Speaker 7: to be interviewed for this book. So I'm just going
Speaker 7: based on what she said in this statement, basically that
Speaker 7: Steve decided he wanted to move into finance, and he said, well,
Speaker 7: but I am still helping people. I have a way
Speaker 7: to now help people save so that you know, he
Speaker 7: had some answer for her, which was a little it
Speaker 7: seemed to satisfy her. But you know, apparently helping people
Speaker 7: save money so that they would be better off was
Speaker 7: his answer to her. But I don't really know what
Speaker 7: his true motivations were because he did not want to
Speaker 7: be interviewed either. So but according to Sturgis, you know,
Speaker 7: they both went together into this training program and they
Speaker 7: were still good friends, best friends as far as Sturgis thought,
Speaker 7: and so they moved into the finance world and went
Speaker 7: into and became investment but with before long they had
Speaker 7: a falling out because Sturgis had worked with this guy
Speaker 7: who was retiring to take on this guy's clients. And
Speaker 7: so the way this works, I guess, is you get
Speaker 7: a referral essentially that hey, I'm retiring, I'm going to
Speaker 7: hand you over to this you know, young broker who
Speaker 7: I you know, I'm intrusting with your business and I'm
Speaker 7: recommending him. So he had this list of clients he
Speaker 7: was getting ready to give them a call after the weekend,
Speaker 7: and so he started calling them on Monday morning and
Speaker 7: it took him a while, but as he worked down
Speaker 7: the list, he was pretty upset to find that Steve
Speaker 7: had gotten to all of them already over the weekend
Speaker 7: and had basically gotten them to go with him instead.
Speaker 7: And so Sturgis walks into Steve's office and kind of
Speaker 7: confronts him about this, like, you know, what is what
Speaker 7: did what happened here? Why did you do that? And
Speaker 7: Steve just basically denied it and wouldn't really look him
Speaker 7: in the eye and just said, no, that's not what happened,
Speaker 7: and that was that. So you know, without any kind
Speaker 7: of explanation, without and you know, no apology, no, no, nothing.
Speaker 7: He just basically lost an entire twenty five years worth
Speaker 7: of friendship over money, essentially, and it just you know,
Speaker 7: it got worse from there.
Speaker 3: And we're talking about a lot of money. We're talking
Speaker 3: about forty million, that whole what you call the business
Speaker 3: book involved with his business book too, he has a
Speaker 3: partner in this.
Speaker 7: I'm not sure where the I'm not sure where the
Speaker 7: forty million, where that was or when that was. But
Speaker 7: there's a lot of numbers being thrown around in these
Speaker 7: documents that I went through, and I so the timing
Speaker 7: of how much he was making and when also varied
Speaker 7: based on who he was talking to and whether it
Speaker 7: was a divorce affidavit or whether it was, you know,
Speaker 7: asking someone for a loan or what have you. So
Speaker 7: I just wanted to point that out.
Speaker 3: No, all I meant was potentially the client a list
Speaker 3: that his friend had amass was potentially worth forty million,
Speaker 3: that's all, Not.
Speaker 7: That that was what you must have confered the book
Speaker 7: and written these numbers down, because I honestly don't remember that.
Speaker 3: Yes I did, Yes, I Well.
Speaker 7: You're very you're very careful that way, I know, but
Speaker 7: after I write one of these books, I have no
Speaker 7: room for tiny details sometimes, so you have to fring me.
Speaker 3: Yes, no, I will forgive you. But the other thing
Speaker 3: was to I mentioned as you introduced this very very
Speaker 3: important figure as well, his partner, Steve's partners woman named
Speaker 3: Barbinon and so she is significantly involved. She's in terms
Speaker 3: of financially as well. So tell us a little bit
Speaker 3: about his assistant Barb and what kind of professional relationship
Speaker 3: they have an extracurricular as well well.
Speaker 7: When they start out, she's really very much an assistance,
Speaker 7: so in terms of a partnership, I wouldn't call her that,
Speaker 7: and until much later because they were they were together
Speaker 7: for seven years. They started out, they were both working
Speaker 7: together at the first company where Steve worked and then
Speaker 7: they which was a G. Edwards and Barb, you know,
Speaker 7: was his assistants, you know, learning how to be an
Speaker 7: investment broker, training and studying for these uh you know,
Speaker 7: exams that she had to take in order you know,
Speaker 7: the financial advisor's status and anyway, so she's helping him
Speaker 7: out and as time goes on, she wants to get
Speaker 7: a little bit more of the pie essentially, and so
Speaker 7: when he leaves and he goes to the next place
Speaker 7: where he works, which is UBS United Bank of Switzerland,
Speaker 7: I think is what it originally stood for, but they
Speaker 7: call it UBS. She moved over with him, and she
Speaker 7: became more and more involved and they worked as a team.
Speaker 7: But Steve always had a much much bigger percentage of
Speaker 7: you know, as you mentioned the book along the way,
Speaker 7: she was also married, but they started having an affair,
Speaker 7: and she gave a testimony in interviews, and you know,
Speaker 7: the dates kind of varied a little bit, but in general,
Speaker 7: you know, they were together about seven years so between
Speaker 7: you know, she was still married. At first, he was
Speaker 7: obviously married, and so they were working together and sleeping together,
Speaker 7: and Carol at first did not know, and eventually she
Speaker 7: either figured it out or Steve told her. I'm not
Speaker 7: exactly sure, but she definitely found out and was not pleased.
Speaker 3: Now we can't go through all the philandering that Steve
Speaker 3: is up too so that because that would take a
Speaker 3: whole interview. So let's suffice to say that we wardless
Speaker 3: of an affair that's not only what he's having, because
Speaker 3: he's having relationships and an adult friend finder, let's let's
Speaker 3: do a little bit forward.
Speaker 7: Yeah, pardon, I said, yes, that's later on.
Speaker 3: Though, Yes, but but he's along with having a relationship
Speaker 3: with Barb, that's not the only relationship. He's having to
Speaker 3: characterize what he's really like.
