Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White - Update

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Search glass half volt with Craig Melvut from today. On YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everybody. I'm Josh Melvut. And we're talking date line today with Keith. Hi, Keith. Oh, hello, Josh.

So this episode is called The Devil War White.

And it's the kind of story that we almost never do at date line.

Because it's less about the relationship between killer and victim and almost entirely about the relationship between killer and other killer. And now, this is the story of a criminal mastermind, someone you might have heard of. Her name is Sante Kahn. She became famous back in the '90s. When investigators who were looking for a missing millionaire uncovered a very,

creepy dark history of crimes and her surprising partner in those crimes and those murders, her youngest son, Kenny.

“Now, if you've not listened to this broadcast yet,”

it is the episode right below this one in the list of podcasts that you chose from. So you can go there. You can listen to it. You can watch it on peacock. And then when you come back, Keith has an extra clip that he wants to play for more of his interview back in 2001 with Kent Walker,

who was sort of the heart and soul of this show in a lot of ways. Later, Keith is going to be joined by Dateline Producer and Priceman, who covered this story and worked on this broadcast, and they will discuss some new updates to the case. Before, answering your viewer and listener questions on social media.

So let's talk to Dateline. So as I said in the intro, this is the kind of story we don't usually do here at Dateline. This is less about killer and victim and more about killer and killer. And it's a crazy, crazy story. That's exactly what it is, the craziest story ever.

And one way, you know, I became, first was there in New York to cover it,

way back in '98 or whatever the heck it was. But when you hear the story of Sonte Kimes, or two cents, particularly the youngest one, Kenny, and what they got up to over the years, my goodness. The whole circus of activities that she was involved in was quite extraordinary.

It's just a story that I hate to say it, but I really enjoyed living in it again even though it's really dark in many respects. It's the kind of story that makes people want to get into journalism. I mean, it's a long, endless twisting yarn that touches on all the different localities, different people, different crimes.

I mean, you know, her big talent clearly is that she doesn't come off as being as dangerous and as homicidal as she actually was. She's charismatic. She was the sort of person you love to be with. She was friendly and open. She looked like Elizabeth Taylor. She, she, she looked fabulous all the time. And she could carry on a conversation with anybody high or low.

She came from low. She came from very, very, very modest beginnings. If he beginnings, we don't really know what's true and what isn't true because she lied about everything. We're back stories, pretty murky. Yeah, it is intentionally on her part. She was an okay, supposedly, and a poor one was her story.

But she got to the point where she'd carry on a sophisticated and charming conversation with the vice president of the United States. And, you know, was able to persuade her or help persuade an official of the United Nations to make her husband into an honorary ambassador. I mean, it was just phenomenal. So it's the thing she was able to get away with.

And she was making fine progress until he, you know, he got scared straight in his mid teens.

“Both by the efforts of a girlfriend and by the recognition that he would probably spend most of the rest of his life in prison if he kept doing this sort of thing.”

Let's talk for a second about Kent's girlfriend.

Because I don't think she understands, maybe she does now. I don't think she understood for a long time. And what a huge service she did for him by talking about her life. And second, how lucky she was to be finished with him and her and Kenny in that world. That's right. Because she could, she could have been in a landfill somewhere.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You know, I have no doubt she would have been. I mean, they, they took that thread very seriously. Um, simply, you cannot cross Sante and get away with it. And she didn't want somebody coming between her and either one of her sons. That was simply not going to be allowed.

Well, what's interesting is that Sante was arrested a few times and had a criminal record. And that didn't slow her down. But the possibility that that might happen to him clearly did slow Kent down.

“It did. Because she, I think he was smart and never recognized the, you know, the logical outcome of this sort of behavior.”

And she felt that she was smarter than any authorities who would try to catch her. But one of the other things about those, that bunch that fascinated me, and I'll include Kenneth senior her husband with the millionaire was how good they were at persuading otherwise normal people to engage in criminal behavior at their behest. You know, they could persuade them to burn a house down. They could persuade them to illegally sign their, their, their name to a deed.

They were just phenomenally good at doing that sort of thing. And she was, and I think it was her charisma and charm that really, you know, lived that parade. You know, frequently on daylight, we cover stories, we cover the stories of murders. And the murder is the point of the person's criminal activity, which is like, they want to get rid of their husband or wife or, you know, boyfriend or whatever, right, whatever.

But in this case, frequently the murders were to cover up other crimes, financial crimes, insurance fraud, checkkiting. When they would be found out, like they were with that bank examiner, right, like they killed that guy. Like they didn't gain anything from his death, except that he was no longer investigating them. And there's actually, you know, they, they, they clearly killed that poor old woman in New York City, just because they, they wanted it either what living her house or sell it and cash it out.

