Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Pathway Chili.
Speaker 2: I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm Ashley. Let's dive right
Speaker 2: into this week's case.
Speaker 3: Christmas Eve nineteen seventy three, New London, Connecticut, while changing
Speaker 3: a tire, twenty year old Kevin Showalter is struck by
Speaker 3: a passing vehicle and killed in a hit and run.
Speaker 3: When police make no effort to solve the case, Kevin's
Speaker 3: mother is forced to fight for answers on her own.
Speaker 3: Years later, a grand jury investigation is finally held, naming
Speaker 3: the town's former mayor as a probable driver of the vehicle. However,
Speaker 3: further complications ensue when another man comes forward to confess
Speaker 3: to the crime, creating much debate about who was actually
Speaker 3: responsible for Kevin Showalter's death.
Speaker 1: After that, the path went chilly. So the Christmas Holidays
Speaker 1: are nearly upon us, So to commemorate the occasion, we're
Speaker 1: going to be covering a case which took place on
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve, the unsolved nineteen seventy three hit and run
Speaker 1: death of Kevin Showalter. I first became familiar with this
Speaker 1: story ten years ago when I included in an article
Speaker 1: I published for listfvers dot Com about unsolved Christmas Time mysteries,
Speaker 1: But until I covered it on the Trail Went Cold
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, I did not realize just how deep
Speaker 1: a rabbit hole it really was. Cold cases involving hit
Speaker 1: and run deaths are often very difficult to solve because
Speaker 1: unless someone actually witnessed the event, there's usually very little
Speaker 1: evidence to work with. But the death of Kevin Showalter
Speaker 1: wound up ballooning into one of the most extensive hit
Speaker 1: and run in investigations in the history of the United States.
Speaker 1: The local police initially did such a terrible job that
Speaker 1: Kevin's mother had to become his sole advocate. The case
Speaker 1: eventually wound up in the hands of the Connecticut State Police,
Speaker 1: who would spend over one million dollars on the investigation
Speaker 1: and garner national press coverage for the story. In spite
Speaker 1: of this, the case is not particularly well known today, though,
Speaker 1: but often garnered coverage in the local media, and new
Speaker 1: developments were still taking place in the investigation. Up until
Speaker 1: the mid two thousands. We have one person who has
Speaker 1: been publicly named as the most likely perpetrator, but since
Speaker 1: there have been a number of unexpected twists and turns.
Speaker 1: A lot of ambiguity still surrounds what actually happened here.
Speaker 2: Oh, this is so sad. You have a twenty year
Speaker 2: old young man who's killed in a hit and run
Speaker 2: and a mother who is really saddled with this task.
Speaker 2: It's unthinkable you need to do an investigation into your
Speaker 2: son's death if you want any kind of answers or
Speaker 2: justice at all. I can't imagine the weight that that
Speaker 2: places on her, and not only her, but the rest
Speaker 2: of her family as well, because she can't turn to
Speaker 2: local law enforcement to say, carry that burden for me,
Speaker 2: and so it becomes an additional burden on top of
Speaker 2: the death of her son. So my heart is absolutely
Speaker 2: broken for this poor woman who dedicates her life to
Speaker 2: justice for her son. And when you talk about the
Speaker 2: idea that the only named individual has been the mayor
Speaker 2: of the town, it adds that layer of potential mix
Speaker 2: of politics and the lack of justice because of that,
Speaker 2: Like did the local law enforcement not investigate because of
Speaker 2: the political pressure and weight of the mayor being potentially involved.
Speaker 2: I can't wait to hear more, but my heart is
Speaker 2: absolutely broken for this poor mother. And it shows what
Speaker 2: strength and incredible determination these survivors have in these moments
Speaker 2: when they say, if you won't do it, I'll do
Speaker 2: it myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. We have covered a lot of cases on
Speaker 1: the podcast like this where the police does a terrible
Speaker 1: job and the victims' family members has to be their
Speaker 1: advocate and pretty much do all the work, and they
Speaker 1: are pretty much the only reason that the case remains
Speaker 1: in the spotlight. It is still remembered after so many years.
Speaker 1: And here we're probably we're going to be profiling one
Speaker 1: of the worst police investigations I've seen for a cold case.
Speaker 1: But when you hear the twist about the town mayor
Speaker 1: possibly being the perpetrator, you can understand why there have
Speaker 1: been allegations of potential cover up and rumors that the
Speaker 1: investigation was botched intentionally.
Speaker 3: Our story begins in New London, Connecticut, in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 3: Our central figure is twenty year old Kevin Showalter, who's
Speaker 3: currently a student at Mitchell College. Kevin's parents are divorced,
Speaker 3: but he still remains close to his mother, Lucille's Showalter,
Speaker 3: and his two brothers. On Christmas Eve, Kevin was working
Speaker 3: his job at a discotheque in Waterford, which is located
Speaker 3: just three miles outside New London. He became friendly with
Speaker 3: a young female patron named Debrah Emilita and invited her
Speaker 3: to attend a Christmas party with him. After Kevin's shift ended,
Speaker 3: he left his own car behind to the discothech so
Speaker 3: he and Deborah could use her Ford Pinto to drive
Speaker 3: to his apartment in New London. They spent the next
Speaker 3: few hours hanging out together and decided that they would
Speaker 3: not attend the Christmas party after all, so Kevin asked
Speaker 3: Deborah to drive him back to the discothech so he
Speaker 3: could pick up his own car. On their way there,
Speaker 3: Deborah's Pinto suddenly sustained a flat tire on Pequot Avenue,
Speaker 3: a residential street located less than two blocks from where
Speaker 3: Kevin's mother lived. Deborah pulled over, and after discovering that
Speaker 3: the front driver's side tire was flat, Kevin pulled out
Speaker 3: a jack and crouched down beside the Pinto to change
Speaker 3: the tire. He recommended the Deborah switch off the vehicle's
Speaker 3: parking lights in order to conserve the battery, but tragedy
Speaker 3: would soon occur. At around eleven eleven PM, Kevin was
Speaker 3: attempting to change the tire when he was suddenly struck
Speaker 3: by a passing vehicle, which propelled his body fifty feet
Speaker 3: onto the sideway. The driver of the vehicle did not
Speaker 3: bother to stop and just kept on going. At the time,
Speaker 3: Deborah was sitting on top of a stone wall six
Speaker 3: feet away from the pinto and remembered hearing a thud.