Speaker 7: I think at the time, I wasn't able to really
Speaker 7: pin down how many there were at one time during
Speaker 7: that period. Later on, once he was officially separated from Carol,
Speaker 7: I know he was then seeing more than one person,
Speaker 7: but I think while he was still living with Carol,
Speaker 7: I don't know of anyone others than Barb that he
Speaker 7: was that he was having a relationship with. He He
Speaker 7: may have been, though, because no, you know, we just
Speaker 7: know about what he was doing later because he was online,
Speaker 7: you know, and paying money to these dating services. That's
Speaker 7: how we know that. But I don't know, to be honest,
Speaker 7: whether there were multip relationships during the time when he
Speaker 7: was still living with Carol and their daughters and sleeping
Speaker 7: with Barb too. But I don't know if there was
Speaker 7: more than that at the time. I just know that
Speaker 7: there was this whole long series of series of affairs.
Speaker 7: And when Barb was interviewed, she did mention that that
Speaker 7: she did find out that Steve was seeing other people too,
Speaker 7: but it seemed like they were kind of off and on.
Speaker 7: So I don't know what the rules are when you're
Speaker 7: already having one affair, whether you break that one off
Speaker 7: and start over with someone else if that counts as
Speaker 7: multiple So who knows? Who knows what.
Speaker 3: He was doing? Now? What was the reaction from Carol?
Speaker 3: I mean, you go through the expanse of this book,
Speaker 3: and so there is this infatuation with Steve. He's her soulmates,
Speaker 3: she considers. Then the luster wears off and then they
Speaker 3: go back and forth. You as you explained in the book,
Speaker 3: he's a fantastic apologizer. This guy. You know, he's very
Speaker 3: romantic and you know then the makeup secks is great,
Speaker 3: but he has an allure and he has a charm
Speaker 3: and he uses that not only with Carol but with Carol.
Speaker 3: What is the reaction and what is gradually what is
Speaker 3: she able to you know, in of gradually be able
Speaker 3: to do well?
Speaker 7: I think you know, it took her a really long
Speaker 7: time and what is so sad to me? And what
Speaker 7: is so sad and made her friends so angry as well?
Speaker 7: Was you know a lot of people cheat you know, marriages,
Speaker 7: you know, people have affairs. That's not unusual. But what
Speaker 7: I was told by Carol's friends is that he just
Speaker 7: wouldn't stop, you know, and he wouldn't let her go. So,
Speaker 7: you know, even when he's moved out and he's said, hey,
Speaker 7: I want my own place. I need to go have
Speaker 7: a place where I can get some sleep, and you know,
Speaker 7: the dogs are barking and the girls, you know, make
Speaker 7: too much noise, and I need to go a better
Speaker 7: early blah blah blah. You know, it turns out no,
Speaker 7: he wants to go have a love nest so he
Speaker 7: can have sex with Barb. And so he moved out
Speaker 7: and they separate, but he's still coming around and he
Speaker 7: still wants to see Carol, and Carol is going along
Speaker 7: with it. And so by this point, you know, Carol
Speaker 7: has you know, basically acknowledged that he's got a real problem.
Speaker 7: He's you know, got these series of affairs. He won't stop.
Speaker 7: He keeps saying he's going to and he doesn't. And
Speaker 7: so she says, you know, I want you to go
Speaker 7: get your sex addiction treated because that's what's going on.
Speaker 7: And I guess he acknowledged to her that he knew
Speaker 7: he had a problem, but he just never would put
Speaker 7: his mind to doing anything about it. So if he
Speaker 7: ever did any kind of therapy, it was you know,
Speaker 7: pretty half asked. And he continued to have these affairs.
Speaker 7: So at some point, you know, she would cry, should
Speaker 7: call up Debbie crying and just be really, you know,
Speaker 7: upset about this because she still really loved him and
Speaker 7: she wanted him as a therapist. She thought he could
Speaker 7: get help and she could help him, and you know,
Speaker 7: she weighed around and saw him through this, she could
Speaker 7: be there on the other side and maybe things could
Speaker 7: get back on track. And I just felt so horrible
Speaker 7: for her because you know, I know I've been in
Speaker 7: relationships like that myself before, where and I'm sure many
Speaker 7: other people have too that you know, you're with somebody
Speaker 7: who's manipulative and they just they let you go and
Speaker 7: don't pay you enough attention. But then when you start
Speaker 7: to leave, they pull you back in, right, So that's
Speaker 7: what he was doing to her, and he he just
Speaker 7: wouldn't let her go to it actually affected her health,
Speaker 7: and so you know, it got to a point finally
Speaker 7: where you know, she started trying to get away. Her
Speaker 7: friends had been encouraging her for a long time. You know,
Speaker 7: you've got to move on, You've got to move away,
Speaker 7: you know, because she was actually at one point, you know,
Speaker 7: expressing suicidal ideations and her friends were really worried about her.
Speaker 7: So she after back and forth with the you know,
Speaker 7: the divorce threats and filing and pulling it out and
Speaker 7: going you know, back, she finally filed for divorce and
Speaker 7: you know, they went on that track and then things
Speaker 7: got uglier.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about some of the behavior in terms of
Speaker 3: the break and entering or her idea that he might
Speaker 3: be in or what was her idea that his ability
Speaker 3: to enter into her dwelling and what that did for
Speaker 3: her well.
Speaker 7: She she told friends, and this increased over time. Closer
Speaker 7: to the time that she was murdered, she said she
Speaker 7: felt like, you know, he was coming in, because she
Speaker 7: said she was, you know, she feared she was in
Speaker 7: fear for her safety. And there was at least one time,
Speaker 7: a couple of times where he just showed up. He
Speaker 7: just showed up one time in her living room room
Speaker 7: with thy food and she had not invited him over,
Speaker 7: and he just somehow got into the house. And so
Speaker 7: she took her mom came to visit and she took
Speaker 7: her to the back bedroom and she said, I think
Speaker 7: this is how he's getting in, And she pointed to
Speaker 7: the window, and her mom said, well, why don't you
Speaker 7: just put a stick in there to keep the window closed.
