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Speaker 5: You are now listening to True Murder, The most Shocking
Speaker 5: Killers in True crime History and the authors that have
Speaker 5: written about them Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 5: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 5: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 5: journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Speaker 2: Good Evening, This is your host Dan Zupanski for the
Speaker 2: program True Murder, The most Shocking Killers in True crime
Speaker 2: History and the authors that have written about them. Weaver
Speaker 2: and fiber artist Edith Penn knew her friend Sandy Merritt's
Speaker 2: relationship with a married man was wrong. She had even
Speaker 2: urged Sandy to take out a restraining order against Kenneth Carpenter,
Speaker 2: which is why her call to Sandy on February twenty third,
Speaker 2: two thousand and five seemed to come from right out
Speaker 2: of the blue. During it, she told Sandy to drop
Speaker 2: the restraining order and get back together with Ken. Penn
Speaker 2: was never seen again. One man stood to gain from
Speaker 2: Penn's disappearance, Ken Carpenter, but evidence was bleak, no blood, DNA,
Speaker 2: no body until detectives found notes hidden beneath the leather chair.
Speaker 2: It turned out to be a playbook for murder. The
Speaker 2: book we're featuring this evening is Notes on a Killing
Speaker 2: with my guest journalist and author, Kevin Flynn. Welcome to
Speaker 2: the program, and thank you for agreeing to this interview.
Speaker 2: Kevin Flynn, Dan.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. The Pleasure's Mind.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you very much. This is a really great
Speaker 2: story and you have written it with a lot of flare.
Speaker 2: So's get right to it. A question I asked often
Speaker 2: because it's very revealing without getting too much of the
Speaker 2: story away at all, which probably won't, But tell us
Speaker 2: why this was a story that you felt compelled to do.
Speaker 2: How did you come to write this story Notes on
Speaker 2: a Killing?
Speaker 4: A couple of things really come to mind, Dan, why
Speaker 4: I and my co author Rebecca Lavoy selected this story.
Speaker 4: One was that at the time of the case, I
Speaker 4: was a television reporter here in New Hampshire and I
Speaker 4: got assigned the story one day while it was still
Speaker 4: considered a missing person's case. And there's an extended passage
Speaker 4: in the middle of the book kind of detailing that
Speaker 4: one day that I spent on the case, just it
Speaker 4: stumbled across some evidence and you were able to do
Speaker 4: a little shoe leather journalism and figure out this mysterious
Speaker 4: address and the deep woods where nefarious things were going
Speaker 4: on and anyway, it was always for that reason a
Speaker 4: favorite story of mine. But you know, the thing that
Speaker 4: got Rebecca interested in the story was the tale of
Speaker 4: the victim in this case. Pen Meyer Penn was an
Speaker 4: extraordinary woman by all accounts, you know, really revered, almost
Speaker 4: you know, put on a pedestal by the folks in
Speaker 4: the area. She was a woman who came from great wealth,
Speaker 4: but did not necessarily live off of her family's largests.
Speaker 4: She lived very modestly in a house on a little
Speaker 4: lake in rural New Hampshire. She lived in the town
Speaker 4: of Goshen, and the lake was nicknamed the Goshen Ocean
Speaker 4: by the residents. Penn liked to, as you say, you know,
Speaker 4: sort of made her money by weaving fabrics and afghans
Speaker 4: and being a fiber artist, where she would sell her
Speaker 4: wares at local farmers' markets. She was always with her
Speaker 4: favorite dog, Fluff. She and Fluff went everywhere together, and
Speaker 4: that included the alcoholics, anonymous meetings that she attended. Although
Speaker 4: she was, you know, a free spirit and beloved by
Speaker 4: her friends, she also had her demons that she was
Speaker 4: working on. She was in recovery, and she was the
Speaker 4: kind of person who liked to help out her her friends,
Speaker 4: and she really extended herself and as we find out
Speaker 4: in the book, that is her undoing. Her kindness, her
Speaker 4: interest in her friends, her willingness to stand up for
Speaker 4: somebody in need, is how she ended up in the
Speaker 4: situation she was in.
Speaker 2: And she's, like you mentioned, an independent person, but sort
Speaker 2: of with the painted picture. She's a former. You describe
Speaker 2: her as a very stunning woman, very very pretty, athletic,
Speaker 2: very very you know, very pretty woman. And now that
Speaker 2: she's a little bit older, she still had that athleticism
Speaker 2: and had that the looks. She was still a very
Speaker 2: noticeable woman.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she was, you know, in her mid fifties, but
Speaker 4: she still had she was still very trim, very tone.
Speaker 4: Her skin was always very kind of brown from the sun.
Speaker 4: Because she would go out. She had she had a
Speaker 4: pretty strict routine, which was she would get up in
Speaker 4: the morning and go for a walk with her dog, Fluff,
Speaker 4: and in the wintertime. In the afternoon she'd go snowshowing,
Speaker 4: so she was always outside. She had a green thumb
Speaker 4: and loved to work in the garden and other people's
Speaker 4: gardens and local farms in her bare feet and get dirty.
Speaker 4: She had her own sort of interesting sense of style.
Speaker 4: She had these big bangles and bracelets that were very
Speaker 4: distinctive to her. So she still had a flair and
Speaker 4: she had a lot of personality, and to some extent
Speaker 4: you might say she was stubborn in this sense that
Speaker 4: she wasn't one who suffered fools lightly.
Speaker 2: I see now this community too, we're talking is this Newport,
Speaker 2: New Hampshire were talked about.
Speaker 4: Well, it's the closest city on any map would be
Speaker 4: a Newport. And I would like to say that the
Speaker 4: town that Penn was living in, Goshen, you couldn't find
Speaker 4: on a map that didn't have a considerable amount of detail.
Speaker 4: It's very easy to.
Speaker 2: Miss it.
Speaker 4: You know, we have a saying here in New England
Speaker 4: that when someone's asking for directions, you say, oh, well
Speaker 4: you can't get there from here, and and that's kind
Speaker 4: of true because you know on the maps you want
Speaker 4: to get from this town to that town but which
Speaker 4: you don't know is there's a mountain in the way
Speaker 4: in this lake and the road goes, you know, twenty
Speaker 4: miles in the opposite direction. So the county in which
Speaker 4: all this action takes place, Sullivan County, is a pretty
Speaker 4: small and rural you know, there is some some working farms,
Speaker 4: but it's mostly just sort of woods people living in
Speaker 4: very modest homes, sort of living a country kind of
Speaker 4: lifestyle in New England. And so Penn, you know, just
Speaker 4: kind of she comes from an industrial family of industrialists.
Speaker 4: She had lots of money, her relatives, her ancestors, came
Speaker 4: over on the Mayflower, but she didn't live that flashy lifestyle.
Speaker 4: She certainly, you know, I guess you could say she
Speaker 4: went native. She fit right in with the folks in
Speaker 4: New Hampshire and wore you know, very modest close and drove,
Speaker 4: you know, a Honda CRV and didn't drive a Cadillac.
Speaker 4: And although she really could have, you know, flaunted her wealth,
Speaker 4: she just kind of fit in.
Speaker 2: Now, had she been married, and for the purpose of
Speaker 2: this story, at this time in the story, she had
Speaker 2: a boyfriend, So tell us a little bit about what
Speaker 2: her marital status was over the years. And where she
Speaker 2: was currently.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she had been married twice before. She had been
Speaker 4: married when she was younger, had had three kids with
Speaker 4: her first husband, and she remained good friends with her
Speaker 4: first husband. He was vice president of a bank nearby.