Speaker 3: Well she was able to catch a glimpse of a
Speaker 3: tail light driving away in the distance, she did not
Speaker 3: actually see the vehicle. In fact, even though numerous witnesses
Speaker 3: in the neighborhood would recall hearing noises from their homes
Speaker 3: and catching a glimpse of the tail lights to the
Speaker 3: vehicle which struck Kevin, none of them got a clear
Speaker 3: enough look at it to provide a description.
Speaker 2: Here's what's so difficult about this is that you have
Speaker 2: Kevin and Deborah. They're, you know, hanging out, they're on
Speaker 2: a date, and they make this decision that they're not
Speaker 2: going to go to the Christmas party. So Kevin says,
Speaker 2: take me back to my car, and he's literally right
Speaker 2: near his mother's home, so about two blocks. Thinking, like,
Speaker 2: you know, had he walked back home, had he asked
Speaker 2: his mom to you know, drive them to get his
Speaker 2: other car, things like that this might have actually not
Speaker 2: even a cur So this crazy moment where he's getting
Speaker 2: out just to fix his friend's tire or girlfriend's tire
Speaker 2: turns into him losing his life. It's the unthinkable, which
Speaker 2: is why when you have Deborah sitting up on that
Speaker 2: wall and she hears a thud, it almost on the
Speaker 2: surface seems impossible that she wouldn't see the car. But
Speaker 2: when she hears that thud, the last thing going through
Speaker 2: her mind is most likely that Kevin had been hit.
Speaker 2: It would be that catching up in your mind and
Speaker 2: your conscience to say, wait a minute, what just happened.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Kevin's hurt. And by the time you
Speaker 2: realize that and you look up, all you can see
Speaker 2: are those tail lights. And so my heart is absolutely
Speaker 2: broken for Deborah. This young kid who's just being a
Speaker 2: gentleman and kind and helping get this car fixed loses
Speaker 2: his life and the person doesn't even stop. It makes
Speaker 2: you think were they drinking, were they under the influence
Speaker 2: of something, Because yes, you would be scared if you
Speaker 2: hit something you didn't know what you would hit, But
Speaker 2: you would think that most people would pull over if
Speaker 2: they were innocent and they accidentally hit somebody who was
Speaker 2: changing a tire in the dark. Remember, he had turned
Speaker 2: the car off, so there'd be justification of saying I
Speaker 2: didn't see the poor kid. But they kept going, which
Speaker 2: makes me think there was a reason they could not stop.
Speaker 3: I was thinking that they must have been intoxicated, because
Speaker 3: for Deborah not to see the vehicle after hearing that thud,
Speaker 3: even if it's going fairly fast, for her eyes not
Speaker 3: to be on the road seemed strange. But Robin, I've
Speaker 3: got a question for you. Do you know how well
Speaker 3: lit that area was?
Speaker 1: It does not sound like it was particularly well lit.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the most senseless thing about this
Speaker 1: whole tragedy is that it probably was legitimately an accident,
Speaker 1: and that if the driver, as long as they weren't
Speaker 1: drunk and they just pulled over, I'd admitted to what
Speaker 1: they did, they may not have received any jail time.
Speaker 1: Because there's Kevin approached by a vehicle like changing a
Speaker 1: tire on the car which has turned the light, So
Speaker 1: you can't really you can kind of understand why this
Speaker 1: motorists might have hit him by accident, but the fact
Speaker 1: that they didn't even bother to stop and just took
Speaker 1: off in a panic. Just pretty much caused this whole
Speaker 1: thing to spiral out of control because they didn't fess
Speaker 1: up to it. And that's why people are still talking
Speaker 1: about this case fifty years later.
Speaker 2: And see that's why I think the driver had to
Speaker 2: be intoxicated because or under the influence of something, because
Speaker 2: or they had some materials in their car. There was
Speaker 2: something going on that once they hit him, they didn't
Speaker 2: pull over. Yes, the kids could have been drinking and
Speaker 2: maybe Kevin was being incredibly responsible asking Deborah to drive
Speaker 2: him and so he didn't drive his car. But I
Speaker 2: think the driver of the vehicle that struck him had
Speaker 2: to have a legal reason they didn't stop.