Speaker 7: But Carol, I guess Lucky.
Speaker 2: Land Casino, asking people, what's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
Speaker 2: Lucky in line at the Delhi I guess I hid
Speaker 2: my dentist's office more than once. Actually do I have
Speaker 2: to say?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: You do in the car before my kid's pta meeting? Really? Yes?
Speaker 4: Excuse me? What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky? I
Speaker 4: never win in tell? Well, there you have it.
Speaker 2: You could get lucky anywhere playing at lucky landsloughts dot
Speaker 2: com play for free right now?
Speaker 4: Are you feeling lucky?
Speaker 5: No? For just necessaryvoid were my long eighteen plus terms
Speaker 5: and conditions of plus you won't say.
Speaker 7: Details, you know. She told some people she was scared,
Speaker 7: and she mentioned this, but she'd still left her doors,
Speaker 7: her door unlocked when she went for a run at night,
Speaker 7: and I guess she didn't really do anything with that window.
Speaker 7: But she did end up having a guy come and
Speaker 7: live in the guest house, so I guess maybe she
Speaker 7: thought that was going to do the trick. But there
Speaker 7: was another another thing. She mentioned that she thought he
Speaker 7: was coming in and hacking into her emails because of
Speaker 7: her computer crashed, and so you know, she was telling
Speaker 7: people that she thought Steve was coming into the house
Speaker 7: when she wasn't there, and he was coming in when
Speaker 7: she was there uninvited, and in fact, you know, later
Speaker 7: it turned out that there was an incident. I was
Speaker 7: going to get into the email, so I don't it's
Speaker 7: probably too soon to do that. But the domestic violence
Speaker 7: bombshell email about you know, when he did enter her
Speaker 7: house one time, So I don't know if you want
Speaker 7: to talk about that now or later.
Speaker 3: Sure, go ahead, we're on it right now.
Speaker 7: Sure, Okay, Well, during the second trial, this is kind
Speaker 7: of a long complicated thing that I don't want to
Speaker 7: make long complicated, but there was an email which didn't
Speaker 7: end up getting admitted into evidence, but the prosecution was
Speaker 7: going to present it until they realized that the defense
Speaker 7: had missed this entirely and it could have jeopardized the
Speaker 7: case on appeal. So you know, they talked about it
Speaker 7: in court. It didn't get entered into evidence, but in essence,
Speaker 7: it was an email between Steve and Carol talking about
Speaker 7: one incident where Steve came into the house. Carol was
Speaker 7: on the phone and I guess he grabbed the phone
Speaker 7: out of her hand and they got physical, which is
Speaker 7: pretty much what the prosecution is alleging happened the night
Speaker 7: she was murdered. Right, It's as simple as I can
Speaker 7: make it.
Speaker 3: Right now, At the same time, she finally is divorcing Steve,
Speaker 3: he's come to terms with it or not, she has
Speaker 3: met someone online. I don't know if he knows, and
Speaker 3: you don't really make it clear in the book if
Speaker 3: he's aware of this, because we're not sure if he
Speaker 3: hacks into the emails. But she has met a man
Speaker 3: named David Seoele that doesn't live in the same place,
Speaker 3: but they have had a relationship. They have entered into
Speaker 3: a long distance relationship. So just tell us about where
Speaker 3: she is at personally in her life. At that point,
Speaker 3: it wasn't.
Speaker 7: Clear if they met online specifically or if they just
Speaker 7: continue to communicate online. Because he did have a house
Speaker 7: I guess in Arizona, but he lived in Maine, so
Speaker 7: they spent some time together in Prescott, where I guess
Speaker 7: he was even over at the house for a short
Speaker 7: period of time, and then he went back to Maine,
Speaker 7: and they were communicating by email and by phone, and
Speaker 7: she was getting ready to go on a trip to
Speaker 7: come stay with him, and I guess they were going
Speaker 7: to go sailing. He was working on a boat he
Speaker 7: was fixing up I guess a sailboat that was his boat,
Speaker 7: and they were going to go off on this trip
Speaker 7: at some point. But she was, you know, about a
Speaker 7: week or so before she was murdered, she was getting
Speaker 7: ready to go to Maine to visit this guy, and
Speaker 7: had told him that, you know, Steve was acting strange
Speaker 7: and was trying to you know, was acting real kind
Speaker 7: of friendly again and asking her to coffee, and you know,
Speaker 7: right before, right before she was murdered, So there were
Speaker 7: some red flags that she sent up that then she
Speaker 7: started crying on the phone. She said it was because
Speaker 7: her older daughter, Katie was leaving to go to South
Speaker 7: Africa for a study abroad program. But you know, it's unclear.
Speaker 7: It seems to me that it's possible that she was
Speaker 7: feeling confused all the way up to the very end
Speaker 7: because Steve was in fact, trying to get her to
Speaker 7: come back thirty five days after the divorce was finalized.
Speaker 7: I mean, the ink is barely dry, and Steve is
Speaker 7: still trying to get her to come back to him,
Speaker 7: and you know, let's forget this whole thing, and you know,
Speaker 7: and seats start seeing each other again. So he invites
Speaker 7: her to coffee. This is only days before she's murdered.
Speaker 7: And according to two of her friends, he came over,
Speaker 7: he came over to the house and tried to get
Speaker 7: her to get back together. So he still isn't letting
Speaker 7: her go.
Speaker 3: At the same time, she is planning on very soon
Speaker 3: having her very first art exhibit, isn't she.
Speaker 7: No, she had her art exhibit when she was turned fifty.
Speaker 7: And this was when she was.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, pardon me, pardon that's okay.
Speaker 7: Yeah, she was going to have a yard sale. I
Speaker 7: think that's what you're thinking of. And she was going
Speaker 7: to sell some of her art.
Speaker 3: And what did this what did this art show do
Speaker 3: for her? You say, well, she was fifty years old,
Speaker 3: this is this is something again enough their pursuit for
Speaker 3: her and sort of a this is a big accomplishment
Speaker 3: for her as well. And then you talk about Steve
Speaker 3: coming to that exhibit and being real nice as well.