They had two ideas. One was that they were going to take it over and rent the apartments for a lot of money.

And then the, you know, second idea was to sell it.

Obviously, it was a pretty valuable piece of property. And the thing, the antics that she went through, where old Irene Silverman, you know, didn't see what was coming, but the antics that Sunday went through to try to get a notary public to sign the right kind of paperwork, so that she could take over the property. And she found one that would.

Yes, right. And she was posing as Irene at that point. She was lying in bed. She's like the, like the big bad wolf in, in Grandma's house with the wig on and a little fairly cap. She was trying to pretend to be Irene Silverman. And actually at one point appeared to be succeeding.

“I think she would have succeeded as she not been caught that day.”

Great police work in this one.

You know, and also some incredible lock in which one officer recognizes the sketch put out by a different part of the department.

Yes, I think, you know, would they have, they probably would have figured that out, you know, not too long a period of time. But the, the, the lock in my mind was the fact that the, the LA cops cops decided it was worth chasing down. This woman who had stolen this car because they thought that she was good for the murder of David Kasden. And they persuaded the fugitive task force that he, this couple, the mother and son should be arrested on a car theft warrant. You know, can you imagine it just this 12 person or whatever it was.

New York task force spending a lot of time planning and arranging for the capture of these two people based on a car theft warrant. That must have taken some persuading, even if they knew there was a murder in the background. Yeah, I mean, I, one sense is there must have been a conversation which they said, look, this is a car theft warrant, but these two are on the whole of Japan.

When we come back, Keith has an extra sound that did not make the broadcast that he's going to play for us from his first interview with Kent Walker.

Hey guys, Willie guys to here, reminding you to check out the Sunday sit down podcast on this week's episode. I get together with the one and only surf Paul McCartney to talk about his latest album, the full circle moment of closing out Stephen Colbert show in the same theater, where the Beatles made their American debut 62 years ago, and so much more with Paul, you can get our conversation for free wherever you download your podcasts. Such an ordinary thing to walk home from high school, when the name was Mickey Castanzo, just 16, she didn't have far to go, seemed perfectly safe until it wasn't.

What happened to Mickey? I'm Keith Morrison, and this is five miles from home, and all new podcasts from date line. This and for free starting Monday, June 8th, or subscribe to date line premium to unlock new episodes. You know, most moms don't leave their kids in the lives of crime, but that is a position of some colossal influence. I hear my mom's voice when I have not made the bed, right? I hear my mom saying, "Go make the bed."

“And I do, and I'm good at it too, and that's all holly make what's, but most moms don't groom their kids for a life of crime, you know?”

And the idea that one son couldn't break away and the other one knew he had to is such a great part of the story. It is, you know, when the older son wouldn't cooperate, the younger son became our next mark, and he was so attached to his mother. I think she made sure of that from the very beginning of his life. She coddled him, he was her little prince. You know, she did everything imaginable for him, and she attached him to herself from such an early age. She wouldn't let him out of her sight except to go on very brief sojourns with it.

I don't, I don't excuse his behavior at all, and I don't, he's right where he belongs, he's a killer.

But one does sense that he's sort of never had a chance.

Right, pretty much. It would have taken a lot for him to break free.

“And the continuing relationship or non-relationship between those two brothers, I found fascinating.”

I don't even know exactly how to describe it, I'm not a psychiatrist, so I couldn't go there. One who loved her, even as he recognized that she was a terrible person, and he couldn't possibly associate with her. The other one who loved her in a way that a person who cannot break away from somebody, loves them. Poor Kenny, I say poor Kenny, he did some terrible things, so in a way I don't feel sorry for him at all. He's exactly, as you say, where he belongs.

But he's trying so hard to make it look like he's making a men's for his past behavior. Yeah, he can't, doesn't buy it. Yeah, I'm not sure. Think about it exactly, I don't think I buy it either. Well, I mean, first of all, you do this, he does this interview, you know, but I don't want to talk about my mom.

He's actually, yeah.

“The only thing he wanted to talk about was I want to raise a million dollars, and you're going to help me raise that million dollars.”

Yeah, come on. Well, spend it on education, because education needs to be better, and maybe I'll take a course and being a good military guy. That's a guy who's sort of as disconnected from reality now, as he was when he was under his mother's throne. Yes. And as I'm sure you have encountered frequently in doing these stories, Josh, as I have.