Speaker 3: Well, look at Chap equittic like the whole thing with
Speaker 3: what was it Robert Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, Ted Kennedy. Sorry,
Speaker 3: I don't want to get the Kennedy's mixed up, but
Speaker 3: he basically like left the scene, went in processed this
Speaker 3: for this good chunk of time before you realize he's
Speaker 3: going to be tied to this, He's going to have
Speaker 3: to cop to what happened. So I think when you are,
Speaker 3: I mean he was part of a political dynasty, and
Speaker 3: if we're looking at this through the lens that this
Speaker 3: could have been the mayor allegedly, then it's very possible
Speaker 3: that just the status of being the mayor would be
Speaker 3: enough that it would be like, oh my god, my
Speaker 3: career could be over, my life could be over. Because
Speaker 3: people think worst case scenario in that situation. But I
Speaker 3: do agree. I think there's probably a strong likelihood that
Speaker 3: if it was indeed the mayor or somebody else, they
Speaker 3: were likely intoxicated because to keep going and not even
Speaker 3: to pause for a minute, it just seems so strange.
Speaker 1: That night, Kevin's mother, Lucille Showalter, had been attending Christmas
Speaker 1: Eve services at her church before she returned home and
Speaker 1: went to bed. She would be woken up during the
Speaker 1: early morning hours of Christmas Day when officers from the
Speaker 1: New London Police Department arrived at the front door and
Speaker 1: informed her that her son had been hurt in an accident.
Speaker 1: Lucille went to the hospital where Kevin had been taken,
Speaker 1: but when she arrived, she learned the horrifying news that
Speaker 1: Kevin was dead. The police informed Lucille that Kevin was
Speaker 1: the victim of a hit and run, and she assumed
Speaker 1: that they would be investigating the crime and doing their
Speaker 1: best to find the driver who was responsible. However, Lucille
Speaker 1: started a sense that something was wrong when she showed
Speaker 1: up at the New London police station a few weeks
Speaker 1: later to retrieve Kevin's personal effects. To her astonishment, the
Speaker 1: police claimed that his personal effects have been lost and
Speaker 1: flat out told Lucille that the case would probably never
Speaker 1: be solved. So this motivated Lucille to launch her own
Speaker 1: independent investigation. She got her hands on an FBI lab
Speaker 1: report which stated that dark green paint particles had been
Speaker 1: found on Kevin's clothing, which were consistent with the same
Speaker 1: shade of green which was often used on nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: eight Krysler vehicles. Lucille then did some exhaustive leg work,
Speaker 1: searching throughout the area for dark green vehicles which had
Speaker 1: any signs of damage on them. She asked local auto
Speaker 1: dealers and garages if they had repaired any damaged vehicle
Speaker 1: shortly after Christmas Eve, and learned that most of them
Speaker 1: had never even received any inquiries from the police. Lucille
Speaker 1: also interviewed a number of people, including witnesses from Kevin's accident,
Speaker 1: seen and reached the conclusion that the driver hit him
Speaker 1: was likely from the area, given that Pequat Avenue as
Speaker 1: a residential street not known for getting much traffic.
Speaker 2: So not only does Mom have to do this investigation
Speaker 2: by herself, but she also goes to the police department
Speaker 2: and is shut down that basically good luck finding who
Speaker 2: killed him, right, that this is likely not going to
Speaker 2: have a resolution. But they also lost his personal effects,
Speaker 2: which is absolutely devastating. Even if there wasn't much on him,
Speaker 2: that's all she had left. She was going to get
Speaker 2: his things back and bring them back into her possession
Speaker 2: so that she could do what she wanted to, and
Speaker 2: they lost them like he didn't matter, right, that there
Speaker 2: wasn't a mother out there that wanted his belongings. That's hurtful.
Speaker 2: The fact that they say good luck, there's not going
Speaker 2: to be a resolution, the fact that they're not doing
Speaker 2: any work because she's doing work and finding out that
Speaker 2: the police have never spoken to these repair shops and
Speaker 2: things of that nature, which would be the first thing
Speaker 2: you would think police would do. But I do have
Speaker 2: a question when you get down to the idea that
Speaker 2: it's on this back residential street. Mom had to be
Speaker 2: thinking this is someone I go to the grocery store with.
Speaker 2: This is someone I'm in church with, This is someone
Speaker 2: who I could have gone to school with, my son
Speaker 2: could have gone to school with. That makes it even
Speaker 2: more devastating that you could easily be standing next to
Speaker 2: someone you know and are familiar with and they hit
Speaker 2: your son and kept going.
Speaker 1: That is true because it does seem certain that this
Speaker 1: was not an outsider lived away from New London, that
Speaker 1: it was someone who lived in the area and had
Speaker 1: probably cross paths with Lucille and her family on numerous occasions.
Speaker 1: And as we're about to talk about momentarily, the person
Speaker 1: who would later be come the prime suspect acted so
Speaker 1: nice to Lucille and offered her so much comfort afterwards,
Speaker 1: and then it turns out that maybe they might have
Speaker 1: been doing this to cover their own ass.
