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