Speaker 3: This is really displays part of his character, doesn't it.
Speaker 7: Right when she turned fifty, actually, I think she was
Speaker 7: working towards this for some time. But I guess, you know,
Speaker 7: over the years she was dabbling in art. She was
Speaker 7: doing something called touch drawing, which seems like a combination
Speaker 7: of therapy and art as a very spiritual practice that
Speaker 7: they do up and would be Island, and she would
Speaker 7: go to these retreats and working on her art and
Speaker 7: working on the spirituality and working on her dreams and
Speaker 7: just basically trying to heal. I guess from all this
Speaker 7: confusion that Steve was causing in her life. And in
Speaker 7: the meantime, she's creating, and she's doing all these different prints, monoliths, printing,
Speaker 7: and she didn't really call herself an artist until she
Speaker 7: got close to her fiftieth birthday, I guess, and said
Speaker 7: she was ready to actually, you know, show it. So
Speaker 7: for her fiftieth birthday, she got this exhibit together and
Speaker 7: showed her art and kind of came out as an artist,
Speaker 7: and Steve came. She was happy about that, and he
Speaker 7: bought some of her pieces and seemed very supportive of that,
Speaker 7: and she was happy about that.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about the day in question and who just
Speaker 3: the the goings on that day, but who she is
Speaker 3: speaking to and lead up to the phone call that
Speaker 3: she's speaking to someone and what she says and the
Speaker 3: phone goes dead. So tell us about the happenings of
Speaker 3: that day for.
Speaker 7: Carol, Well, there's a lot of evidence, a lot of emails,
Speaker 7: a lot of text messages, a lot of phone records,
Speaker 7: and so she basically she really was you know, there's
Speaker 7: a lot of people that she was talking to by phone,
Speaker 7: by email, by text, many times with Steve himself. So
Speaker 7: they were talking early on in the day about exchanging money.
Speaker 7: They were still even though they had come to an agreement,
Speaker 7: Carol was still upset about some things. Some guests, she
Speaker 7: felt that the divorced settlement was you know, was upside
Speaker 7: down and she was pretty soon going to be underwater
Speaker 7: and was even going to lose the house that she
Speaker 7: was living in because in this whole agreement, because of
Speaker 7: Steve's financial background, she felt that he was really smart
Speaker 7: and kind of you know, rigged it so that she
Speaker 7: ended up with a lot of the dead and the
Speaker 7: mortgage and she was earning only twenty four thousand dollars
Speaker 7: a year, whereas he was making you know, of wards
Speaker 7: of half a million dollars. But he was also debt
Speaker 7: and blaming her even though he was spending tremendous amounts
Speaker 7: of money way more than he was earning, borrowing money
Speaker 7: from his parents and various other places, taking out other loans,
Speaker 7: and also hadn't paid the alimony payment for that month
Speaker 7: of July, and so they had been basically emailing and texting.
Speaker 7: Steve was saying, well, you owe me some of this
Speaker 7: money to pay off this you know, credit card bill
Speaker 7: or whatever it was, and she was saying, well, you
Speaker 7: owe me this alimony payment. And so he was saying, well,
Speaker 7: why don't we exchange checks because I can't make the
Speaker 7: payment to you until you pay me, and so she
Speaker 7: was saying, well, no, that's not accurate, you know, with
Speaker 7: your finances. So this is some of the back and
Speaker 7: forth that was going on that day. He also said
Speaker 7: he wanted to come over and get their daughter's car,
Speaker 7: and that was still in Carol's garage. And meanwhile, you know,
Speaker 7: Carol's upset. Carol doesn't have any money, and Carol didn't
Speaker 7: get her alimony payment, and Carol's telling her friends, telling
Speaker 7: people at work, you know, telling her neighbors that you know,
Speaker 7: she's just really really worried about this money and doesn't
Speaker 7: know what she's going to do, but she thinks maybe
Speaker 7: she's going to go back to have to go back
Speaker 7: to court and you know, raise some of these issues again.
Speaker 7: Even though it seemed like, you know, the divorce was finalized,
Speaker 7: things were still left hanging. So she's talking with another
Speaker 7: very close friend of hers named Catherine, and she tells him,
Speaker 7: tells Catherine about you know, the this weekend they she
Speaker 7: and Steve and both of their daughters went to the
Speaker 7: airport to see Katie off to South Africa where she
Speaker 7: was going to the Study Abroad program, and Steve put
Speaker 7: his arm around her, and she said, for the first
Speaker 7: time in a really long time, I didn't get totally
Speaker 7: creeped out. It was okay. It was just okay. And
Speaker 7: then in the next sentence she said, of course he
Speaker 7: had to ruin it. And he asked if I wanted
Speaker 7: to meet him for coffee, and you know, we just
Speaker 7: got divorced. Why is he asking me to have coffee?
Speaker 7: And then he had the audacity to come over, and
Speaker 7: so he's She's telling Catherine all of this. As she's
Speaker 7: driving around. She's on the cell phone, she's picking up
Speaker 7: food for her dogs, she's picking up her dinner. She
Speaker 7: gets back to the house, she's texting Steve, you know,
Speaker 7: are you coming over to get the car and the
Speaker 7: keys and what about the check? And you know, he's
Speaker 7: not answering, and she's texting her daughter, Charlotte. There had
Speaker 7: been this big rainstorm, and so they were going back
Speaker 7: and forth about the rain and I love you, I
Speaker 7: love you, and that kind of thing, which was great
Speaker 7: because she and her daughter had been kind of feuding
Speaker 7: for quite some time and things are very difficult between
Speaker 7: them because of the divorce, and Steve had gotten Charlotte
Speaker 7: on his side and blaming Carol for not coming to
Speaker 7: the you know, settlement agreement sooner. So she's texting with
Speaker 7: her daughter, and then she gets on the phone with
Speaker 7: her mother and she's again emailing Steve. Steve's not responding.
Speaker 7: It's getting closer and closer. I'm sorry I left something out.
Speaker 7: She also went out for a run, which is very important,
Speaker 7: so there was a period of time she runs three
Speaker 7: miles and again, don't forget. She leaves her door unlocked
Speaker 7: when she goes running as a matter of routine. So
Speaker 7: she leaves, she comes back and that's when she calls
Speaker 7: her mother and is texting with Charlotte. So she's on
Speaker 7: the phone with her mother and she's complaining about, you know,
Speaker 7: not having the alimony payment, and they're winding up the
Speaker 7: conversation and then she the last words she says are
Speaker 7: oh no. And her mom said that initially, and when
Speaker 7: she described it to police because she was concerned, because
Speaker 7: the line went dead right after that, she couldn't get
Speaker 7: a hold of her. She tried calling back, Carol didn't
Speaker 7: answer the phone, so she waited a little little bit
Speaker 7: and then ended up calling the police. Wasn't their jurisdiction.
Speaker 7: She called the Sheriff's department, which it was their jurisdiction,
Speaker 7: and said that Carol had screamed those words, but later,
Speaker 7: thinking about it, she said, well, you know, I was
Speaker 7: just really upset, and I think I was just really
Speaker 7: talking about my emotions. But she didn't really say it
Speaker 7: that way. She wasn't screaming. She said it kind of
Speaker 7: like with dismay. And as I interviewed Catherine and read
Speaker 7: through the investigative reports and kind of pieced together this
Speaker 7: whole thing about how Steve apparently came over to the house,
Speaker 7: you know, whether it was a night or two before
Speaker 7: the murder. And I told her mom that. She said,
Speaker 7: you know, that does fit because it sounded like kind
Speaker 7: of like oh no, not again, you know, not like oh,
Speaker 7: I know, it was like oh no, You're like, oh no,
Speaker 7: not this, not you again kind of thing, right, So
Speaker 7: what she thinks, that's what that meant. But you know,
Speaker 7: we don't know for sure, but that's that's what That's
Speaker 7: what her mom thinks.
Speaker 3: Now she you said, she contacts the police, but they
Speaker 3: tell us not the jurisdiction. She contacts the other police.
Speaker 3: Fast forward to how it comes to she's discovered and
Speaker 3: what is Steve is called? So what's steve reaction to
Speaker 3: phone calls from Ruth? Tell us about that the phone
Speaker 3: calls and Steve's reaction before we get into anything else.
Speaker 7: Ruth, Carol's mother is you know who she's talking to,
Speaker 7: and she's the one who makes the calls to the
Speaker 7: police to report you know, I was talking to my
Speaker 7: daughter and the line went dead. She starts trying to
Speaker 7: call Steve and ask Steve, you know, to go over there,
Speaker 7: but she can't get a hold of him. Nobody's answering
Speaker 7: the phone, and what's essentially happening is that Charlotte is
Speaker 7: there with her boyfriend playing video games. They don't answer
Speaker 7: the phone. Charlotte sees it's her grandmother and just doesn't
Speaker 7: pick up because she's busy. So, you know, Ruth is
Speaker 7: you know, trying to get a hold of Steve, calling her,
Speaker 7: calling his cell phone. She calls her son brother, he's
Speaker 7: calling Steve. Finally gets a hold of Steve, but it's actually,
Speaker 7: you know, I think it's ten to thirty by the
Speaker 7: time he finally gets a hold of Steve. Steve's already
Speaker 7: home by that point. His cell phone had been off
Speaker 7: for a number of hours and he didn't didn't turn
Speaker 7: it back on until after ten o'clock at night, So
Speaker 7: the line went dead at seven point fifty nine. So
Speaker 7: there's a good chunk of time in there. Steve's phone
Speaker 7: had been off, you know, since about five thirty. He
Speaker 7: claimed his battery went dead. But everybody, you know, everyone
Speaker 7: who knew him, but he's basically said that he was
Speaker 7: never without a phone. He always had a couple of
Speaker 7: spare batteries, even took the phone, you know, into the
Speaker 7: shower at some point, so that was very suspicious. But
Speaker 7: Steve said, you know, I don't want to go over
Speaker 7: to the house, because that's what Ruth and and Ruth's
Speaker 7: son John were asking. Steve, can't you just go over
Speaker 7: there and see if she's okay, because you know, she's
Speaker 7: not answering the phone. We've been trying to call and
Speaker 7: nobody's answering. He said, no, I want to go over there.
Speaker 7: We just got divorced, she could have a date over there.
Speaker 7: I don't want to invade her privacy. So, you know,
Speaker 7: he mentions it to Charlotte at dinner that night, and
Speaker 7: Charlotte's really worried, and so she says that she wants
Speaker 7: to go over there and Steve doesn't. Steve says, well, okay,
Speaker 7: if you're going to go over there, you need to
Speaker 7: take your boyfriend. But I don't want you to go
Speaker 7: in the house. I want you to call me on
Speaker 7: your cell phone as you're driving up to the house,
Speaker 7: and if you see anything you know that looks weird,
Speaker 7: you know, I just want you to be on the
Speaker 7: phone with me while we're while we're you know, so
Speaker 7: we can talk. So that seemed kind of odd as well.
Speaker 7: Why would he if he did kill Carol, why would
Speaker 7: he let his daughter go over there? And you know,
Speaker 7: and then when when he did, she drives up to
Speaker 7: the house, and what does she see. She's on the
Speaker 7: phone with Steve. She sees these blue and you know,
Speaker 7: red police lights flashing and all these police at the house.
Speaker 7: She drives up and the police stopper and you know,
Speaker 7: who are you? What's going on? And they basically tell
Speaker 7: her that her mother is dead, just like that, And
Speaker 7: so she drops the phone and she's just in shock
Speaker 7: and is just devastated. And Steve is still on the phone.