Speaker 3: Lucille kept a written record of all her findings and
Speaker 3: attempted to turn it over to the police, but they
Speaker 3: only became angry about her investigation and accused her of
Speaker 3: withholding evidence. In spite of this, Lucille continued to actively
Speaker 3: campaign for answers and even convinced the state of Connecticut
Speaker 3: to offer a two thousand dollars reward for information. One
Speaker 3: prominent citizen who offered Lucille his full support, who had
Speaker 3: previously served two terms as mayor of New London and
Speaker 3: was now a wealthy, well respected jewelry merchant. He told
Speaker 3: Lucille that he had actually driven past Kevin's accident, seen
Speaker 3: at around eleven twelve pm on Christmas Eve, only about
Speaker 3: a minute after Kevin had been struck. Mala remembered seeing
Speaker 3: a dark green car parked at an angle in front
Speaker 3: of the Pinto and saw a middle aged, clean shaven
Speaker 3: man talking to a younger woman nearby. Malave claimed that
Speaker 3: he initially thought the guy might be a policeman, since
Speaker 3: city police were known for driving unmarked dark green vehicles. However,
Speaker 3: records showed that the earliest help arrived at the scene
Speaker 3: that night was eleven fifteen.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, Okay, so the former mayor's saying that
Speaker 2: not only did he see a dark green car part,
Speaker 2: but he also saw a middle aged, clean shaven man
Speaker 2: talking to a younger woman. If that had happened, Deborah
Speaker 2: would have seen that and known that, and she may
Speaker 2: have even been that younger woman. So how does he
Speaker 2: explain that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's The issue, as we're going to find
Speaker 1: out as we go along, is that he tells this
Speaker 1: story to Lucille, seemingly offering her these leads, and then
Speaker 1: she'll later speak to Deborah and all the other witnesses,
Speaker 1: and no one else reports seeing the same thing. And
Speaker 1: you could think that, well, maybe that young woman was Deborah,
Speaker 1: but Kevin had a beard. He was not a middle aged,
Speaker 1: clean shaven man. So here thinking is he really confused
Speaker 1: or could he be completely fabricating this guy out of
Speaker 1: thin air in order to send Lucille in the wrong direction. Anyway,
Speaker 1: The next few years would be an exercise and frustration
Speaker 1: for Lucille, as she constantly wrote numerous people in authority,
Speaker 1: such as the new London police chief, a local superior
Speaker 1: court judge, and the state's attorney, to demand a proper
Speaker 1: investigation into her son's death, but she was often completely ignored.
Speaker 1: But Lucille's persistence eventually paid off when she wrote a
Speaker 1: letter to Connecticut Governor La t. Grosso only a few
Speaker 1: days before Christmas in nineteen seventy six. A one man
Speaker 1: grand jury was created to investigate the case, and a
Speaker 1: Superior court judge named Joseph Donaghy would be appointed to
Speaker 1: the position. This launched a one year investigation from the
Speaker 1: Connecticut State Police, which involved re examining the evidence and
Speaker 1: re interviewing witnesses by the state. In total, they spent
Speaker 1: over one million dollars, the largest amount ever spent on
Speaker 1: a hit and run case at that time. The whole
Speaker 1: situation exposed just how badly the New London Police Department
Speaker 1: had bungled the original investigation, as in addition to showing
Speaker 1: a lack of initiative to solve the case, they had
Speaker 1: also apparently lost some key pieces of evidence. The tow
Speaker 1: truck driver who arrived at the accident scene remembered finding
Speaker 1: green automobile body putty and turning it over to the
Speaker 1: police before it inexplicably disappeared. Some amber plastic, which may
Speaker 1: have been part of a signal light on the vehicle
Speaker 1: which struck Kevin, was also found at the scene but
Speaker 1: subsequently went missing. The new London PD found some glass
Speaker 1: and did turn it over to the FBI for testing,
Speaker 1: and they determined that it likely belonged to a general
Speaker 1: electric headlight before sending it back. However, when the State
Speaker 1: police requested to analyze this glass years later, the new
Speaker 1: London PD turnover a box containing what appeared to be
Speaker 1: glass fragments from multiple vehicles. An engineer from General Electric
Speaker 1: would determine that at least one of these glass fragments
Speaker 1: could not have been dislodged by a vehicle heading a pedestrian,
Speaker 1: and that it was likely removed from a headlamp socket
Speaker 1: by force. In other words, this glass fragment did not
Speaker 1: belong to the car which struck Kevin. The State police
Speaker 1: also concluded that the dark green paint particles found on
Speaker 1: Kevin's clothing probably did not originate from the vehicle that
Speaker 1: struck him.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming they did more advanced testing. I mean, there
Speaker 2: are different paint components that are and I don't know,
Speaker 2: molecules and things like that that make up different types
Speaker 2: of paint automobile paint versus craft paint versus home paint.
Speaker 2: So did they do end depth analysis of it to
Speaker 2: conclusively say that it didn't come from a vehicle.
Speaker 1: I think so it's kind of murky what kind of
Speaker 1: testing they did. But I remember how I said earlier
Speaker 1: that they thought this was the type of paint used
Speaker 1: on a green dark Green nineteen sixty eight Chrysler, and
Speaker 1: they were able to determine that it did not match
Speaker 1: the type of paint used on that vehicle, and I'm
Speaker 1: guessing they did extensive testing to realize that, no, this
Speaker 1: doesn't belong to a vehicle. Kevin probably got it from
Speaker 1: something completely unrelated.
Speaker 3: In total, the grand jury investigation contained five months worth
Speaker 3: of hearing, featuring testimony from one hundred and seven witnesses.
Speaker 3: One of the most prominent witnesses was a police informant
Speaker 3: named Katherine Krause, who claimed that sometime in nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 3: two women at a party told her about a father
Speaker 3: and son duo named Walter Spring Junior and Walter Spring
Speaker 3: the third who'd allegedly done repairs on the vehicle which
Speaker 3: struck Heaven. The Springs had operated an auto repair shop
Speaker 3: in New London in nineteen seventy three before moving to
Speaker 3: New Jersey. Kraus came forward and shared this information with
Speaker 3: the state police in February of nineteen seventy seven, but
Speaker 3: claimed that once the Springs found out about it, they
Speaker 3: took her to Florida and held her in a motel
Speaker 3: for a month in order to prevent her from testifying.