When people go into prison, they tend to stay the same age in some weird way. That they'll come out 20 years later, and they're still the, you know, 20 year old to win in the first place. Intellectually, you know, emotionally. And you think that's, that's Kenny. Seems to me, yeah.

I mean, you know, he, he has done some things in there. He had a girlfriend for a while, though. She passed away. He had a girlfriend who was, while he was incarcerated. Yes, exactly.

Yeah. Okay. He wouldn't be able to have one before he was incarcerated.

But I will never understand that.

Although I did work years ago with a woman who was dating a guy. And he was locked up, and I assumed wrongly that they had been together before he got locked up.

And she said to me, well, you always know where he is.

Exactly. It's right. That's one of the more interesting factlets about criminal justice in America. And a lot of these people who have done really terrible things have whole fan clubs full of people who would like to have relationships with them. And they say that our culture is flawed.

Just imagine. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So this is the first interview that Kenny has done in a very long time.

Well, ever since he tried to, in a period to try to, you know, either strangler stab the CNN reporter back in 2000 or whatever it was. That was a, that was a harrowing story. You hear anything from Kenny that sounded like remorse to you. Oh, you heard the usual, the kind of practice remorse, and I, sometimes I feel sorry for people who are in situations like that. And when society around the demands that they'd be remorseful before that they are able to achieve anything like forgiveness or even understanding, whether they're forgiven or not.

And so they'll go through all the motions of remorse. And then the reaction is more often than not is, I don't believe you. Or you're not really remorseful, you just say on that.

“So in some ways, somebody who has locked up in his situation would say, well, you know, what do you have to do to be believed?”

I feel terrible about all this stuff. And I really, we'd like to make a men somehow. But they, like, you just don't know, is it real or not real? Not sure. Yeah, we're big on, we're big on, on that in this country.

Yeah, confession and redemption and, yeah. Oh, yeah. And not believing confession. I'm for a long time. Maybe more cynical.

So, was it difficult to get Kent to sit down and talk about this? Well, now, Kent, I don't, I wouldn't say difficult. Kent has, uh, uh, Kent has actually written a book about this case. Uh, and has been interviewed before, you know, we interviewed him a couple of times before. So he is, he's happy to tell the story.

I think he is getting to a point where he would like some sort of resolution with his brother. But he's not quite there yet. I think once he achieves that, maybe he'll be, he'll move on from the story. But that's been the cornerstone of his life. This feels like a good time to play the extra sound from Kent Walker.

This is a piece of, uh, piece of the interview that did not make the broadcast.

“And he's talking about some early memories with Sante.”

And you're a kid, uh, you're in a drug store or something with your mother. What happens? Well, it's got a big purse. A little big purse. And we're going up and down the aisles.

I'm usually a few feet in the driver.

And when she comes out, the first half full of stuff.

Might be oysters. Might be lipstick. Might be a roast. A roast? Yeah.

We got caught one time. A new poor beach. And a strong edge of color. Dead or right. And she turned around and to how dare you accuse me of this.

You got to about five minutes. He's apologizing to her. Saying, uh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We're getting the car.

And she reaches into her purse and pulls out a big roast. Not a little roast. A big roast. Some moisture. She loves some more closures.

Um. Soysters and a roast. A roast beef. I mean, that roast beef. I mean, if you can put it in the oven, it's not good for dinner.

Sunday dinner. Yeah. We ate well. It's not like, um, six days a week. She was a good girl.

And one week she went back.

No, that was always that.

Um, was it for a thrill? You think?

“I think and, and, and, and my early years, it was more of a necessity.”

I don't know if the thrill was part of it or not. She always loved being a system. Uh, she loved, you know, maybe a little bit of thrill to it. That's how we ate. I mean, she didn't do that.

We didn't meet. I think I always had hope and maybe she'd be okay. You know, they'd follow up with the good stuff that she was. And you know, that was never going to be replaced with that. And it made it too easy for you to do the best of sometimes.

You know, you kind of held out hope. But maybe she'd calm down, maybe she'd become rational. Maybe maybe she'll outgrow this, maybe. You know, once Sean said, "Kyem's got in your blood." She never laughed.

Not never completely. Wow. That tells you something. That's actually a very good way of describing it. Uh, that's good bit to use.

Did police have anything to say about whether or not something in Kenny or suspects in any uncharged murders? There are other people out there that they killed. I didn't hear anybody saying they think there are more. I think that probably is it possible.

There's another one.

down that I know of. So, you know, they're both on the hook for these murders. Kenny confesses to save her. Like, it's like the last act of this controlling relationship that they had. Well, yes.