Speaker 7: So he he talks to the police for a minute
Speaker 7: and he says, I want to come over there and
Speaker 7: you know, be with my daughter.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about let's talk about the phone called that
Speaker 3: Steve makes to his daughter and what he says to
Speaker 3: her about his bike ride and where he is. Okay,
Speaker 3: it's not gonna happen to a little bit later, but
Speaker 3: let's let's talk about what he does say to to
Speaker 3: Charlotte where he was earlier in the evening.
Speaker 7: Mm hmmm, So okay, so his phone has been off
Speaker 7: this whole time and u he leeds to go work out.
Speaker 7: He says, I'm going to go for a bike ride.
Speaker 7: And he, to the knowledge of you know, people like Barb,
Speaker 7: who he's still involved with and other people who know him,
Speaker 7: he doesn't go for bike rides. And if no one
Speaker 7: can remember him going for a bike ride, he's mostly
Speaker 7: been doing trail running and working out, you know, with
Speaker 7: waits in the gym near the condo where he lives
Speaker 7: on the golf course. But on this particular day he
Speaker 7: decided to go for a bike ride. Well, he claims
Speaker 7: that he was going for a bike ride, and there
Speaker 7: was some confusion with the statements between his daughter and
Speaker 7: his daughter's boyfriend about where he actually was taking the
Speaker 7: bike ride. He had another girlfriend who he was seeing
Speaker 7: at the same time. So that's yes, that's Renee, his girlfriend,
Speaker 7: Barb his who's you know, been his partner and lover,
Speaker 7: and they are going through a split as well, because
Speaker 7: she wants she wants out, she wants out of the relationship.
Speaker 7: She wants out of the partnership too because she's She
Speaker 7: and Carol are both trying to get away from Steve
Speaker 7: there and he won't let either one of them go.
Speaker 7: So none of them, you know, have seen him riding
Speaker 7: a bike before this. But that's where he claims that
Speaker 7: he was out riding his bike and he got a
Speaker 7: flat tire, didn't have his cell phone, was dead, he
Speaker 7: got a flat tire on his bike. And then he
Speaker 7: comes back and he's bleeding, He's got some scratches on him,
Speaker 7: and he goes, this is these were the brush, the
Speaker 7: branches of some the brush that I, you know, kind
Speaker 7: of ran into when I was on the bike. I
Speaker 7: had to walk my bike back to the car and uh.
Speaker 7: And then he got back after ten o'clock. And so
Speaker 7: they were sitting at dinner when they had the discussion
Speaker 7: about Charlotte wanting to go over to Carol's house.
Speaker 3: Now, I know you don't have much time. We're just
Speaker 3: going to take it to the hour. So tell us
Speaker 3: about what police finally find in terms of Carol's body
Speaker 3: and how it is displayed or how it's discovered in
Speaker 3: that room. Tell us a little bit about those details.
Speaker 7: Okay, Well, as I mentioned, Ruth's mom called, so they
Speaker 7: kind of took their time to get out there. It took,
Speaker 7: you know, it took a little bit of time. It
Speaker 7: is a big county. It's pretty rural. It's really pretty
Speaker 7: to their pres skits. So the guy who responded, the
Speaker 7: first deputy who responded, actually made a traffic stop on
Speaker 7: his way there because as far as he knew, I
Speaker 7: guess it was a welfare check. I think that's probably
Speaker 7: what he thought it was, and so didn't know it
Speaker 7: was going to be serious. By the time he gets there,
Speaker 7: it's totally dark. The only light he can see in
Speaker 7: the house looks like a computer router, you know, this
Speaker 7: little tiny blue lights lights whatever turns out to be.
Speaker 7: He's walking around the house. He's trying to see if
Speaker 7: he can see inside the house. He walks around to
Speaker 7: the back. These dogs start yapping at him. So these
Speaker 7: are her two dogs, And he gets to the back
Speaker 7: bedroom window and sees her body and she's lying in
Speaker 7: a puddle of blood. So he calls for back up,
Speaker 7: and once the other people show up, the other deputies
Speaker 7: and detectives show up. They go into the house and
Speaker 7: they find her. They initially think that, you know, maybe
Speaker 7: she fell because there was a ladder nearby her body,
Speaker 7: but once they took a closer look it, they realized
Speaker 7: that not only was the ladder backwards from where it
Speaker 7: would have been. It also didn't have any blood on it,
Speaker 7: and the spatter patterns. There was a bookcase that was
Speaker 7: also toppled. The spatter of the blood, it was clear
Speaker 7: that whoever had killed her had moved the furniture around
Speaker 7: to make it looked like she had fallen, like it
Speaker 7: was an accident.
Speaker 3: One thing I wanted you to while i'll have to mention,
Speaker 3: is that and you describe, I guess eloquently with a
Speaker 3: lack for a better word, is that her skull was
Speaker 3: smashed with a they later said a golf club or
Speaker 3: some weapon that two hundred pieces, so it was just
Speaker 3: held together by tendons, and so there was an amazing
Speaker 3: blunt force trauma to this head.
Speaker 7: You know. I remember reading that it was at least
Speaker 7: fifty pieces, and I remember reading somewhere else that I
Speaker 7: think when they said two hundred, I think they meant
Speaker 7: probably little tiny cracks as well. But it really was shattered,
Speaker 7: you know, in a pretty significant way, and they had,
Speaker 7: you know, tried to reconstruct it and everything. But they
Speaker 7: thought it was a golf club because she had two
Speaker 7: linear marks that looked like defense wounds, you know, on
Speaker 7: her arm, like she was trying to block the blow,
Speaker 7: and then she had curve linear injuries to her skull,
Speaker 7: which you know, if you try to think of what
Speaker 7: weapon could make both of those injuries, That's what they thought,
Speaker 7: you know, the head of the golf club would have
Speaker 7: made the curvelinear ones to her skull and the linear line,
Speaker 7: you know, the line defensive marking on her arm where
Speaker 7: she would have tried to block it. But the thing
Speaker 7: that made them think it was someone who knew her
Speaker 7: and was angry at her was the fact that they
Speaker 7: think there were at least seven serious, very serious blows
Speaker 7: to her head, the first one of which would have
Speaker 7: knocked her unconscious or dead. So why would someone continue,
Speaker 7: you know, who didn't know her, who was breaking in,
Speaker 7: Why would they continue to beat her like that? And
Speaker 7: why would they then try to stage the scene that way?
Speaker 7: If if they were really a robbert, there would be
Speaker 7: no reason to try to hide what they had just done,
Speaker 7: because it makes sense. So that's why the police thought
Speaker 7: it was Steve pretty early on. In addition, they found
Speaker 7: bike tracks and shoe prints in the trails right behind
Speaker 7: her house where you know, he used to live there
Speaker 7: and he knew that area pretty well, and they said, well,
Speaker 7: these bike tracks and shoeprints, you know, match the shoes
Speaker 7: that they never actually found the shoes, but they knew
Speaker 7: that he had bought a pair of shoes with similar
Speaker 7: track you know, soul marks and the bike tracks. They
Speaker 7: took photos, which the defense later criticized them for and said,
Speaker 7: how you know you didn't really take these to scales.
Speaker 7: These are not professionally done. You also didn't preserve the
Speaker 7: prints with any kind of lasting, you know, preservation so
Speaker 7: that we could do our own examination. But basically, this
Speaker 7: was the evidence that that convicted him with the jury.
Speaker 3: It's a very fascinating case. We won't be able to
Speaker 3: get into it. But what I thought was one of them.
Speaker 3: And again there's tons of a little twist. Okay, I
Speaker 3: just I.
Speaker 7: Don't have till you know, another twenty minutes, So.
Speaker 3: Okay, great, great, that's great. What's interesting too, is that
Speaker 3: you said that another part of compelling I guess circumstantial
Speaker 3: evidence was that where it was this trail behind the house,
Speaker 3: you would have to be familiar with that area. It
Speaker 3: was sort of a you could not have seen it otherwise,
Speaker 3: so that that was another reason why they thought that
Speaker 3: and that the idea too, is that they thought for
Speaker 3: and then he did do a DNA test that was inconclusive,
Speaker 3: you said, But there was barbed wire around the fence,
Speaker 3: and so his idea that or his reasoning for why
Speaker 3: he had these cuts didn't seem to be consistent with
Speaker 3: the kinds of wounds he had, because as we talk
Speaker 3: a little bit later, or we can say now that
Speaker 3: the police did get him to photograph himself and his body,
Speaker 3: so they did see some other wounds and cuts and
Speaker 3: abrasions and scratches that he didn't seem to be able
Speaker 3: to explain away. Did he.
Speaker 7: Well, he basically said, I got scratched by these bushes,
Speaker 7: and I was riding my bike in such and such
Speaker 7: a place, and if you don't know the area, it's
Speaker 7: kind of too hard to describe it. But he said
Speaker 7: he was not riding on the trails behind Carol's house.
Speaker 7: He claimed he was about a mile away. Well, okay,
Speaker 7: if he wasn't right there, why was he a mile
Speaker 7: away when he didn't live there anymore. He did used
Speaker 7: to live in the house where Carol was living, and
Speaker 7: he did know those trails behind there. He built a
Speaker 7: fence in fact, in the back which the detectives say
Speaker 7: that the killer climbed over, and they you know, they
Speaker 7: could see the footprints. They said that there were bike
Speaker 7: tracks leading up to a bush essentially where they stopped,
Speaker 7: and it looks like the person laid the bike down
Speaker 7: in the bush and then walked over this fence that
Speaker 7: Steve had built and into the house and then back
Speaker 7: out again. So there was also you also if you
Speaker 7: didn't you know, know that area, well, it's I think
Speaker 7: it's something like, uh, I can't remember exactly, maybe a
Speaker 7: mile and a half if you drove there, but only
Speaker 7: a very short distance if you walked behind there. So
Speaker 7: the person who and also the gate out by the
Speaker 7: street where you would have to park your car to
Speaker 7: then climb over, the first gate was locked and along
Speaker 7: the fence there was barbed wire. So yes, the DNA
Speaker 7: testing on the barbed wire was inconclusive. But there's something
Speaker 7: that that bothers me and still haunts me. And this
Speaker 7: is the main point that the defense is still making
Speaker 7: to this day, because you know, they filed an appeal.
Speaker 7: Steve's DNA was never found in that house, in Carol's house,
Speaker 7: and Carol's DNA, even though it was a very bloody
Speaker 7: scene was never found in Steve's condo, or on his person,
Speaker 7: on his clothes, in his washing machine, in the dryer,
Speaker 7: on the bike, you know, nowhere. So there is a
Speaker 7: you know, theory that maybe he was wearing some kind
Speaker 7: of you know suit, one of those hazmat suits or
Speaker 7: something that he could you know, take off it throw away.
Speaker 7: But whoever this was, I don't make it. I don't
Speaker 7: put any kind of opinion in there whether I think
Speaker 7: Steve is the one who did it. But you know,
Speaker 7: he was convicted and sentenced. He is in prison, but
Speaker 7: that is something that nobody has really been able to explain.
Speaker 7: But there was why, you know, why his DNA was
Speaker 7: not in the house, especially when he used to live there.
Speaker 7: So that's always kind of bothered me.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The other part of this is a very vigorous
Speaker 3: defense they call it where they look at pointing the
Speaker 3: finger at anybody they possibly can. We didn't. We only briefly,
Speaker 3: only briefly touched on it. But there was a guesthouse
Speaker 3: that they had, and there wasn't that Carol had, and
Speaker 3: it was a person that she had met and he
Speaker 3: had been going through a divorce and so they spoke
Speaker 3: and shared that experience of going through a divorce with
Speaker 3: each other. And his name was Jim Napp, and there
Speaker 3: was a bonu contention or at least something that the
Speaker 3: defense used that he was allowed by one of the
Speaker 3: police officers to go back into a shared area that
Speaker 3: they had to get something to retrieve something concerning his pills.
Speaker 3: And the defense then used that as well, possibly Jim
Speaker 3: Napp or Jim Napp had had affection for her. So
Speaker 3: just tell us a little bit about Jim Napp and
Speaker 3: and sort of that.
Speaker 7: So Jim Napps a whole other piece of this book
Speaker 7: that is, you know, drew me to the case to
Speaker 7: start with, and is a mystery or was a mystery
Speaker 7: until I really looked into it. But I don't want
Speaker 7: to give too much away so people can read it.
Speaker 7: But eventually the defense said Jim Napp, who lived in
Speaker 7: the guest house and was Carol's friend, was you know, supposedly,
Speaker 7: they said, angry with her because she was he thought
Speaker 7: she was going to invest in some kind of coffee
Speaker 7: franchise business and and then she didn't, and so therefore
Speaker 7: that's you know, motive for him to want to kill her.
Speaker 7: But it's just you know there he was in love
Speaker 7: with her. Apparently he was you know, devastated by her death,
Speaker 7: and he committed suicide six months later. He was telling
Speaker 7: people that he had cancer. He was a very troubled man.
Speaker 2: He was.
Speaker 7: A drug you know, pushka drug addict, and the defense
Speaker 7: used that and said, well, you know, he had more
Speaker 7: of a motive to kill Carol than Steve did, but
Speaker 7: the jury did not buy that because there was no
Speaker 7: real evidence. I mean, was he was living in the
Speaker 7: guest house and he was in the house with Carol,
Speaker 7: so of course his DNA was there and he lived there,
Speaker 7: and he was taking care of her pets. So that's
Speaker 7: why the sheriff led him back in. He came in
Speaker 7: to get his pills that night, because he came back
Speaker 7: to the house to try to get inside because he
Speaker 7: lived there, and they wouldn't let him in, and he
Speaker 7: tried calling Carol and while he was outside because they
Speaker 7: hadn't told her that she was dead yet. And then
Speaker 7: when they did tell him that she was dead, he
Speaker 7: you know, burst into this emotional outburst. But you know,
Speaker 7: it's a long and complicated piece, but basically that was
Speaker 7: the entire second trial that the defense used what's called
Speaker 7: third party culpability and basically tried to blame the murder
Speaker 7: on Jim Nap.
Speaker 3: There was also other people that they, at least the
Speaker 3: police or defense tried to look at as well, and
Speaker 3: theories of that his past partner girlfriend Barb might have
Speaker 3: a motivation to have him framed for this as well.
Speaker 3: Tell us a little bit about that, how much traction
Speaker 3: that idea got?
Speaker 7: Okay, and then I'm gonna have to go Basically, you know,
Speaker 7: they were the judge was even kind of making fun
Speaker 7: of the defense, you know, how many people are you
Speaker 7: going to blame this thing? Because they kept bringing up names,
Speaker 7: and you know, they had to name three specific people
Speaker 7: I think in addition to Jim, and she was one
Speaker 7: of them. I think David Sole, who you mentioned. He
Speaker 7: was Carol's boyfriend at the time, with another guy as
Speaker 7: well who she had met online because she was doing
Speaker 7: online dating as well, who I guess she had some
Speaker 7: kind of falling out with online. And so there were
Speaker 7: several of these people in addition to Jim Napp that
Speaker 7: they were basically just trying to find anybody else to
Speaker 7: you know, create doubt in the jury's mind. So because
Speaker 7: you know, Barb had been having this long standing affair.
Speaker 7: If if Steve were the theory was anyway, I guess
Speaker 7: if Steve was out of the way, you know, and incarcerated,
Speaker 7: then she might get a bigger piece of the book
Speaker 7: that they had, you know, worked on together as the book,
Speaker 7: meaning the book of Clients and and all along. I
Speaker 7: guess she had. Steve had asked her to marry him,
Speaker 7: and asked her to marry him right up until the
Speaker 7: time that he was arrested. So he was he had
Speaker 7: a girlfriend, Renee, and he was still asking Barbed marryam
Speaker 7: and he was seeing this other woman that he met
Speaker 7: online as well on a dating sex website. It's a
Speaker 7: crazy story, Dan, It's a crazy story more because we
Speaker 7: could spend another hour, but there's a lot here.
Speaker 3: But you do you do a fantastic job, and there's yes,
Speaker 3: as you say, there's much more to this story. So
Speaker 3: I urge people to uh purchase this book. Thank you
Speaker 3: for those that might want to contact you. Do you
Speaker 3: do Facebook? And do you have a website? Just before
Speaker 3: I let you go, Yes, I do.
Speaker 7: Caitlin Rother dot com is my website. I'm definitely on
Speaker 7: Facebook and and anybody who I'm very responsive to people
Speaker 7: who friend me and they want to talk about my
Speaker 7: books and stuff. I'm always happy to answer a few questions. Uh,
Speaker 7: We're going to have an online forum this weekend. If
Speaker 7: you happen to get online and want to join in
Speaker 7: on one of the book clubs, I will post that
Speaker 7: on my brand. I'm also on Twitter and there's a
Speaker 7: page dedicated to this book, also on Pinterest, and I've
Speaker 7: got another author page on Facebook as well.
Speaker 3: Oh great, And I'm sure you'll be doing the rounds
Speaker 3: of doing interviews on the true crime programs as well,
Speaker 3: and true crime discussion boards and things like that.
Speaker 7: Yep.
Speaker 3: I want to thank you very much for coming on this.
Speaker 3: What number is then no one can have her? Which?
Speaker 3: What number is this? For your true crime books, Kaitlin.
Speaker 7: It's my tenth book. It is my eighth true crime book,
Speaker 7: some of which are also kind of combination memoir true crime,
Speaker 7: but so they're more narrative nonfiction, but in terms of
Speaker 7: you know, murders, number eight, although one of them is
Speaker 7: an aged So anyway, thank you so much, Janner, appreciate
Speaker 7: it you having me on again.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, Kaylin. You have a great evening.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much in coming on and talking about
Speaker 3: then no one can have her. You have a great
Speaker 3: evening YouTube.
Speaker 7: Bye bye, bye bye