Speaker 3: For months. The Springs were very uncooperative with the grand
Speaker 3: jury investigation and would not show up to testify until
Speaker 3: they received a court order. While Krous passed a lie
Speaker 3: detect or test about her story, the Springs refused to
Speaker 3: take one. A state trooper also testified that the Springs
Speaker 3: had allegedly threatened to rub out anyone who talked about
Speaker 3: their repair work of the hit and run vehicle.
Speaker 2: And these two guys are not considered main suspects.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't think that they were involved in the
Speaker 1: actual hit and run, but it does seem clear that
Speaker 1: something shady was going on with them, and that there's
Speaker 1: a good chance that whoever did hit Kevin probably went
Speaker 1: to them to get their vehicle repaired.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, this idea of obstructing justice, right, and being
Speaker 2: two people that would have information they know who owned
Speaker 2: that car, So if they repaired that car, they're basically
Speaker 2: protecting a killer. Somebody who might have on accident hit
Speaker 2: him but then didn't stop, didn't pull over to see
Speaker 2: if he could help, didn't have any compassion for Kevin. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know, how do you sit there
Speaker 2: with that kind of information and say, yeah, we'll fix
Speaker 2: your car and we're totally fine. Knowing that this car
Speaker 2: killed a kid and his family has no justice.
Speaker 3: And if that's the case, you see just this escalation
Speaker 3: where they're trying to hide what they've done. If we're
Speaker 3: to believe what Catherine Cross is saying, because to hold
Speaker 3: somebody in a hotel room for an entire month against
Speaker 3: their will, that sounds really intense if it's true.
Speaker 1: I mean, and the whole thing was based on hearsay rumors.
Speaker 1: So if it turned out the rumors weren't true, all
Speaker 1: the Springs would have to do is just testify and
Speaker 1: grand in front of the grand jury and says, Nope,
Speaker 1: these are all lies. We had nothing to do with this.
Speaker 1: We never repaired any vehicle. But the fact that they
Speaker 1: kept dodging it and would not and would refuse to
Speaker 1: testify and refuse to take a lie detector test indicates
Speaker 1: that they do have something to hide. After the grand
Speaker 1: jury investigation concluded and Judge Danahey looked at all the evidence,
Speaker 1: he finally issued a thirty seven page report in February
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy eight. He concluded that quote it is
Speaker 1: more probable than not that Harvey Malav was the operator
Speaker 1: of the offending vehicle, As recall, Malav had told Lucille
Speaker 1: that he drove past Heaven's accident scene right after the
Speaker 1: hit and run took place, but Judge dan He concluded
Speaker 1: that Malif's story contradicted the account shared by every other
Speaker 1: person who was at the scene that night. Malif claimed
Speaker 1: that he had been driving a yellow nineteen seventy Lincoln Continental,
Speaker 1: but seven witnesses, including Deborah Andmalita, testified that they never
Speaker 1: saw a vehicle like that in the neighborhood. After Kevin
Speaker 1: was hit, one of the neighbors called the fire department,
Speaker 1: and Deborah claimed that no other vehicles drove past the
Speaker 1: scene until a fire rescue ambulance and the fire chief's
Speaker 1: car arrived at eleven fifteen pm. In addition, every witness
Speaker 1: contradicted Malov's original story about seeing a dark green car
Speaker 1: parked in front of Deborah's Ford Pinto. As you recall,
Speaker 1: Malif claimed that he saw a middle aged man speaking
Speaker 1: to a young woman, and the respeculation that Malub might
Speaker 1: have actually seen Kevin speaking to Debra and was just
Speaker 1: confused about the time because he drove through the neighborhood
Speaker 1: before Kevin was hit. However, Maliv specifically described seeing a
Speaker 1: clean shaven man, and Kevin had a beard at that time.
Speaker 1: Maliv's Lincoln Continental was examined by the State Police in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven and there were signs of damage to
Speaker 1: the right fender area, along with some turquoise green body putty.
Speaker 1: Malif could not recall how the vehicle sustained this damage,
Speaker 1: but given how much time had passed, there was no
Speaker 1: way to conclusively prove that the damage had been caused
Speaker 1: by hitting Kevin. In nineteen seventy four, the Chief State's
Speaker 1: Attorney's office had inquired about whether the New London PD
Speaker 1: inspected any of Malov's vehicles for damage. The police responded
Speaker 1: that they'd inspected six vehicles owned by Maliv and found nothing,
Speaker 1: but the Grand Jury investigation discovered that this was a
Speaker 1: complete lie. There was also a tentative connection between Malav
Speaker 1: and the Spring family. Malif had been a member of
Speaker 1: the New London Redevelopment Corporation in nineteen seventy three and
Speaker 1: loaned the Springs three thousand dollars only one month before
Speaker 1: Kevin's death, So could Maliv have called in a favor
Speaker 1: and asked them to repair the damage to his vehicle.
Speaker 2: Absolutely he could. But even more concerning is why the
Speaker 2: heck would the police lie to the state's attorney's office
Speaker 2: and say, oh, yeah, we actually investigated all of his vehicles,
Speaker 2: and then they uncover that that was a lie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. Like even though in a lot of
Speaker 1: cases involving police conspiracies and cover ups, it does seem
Speaker 1: like a little over the top. You start thinking like
Speaker 1: how many people could keep a secret, But when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with such a prominent, well respected citizen like Harvey Malov,
Speaker 1: who was the town's former mayor, you could see law
Speaker 1: enforcement officers be willing to go to bat for him
Speaker 1: because maybe in their eyes, he's thinking, oh, it's just
Speaker 1: it was just a complete accident. He made a mistake.
Speaker 1: Let's not let this entire mistake ruin his life, And
Speaker 1: that way, they were willing to sweep evidence under the rug.