Kenny confessed to all the murders to save her from death row. Save her from the death penalty. At least, save himself through at the same time.

“But really, I think the more important thing to him was saving her.”

As you pointed out earlier, Kenny really didn't have a chance. He was up against it from the beginning. His brother can't feel his bad for not doing a little bit more to save him. But I'm not sure he could have, you know. Because, you know, she loved this boy, and she was enveloping him in protective arms.

And I guess the way of describing it from the outside is that she was trying to make him make herself his whole world. Yeah. That part was super creepy. Okay.

After the break, we'll answer some of your questions from social media. Hello, everybody. I'm Keith Morris. I'm here with Anne Priceman, the producer of this episode. As anyone watching can probably tell us some time is passed since we initially shot this program.

And we talked to Josh about the case. That was last year. But Anne and I wanted to get together to talk about an update, which is really quite remarkable.

We never really thought that it would go this far.

At least I didn't. Did you expect that they would identify Anne, the person who was going to create an out of the blue? Yeah. Surprising this many years later. Ken Hongren, the son, had thought his father was murdered in Costa Rica.

Never to be found. Never to be investigated. But, you know, the guys found an dumpster.

“And sure enough, that's what happened to their other victim.”

So tell me how they figured it out. A former FBI agent joined the Englewood PD and he was picking up some cold cases. And this one tried to ID the body. They had good shot, good autopsy photos. They've done a decent crime scene analysis.

But that many years ago, there was not. The DNA was not where it is now. So he opened up the case, hooked up with his old colleagues at the FBI. And they did a genealogy search. They found some distant cousins and eventually made their way to.

Ken Hongren in Texas, who is the son of Elmer Hongren. And he. Ken sees these autopsy photos. And immediately, I do them as a staff.

It's amazing how many cases are now, you know, being resolved this way.

It's like they're all sitting out there in these cold case files. And in many cases, all they have to do is to pluck out the DNA in. If they could do the genealogy work, that's the complicated part. And the FBI is particularly helpful in this area. I gather with local police departments.

Essentially, as they put it offer a service to. Smaller or a. Police departments with less resources. And the FBI offers. These resources free of charge.

Yeah, the FBI does amazing work.

“And I think sometimes they don't always get credit for it.”

But in in the regional offices around the country. There are dedicated professionals who are, you know, really. The, uh, eager to help local police departments solve crimes and do this sort of work. That local police departments simply can't do. And they're, they're extremely helpful with a number of investigations.

One of which was this one, right? There we are. Yeah. All right. Let's get to some questions and some comments from viewers on social media.

Dawn on Facebook says I'll never understand how she got away with so many crimes for so long.

She probably wouldn't get away so easy today. You know, I'm not so sure that's true actually. Um, some people do get away with things for quite a long time. Yeah. I mean, I think the only difference would be.

They weren't. They weren't, they were non-linical. What's the phrase? The digital footprint might be easier to trace in terms of. The money.

But they weren't. If somebody knew to look for them, they were very smart. And they managed to avoid being chased. Uh, if somebody knows, you know, who the criminals are, it's easier to catch them nowadays.

There's another question.

“Here's from Sarah Sarah's life on TikTok.”

Who says, why is it we tend to watch these more. When we can't sleep. We as women, she says us as women can't sleep. Have you done any studies on this? Well, hello.

Well, studies. I don't know.

The studies that I know about are the ones that involve us doing one story after another for 30-some years now.

And, you know, have discovered along the way that because more often than not women are the victims of these kinds of crimes.

“It's understandable that women would be more interested in the, in the, in the mysteries and in the resolution of those mysteries.”

And then in what happens in, in true crime. I, you know, anybody who has a group tends to be more of the victim than some other group is, have to be more interested. Did that seem reasonable to you, Anne? Yes.

Everything you say is reasonable. Thank you. [laughs] You have a reasonable in years. You are a state.

[laughs] A final question in us from Sergeant Marti, who took a poll. a poll on X people responded. The poll was Is Sante-Kines, A. A. A. A. A. A. A. B. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. or a mental health professional, although. No, no, neither one of us is, but if I had to guess,

Sonte certainly had the characteristics of a psychopath, as far as I was concerned. You know, she seemed to have been born to it, and she certainly had no remorse about any of the things that she did. No.

Keen to do more. Well, that is it for day-line this week and talking a day-line, and thank you for listening.

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And of course, we'll see you Friday's on day-line on NBC. Friday night on an all-new day-line. Inside the hunt for Luigi Mangione,

speaking out for the first time, two detectors on the case.

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