Speaker 4: They had an amicable relationship. She had three grown kids,
Speaker 4: a son and two daughters, and she had gotten remarried
Speaker 4: around I mean thinks around two thousand and one or
Speaker 4: two thousand and two, and our story takes place in
Speaker 4: late two thousand and five, and her marriage, her second marriage,
Speaker 4: was on the rocks. Her husband was drinking too much,
Speaker 4: and of course she was in recovery, and so she,
Speaker 4: you know, wanted to get some support for that, for
Speaker 4: being the spouse of a problem drinker. And so she
Speaker 4: went to alan On, which is a very similar program
Speaker 4: to aas it really is for family members of folks
Speaker 4: who have an addiction and you know, how were you
Speaker 4: supposed to deal with that person? And it is here
Speaker 4: that she met another fellow whose name was Jonathan Puriic.
Speaker 4: Jonathan was about the same age as mid fifties. He
Speaker 4: had been married four times himself, and it took him,
Speaker 4: you know, the better part of his life to realize
Speaker 4: that that all of his relationships had fallen apart, and
Speaker 4: all of his career aspirations had fallen apart because of
Speaker 4: his drinking. And he finally got sober and you know
Speaker 4: it took to the program pretty well. And it's at
Speaker 4: this Allanon meeting that the two of them first meet.
Speaker 4: He is very taken by Pen, of course, because she's
Speaker 4: very charismatic. She when she walks into a room, she
Speaker 4: doesn't seem like everybody else. She's got this bright personality,
Speaker 4: this aura around her. So he's immediately attracted. And while
Speaker 4: they are you know, very close friends, while Penn's marriage
Speaker 4: is falling apart, they have a plutonic relationship. And it
Speaker 4: isn't until after Penn tells Jonathan that she is going
Speaker 4: to get a divorce that Jonathan asks her out and
Speaker 4: she says she would like that, but she's going to
Speaker 4: wait till the divorce is final, and Jonathan was a
Speaker 4: little put off, but then he realizes this is another
Speaker 4: part of her character that even though she's not, you know,
Speaker 4: going to stay in the marriage, she's true to avows
Speaker 4: and and that set a lot to him. So they
Speaker 4: once they once the divorce was final, she and Jonathan
Speaker 4: were a couple, and their relationship was very intense. They
Speaker 4: they felt very passionately about each other.
Speaker 2: Now with her second marriage, I believe to Richard Rank
Speaker 2: and or at some point she met a woman named
Speaker 2: Juanne dufour and Penn had out helped Juanne well, encouraged
Speaker 2: her basically made a much better job than when she
Speaker 2: had met her, and a job with benefits, and that
Speaker 2: encouraged the woman and she got that. Just wanted to
Speaker 2: introduced that was was she Did she meet Juanne during
Speaker 2: that second marriage or yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Think it was around that second marriage. They met through
Speaker 4: AA And you know, one of the ways that she
Speaker 4: would help if Joanne didn't have a car. I'm not
Speaker 4: quite certain whether or not she lost the car or
Speaker 4: as happens a bit, you know, she lost her license.
Speaker 4: But pen would, you know, give her rides everywhere. And
Speaker 4: you know, whether Joanne was expecting it or not, Penn
Speaker 4: would if she caught her walking on the road, she
Speaker 4: just pull up beside her and tell her to get
Speaker 4: in the car to take her wherever she wanted. And
Speaker 4: it's on a February day in two thousand and six
Speaker 4: where Penn is Joanne is waiting for Penn to come
Speaker 4: pick her up in the morning because she has a
Speaker 4: dentist appointment, and Pen does not arrive, and Joanne immediately
Speaker 4: knows that there's something wrong because if Pen were stuck somewhere,
Speaker 4: Penn would have called. If Pen were sick, she would
Speaker 4: have called. If Penn had gotten into an accident, was
Speaker 4: stuck in a ditch, she would have gone to somebody's
Speaker 4: house to call and say that she couldn't make it.
Speaker 4: So Penn not showing up for jo Anne to take
Speaker 4: her to that appointment was the first red flag that
Speaker 4: something was wrong.
Speaker 2: Now let's go back. I apologize for introducing her sort
Speaker 2: of a little bit of a out of order here,
Speaker 2: So let's get to another main character, Duanne. It's definitely
Speaker 2: a main character in this as well, but one of
Speaker 2: the more major characters is Sandra Sandy Merit. So let's
Speaker 2: introduce Sandy Merritt. Who is she and how did her
Speaker 2: and Pen meet and become friends?
Speaker 4: Well again, Penn met Sandy through AA. Sandy was what
Speaker 4: was referred to as a newbie. She had been in
Speaker 4: the program for less than a year. Sandy had her
Speaker 4: own demons to deal with is she had a dual diagnosis,
Speaker 4: which means not only did she have an addiction, but
Speaker 4: she had mental health issues. So she'd always struggled with
Speaker 4: her sobriety. But she had gotten into AA in the
Speaker 4: you know, in the in the area, uh and had
Speaker 4: been uh, you know, had been sticking with the program
Speaker 4: and doing well and and socializing with different people in
Speaker 4: the in the program, and you know, uh, Sandy was
Speaker 4: I should say, Pen was just friendly with Sandy and
Speaker 4: you know, kept an eye out for her and happened
Speaker 4: to notice that Sandy was, you know, getting herself into
Speaker 4: a pretty bad spot as far as her relationships go.
Speaker 4: And so Penn was keeping an eye on her about that.
Speaker 2: Well, what was it about the relationship that she was
Speaker 2: Sandy had confided in Pen about and what was exactly
Speaker 2: wrong with that relationship in Pen's.
Speaker 4: Mind, Well, the relationship that she that that Sandy had
Speaker 4: begun was with another guy in AA by the name
Speaker 4: of Ken Carpenter. Now everybody knew Ken in the AA meetings,
Speaker 4: as of course they all in this small community and
Speaker 4: the smaller, more intimate community of AA. But Ken was
Speaker 4: known very much as someone who could talk a good meeting.
Speaker 4: He really knew the platitudes of AA could talk to
Speaker 4: twelve steps out. Very charismatic in that setting. But Ken
Speaker 4: was married, and he was married to of course, and
Speaker 4: it seems another woman from AA.
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Speaker 4: Nurse by the name of Cynthia Harvey and every but
Speaker 4: he called her Harve for short. So Sandy was having
Speaker 4: h an affair with Ken. Ken had told Sandy that
Speaker 4: his relationship with Harve was was loveless. It was on
Speaker 4: its last legs that they, you know, were about to
Speaker 4: get a divorce. Uh. But this wasn't the case. Harv
Speaker 4: had no idea that Ken was saying this or feeling this.
Speaker 4: It was just some subterbute so that Ken could have
Speaker 4: a relationship with Sandy. Sandy confided some of you know,
Speaker 4: the complications of her relationship with Ken, which of course
Speaker 4: Ken wanted to keep a secret. Sand Sandy confided these
Speaker 4: with with Penn. Penn's first concern was, you know, she
Speaker 4: wasn't going to be judgy about whether or not, you know,
Speaker 4: Sandy should carry on with a married man, but she
Speaker 4: was very concerned that Ken, who had twenty plus years
Speaker 4: of sobriety, was dating a new beet because that is
Speaker 4: one of the foreboden things about the twelve step program
Speaker 4: is that if you're new to the program and you're
Speaker 4: dealing with your addiction, a new relationship, a sexual relationship,
Speaker 4: is not advisable because you really need, they believe, that
Speaker 4: first year to sort of find yourself. And in fact,
Speaker 4: it's called the thirteenth step that people should not AA
Speaker 4: members should not date other AA members during their first
Speaker 4: year of recovery. So, you know, Penn and Jonathan, who
Speaker 4: had been sober for a long time been in the program,
Speaker 4: that's you know, that consider that a different situation. But
Speaker 4: Ken should have known better than to be flirting, and
Speaker 4: you know, for lack of a better term, praying on Sandy.
Speaker 4: So you know, Penn was under you know, was under
Speaker 4: the same impression that Sandy was. That Ken and Harve
Speaker 4: had a very you know, a thin relationship, that was
Speaker 4: they were on the outs, and that a divorce of
Speaker 4: some kind of separation of some kind was eminent as
Speaker 4: soon as Ken could figure out, you know, the financials
Speaker 4: of it and how he could keep her her insurance
Speaker 4: and other things that could kind of just kind of
Speaker 4: stretch the relationship out for about ten months, so Penn
Speaker 4: knew that knew all of this, And it wasn't until
Speaker 4: Penn and Jonathan went to a party one evening that
Speaker 4: Ken was at with his wife, Harve, And when Penn
Speaker 4: arrived and saw Ken and Harve together as husband and wife,
Speaker 4: she realized that the story that Ken had been feeding
Speaker 4: Sandy all these months was a lie. They were most
Speaker 4: definitely together, or at the very least Harve had no
Speaker 4: idea that she was supposed to not be with Ken,
Speaker 4: and Ken, realizing that he'd been caught cornered Penn at
Speaker 4: the party, begged her not to say anything to Sandy,
Speaker 4: and uh, you know, Penn, what.
Speaker 2: Did she say? And what did she say? In response
Speaker 2: to that, well, she.
Speaker 4: Said she basically no, she wasn't gonna lie for him,
Speaker 4: and she you know, it was you know, we all
Speaker 4: kind of found surprising that you know, he's caught in
Speaker 4: this adulterous relationship and his thing isn't to say, don't
Speaker 4: tell my wife. His thing is to say, don't tell
Speaker 4: my girlfriend. And you know, they have been through the
Speaker 4: program together, they had these life skills and the first
Speaker 4: thing that Penn says is, you know you have to
Speaker 4: remember you know, uh, the fifth step uh, and you
Speaker 4: know the seventh step and this, you know the steps
Speaker 4: that's that say you have to you know, be be
Speaker 4: true and make amends to people. And you know, Ken's
Speaker 4: response was another AA platitude, which was you have to
Speaker 4: sweep your own side of the street, which in the
Speaker 4: program means you can't worry about what other people are doing.
Speaker 4: You have to focus on yourself. But the way he's saying,
Speaker 4: he's saying it is mind your own business. So about
Speaker 4: a week later, you know, Sandy learns the truth that
Speaker 4: she had been taken advantage of, and she breaks the
Speaker 4: relationship off with Ken, but it doesn't end there.
Speaker 2: Now, I wanted to ask this question because if this
Speaker 2: is one thing, you were very subtle in this regard,
Speaker 2: not very judgmental or anything. But it wasn't really clear
Speaker 2: whether Ken is a real playboy at these meetings, because again,
Speaker 2: he's been involved for a long time. He knows better,
Speaker 2: and Sandra is certainly not, you know, I mean in
Speaker 2: terms of she's more vulnerable, she's depressed, she's got more problems,
Speaker 2: and she's certainly not competition for or pen or anything
Speaker 2: in terms of looks or his own wife in terms
Speaker 2: of looks. So is he sort of a playboy? Is
Speaker 2: he picking out vulnerable women?
Speaker 4: Yeah? A couple of things going on there with Ken.
Speaker 4: I mean, he wasn't necessarily, you know, the most handsome guy.
Speaker 4: But you have to remember that they are in a
Speaker 4: group of people that have you know, hit rock bottom
Speaker 4: in that you know, in that term, and are rebuilding
Speaker 4: their lives, and they're very, very vulnerable and the experiences
Speaker 4: are something that are known to just just that handful
Speaker 4: of people. You know what it's like to go through that.
Speaker 4: So that kind of knowledge and experience is and mixed
Speaker 4: in with his charm is a very powerful thing. So
Speaker 4: that both men and women looked up to Ken, and
Speaker 4: Ken has the brain of an addict. He was an alcoholic,
Speaker 4: he had done drugs, he was sober it came to
Speaker 4: you know, those kinds of substances. But he was still
Speaker 4: an addict, and he was still acting out. And in
Speaker 4: the way that he was acting out was sexually. And
Speaker 4: he was a he had a predator's mind, and so
Speaker 4: that he could look around the room and you know,
Speaker 4: some people might call it bird dogging, but he was
Speaker 4: sizing up all the women in the room and trying
Speaker 4: to figure out who might I be able to hit on,
Speaker 4: who might I be able to you know, score with.
Speaker 4: And Sandy, who was extremely vulnerable to begin with, new
Speaker 4: to the program, had her own set of baggage, was
Speaker 4: somebody that was easy prey for him. And so that's
Speaker 4: one of the reasons why, you know, he was able
Speaker 4: to take such you know, thorough control of Sandy. You know,
Speaker 4: Sandy thought they were having a real relationship for for many,
Speaker 4: many months, you know, into some way, I think Ken
Speaker 4: believed it too, But it isn't until the relationship fell up.
Speaker 4: Part that Ken couldn't accept the fact that Sandy didn't
Speaker 4: want to be with him, couldn't accept the fact that
Speaker 4: for all of his powers of charm. For all of
Speaker 4: his ability to control people, he couldn't control Sandy and
Speaker 4: and Dan. I know you've seen these situations where there's
Speaker 4: a guy who says, look, if you know, if you
Speaker 4: don't want me, no one else can have you, and
Speaker 4: and take all their rage out on the former lover. Well,
Speaker 4: in this case, because of the way his mind works,
Speaker 4: Ken didn't see the problem as being as Sandy. He
Speaker 4: saw the problem as Penn. Pen was the interloper. Penn
Speaker 4: was the one who helped Sandy get out of the relationship.
Speaker 4: Pen is the person that is keeping them apart. And
Speaker 4: if he could somehow convince Penn to change her mind
Speaker 4: or to get Pen out of the way, then he
Speaker 4: could resume his relationship with Sandy. That's how he thought.
Speaker 2: Now, well, why did he believe did Sandy confide in
Speaker 2: him to say that this was her best friend and
Speaker 2: she always spoke to Penn and Penn was the kind
Speaker 2: of person that could talked her into this and talk
Speaker 2: to her to that. How was he so confident that
Speaker 2: it was her friend Pen and not someone else that
Speaker 2: was close to her.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, one of the things was you know,
Speaker 4: in in the in the weeks after the breakup. You know,
Speaker 4: there is almost you know, textbook stalking behavior where he's
Speaker 4: calling Sandy and he's leaving flowers at Sandy's house and
Speaker 4: and showing up at work, and and and approaching her
Speaker 4: at AA meetings and her and bothering her. It comes
Speaker 4: to the point where Sandy says that she needs to
Speaker 4: get a restraining order. Uh and and so in order
Speaker 4: to do that, she had to basically take Ken to court,
Speaker 4: and she needed people to testify on her behalf about
Speaker 4: you know, some of the behavior uh and Uh. The
Speaker 4: first person to testify was Penn. Penn came to Sandy's
Speaker 4: defense in the civil courtroom and basically explained the kind
Speaker 4: of behavior that, uh, that Ken had uh displayed. You know,
Speaker 4: there was this sort of this odd little, odd little
Speaker 4: anecdote that happened around Thanksgiving, where which is about the
Speaker 4: time of the breakup. Apparently, you know, Sandy and Ken
Speaker 4: originally had plans to go to Penn's house for Thanksgiving,
Speaker 4: and then after the breakup, of course, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: Sandy went and there was an extra place at the table,
Speaker 4: so she brought a friend of hers who they were
Speaker 4: they were school friends, but he was you know, he
Speaker 4: just joined the program and uh so he was a
Speaker 4: newbie too, and it wasn't a romantic thing. But they
Speaker 4: Jonathan and Penn's family, they all had Thanksgiving together. Uh uh.
Speaker 4: And when when Ken Carpenter found out that that Sandy
Speaker 4: still went to Pen's house and that his his his
Speaker 4: seat at the table was taken by another man arrival,
Speaker 4: in his mind, he became angry with Penn and you know,
Speaker 4: blamed Penn for trying to set up Sandy with uh,
Speaker 4: you know, with another guy. I mean, everybody sort of
Speaker 4: in aa that that at the end it knew that
Speaker 4: Ken and Sandy had his relationship, was trying to tell
Speaker 4: Ken that, you know, you got to back off. And
Speaker 4: you know, there are all sorts of reasons why you
Speaker 4: shouldn't have had this relationship in the first place. One
Speaker 4: you're married to she's a newbie, so you know, it
Speaker 4: wasn't a secret that Penn was an advocate for Sandy
Speaker 4: and and so that made her a target. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now let's talk about where Sandra or Sandy works. And
Speaker 2: she's a big, you know, a big pet lover, and
Speaker 2: so is Pen. Pen has a little dog named Fluff.
Speaker 2: And this is they're inseparable and Sandra, I guess this
Speaker 2: is part of their friendship as well. Sandra is involved
Speaker 2: with taking care of animals as a occupation, so tell
Speaker 2: us a little bit more about her occupation, and because
Speaker 2: pets are important in this in this story to a
Speaker 2: great degree.
Speaker 4: I think yes. And Andy, you know, is a dog person.
Speaker 4: You know, one of her jobs was, you know, to
Speaker 4: be a dog walker, you know, so you can imagine
Speaker 4: her with you know, a fist full of leashes and
Speaker 4: you know, ten unruly dogs of different sizes. And at
Speaker 4: the time of our story, she's working at a kennel
Speaker 4: called the the Animal Inn. And when she gets there
Speaker 4: every morning for a thing she has to do is
Speaker 4: she's got to feed the dogs. And so if you know,
Speaker 4: if you can imagine how that scene can play, how
Speaker 4: loud it is inside the kennel where you have a
Speaker 4: dozen or so dogs who are hungry, and the first
Speaker 4: person shows up in the morning who we're going to
Speaker 4: feed them. So that's a very chaotic time to be
Speaker 4: a worker there. And you know this is probably this
Speaker 4: is about seven point thirty in the morning, and on
Speaker 4: this one particular morning, as Sandy's trying to feed the dogs,
Speaker 4: the telephone rings and she picks up the phone and
Speaker 4: it's Pen. Sandy was a little confused why Pen would
Speaker 4: be calling. Pen knows not to call that early because
Speaker 4: she's feeding the dogs and it's very loud, and obviously,
Speaker 4: you know, on the other end of the phone, she
Speaker 4: can hear the dogs barking. So Sandy's having a hard
Speaker 4: time concentrating. But what Pen tells Sandy when she picks
Speaker 4: up the phone is that she says, you know, I
Speaker 4: was wrong. I was wrong about Ken. You need to
Speaker 4: go to the court and get the restraining or lifted,
Speaker 4: and you have to get back together with him. And
Speaker 4: of course, now Sandy like very confused because obviously, you know,
Speaker 4: Pen had been her biggest advocate. She went to court,
Speaker 4: got the restraining order. When Ken eventually broke the restraining
Speaker 4: order and started and was going to be facing criminal charges,
Speaker 4: you know, Penn was still there for Sandy as an advocate.
Speaker 4: So now for Sandy, now for Pen to tell Sandy
Speaker 4: that she's wrong and that she was mistaken and that
Speaker 4: she really should get back together with Ken, was very confusing.
Speaker 4: Penn went on to say that you know what would
Speaker 4: be best for her, what best for Sandy to do
Speaker 4: would be to uh, you know, get back together with
Speaker 4: with Ken and and then move into Penn's house and
Speaker 4: to to stay there and take care of the dog
Speaker 4: and you know, start a life together with Penn, with
Speaker 4: with Ken there. And last thing she said was that
Speaker 4: you know, she was going to be going out of
Speaker 4: town and she might not be back for a while. Sandy,
Speaker 4: of course, doesn't know what to make this phone call.
Speaker 4: It's very chaotic with the dogs barking. She says, you know,
Speaker 4: can I call you back at lunchtime? And she hangs
Speaker 4: up the phone and Penn is never heard from again
Speaker 4: after that phone call.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the thing is, though she doesn't you don't really
Speaker 2: put in the book whether she noticed the tone to
Speaker 2: be insincere, but certainly the language and the content are
Speaker 2: totally out of character given you know, her encouragement for
Speaker 2: the exact oppicer or what she was now saying on
Speaker 2: the phone. She also included I pushed you, I was
Speaker 2: jealous of you. He really loves you. As his only crime.
Speaker 2: I will send you a letter outlining all the ways
Speaker 2: I've manipulated you.
Speaker 4: In this regard.
Speaker 2: And so it was very very odd in terms of
Speaker 2: the content. You outline most of the other stuff that
Speaker 2: this does not sound like the kind of language that
Speaker 2: Penn would use at all, period. And then you know,
Speaker 2: going to tell the you know, recommending to her friend,
Speaker 2: go back to the judge and tell her it was
Speaker 2: an all a mistake. And so from that she decides
Speaker 2: to to call her back because there's this bombshell. Tell
Speaker 2: us what happens next about later in the day when
Speaker 2: she tries to contact Sanader tries to contact her friend Penn.
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Speaker 4: Plus, Sandy is weaving messages at Penn's house and Pen
Speaker 4: is not responding as you recall joe Anne due for
Speaker 4: who was you know, waiting to get a ride to
Speaker 4: the dentist? Pen? Does I show Penn? Excuse me? Joe
Speaker 4: Anne calls Penn's boyfriend, Jonathan Uh and Jonathan was at work,
Speaker 4: and you know he's he you know, was obviously very concerned,
Speaker 4: and he said, you know, I will stop by having
Speaker 4: a meeting to go to, you know, a twelve step
Speaker 4: meeting to go to after work. After that, I'm going
Speaker 4: to go by Penn's house and and see what's up.
Speaker 4: He thought maybe she was ill or or something like that.
Speaker 4: So later that evening, Jonathan is, you know, one of
Speaker 4: the first is there at the house. It smells like
Speaker 4: paint in the house because there had been some house
Speaker 4: painters that had come later in the day to do
Speaker 4: some work. The dog was still there, Fluff was still
Speaker 4: in the house, but Pen was not, which was very
Speaker 4: very concerning to him because though those two were inseparable,
Speaker 4: you know, Penn would take Fluff with her to the
Speaker 4: farmer's market and to the grocery store and to AA meetings,
Speaker 4: and the dog would wait in the car and if
Speaker 4: it was too cold, she wouldn't go. And so the
Speaker 4: idea that it's the middle of winter, there's a snowstorm coming,
Speaker 4: the dog is alone in the house. Pen isn't there.
Speaker 4: It dawns on Jonathan that, you know that something terrible
Speaker 4: has happened. When he plays Penn's phone messages on her
Speaker 4: answering machine. There are several messages from Sandy who you know, saying,
Speaker 4: you know, we need to talk about the bombshell that
Speaker 4: you dropped on me this morning. And so Jonathan calls Sandy.
Speaker 4: When he finds out what the message was about, what
Speaker 4: the original phone call was about, this whole thing about
Speaker 4: go back to Ken, move into the house. Jonathan immediately realizes, no, no,
Speaker 4: Penn would never say that. Sandy said, well she did,
Speaker 4: Jonathan said, no, she would never say that. You don't
Speaker 4: get it. He was here, Ken was here making her
Speaker 4: say that. And now she's gone and he took her.
Speaker 2: So now what is he What does he do? Now
Speaker 2: he's convinced that Ken Carpenter has everything to do with this.
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 2: And and so what's his next?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 2: What does response? What does he do next?
Speaker 4: Oh? Well, he you know, he calls the state police. Uh.
Speaker 4: And you know, living in this tiny corner of Sullivan County,
Speaker 4: it takes an hour for a trooper to get there.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: And you know, he takes some information and the and
Speaker 4: the troopers very concerned, but he needs to immediately go
Speaker 4: off to another call, kind of leaving Jonathan alone in
Speaker 4: this big house of Penn's with the dog and his
Speaker 4: own thoughts. And so he you know, he starts calling around. Uh,
Speaker 4: and so he starts calling looking for Ken. Uh. He
Speaker 4: calls Ken's house, Uh, leaves some messages, finally gets a
Speaker 4: hold of Harve. Harve tells Jonathan that you know right
Speaker 4: now that she and Ken are going through some issues
Speaker 4: and Ken is staying someplace else and leave her alone
Speaker 4: and slams the phone down on him.
Speaker 2: He does in response, that's in response to though that
Speaker 2: he's leaving messages right away, and he's been criticize a
Speaker 2: little bit later we'll talk about that, but he's leaving
Speaker 2: messages right away that to insinuate or intimate or whatever
Speaker 2: you want to say, that Ken Carpenter is involved somehow.
Speaker 2: So that's why to explain how his wife, who's oblivious
Speaker 2: to everything, is sort of concerned, Why are you leaving
Speaker 2: these kinds of messages on my phone?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean, he was very angry. Of course, he
Speaker 4: was very sure in his heart that he knew this
Speaker 4: because he could, he says later, he could see it coming,
Speaker 4: the animosity that Ken was building towards Penn. There was
Speaker 4: an incident at a month earlier where after a meeting,
Speaker 4: Penn got home and realized that Ken had followed her
Speaker 4: all the way home, and when they got out of
Speaker 4: their cars, you know, Ken just said, I just need
Speaker 4: to talk to Sandy. Can you get a message to Sandy?
Speaker 4: And Penn says, go away. Well, Jonathan realizes later that
Speaker 4: that was a dry run for Ken. It was his
Speaker 4: his first attempt at killing Penn, but he couldn't do
Speaker 4: it at that moment. He had to come up with
Speaker 4: another plan. So he knows. Jonathan in his heart knows
Speaker 4: that it's Ken, although there's no evidence at the time
Speaker 4: of that, and the house is spotless, there's no blood,
Speaker 4: there's no sign of a struggle. Other than Pen, there's
Speaker 4: really nothing else missing, and you know, that's peculiar to
Speaker 4: the police. Of course, they know that Penn likes to,
Speaker 4: you know, hike in the woods, and you know they're
Speaker 4: can they can't rule out the fact that she, you know,
Speaker 4: went out for a hike in the morning and you know,
Speaker 4: tripped over a log and is uh, you know, in
Speaker 4: need of medical assistance somewhere, or that she you know,
Speaker 4: decided to run off and join the circus. You know.
Speaker 4: They also can't get a hold of her second husband,
Speaker 4: Richard Rankin, for some reason. They're calling him and he's
Speaker 4: nowhere to be found. So they're very concerned about that.
Speaker 4: And Jonathan, of course, as the boyfriend, just sort of
Speaker 4: naturally would be a suspect in his lover's disappearance. So
Speaker 4: to everybody else, there's still a lot of investigation to do.
Speaker 4: But to Jonathan, he knows in his heart it's Ken
Speaker 4: Carpenter's responsible for Penn's disappearance.
Speaker 2: He's pretty sure, but he's also pretty paranoid. You also
Speaker 2: put that in the book. He's pretty paranoid when he
Speaker 2: can't get a hold of the former husband. Fitted had
Speaker 2: only been six months or so since they had been divorced.
Speaker 2: So so, well, this is the person that's pretty sure
Speaker 2: it's Carpenter, but he's also pretty paranoid as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I mean you can imagine this, Yeah, you
Speaker 4: can imagine, you know, what he was going through at
Speaker 4: the time where the love of his life is missing.
Speaker 4: He feels helpless, also feels scared. I mean, even though
Speaker 4: he really thinks that, you know, that it's Jonathan. Excuse
Speaker 4: me that Jonathan thinks that it's Ken. You know, he
Speaker 4: has he has no guarantee that, you know, if Ken's
Speaker 4: a killer, that Ken isn't going to come after him too.
Speaker 4: So there's a So he spends you know, several days,
Speaker 4: you know, going from couch to couch and hiding, you know,
Speaker 4: in different homes because he just doesn't know what Ken
Speaker 4: is up to.
Speaker 2: And he also enlists his friend that had originally come
Speaker 2: to the house with him, the guy stayed in the vehicle,
Speaker 2: but an old friend, and he gets that friend to
Speaker 2: come over and stay at Penn's house with him. And
Speaker 2: these guys are they say, jeez, I don't have a gun,
Speaker 2: and so they sleep on. So it really taken the
Speaker 2: reader into the story where you know, it becomes real serious.
Speaker 2: He doesn't know what what Ken Carpenter is capable of.
Speaker 4: So yeah, exactly, and you know I think that that's
Speaker 4: sort of uh, you know, foreshadows, uh, the way the
Speaker 4: rest of the investigation plays out. It's it's a little dark,
Speaker 4: and Ken Carpenter, you know, obviously has this sort of
Speaker 4: preternatural influence over everything that ends up happening.
Speaker 2: Now the police initially when when Jonathan actually gets to
Speaker 2: speak to Ken Carpenter and accuses of him being involved,
Speaker 2: and Ken hangs up on him and says, listen, I
Speaker 2: already spoke to the police. You haven't a book. It's
Speaker 2: a mystery whether that's even true. And we find out
Speaker 2: a little bit later on or by this time, that
Speaker 2: the police had contacted him, but only by telephone and
Speaker 2: that's them about Penn and he denied any wrongdoing. Obviously,
Speaker 2: tell us about the first time the police actually speak
Speaker 2: with Ken Carpenter and what does he have to say.
Speaker 4: Well to New Hampshire State Police officers visited Ken Carpenter's
Speaker 4: home the following day and the day after Sandy has
Speaker 4: last heard from, and you know, there had been a
Speaker 4: good couple of inches of snow around and Ken was
Speaker 4: outside with this snowblower and the you know, clearing a
Speaker 4: path in his front yard and the troopers pull up
Speaker 4: and you know, absolutely no reaction from Ken, which is
Speaker 4: odd because I think most people, you know, when they
Speaker 4: see a police car stop at their home, you know,
Speaker 4: or at least gonna wonder what the situation is. So
Speaker 4: these two uniform troopers talk to Ken. Ken is at first,
Speaker 4: you know, very angry that Jonathan has implicated him in
Speaker 4: Pen's disappearance, uh and and complains litterally to the troopers
Speaker 4: about that. But once he gets that out of his system,
Speaker 4: he is uh, you know, calm and appears to be
Speaker 4: helpful with the troopers, telling them a little bit about
Speaker 4: you know, what does he know about Pen? He says
Speaker 4: he hasn't really seen Pen. They know each other through
Speaker 4: AA and other than that, I couldn't say. And while
Speaker 4: they're they're there, they noticed that there's a smell of
Speaker 4: smoke that he's been burning brush. Uh And they also
Speaker 4: notice a you know, a metal barrel, a small thirty
Speaker 4: gallon metal barrel that had been on the back of
Speaker 4: a pickup truck sort of dragged through the snow and
Speaker 4: dumped off to the side. You know, he's obviously doing
Speaker 4: some work. Ken lets him look around the property, look
Speaker 4: at the cars he's seen to have you know, really
Speaker 4: just sort of gone along and been cooperative. But one
Speaker 4: of the things that he tells them, because they want
Speaker 4: to know, well, where were you yesterday, about the time
Speaker 4: Penn was last seen. He said, I had gone up
Speaker 4: and I'd gone snowshoeing, and I went snowshoeing, you know,
Speaker 4: at the local golf course, you know, because the big
Speaker 4: open area and I'd like to snowshoe there. So after that,
Speaker 4: the troopers drove over to the golf course and fresh
Speaker 4: blanket of snow and no snow tracks, snowshoe tracks anywhere.
Speaker 4: So they know that Ken has a problem with his alibi,
Speaker 4: and so now they are honed in on him.
Speaker 2: Now, has there been any has there been any other
Speaker 2: suspects whatsoever, or any other people that they questioned. Obviously
Speaker 2: they have the the father of the three children, and
Speaker 2: he comes in contact with the state police initially and
Speaker 2: is very cooperative, and of course he has a good alibi.
Speaker 2: Is there any other focus at all for the state
Speaker 2: police other than can Carpenter?
Speaker 4: Yeah, one of the things that they do. You know,
Speaker 4: Penn was a community advocate. She was always taking up causes.
Speaker 4: They looked into the possibility, well, she opposed, you know,
Speaker 4: the expansion of the local ski resort. You know, could
Speaker 4: possibly somebody involved in that project want to eliminate Pen
Speaker 4: And they don't seem there doesn't seem to be a
Speaker 4: lot of juice behind that kind of thought. The only
Speaker 4: other person that sort of seemed to fit the bill,
Speaker 4: the only other person that you know, he would seem
Speaker 4: to have an axe to grind against Penn is a
Speaker 4: Penn's second husband, her recently divorced husband, Richard Rankin. And
Speaker 4: police are very concerned because, like I said, he's not home,
Speaker 4: so they don't know where Penn is, and they don't
Speaker 4: know where Richard is, and you know, they're concerned that
Speaker 4: he's got her someplace or that he's killed her, and
Speaker 4: and is you know, on the lamb. It is until
Speaker 4: you know, a couple of days later that Richard contacts
Speaker 4: the police. He had been in Florida, he had gone
Speaker 4: there for the winter, and he had just heard the
Speaker 4: news that Penn was missing. And you know, he was
Speaker 4: able to show with his credit card receipts and whatnot
Speaker 4: that he'd been in Florida all along. So with that
Speaker 4: guy crossed off the suspect list, the only person left
Speaker 4: was Kenneth Carpenter.
Speaker 2: Now I'm a bit confused. When did police find a
Speaker 2: bone fragment in the fire pit?
Speaker 4: Well that that happened about a week after Penn disappeared.
Speaker 4: Investigators were very very interested in Ken Carpenter. They wanted
Speaker 4: to talk to him some more. They asked him to
Speaker 4: come to the police station for an interview that they
Speaker 4: tape recorded, and again Ken, you know, denied any involvement.
Speaker 4: They questioned him a little further about his alibi about
Speaker 4: the snow shoes and the golf course, and he said, oh,
Speaker 4: I'm a mistaken I was actually at the high school
Speaker 4: and not at the golf course. He could have remembered
Speaker 4: earlier a lot of what he had done that day,
Speaker 4: but then he remembered that he had gotten in his
Speaker 4: car and driven into the next state of Massachusetts, and
Speaker 4: spent some time and then drove back, and he had
Speaker 4: sort of a you know, a very kind of thin
Speaker 4: telling of his day the day that that Pen disappeared.
Speaker 4: So the detective Sean Scahan, you know, conducted this interview
Speaker 4: and continued to listen to the tape of the interview
Speaker 4: to try to, you know, find holes in it. And
Speaker 4: then the next day there was an anonymou telephone call
Speaker 4: placed to the police department, and Detective Skyhand happened to
Speaker 4: be there and picked up the phone, and he immediately
Speaker 4: recognized this voice as Ken Carpenter because he had been
Speaker 4: listening to the voice for you know, hours. And the
Speaker 4: anonymous caller said that you don't have to worry about Pen.
Speaker 4: She's fine. I dropped her off at the airport and
Speaker 4: you know, implying that that's why she's missing. She's gone
Speaker 4: out of town. On the caller wouldn't say who he was,
Speaker 4: but he did say Penn left something at the payphone
Speaker 4: at the general store and then hung up. So police
Speaker 4: were very puzzled at this. The general store was right
Speaker 4: next to the police station. They ran down and sure enough,
Speaker 4: underneath the payphone vestibule was a plastic bag which was
Speaker 4: taped underneath the payphone with orange duct tape. When they
Speaker 4: took the tape off, they took the bag got they
Speaker 4: found inside a little envelope. Inside the envelope was a key.
Speaker 4: The key was to a safety safe deposit box to
Speaker 4: a local bank. So the investigators went to the bank,
Speaker 4: used the key on penn safe deposit box and found
Speaker 4: her passport inside, so they knew Penn did not go
Speaker 4: to run off to the islands. Her passport was there.
Speaker 4: And then of course they're extremely curious, as you know,
Speaker 4: why would a cop I wass you mean, why would somebody,
Speaker 4: you know leave this key around. In the meantime, they're
Speaker 4: they're tapping the phone of uh, you're not tapping, but
Speaker 4: they have permission from Sandy to record telephone calls between
Speaker 4: her and Ken, and Ken keep saying stuff like I
Speaker 4: spoke to God and we're gonna find out in three
Speaker 4: days why you know, Penn disappeared. And they can tell
Speaker 4: on the telephone calls if that Ken is using Pen's
Speaker 4: disappearance as a way to get back with Sandy, you know,
Speaker 4: trying to can Sandy that they should get together and
Speaker 4: go look for Penn. All of this stuff sort of
Speaker 4: leads the cops to believe that that Ken is, you know,
Speaker 4: somewhat behind the problem here Pen's disappearance. So they get
Speaker 4: a warrant and they go out to Ken's home in
Speaker 4: the woods. He lives in a little cabin deep in
Speaker 4: the woods. It's a February evening and there's an old
Speaker 4: fashioned Nor'easter coming through. It's a blizzard. They can't get
Speaker 4: down the road to the cabin. They need a snowplow
Speaker 4: to come out, especially for them. The state troopers pull
Speaker 4: up at the cabin. It's empty. They go around looking
Speaker 4: for pen. They crawl in a back window. They don't
Speaker 4: find any sign of pen get any sign of a struggle,
Speaker 4: any sign of blood. But outside is that fire pit
Speaker 4: that was there the first time they visited, and the
Speaker 4: fire is still kind of smoldering. And when invest gators
Speaker 4: looked into the embers of the fire pit, they were
Speaker 4: able to find something that looked like a piece of bone.
Speaker 4: And so they realized then that they had found where
Speaker 4: ped Meyer wound up.
Speaker 2: Now, in all of this, it was interesting is that
Speaker 2: when he was having this torret affair with Sandra Merritt,
Speaker 2: his wife thought he was at home. So Ken would
Speaker 2: go over to her apartment on her brother's property and
Speaker 2: they would watch CSI. Their favorite program was CSI, so
Speaker 2: Monday and Thursday they would watch CSI Crime Scene Investigation.
Speaker 2: And I wanted to ask, Once this police had Ken
Speaker 2: Carpenter in their sights, they must have looked to his
Speaker 2: wife for whatever information she might have about her husband,
Speaker 2: possible alibi, or anything else about as a character that
Speaker 2: might help them in the prosecution in that regard, What
Speaker 2: did she have to say? This suddenly very very surprised
Speaker 2: and angered woman, no doubt. What did she have to say?
Speaker 2: And it was she in any aid whatsoever to police.
Speaker 4: That's a very good question, because Harve ran hot and
Speaker 4: cold with the investigators. Remember that despite everything that he
Speaker 4: was accused of, Ken still had had a knack for
Speaker 4: controlling people, his wife included. When she discovered the affair
Speaker 4: with that Ken had with Sandy, she was crushed, but
Speaker 4: she started to rationalize that this wasn't Ken's fault, this
Speaker 4: was Sandy's fault, and so she was going to commit
Speaker 4: herself to God and to get Ken back. So she
Speaker 4: stayed by Ken's side through the restraining order process, and
Speaker 4: then after even after he's arrested for Penn's homicide, she
Speaker 4: sticks with him and she visits him, and she makes
Speaker 4: a lot of telephone calls to him in the jail,
Speaker 4: telephone calls that are recorded. Ken is trying to tell,
Speaker 4: you know, Harv to like, don't say something stupid, don't
Speaker 4: ask me a dumb question because it's being recorded. And
Speaker 4: and Harv, you know, wanted to believe Ken. Uh I
Speaker 4: wanted to believe Ken, that that.
Speaker 2: He was innocent.
Speaker 4: Harve was a nursing student, and so when she was
Speaker 4: in class, they would talk about bones, and then she
Speaker 4: realized that, you know, they only found a small amount
Speaker 4: of bones in that fire pit, and that you know, Penn,
Speaker 4: even though she was a small person, that there's that bone,
Speaker 4: that the bone should have been, you know, falling out
Speaker 4: of that that fire pit. They should have been overflowing.
Speaker 4: So she kept asking Ken, you know what was what?
Speaker 4: And so Ken eventually told her this is several months later,
Speaker 4: uh spring has you know, winter's gone? Spring is there?
Speaker 4: Said to go out into you know, the tree line
Speaker 4: of the property. And she went found this hollow stump
Speaker 4: and found some matter, some debris that was inside it.
Speaker 4: It was more bones and Penn's distinctive jewelry. So Harp
Speaker 4: thought about it, and she did call the police, and
Speaker 4: she was helpful to the police. And there are the
Speaker 4: times when she wouldn't be where she She was, you know,
Speaker 4: kind of resentful of the police and didn't want to
Speaker 4: cooperate and would still do things that that Ken asked
Speaker 4: her to do, like five if they she found some
Speaker 4: notebooks with some of his writing in it, so she
Speaker 4: burned that so the police wouldn't get it. But then
Speaker 4: another time she found some letters that Ken that were
Speaker 4: hidden away in the attict, and she turned those over
Speaker 4: to the to the police. And you know, on these
Speaker 4: recorded telephone calls, Penn, who's sort of struggling with what
Speaker 4: the truth is, really acts as the best cross examiner
Speaker 4: of Ken Carpenter because she's angry, she wants to know
Speaker 4: what's going on. One of the things that Ken uses
Speaker 4: to keep control over over Heart is to try to
Speaker 4: convince her that he's innocent and that the reason he's
Speaker 4: being so secretive is because he's protecting her. There is
Speaker 4: a third person, the real killer is a guy by
Speaker 4: the name of Phil. And this Phil is someone that
Speaker 4: Ken had never seen before. But Phil said he I
Speaker 4: know your problem and I know how to take care
Speaker 4: of it, and that when he that's uh. That that
Speaker 4: that Ken left Penn alone with Phil, and when Ken
Speaker 4: came back, Pen was gone and Phil said, keep that
Speaker 4: fire going. Harve believed that she wanted to believe. Every
Speaker 4: time she met somebody named Phil, she freaked out, thinking
Speaker 4: this might be that Phil. But after a while, you know,
Speaker 4: she started to question whether or not Phil existed. And
Speaker 4: you know, Ken's description of Phil kept changing. You know,
Speaker 4: he would be first, he was the same height and
Speaker 4: clean shaven, and then he had a beard, and then
Speaker 4: he was bald, and then he wasn't And and Harve was,
Speaker 4: you know, the one who is the hardest on him,
Speaker 4: really trying to get him to, you know, out of
Speaker 4: the truth. At one point she says, if this is
Speaker 4: your alibi, you gotta you know, you got to keep
Speaker 4: it straight. So Harv, you know, like you said, Harv
Speaker 4: ran hot and cold. But ultimately she was she was
Speaker 4: helpful to the investigation if for no other reason she
Speaker 4: acted like any other wife would and not take any
Speaker 4: bologne from her husband. And and would you know, get
Speaker 4: to the bottom of it.
Speaker 2: So not to give too much away, we alluded to
Speaker 2: these very very crucial notebooks, Notes on a killing, which
Speaker 2: is the title of the book. This would be largely
Speaker 2: a circumstantial case. Don't don't give us too much. I'm
Speaker 2: going to leave the audience hanging for a change. But
Speaker 2: where was the what was the crucial evidence that the
Speaker 2: prosecution felt well, or what was the theory that the
Speaker 2: prosecution put forward on why this crime occurred? And what
Speaker 2: was their crucial evidence?
Speaker 4: Well, their theory was, of course that Ken Carpenter viewed
Speaker 4: penn Meyer as an obstacle to his relationship with Sandy,
Speaker 4: and that Penn had to be eliminated in order for
Speaker 4: the affair to resume. And one of the things that
Speaker 4: Ken did was as a fan of CSI and the
Speaker 4: other police procedurals, he thought he knew how cops did things,
Speaker 4: and he knew about evidence, and that he could do,
Speaker 4: you know, what he needed to do to get away
Speaker 4: with the murder, and he was trying to get His
Speaker 4: goal was to get Penn to convince Sandy to get
Speaker 4: back together with him, and so in order to do that,
Speaker 4: he needed to with words in her mouth. And four
Speaker 4: weeks before Pen's disappearance, Ken basically planned it out rough
Speaker 4: drafts and based in scripts and scripts for what Pen
Speaker 4: should say, and which is why that phone call. The language,
Speaker 4: the content was so distinctive. It was completely unlike Pen,
Speaker 4: but everything like Ken. Carpenter and investigators when they were
Speaker 4: combing Ken Carpenter's house there was a red leather chair
Speaker 4: and they happened to take the cushion off and they
Speaker 4: found a little blue notebook and as they went through
Speaker 4: all the different pages they saw Ken Carpenter had spent
Speaker 4: weeks planning the death of Pen. Meyer and it was
Speaker 4: complete with, you know, with a script for her to
Speaker 4: follow that she probably followed with a gun to her head.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very very very interesting case and twists. We won't
Speaker 2: talk about the trail at all because you would think
Speaker 2: it would be a slam dunk, but of course it's not,
Speaker 2: and so we'll leave our audience at that very very
Speaker 2: very fascinating tale. Other than Notes on a Killing, I
Speaker 2: wanted to ask what other books you have you authored
Speaker 2: or co authored in the true crime genre.
Speaker 4: Notes Not a Killing is my fourth book. My first
Speaker 4: was Wicked Intentions, which came out in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 4: It's about a female serial killer by the name of
Speaker 4: Sila Labar who lived on a horse farm, you know
Speaker 4: in rural New Hampshire. It would lure men to her
Speaker 4: farm and use them for sex, and then when she
Speaker 4: was done, she would dismember the bodies and burned them
Speaker 4: in a fire pit. So you're starting to see there's
Speaker 4: a theme here with some of these books. I seemed
Speaker 4: to be coming back around again. The other two books
Speaker 4: were written by myself and Rebecca Lavoy. One of those
Speaker 4: was called Our Little Secret, which is about a man
Speaker 4: named Danny Paquette, who was working in his backyard and
Speaker 4: was killed by a stray bullet on the first day
Speaker 4: of hunting season, and some of the cops thought it
Speaker 4: was a hunting accident. But twenty years later they arrested
Speaker 4: a guy who had been at the time of the
Speaker 4: shooting seventeen years old and who had never met Ken
Speaker 4: carp excuse me, never met Danny Pockett, and everybody in
Speaker 4: town knew that this guy had pulled the trigger, and
Speaker 4: he had done it because Danny Poncette was a child
Speaker 4: in the lester And so for twenty five years people
Speaker 4: in the town knew who did it, but kept the
Speaker 4: secret because they thought he had it coming. The other
Speaker 4: book we've written is called Legally Dead. It's about an
Speaker 4: attorney who goes through a very rough divorce. He tries
Speaker 4: to drive his ex wife crazy so that he can
Speaker 4: get the kids and stop having to pay her any money.
Speaker 4: He tries to drive her to commit suicide. He terrorizes her,
Speaker 4: he hires thugs to harass her, to slash her tires.
Speaker 4: When none of that works, he puts a pipe bomb
Speaker 4: in her mailbox to try to scare her, and then
Speaker 4: eventually one day she just disappears. And investigators don't know
Speaker 4: where she's gone, but there's a conspiracy around how she
Speaker 4: disappeared in a real rogues gallery of people who you
Speaker 4: know were involved. So all the books take place in
Speaker 4: New England and they all have a rich cast of characters.
Speaker 2: Certainly, and and Uh, if the people are compelled to
Speaker 2: do so, do you have a website that they might
Speaker 2: go to? Or obviously you're on Facebook, but tell us
Speaker 2: how fans can contact.
Speaker 4: You if they are so compelled, Dan, they could reach
Speaker 4: out to us at UH. The website is author Kevin
Speaker 4: Flynn dot com. We're on Facebook and Twitter. We try
Speaker 4: to stay pretty active talking about the latest stuff going
Speaker 4: on crime around the country.
Speaker 2: And you're on Facebook as well, Facebook Friends.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're Facebook again, it's Kevin and yeah, and we're
Speaker 4: tweeting and you know, and the instagramming and whatever else,
Speaker 4: you know, we gotta do these days, you know, iTunes,
Speaker 4: I don't know, whatever whatever it takes to get to
Speaker 4: these the true crime fans, because they are great, They're
Speaker 4: very loyal, They love the they love the stories, and
Speaker 4: we hope we give them something to enjoy.
Speaker 2: Before we go to UH, I just wanted to ask
Speaker 2: what was what's your partnership. Like with Rebecca Lavoy, what's
Speaker 2: what's her role? I mean, obviously you don't do exactly
Speaker 2: the same thing. Just tell us a little bit about
Speaker 2: Rebecca Lavoy and her role in in these books.
Speaker 4: Well, I guess for disclosure, I should say Rebecca and
Speaker 4: I are now married, So I guess they'd say that
Speaker 4: she's the boss, you know, good as. But the way
Speaker 4: two people write is you know, i'd say, well, you know,
Speaker 4: it's it's like it's like your husband and wife moving
Speaker 4: a couch, you know. They sometimes it's it's good, sometimes
Speaker 4: it's not so good. Like basically, I will, you know,
Speaker 4: write the first draft. I'll sort of map out the
Speaker 4: arc of the story and put in the facts, you know,
Speaker 4: kind of p with the bones down, and Rebecca comes by,
Speaker 4: puts all the muscle on it, brushes up on the pros.
Speaker 4: So that's the way we work. Sometimes it's like, you know, well,
Speaker 4: you know that person, that character, you know you should
Speaker 4: do those interviews, you should write about her because you
Speaker 4: know for some reason. But mostly that's the that's the uh,
Speaker 4: the way that the assignments get doled out.
Speaker 2: Well, it's great, sounds like a great partnership. Obviously is
Speaker 2: a great partnership. So I want to thank you.
Speaker 4: It's a great partnership. Yes, well I.
Speaker 2: Say so too, So there you go. I want to
Speaker 2: thank you very much Kevin for a great interview. People
Speaker 2: have been listening to Kevin Flynn notes on a killing.
Speaker 2: I want to thank you very much, Kevin. Then hope
Speaker 2: to speak to you again about another one of your
Speaker 2: fine books.
Speaker 4: So I have a great idea you can have. You
Speaker 4: can have us on any time. We uh we love
Speaker 4: your podcast.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, thank you very much. You have a great
Speaker 2: evening and thanks once again. Good night.
Speaker 1: Su