Speaker 3: All that being said, since the New London PD had
Speaker 3: lost most of their evidence from the accident, there was
Speaker 3: nothing which could conclusively link Malob to the crime, so
Speaker 3: Judge Danny he did not recommend criminal prosecution. Needless to say,
Speaker 3: Malub denied these his allegations, and many of his supporters
Speaker 3: were not too happy with the fact that danahe would
Speaker 3: publicly name him as the hit and run driver when
Speaker 3: there wasn't even enough evidence to file criminal charges. Malave
Speaker 3: pointed out that he previously passed a lie detector test
Speaker 3: when questioned about the accident in nineteen seventy five, and
Speaker 3: following the release of Judge Danihe's report, he immediately hired
Speaker 3: his own private investigator. Malov hoped that evidence would be
Speaker 3: uncovered to help clear his name, but when the investigator
Speaker 3: did not deliver his promise, the two men had a
Speaker 3: falling out. By this point, the case had already garnered
Speaker 3: a ton of national publicity, including an article in People magazine.
Speaker 3: The popular TV series Lew Grant even did an episode
Speaker 3: which was loosely based on this story about a young
Speaker 3: man who's killed in a hit and run accident by
Speaker 3: a prominent judge while his mother seeks justice. It was
Speaker 3: essentially one of those law and order style ripped from
Speaker 3: the headline stories inspired by real life crimes, but Lucille's
Speaker 3: showalter did not like the episode, mainly because the fictional
Speaker 3: mother character based on her was portrayed as a very rude,
Speaker 3: demanding person. Anyway, following the grand jury investigation, the reward
Speaker 3: for information leading to an arrest was raised to twenty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars. But unfortunately, since Kevin's death was ruled to
Speaker 3: be a case of negligent homicide rather than murder, there
Speaker 3: was a five year statute of limitations on the crime,
Speaker 3: and it officially ended on Christmas Day in nineteen seventy eight. However,
Speaker 3: this would not be the end of the story.
Speaker 2: Isn't there a potential for them to actually change that
Speaker 2: cause of death or rule it differently and change it
Speaker 2: from negligent homicide to murder, and then there isn't a
Speaker 2: statute of limitations. Let's say someone said, hey, listen, this
Speaker 2: man confessed to me, he said that he killed this
Speaker 2: kid in nineteen seventy three. Couldn't they go back and
Speaker 2: change it, or since it possibly could have just been
Speaker 2: an act accident that resulted in his death, would it
Speaker 2: stay a negligent Homicid'd probably stay a negligent homicide.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure what the laws were, especially back
Speaker 1: in nineteen seven, in the nineteen seventies, because it would
Speaker 1: be very hard to prove murder. I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 1: it was an accidental death. But if you speed away
Speaker 1: from the scene. Then that I guess qualifies as negligent homicide.
Speaker 1: But I really don't like the president it sets because
Speaker 1: you're thinking, well, we can run over a guy from
Speaker 1: a car and splee the scene, and as long as
Speaker 1: we wait out five years and let the clock run out,
Speaker 1: then we'll get away with it. But I guess they
Speaker 1: would need to find more evidence I guess to point
Speaker 1: towards murder homicide before they'd be able to change it.
Speaker 1: In September of nineteen seventy nine, Paul Hanson, a twenty
Speaker 1: nine year old resident of the nearby town of East Lyne,
Speaker 1: came forward and claimed that he was the driver of
Speaker 1: the hit run vehicle which struck Kevin Showalter. Hanson claimed
Speaker 1: that after doing some heavy Christmas Eve drinking, he was
Speaker 1: driving home on Peaquat Avenue when he recalled feeling an
Speaker 1: impact of some sort, though he said he did not
Speaker 1: notice hitting anyone. When Hanson woke up on Christmas morning,
Speaker 1: he had no memory of the previous night, but heard
Speaker 1: a news report about a young man being fatally struck
Speaker 1: by a vehicle on that street. After Hanson checked his
Speaker 1: car and noticed there was some damage, he grew horrified
Speaker 1: and became convinced that he was responsible for Kevin's death.
Speaker 1: Of course, by the time Hanson came forward, the statute
Speaker 1: of limitations had expired, so no criminal charges could be
Speaker 1: filed against him. However, it was still necessary to conduct
Speaker 1: a thorough investigation because Lucille had tentatively filed a six
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars civil lawsuit against the person who killed
Speaker 1: her son, and since no one had ever been charged
Speaker 1: with any crime, she had yet to fill in the
Speaker 1: name of the actual defendant when questioned. Hanson wound up
Speaker 1: failing a polygraph test, and there would be another one
Speaker 1: man grand jury investigation, headed by Judge Danihe. In August
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty one, Dannyhe ruled that there was no
Speaker 1: evidence to support Hanson's claims that he was responsible for
Speaker 1: Kevin's death. He also wrote, quote, it will be difficult
Speaker 1: for some to agree with the end of this investigative inquiry. Psychologically,
Speaker 1: certain individuals cannot now and probably never will be able
Speaker 1: to accept that the case of Kevin B. Showalter will
Speaker 1: not be prosecuted at this time end quote. And that
Speaker 1: pretty much brought an end to the investigation for a
Speaker 1: long time. And Lucille's civil suit never went to court.
Speaker 2: It's really sad. I mean it's sad for obviously Kevin
Speaker 2: and his mother and family, but it's also sad for
Speaker 2: Hanson in some ways that he is seemingly haunted right
Speaker 2: by this idea of Hey, I remember this thud. I
Speaker 2: was drinking. I don't recall that evening very clearly, but
Speaker 2: once I read about it, I became horrified that I
Speaker 2: might have done this. Yes, he waits till after the
Speaker 2: statue of limitations expires. Like you said, Robin, that sets
Speaker 2: up a really bad precedent. But he does come forward
Speaker 2: and he says, listen, I don't remember anything. I remember
Speaker 2: a thud, and that's it could have been anything, a
Speaker 2: pothole of you know, things like that. He says, I
Speaker 2: don't recall seeing a body. So he's not even confident
Speaker 2: that he's the one who did it. Could he be absolute?
Speaker 2: That's a description. I'm drinking and driving, I heard a thud,
Speaker 2: I drove home and didn't stop. I had some damage
Speaker 2: to my car. You should be pretty horrified the next
Speaker 2: morning when you wake up and there's a deceased body
Speaker 2: because of a hit and run. Can you be confident
Speaker 2: that you're the one who killed Kevin, not unless you
Speaker 2: had gotten your car inspected and they had done a
Speaker 2: forensic exam of the car and those types of things.
Speaker 2: So it's a difficult situation where you have another person
Speaker 2: who just made some bad decisions that night who says
Speaker 2: I think I could have been the one who hit him.
Speaker 2: So without him even being confident and knowing, and without
Speaker 2: the investigation being done that evening or shortly after on
Speaker 2: his car, there'd be no way to prove that.
Speaker 3: It's wild that he came forward after all those years.
Speaker 3: I really wonder what he was thinking to himself during
Speaker 3: that time period, if he was overwhelmed and shouldering like
Speaker 3: a lot of guilt and regret over this situation, that
Speaker 3: he might have done it. He might have contributed to
Speaker 3: the end of Kevin's life, because yes, he can't be
Speaker 3: pursued in criminal court, but he can still be pursued civilly.
Speaker 3: So I think that it's not that there isn't a
Speaker 3: risk to him financially if it is indeed true, and
Speaker 3: he opens himself up to that as soon as he
Speaker 3: comes forward.
Speaker 1: Because it just seems weird that he would intentionally lie
Speaker 1: to fabricate a hoax unless he legitimately believed that he
Speaker 1: did something wrong, regardless of whether or not that's actually happened,
Speaker 1: and who knows, it could have been a contributing factory
Speaker 1: if he was following the coverage with Harvey Mallup. I've
Speaker 1: never seen anything to indicate that Paul Hanson or Harvey
Speaker 1: malub knew each other. But maybe that's what caused his
Speaker 1: guilt to crack because he saw what he pursued to
Speaker 1: be an innocent man, a well respected citizen, get publicly
Speaker 1: named is the real hit and run driver, and have
Speaker 1: his reputation tainted. So maybe Hanson just thought to himself, Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to clear this man's name, and now I'm
Speaker 1: going to come forward and confess to what I did
Speaker 1: because it's at a point now where I can't be
Speaker 1: criminally prosecuted.
Speaker 3: And I think there's also a real possibility, like we
Speaker 3: talked about earlier, and Ashley had mentioned that the driver
Speaker 3: may have been intoxicated. He may have been very intoxicated.
Speaker 3: It was Christmas Eve, so the likelihood he was at
Speaker 3: some type of party. And I think it's really easy
Speaker 3: if say you're blackout drunk and you don't really remember.
Speaker 3: I think one could very easily convince himself that they
Speaker 3: could be the culprit, even if it isn't true.
Speaker 1: It is true, Like maybe part of that story is
Speaker 1: the facts, Like maybe he really did get drunk on
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve in nineteen seventy three, went on Pequod Avenue
Speaker 1: in that same region, and then because he got blackout drunk,
Speaker 1: he hears about to hit and run in that same
Speaker 1: area and then convinces himself that he was responsible.
Speaker 3: On June twenty ninth, nineteen eight, just one day's shy
Speaker 3: of his sixty second birthday, Harvey Mallub died of cancer,
Speaker 3: but he had never stopped attempting to clear his name. Sadly,
Speaker 3: Lucille Showalter would also succumb to cancer in May of
Speaker 3: two thousand and She never wound up receiving justice for
Speaker 3: what happened to her son, but believe it or not,
Speaker 3: this would still not be the end of the story.
Speaker 3: In January of two thousand and five, the case returned
Speaker 3: to the spotlight again after Paul Hansen completed suicide and
Speaker 3: left behind a letter in which he continued to claim
Speaker 3: responsibility for Kevin's death. This compelled police to reopen the case,
Speaker 3: and the new London based newspaper The Day decided to
Speaker 3: conduct a new investigation. For years, Lucille Showalter had requested
Speaker 3: copies of the transcripts from the original grand jury proceedings,
Speaker 3: but was told that they could not be released to
Speaker 3: the public. When The Day attempted to request copies of
Speaker 3: the transcripts, they were denied by a Superior Court judge.
Speaker 3: But after pressing the issue further, guess what they found
Speaker 3: out Even though the truscripts for twelve volumes and over
Speaker 3: three thousand pages long, they had mysteriously gone missing from
Speaker 3: the files at New London Superior Court without explanation, and incredibly,
Speaker 3: there also didn't seem to be any copies of these
Speaker 3: transcripts anywhere. So this pretty much brought all attempts at
Speaker 3: a new investigation to dead halt, and unfortunately, there was
Speaker 3: still no conclusive answers about who was actually responsible for
Speaker 3: the hit and run which killed Kevin Showalter.
Speaker 1: So I guess you could say the path went chili.
Speaker 2: Okay, this might be an unpopular opinion, but my heart
Speaker 2: really hurts for Paul Hansen. Also, right, you have a kid,
Speaker 2: He's a young twenty year old the evening that poor
Speaker 2: Kevin is also killed, right, but he's a young kid
Speaker 2: as well. And so just like it's possible Deborah and
Speaker 2: Kevin were out having a good time on Christmas Eve
Speaker 2: and Christmas Day, you have this other kid who's out,
Speaker 2: probably at a party. He he's drinking and getting behind
Speaker 2: a wheel, which is the dumbest thing you can do.
Speaker 2: But okay, so he's he makes that decision, and because
Speaker 2: of this just ignorant decision, he's plagued with this idea
Speaker 2: that I could have taken somebody's life, and clearly right,
Speaker 2: it bothers him at twenty nine enough to come forward,
Speaker 2: and then you see that he actually takes his life,
Speaker 2: and it's such a big deal in his life and
Speaker 2: has been four decades that he writes about poor Kevin's
Speaker 2: death in his suicide letter as well. So it's it's
Speaker 2: pitiful that man's also carrying around this guilt and trauma
Speaker 2: of like what would have happened if I hadn't drink,
Speaker 2: you know, I hadn't been drinking and driving. What would
Speaker 2: have happened had I pulled over? What would have happened if?
Speaker 2: And then also did I even do it? But it
Speaker 2: was such a heavy burden on him that he takes
Speaker 2: his own life. And that is part of it, because
Speaker 2: it's in the letter, right like that's your last moment
Speaker 2: to say something to people, and he included Kevin in that.
Speaker 2: It's sad to me. It's sad that poor Kevin's mother
Speaker 2: passed away after being his champion without answers. It's frustrating
Speaker 2: when you look at the idea that even when there's
Speaker 2: groups that have interest in helping this poor family get
Speaker 2: justice and answers, there's missing information. There's stuff that's been
Speaker 2: quote lost, there's things that were never investigated in the
Speaker 2: first place. This whole case is just pitiful. Kevin was young,
Speaker 2: he was focused on his future. He was out just
Speaker 2: having a evening out right during the holidays, and he
Speaker 2: lost his life. And most likely what was a complete accident,
Speaker 2: maybe because somebody made a poor decision and got behind
Speaker 2: the wheel of a car for they had been drinking.
Speaker 2: But imagine what would have happened had the person who
Speaker 2: was responsible pulled over realized that they had accidentally hit
Speaker 2: a poor kid who was in the dark changing attire.
Speaker 2: Would have been a completely horrific accident and tragedy. Look
Speaker 2: the kid couldn't be seen. He was in the dark.
Speaker 2: He had turned the car off so that the tail
Speaker 2: lights weren't even illuminating him on the side of the road.
Speaker 2: So would it have really been perceived as this murder?
Speaker 2: And probably not, But now we don't have any answers,
Speaker 2: And so this idea of there's not gonna be you know,
Speaker 2: any justice for him is so sad. Someone else took
Speaker 2: their own life partly because they thought they might be
Speaker 2: responsible for it, and his poor mama passed away without
Speaker 2: any answers.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Like, provided that Paul Anson is completely innocent.
Speaker 1: I do feel bad for him because he first came
Speaker 1: forward in nineteen seventy nine and here he is taking
Speaker 1: his own life twenty six years later. And the fact
Speaker 1: that he mentioned Kevin's death and his letter shows that
Speaker 1: he had been grappling with this all this time and
Speaker 1: still wasn't entirely sure if he was responsible. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know much about Hanson's background. It's possible that
Speaker 1: he had other mental health issues as well that played
Speaker 1: a role in his suicide. But it's just like you said,
Speaker 1: if the person and who had done this had just
Speaker 1: pulled over admitted what they did, this would have been
Speaker 1: over and long forgotten. But now we have like people
Speaker 1: dying by suicide and doing new investigations and losing evidence
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five, which is thirty two years
Speaker 1: after the fact, which just shows that what a big
Speaker 1: mess this whole thing became because the person who responsible
Speaker 1: didn't fess up to the whole thing. So I think
Speaker 1: this would be a good time to bring an end
Speaker 1: to Part one. Join us next week as we present
Speaker 1: part two of our series about the death of Kevin Showalter.
Speaker 3: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
Speaker 3: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon.
Speaker 1: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
Speaker 1: and signed thank you cards to anyone who signs up
Speaker 1: with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars
Speaker 1: tier Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
Speaker 1: which I talk about Kate, which are not featured on
Speaker 1: the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon.
Speaker 1: And if you join our highest tier tier three, the
Speaker 1: ten dollars tier, one of the features we offer is
Speaker 1: a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries,
Speaker 1: where you can download an audio file and then boot
Speaker 1: up the original Unsaved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
Speaker 1: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
Speaker 1: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
Speaker 1: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
Speaker 1: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
Speaker 1: Tier three.
Speaker 4: So I want to let you know a little bit
Speaker 4: about the Jeweles and Ashy Patreons. So there's early ad
Speaker 4: free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
Speaker 4: Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour,
Speaker 4: so they're not very mini, but they're just too short
Speaker 4: to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those.
Speaker 4: So we hope you'll check out those patreons will link
Speaker 4: them in the show notes.
Speaker 1: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
Speaker 1: any chance you have to share us on social media
Speaker 1: with a friend or to rate and review is greatly appreciated.
Speaker 1: You can email us at the Pathwentchili at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwink. So
Speaker 1: until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold
Speaker 1: trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
Speaker 3: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy