The Devil Wore White - Update

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Download the start today, wellness app now, on your Apple Air Android device, Terms apply, see app for details. I just see "Santae Times" as the ultimate film Fatale, producing lovers, lawyers, husbands, her son.

“A whole new twist in a case, Chuck Full of them.”

This is someone who gets what she wants. This story about a mother-in-son grifter team, this was a diabolical duo. They see what like open and friendly and interesting. Yeah, I didn't think they were killers.

We have a woman, socialite goes missing. There were several people who disappeared. She had put a hit out on me. She wanted to be killed. Why did she keep getting away with it?

She just had that power over you.

That was mom's first project.

I was supposed to be her co-arton crime. Your mother instructed you to kill people. I only fought one road forward. They were called "Mommy and Clyde", charming, cunning, ice-cold criminals.

Now, a new chapter in the story. They left a trail of bodies. I knew. I was my dad. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Date Line.

Here's Keith Morrison with the Devil War White. It was evening when they found her. Found her prone inner cell at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York. A guard raised the alarm, and their ruster to a nearby hospital.

But it was too late. Her enlarged heart was so badly damaged it could not go on beating. She was 79 when she died. 16 years passed the outrageous, to mayhem, the murders,

and the fabulous fierce frightening madness. That was the woman named "Santae Cimes" are you more comfortable now? Yes, because she's dead. And that was the deciding factor.

She had to be dead. She had to be dead. There are many kinds of villains. This is the story of a mother and two sons at all kinds of trouble.

“Is it fair for me to say that though you knew your mother was a terrible person?”

You love her as intensely as a son can love a mother. There's probably not another son on this planet who loved his mother as much as I loved mine. But as we say, this is about a mother and two sons.

The other now, speaking out, is first recorded interview in decades.

When your mother died, was that very difficult for you? It hurt like hell. There's nothing I can do without it. But pray. So much history, darkly comic, to just plain dark. But we can begin, because why not begin here, in a celebration. July 4th, 1998.

Millions gathered in New York City to watch the nation's biggest fireworks spectacular. At just off Manhattan's Millionaires Row, a smaller crowd gathered for a different kind of spectacular. A dinner party at a mansion on East 65th Street. The hostess was an 82-year-old widow named Irene Silverman. She's from Ivation. She's a lot of fun.

Fashion designer Zain Torre was a close friend and frequent party guest. She'd know how to trouble a great party in doing her heyday, and she had the heart of goal. Friend Janice Herbert also loved Irene's company. She's delightful. She's funny. I adore her.

It's absolutely fabulous.

“Irene Silverman had quite literally danced her way from poverty to a dream job as a ballet dancer at Radio City musical.”

And by the time of our story, she was a healthy, wealthy widow with a fine big townhouse in New York's most expensive neighborhood. It was for companionship as much as anything that Irene rented rooms in her mansion. Her tenants included some alice celebrities. Like Daniel Day Lewis and Lenny Cravitz and Shaka Khan. She'd live by herself. She'd run not just for fun, but also keep herself company. The day after Irene's bash, July 5th, was as quiet as a country church in a Monday morning at the NYPD's 19th precinct,

but a detective Tom Hovegum was working a shift. Tell me about July 5th. You were on duty, what was it like?

Yeah, the city was empty for the July weekend, so we expected a slow day.

Then we received a call from a patrol officer. I picked up the phone. We have a woman elderly woman that is missing, her staff reported her missing. The missing elderly woman was Irene Silverman. I was the junior detective. I just had gotten promoted in January. So the two guys were pretty senior to me and they said, "Well, kid, this is yours."

Because no one really wants a missing person case. It's very tedious work. With that in mind, detective Hovegum drove to the Upper East Side to the sixth story townhouse.

“A stone throw from Central Park. This townhouse, well, what was that like?”

It was actually beautiful, beautiful artwork, beautiful furniture. The night before she disappeared, she had a great party. American flags, hats, you know, the whole bit. She was living the grand life that woman. Absolutely, 100%. The staff, last saw Irene inside her house that morning, shortly before noon.

She appeared to have left without telling anyone, not what she would ever do, ever. Which is why they reported her missing. We did the preliminary investigation, searched the townhouse, searched the surrounding areas, looked for video cameras, interviewed neighbors. But no sign of Irene, and curiously, two other people seemed to have vanished too.

We couldn't find one of the staff members when we went up to his apartment. He was in there, so that was a little suspicious.

The other missing person was a young man who was renting a room on the first floor.

We couldn't find the person in one be he disappeared. The same time she did, you know, that raised our suspicion, of course, yes. Though not alarmingly yet, but then outside, near the front entrance, they found blood. And Tom Hovegum's missing person case suddenly became urgent. When you get a person on the upper east side, like Irene Silverman, it becomes very special.

The whole city takes an interest. Pretty soon, the whole country would take an interest. Because the case of the missing social light was about to take an unexpected turn, into something diabolical.

“Ever had any other case, anything like this in your career?”

Not even close. What would follow, and what came before, is a story when all told, of crimes astonishing at scale and scope. Next thing I know, he's around my back with his arm across my neck. Stretching from New York to LA.

A transient found David Cazden's body stuffed into a dumpster. Hawaii to the Caribbean, and of the center of it all. A criminal mastermind, the likes of which we won't see again, with any luck. When she looked at you, she could look into your soul. She is the most evil woman that I've ever met.

How do you tell the story not to be over the top? She was over the top. They looked everywhere, that fourth of July weekend in New York, said the canine sniffing through her mansion topped a bottom. But try as they might, they could not find Irene Silverman. The boss who was running the investigation,

dubbed us to silver task force. Because we all had an affection for Irene, because it could have been our grandmother. Could have been our mother. Irene's friends, like fashion designers, Angtoy, were worried sick. If I was getting late, everybody was worried.

I was hoping that there was poverty with kidnapping. Someone tried to affirm ransom. But no ransom not appeared.

“If someone had taken her, must have been a thief too,”

because 10,000 in cash she kept in the town has vanished with her.

Suspicion landed first on that missing staff member.

Detective Hovegum learned he was a long time employee with access to Irene's financial records. He'd boarded a flight to Atlanta shortly after she vanished. He had gone away, but once we got him in board of men, we eliminated him pretty quickly. He was innocent, just like the rest of Irene's staff. We went through the motions of interviewing him and getting their allies.

It wasn't anyone on the staff. The detectives also talked to Irene's tenants, of course, and all were quickly accounted for an allabied. Except for that young guy from the room on the first floor. The staff told us that there was a person staying in apartment 1B,

who Irene thought was very suspicious since she had rented the apartment to him. His name was Manigarron. He arrived two weeks earlier. He didn't have a reference or an ID, but he seemed nice,

and he gave her 6,000 in cash upfront.

She just let him in.

“She let her guard down. She never did that.”

The friend, Janice, said Irene regretted that decision right away. He was very secretive. She felt that something was wrong. And she was worried about it. She was smart enough to write everything down in detail about this guy's suspicious behavior. What kind of behaviors?

When there was a conversation in the lobby of the townhouse, she would see his feet on the need to door or the shadow of his feet like he was eavesdropping. And when he came into the house into the townhouse, he would avoid the cameras walk on the sides of the walls,

things like that to stay at a camera view. And she described them, you know, "Mell White,

you know, 5'9" about 180 pounds.

She was a sharp woman, man. And this man, Egorron, Irene's longtime caregiver, Marta Rivera, said he refused to let housekeepers inside his room to clean. And she thought she knew why.

They were so warm on their part, man. We're him. No, I didn't know what she was.

“So this is the reason that they're not letting nobody go inside,”

so they don't see her. And I know woman in there. That was it for Irene. She told French she wanted many guarantees to leave. She was going to evict him right around the time she disappeared.

So police searched the room and Egorron had been renting. We found all kinds of things, garbage bags, a roll of duct tape, a shower curtain rings, but no shower curtain. Things like that, which raised our suspicion.

On Monday night, July 6th, Hovergames unit asked the public for help to find Irene Silverman and her suspicious missing tenant. We posted pictures of Irene Silverman. We had a sketch done of Mani Garen.

We had a news conference where we posted a sketch. The next day, Hovergames got a call. Someone had recognized Mani Garen from the police sketch. It wasn't a member of the public. But another of New York's finest from a different department

of the city's sprawling police organization. No doubt in my mind, that was him. Ed Murray was a detective working for the NYPD's Fugitive Task Force. When he saw the sketch of Mani Garen, he said he knew right away who it was and it wasn't Mani Garen.

I see that picture. And it's exactly a composite sketch of Kenny Cimes. Kenny Cimes? Murray was certain the man in the sketch was actually a car thief named Kenny Cimes, who he'd taken into custody just a few hours after Irene Silverman disappeared.

Cimes had been arrested with his mother, Sante, for writing a bad check for a Lincoln towncar back in Utah. An unusual pair, those two. It was something that I just didn't think it was like mother and son. Like she was the boss of humans.

Well, she was. She would definitely without a doubt she was. So one department talked to the other. And pretty soon, detective Hovegen was showing Kenny Cimes booking photo to Irene's employees. And then when we did the photo array of Kenny,

the staff picked him out, and yeah, that's Mani Garen. In that moment, there was no way, of course, for detective Hovegen to fathom, just who he was dealing with, where this Kenny Cimes and his mother Sante had already been,

Such an ordinary thing to walk home from high school. Her 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 in for free starting Monday, June 8th. Or subscribe to Date Line Premium to unlock new episodes.

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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. You know, every day on our first NPR's Golden Globe nominated,

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we bring you three essential stories at the heart of each story.

Our questions. What really happened? What really mattered? What happens next? At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and to follow the facts.

Follow our first wherever you get your podcasts,

“and start your day knowing what matters and why.”

[Music] Almost 48 hours after I re-insilverment disappeared, NYPD detects found her missing tenant, Manny Garren, already in custody. But he'd been arrested under a different name.

His real one. Kenny Kines. He was locked up alongside his mother, Sante, and she, they learned, had a rep sheet miles long, reaching back decades before her son Kenny was born.

You know, we had some background on his mother, on Sante at that point, so I use that against him like, look, we know your mother put you up to this. We know she's been arrested before, and she's manipulative, and she's manipulating you.

Didn't work, Kenny Kines gave away nothing. So who were these people? Mother and son car thieves, and maybe killers.

“At what might they have done with innocent elderly Irene?”

In a New York minute, those questions became a huge national story. Hope is fading tonight that the suspect in her disappearance

had missing person who vanished from her million-dollar home.

When they first got arrested, it is no exaggeration within the first ten days. I had a hundred news agencies attack my office looking for me. You guys, NBC, ABC. Kent Walker, that first born son, Kenny's older brother.

They won me told you about back at the beginning. Kent had the answers. Some of them, anyway. That's my mother. She had a force, it was a force we were acting with.

Oh yes, Kent's mother, Sante Kines was a woman of many names and many schemes. Everybody, gorgeous, terrible bit of her. She was born in 1934, her birth name was Sante, as a teen she switched to descending, and then back again. She changed her name frequently from then on,

changed her story often too. The original story was that she was born up the home and was one of the oldest. She ended up in Hollywood. True. Maybe, maybe not.

As Sante told that her father abandoned the family. Almost on the streets for the most part, what mom said. Supposedly her mother was a prostitute. Later, find out that's not the case. Because she made up a story.

My mother's entire life's made up.

She gave that one little German truth. She always started out with that curl.

That you can believe that's probably honest. But as Kent learned as a little boy, his single mom knew how to survive no matter how straightened their circumstances. Our refrigerator up until that point was peanut butter and tortillas and cheese. That was what she was smoking there.

As for the way Sante survived, let's see, normal to young Kent. She certainly didn't hide it from him. She was a credit card thief, a shoplifter, a check citer, and Kent became her very handy and willing assistant.

With some careful, motherly schooling. I was small, I fit through windows. I knew how to be a decoy. I knew how to make attention happen. Some people looked at me and said to her,

"Well, she did her thing. She was training me how to do that." And somehow, Sante got away with it.

And young Kent looked at her with a kind of awe.

She didn't bow down to anybody. Out in the world, I didn't public. People noticed Sante. And she liked it. I think the name of the restaurant was a cock and bull.

It was a hollywood, I don't remember. Yeah, we were sitting at the bar. And Galk came up to her and asked her for her autograph. And mom said, "Well, Elizabeth Taylor." Elizabeth Taylor?

She looked at much like Elizabeth Taylor, sometimes. She didn't have the eyes, but she had the charisma of the work. I don't know the cheeks smell.

And then, pure corrupt ambition.

Sante's charisma changed their lives for good.

“The truth is mom was on a hunt for a millionaire.”

In 1970, Sante even took a job at something called Palm Springs Millionaire Magazine. And was there by able to interview a man named Kenneth Kimes, a millionaire 20 times over. His fortune made in real estate, casinos, motels, and mansions. Sante turned on her charm, and Kenneth was smitten. A year later, they returned from a trip to Mexico, declared they were married.

And just like that. Our lives were beyond the American way. I mean, we live in five different oceanfront properties in Hawaii. We had an oceanfront estate in the Bahamas. We had a golf course home in Las Vegas.

They were all home. You know, it was almost embarrassing. Four years later, 1975, Kenny Jr. was born. And now, Sante ran a full house. But not a nurturing one. She had rules.

The sword no one would dare defy. No one answers the phone, and no one answers the door. Do you got that? And I just went, oh yeah, I got that. [Music]

[Music] It was the late 1970s. Twenty years or so before the unfortunate events that Irene Silverman's place. Sante, Kenneth, Kenton, now little Kenny Jr., all living the lush life.

Fancy clothes and luxury cars and villas full of servants.

“In the house in Hawaii, we had a secret storage spot in there.”

Master bedroom, she had 30 mink coats.

I've never seen anyone wear a mink coat in Hawaii.

I don't know if you have her now. Sante, at last, seemed to have the life she wanted. She was called me my darling Ronda. Ronda Martin was Kent's high school girlfriend. It's been lots of time with the family and their seaside mansion.

Sante was like a dream, said Ronda. A lovely dream. And she would hug me and my son has such a beautiful girlfriend. She would just lavish me with love. She always wore white.

Mooms at home, pantsuits, and it was beautiful. And she always had her hair perfect. I mean, it was always perfect. Her eyes were black, her pupils, they were piercing. And she looked at you, she could look into your soul.

And she knew exactly what she wanted. I sure everyone else did too. One, two, three camera action. So now that she was rich, did Sante times change her ways, and now it's her compulsion to lie and steal.

Oh, no, not at all. And her compliant husband, Ken senior, seemed to love it. Didn't he participate willingly in her crimes? He didn't mind not having to pay for dresses. He didn't mind not having to pay for cattle like the rich old rotters in our driveway.

He fell in love with to get in a way with it. So from practically the moment they met, Ken played along. Even with some of Sante's wackier schemes, like an idea to make money from the 1976 Bison Teniel. Sante used her considerable charm to cozy up to an official of the United Nations.

She got an endorsement where Ken was actually named an honorary Bison Teniel ambassador. Well, that's all you need to get mom. It meant nothing, really.

“But Sante and Ken went swanning around like very important people,”

using the title to flog a collection of Bison Teniel memorabilia. And with an extra liar too, the fake ambassador and his wife, crashed a reception at Blair House in Washington, shook hands with Vice President Ford.

The weird stunt was exposed in the Washington Post.

Just a hiccup, presented. DC again, a few years later.

“It was late, and this couple came through the door,”

and they were so distinctive, you couldn't miss it. Winter, 1980. Rita Beachy was enjoying a nightcap at a Washington DC bar when Ken and Sante swept in. Rita watched, as Sante, wearing a mink coat herself,

leaked another one, right from another table. She was just pulling her own coat up over it, and she stood up and sauntered out of the place. The DC caper didn't work out so well. Sante was charged with grand and petty larceny.

But then she ditched her own trial, simply skipped out of court, and went on as ever.

That's who she was. Why did she do this?

Because that's what she was. Sante's ambitions only seemed to get bigger. Like what she did with her own beautiful beachfront home in Hawaii. No one was home when the Portlock house burned yesterday. Burned it to the ground to collect the insurance money.

But she was much too clever to actually do it herself. My father was involved in a arson in Honolulu. This is Ken Homegren. His father, Elmer, was a down on his luck attorney who got roped into it somehow.

“Did they tell him or ask him to set fire to the kimes house in Honolulu?”

I assume the kimes wanted him to do it. You know, for the kimes is gain. If anyone knew how persuasive Sante could be, it was Ken. She knew the emotions to put on to you. Sometimes she did it in positive ways with love and affection.

And she also knows how to scare the hell out of you. Like when Ken was 12 and still his mother's little helper. And one day on his own, he stole a surfboard and got busted. Five thousand younger than Jill. So, Ken's tried his best to go straight.

Maybe the difference between you and your mother is. If you get it, if you get caught stealing a surfboard, it scares you straight. If she gets caught stealing a surfboard, it's encouragement for the next time. She got macarious in our car. And she tried to give me, she actually took me to where I got caught.

And she told me how I should have done it. So I want to got caught.

“So Sante did nurture, in a way, the criminal way.”

And she wasn't about to let anyone get between her and her sons. Lieutenant from Hawaii 50 showed up at my house. Lieutenant told me if you contact him, she'll find you. And she will kill you. On the outside, Kent lived what seemed to be a normal teenager's life.

High school, sports. His girlfriend, Ronda. The love spending time was Sante too, until the day. I was over there, and all of a sudden, the doorbell rang. And I jumped up to answer it.

She was in the kitchen. And I swear to you, she flew over the counter. Before I got to the door, she got right up in my face. And she pulled me. I mean, I was this close to her face.

It was so close. I could feel her breath. And she goes, "There are two rules in this house. No one answers the phone and no one answers the door. Do you got that?"

And I just went, "Oh yeah, I got that." This is the first time you saw anything other than the-- Very first time I saw it. It was the first time I saw it. Exactly.

I had never seen that until that day.

And that freaked me out. That day was a turning point for Ronda and Kent. Kent started talking to me. It started talking to me about things his mom would have him do. You know, like she said, "Yeah, you know, he was--

My mom, you know, she likes to steal stuff. And she likes me to help her out. Like I have to break into people's houses and climb in their windows to get there." She had nothing here.

I said, "You know, if you get caught doing that, you could go to jail." Ronda got through to Kent. He refused to help his mom steal anymore. Asante was furious with Ronda.

She'd called my mom one day and said, "Your daughter has got to stay away from my son. I've had it with her." Well then, about that same time, Lieutenant from Hawaii 50 showed up at my house

and knocked on the door and told my mom and dad

That Lieutenant told me don't stick your head up

“because if you contact him, she'll find you”

and she will kill you. And he thought that I just left because he thought that I just, you know, like an airhead kid. Well, I don't love you anymore, but that wasn't true. So Ronda was gone and Kent was going straight.

After he graduated from high school, Kent left home and later joined the army. When I left for the army, it was tough. I mean, I would say after he also myself now ran away, that's when mom was reversed.

But then, with Kent out of the house, Zonte turned to his half-brother Kenny. Maybe he would make a better partner in crime. I and my mother's biggest disappointment. I was the one who was supposed to be Kenny.

Kent knew his mother loved Kenny a little bit differently. He was the prince. He was tutored.

“Never got spanked. He was treated as a golden child.”

He was so lonely. He had no friends. He had a tutor. And Kent and I would take him to go get ice cream, but she hardly would ever let us take him anywhere. We had to sneak him off. He had a very unusual upbringing in his brother.

Tell him to not change. He didn't have a chance. Not with his mother, no. Take, for example, a little problem she had with the household staff.

At first, Zonte's mage were treated well, said Kent,

like members of the family, really. But not for long. The anger is like a warm bath sometimes. It's just like every else in an elevated elevated elevated. And so the maids then became the enemy in the house.

The women complained to law enforcement, and in the lawsuit. John Doty is a private detective who's investigated Zonte's background. But then he, he would lock the maids in their rooms. They were under constant watch.

“And I believe she attacked one of them with a hot iron ones.”

Here she is forced to sit for a deposition about the allegations. I'm very unhappy with having to give any testimony to me. It was all a fabrication, said Zonte.

But I've never yelled loudly.

And I have certainly never physically touched any of them. She denied it all. No, that is not correct. It is a total lie. Making herself into the victim. I had been through an intolerable nightmare.

The law intervened and laid a criminal charge. It hadn't been used for a very, very long time. Kenneth and Santie Cymes were invited to this past summer on charges of violating immigration and anti-slavery laws. Kent's senior accepted a plea deal on the criminal charges.

But Santie took her case to trial and was convicted. She spent three years in federal prison. And Kent came back around to help his stepfather and brother. I was kind of a surrogate father to Kenny in a way. And then mom returned and things went back to normal

if such a word could be used to the life of Santie Cymes. Kent got married, started his own family, made Santia grandmother. "See, how did you smell our cheese?" This decade, before the events on that July 4th weekend in New York,

when I re-insilverment disappeared. And though Kent tried to put some distance between his old life and his new one, here he is running the video camera on a family vacation. "I'll take me when I can't I can." There are at the Kymes Beachfront estate in the Bahamas,

an address that will come into play. A little later in our story. "Last day here in the great vacation. Thanks for having, guys." Just a few months after that island vacation, in 1994,

Kent got a call from his mom. Mom's a circle. There were fixing, there were fixing, there were fixing. And I had, you know, the time I couldn't zoom in together. She hangs up.

And then it dawned on him. His mother was telling him that Kent's senior, his stepfather, had died. And after, Santie seemed unhinged, even more than usual. Because it turned out they'd blown through most of Kent's fortune when he was alive. And now that he was dead, all that was left were a few properties

and some cash tucked away in off-shore accounts. "Mom didn't have any checkbook, she had no counts, she had nothing." Now, she was scrambling from money. The frenzy of it all spooked Kent.

"I had made a break from monetary, we were restrict.

And I'm a small."

“Kent had no idea then that he had timed his exit perfectly.”

It was now just a year before that New York City summer, when Irene Silverman disappeared. "Who knew, with a desperate mother and son, were capable of, together?" It was a spring of 1998. Four months before Irene Silverman disappeared in New York City. And Kent Walker was living in Las Vegas.

He had done the hard part, cut off his mother, but a brother who was now 23, for good. And now? "Right, I missed the good stuff, it was hard, you know, but I was okay." Kent had no idea where Kenny and Santie were,

or that they had moved on themselves. In fact, they were in Los Angeles now. Had rented a wing of a house in affluent Brentwood. Looking for trouble, maybe?

“"That was working homicide to Los Angeles for each department."”

To take the Bill Cox was also unaware the times that arrived in the city of Angels.

In fact, he had never heard of them, not yet, anyway.

When he caught a curious case about 15 miles down the freeway from Brentwood, something about a body and a dumpster, in the back alley near LAX. "There was a homeless man walking down the alley looking through the garbage cans, big dumpsters, dug through the trash and there was a big green trash bag in there, and saw that there was a body in there."

The body and the dumpster was a male, middle-aged with a single bullet hole in the back of his head. He was identified quickly by the corner's office as being David Kasden. David Kasden, he seemed like a regular sort of guy, 63 years old, business man. He lived alone up in the valley, 30 miles from the dumpster where he ended up. My partner I went over to the house, the first thing that we went into his bedroom,

we saw that the bed had was turned down, and then when we went into the living room area, you looked in the carpet and the carpet was just perfect. In fact, the whole house was just about pristine. David's daughter told them she'd been there two nights previous, and she was sure they saw someone lurking outside.

"There was a car parked in front of the house and they got very nervous about it,

“and I think the car slowly drove off when they looked out there."”

And that wasn't the only time said the daughter. For weeks, somebody had been harassing David Kasden, calling, stopping by. She knew there was some kind of business dispute, something about a real estate transaction gone bad. And so she gave that a take, there's a name.

"She's the one that brought up right away about Sonte-Kimes." "Yes. That's Sonte-Kimes." A little digging reveal the connection. Kasden had been a long-time friend and sometimes business partner to both Sonte and Ken Senior, and years earlier, he had done them a small favor.

Ken Senior, trying to dodge legal bills and hide his assets, asked Kasden to put his name on the D to one of their properties. I mentioned on Geronimo Way in Las Vegas. David, and you know, reluctantly, I guess, just said, "Yeah. Go ahead, you know, but not for too long."

And so they did it, and about six months later, from what I understand, he had asked if, you know, "Can you guys take me off of the thing?" And he had talked to Shantake as Ken was dead by this time. And said, you know, "Take me off of the thing." And she goes, "Oh, yes, dear. We'll do all this."

But Sonte didn't do that. Instead, without telling Kasden, she came up with a scheme to turn a problem into a money-making solution for her, at least. She went down to a bank. This is Kimes did. And she's the one that tricked the bank into taking a loan out of Mr. Kasden.

I don't know how she did it. I don't know how the bank allowed her to do it. Sonte got ready to walk away with 280,000, and Kasden was on the hook for it all. And then he discovers he's got to pay back all this money. Yeah, he gets this thing in the mail with 360 payments, and you roll this much money every month, and he was just flabbergasted.

And so he goes through the roof.

And basically, Kalshantan says, "What, what are you doing?"

You know, and leaves a message for her, and she calls him back. And she says, "You know, asking questions about the loan, something the effect won't be good for your health."

And then, what do you know?

“A suspicious fire destroyed that Vegas mansion,”

and Sonte claiming the house was hers, tried to collect the insurance. She was constantly thinking, "How am I going to get the next dollar?" It was obvious to detectives at Sonte's times needed to be questioned about the murder of David Kasden. And they learned that she and her son were staying in that printwood house. So my partner and I went to the house that night, just missed them by hours.

They had left LA in Sonte's preferred mode of transport, a Lincoln town car. VIP Doty traced it to a dealership in Utah, where Sonte bought it, sort of. And she'd trade in her old car, an older Lincoln,

and then give the guy a check for the difference, but the check never cleared.

The dealer reported the car stolen. And the local sheriff issued warrants for Sonte and Kenny, wanted for Grand Theft Auto. That was just what the LAPD needed to amp up their search, something concrete to hold Sonte and Kenny on. If only they could find them. For months, detectives ran down tips from people who knew them.

“In Los Angeles, in Las Vegas, in you name it.”

Every place we went, we would miss them just by days, sometimes a day, sometimes just hours. They were constantly moving. Did she know you were on their tail? Well, I think so. The mother and the son in that Lincoln were in the wind.

At across the country, in New York, that wealthy widow, Irene Silverman,

was still living her fine life on the upper east side, nothing to worry about. But the fourth of July was right around the corner. And so was a confrontation on a busy street in Midtown Manhattan. When a aging scrap Santa took her bag, I saw there were like five aging struggling with Kenny. Couldn't take him down.

Couldn't take him down. Mother and son, suspects in a years long crime spree that included two murders, at least. How did it ever get this far? Kenny Cimes will tell us. There's a lot of chaos in my youth.

“I love my parents, but there's a lot of complexity there.”

What's up? I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

I love you. It was a beginning of summer now. And LAPD detected Bill Cox at a pretty good idea what happened to David Castan. The guy who wound up in the dumpster near the airport. New his suspects too.

But funny and was quite another matter. Sonté and Kenny were just gone. And then, snoozing paid off. Detective Cox landed an informant. A guy who done odd jobs for Sonté and LA and Las Vegas named a Stan Patterson.

Stan became basically our eyes and ears because he said Sonté would call him once in a while.

So we told him, hey, next time she calls you, let us know. Then, on July 3, just before the holiday weekend, the detective's phone rang. It was Stan. He says that the kinds are in New York. And they are getting an apartment and they want to be to manage it.

My, my, my. And to bring a gun with me when I come out there to New York. Stan, the informant agreed to go to New York and help lead police to Sonté and Kenny. We contact NYPD and so we told them that Stan was on their plane coming out there and could they follow him. And we needed the kinds as if they found them to arrest them.

Arrest them for that outstanding car theft warrant. Which is how detective Ed Murray of the NYPD Fugitive Task Force got involved. He was part of a sting operation. Using Stan the informant as bait. When Stanley arrived, he was wearing a bullet profess.

Okay. Was he spooked? He was scared. He did tell me that he was afraid of Kenny and Sandy and that they had a killing. Stan arranged a meeting with Sonté and Kenny at the Hilton Hotel in Midtown, Manhattan.

Outside the hotel there happened to be a street fair. At a huge bustling crowd. There was a lot of pedestrian traffic on. And you know what it kind of helped during our surveillance on the hotel.

Well, we waited about eight hours.

Good Lord.

“At around 5 p.m. they decided to call it a day.”

Sonté and Kenny were clearly no shows. We're standing in Lobby to Hotel and we're trying to come up with a plan. And all of a sudden I hear the screeching woman yell out, "Standley!" It was Sonté. She walked through that hotel lobby as if she owned the place.

And she comes over to Stanley. She embraces Stanley. Kenny was running late, so Sonté and Stan grabbed a drink and took a walk on 6th Avenue. And then Kenny arrived. Time to move in. One of the agents grabbed Sandy took her bag.

I saw there were like five agents struggling with Kenneth.

Couldn't take them down. And then we got them down. I searched Kenneth. And he had a set of brass knuckles. He had a knife on him as we were struggling with him. He urnated in his pants. What his pants?

“Finally subdued and cuffed. Kenny and Sonté were driven downtown for questioning.”

Ed Murray wrote up front, holding Sonté's bag. What was in the bag? What was in the bag was a lot of cash. I said to my partner and Sonté is in the back seat of the car. I say, "There's got to be about $10,000 in cash in here."

Sonté responds now.

She responds, "Oh, well, you can't come to Manhattan on vacation without less than $10,000."

Murray situated the odd pair in that Manhattan jail. And the next day, the police unit looking for Irene Silverman, the millionaire widow, missing from her swanky, Eastside townhouse, held their press conference. Irene Silverman wasn't good help, well, physically and mentally. That is when you may recall police presented that sketch of Silverman's missing tenant,

Manigarron. And soon after, Murray recognized that man as the car thief he had just arrested. Kenny Kimes. And by then Murray had made another incriminating discovery, won the tide the Kimes directly to the missing widow.

They had in their possession. Identification blowing to Irene Silverman. Inside Sonté's purse, along with the big wood of cash, was Irene's passport. And just like that, two completely separate investigations suddenly merged

into one very big and very strange case. We know we were looking at a homicide investigation at that point. Twist in turns of plenty today, in the disappearance of 82-year-old Irene Silverman, police are not sure where this investigation is heading. It turned out the investigation was headed to New Jersey because

the informant Stan Patterson told police that when Sonté and Kenny were late for that meeting of the Hilton Hotel, it was because they were stuck in traffic in New Jersey. We got the phone numbers from every dumpster that we saw to find out where they dumped their garbage.

“Did any part of you think that she might still be alive?”

No, not me personally, no. Overgame was convinced that been busy dumping Irene Silverman's body that morning. Returning to New York just in time to be arrested on that unrelated car theft charge. That arrest came just hours after Irene Silverman last was seen.

Impossible not to wonder. If that out of state warranted a ride just a few hours earlier, would Irene Silverman's life have been spared? Hope is fading tonight that Irene Silverman will ever be found alive. But Sonté kind now caged with son Kenny at a downtown jail

with this continent as ever and her charm offensive was just getting started. She fluffed her hair. She tilted her head. She battered her eyes. This onslaught of flirtatious energy.

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 Ser Paul McCartney to talk about his latest album. The full circle moment of closing out Stephen Colbert show in the same theatre 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 saying to walk home from high school. Her name was Mickey Castanzo, just 16.

It 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. Listen for free starting Monday, June 8th or subscribe to date line premium to unlock new episodes. There are shantey types. There's a walking contradiction.

It was more than two decades ago when I met Santey Times first born son

Kent Walker, the kid you apprentice who went straight. Kent saw it all, lived it all. But the biggest in New York City that he learned about from the news and I had no doubt. I knew it was just no doubt.

But they were guilty. I didn't want that. I wanted so much with them not to be guilty. But I had to be asked myself.

“What was it that made you about this that made you so sure?”

Well, things had gone terribly wrong. I had become fearful of them. I didn't want to be around them and I didn't want them around me because I knew nor to the scope of this. But I knew they were heading for a fall.

I should have seen a comment I didn't.

We always thought they'd just try to convince me.

The commbs, the cons, you know, and shoplifting. Shoplifting and I'm not going to join that. That's bad stuff. Don't get no wrong. But there's a far cry from stealing some lipstick.

They're picking up a sturdle and killing someone. Investigators too were quite sure that Kenny and Sontic times were behind Irene's sudden disappearance. They were certain they had a murder case on their hands. But they just had one big problem.

They could not find Irene's body and proving murder to be quite difficult. But then they recovered that stolen Lincoln. And it was a gold mine. It was a lot of things in that car. Close, wigs, a gun in empty taser box.

And perhaps most damaging of all, a stack of Sontic notebooks. I think she had 15 notebooks of all kinds of things. Irene's movements. Then she'd write like a laundry list like shower curtain, handcuffs, stun gun. From the notebooks it was obvious.

Sontic and Kenny targeted Irene for her wealth. And plotted to steal her identity and drain her fortune. The big prize was that incredibly valuable townhouse. Not to mention the apartments inside that rented for 6,000 a month.

“That's why they asked Stan to come and join them in New York.”

On a where he was now in informing him. Kenny and Sontic, they had the, they knew what they were going to do with, with, with sadly, with Irene's silverment. So they were going to use Stan Lee Patterson as a person that was supposed to maintain the building that Irene's silverment owned. They found out that Irene owned the building outright.

There was no mortgage left on it, she owned it. So that put the scheme in motion. Then they, you know, they looked for a notary. They did their research, I guess, as far as the deed obtaining a deed and things like that. On December 16, Sontic and Kenny's times were charged with murdering Irene's silverment.

They would remain behind bars to await trial. But Sontic was by no means ready to admit defeat. Locked up or no. I think Sontic is one of the most fascinating people I've ever met. Back in 1998, CC McNair was a private investigator in New York City.

Sontic had assembled a legal team to fight every one of the charges against her, and CC was brought in to help.

In their first meeting, CC saw that jail had not dim Sontic one bit.

She came down a long hallway. She's wearing sort of a gray track suit. Our hair was black, thick black eyebrows. And you could see that she really was a beautiful woman. I was there with Matthew Weissman, who was one of the four lawyers.

Matthew Weissman was immediately the focus of her attention. She fluffed her hair. She tilted her head. She battered her eyes. This onslaught of flirtatious energy.

Sontic insisted through her lawyers that she entered Kenny were as innocent as newborn babes. Let's just say with reference to Ms Silverman, they deny categorically all that goes.

You've got to help us.

“Sontic was never anything less than self-assured.”

Absolutely certain of what she was saying.

This is someone who gets what she wants. Because I watched her and she manipulated me. She would appeal to me as the only other woman on the case. The men just don't get it. You get it.

You're going to save me and my darling Kenny from the greatest injustice in history of the United States. And the story just kept getting bigger. Tips and leads popping up from all the places Sontic had left an impression. Oh and of course Sontic had a plan. She and Kenny were going to play offense on national TV. Oh boy.

It just feels a little unnatural to anyone on the outside.

By the time Kenny and Sontic times were charged with murder, they had become household names.

The mother and son made headlines not just in New York City, but around the whole world.

“I'm too watching the Bahamas following the trail of Kenneth and Sontic times.”

That trail led reporters to Douglas Hannah, lead investigator at the Royal Bahamas police force. We have a missing man here. Hannah knew all about Sontic and Kenny times. Because two years earlier, they were the last people seen with the man named Sired Belal Ahmed. A man missing ever since.

Mr. Ahmed flew to the Bahamas to investigate irregularities in Kenneth's senior's accounts. John Marquis was a journalist in the Bahamas. And he learned about Sontic's desperate scramble for money after Ken's senior died. "Shontic had been growing money from the accounts."

To quickly get at whatever was left of Ken's fortune, Sontic pretended he was still alive.

And forged documents to withdraw money from Ken's offshore Caribbean accounts. There was just one problem. Ahmed, a bank auditor, was paying attention. And he asked to talk to Sontic. Mr. Ahmed was anticipating a fairly consulatory meeting, which was aimed primarily at just sorting

matter out and finding out what was going on. Ahmed met with Sontic and Kenny over dinner. And when the sun came up the next day, the phone rang at the Royal Bahamas police force. Ahmed was nowhere to be found. But neither was Sontic.

We tried to find out about what the link was all about. But the police chief had no idea where she was. Until those New York booking photos made international headlines. So now Sontic and Kenny were suspecting not one or two. But perhaps three murder investigations.

But from her jail cell, Sontic was determined. She continued to proclaim her innocence and that they were framed. And they didn't do it quietly. She and Kenny started talking to reporters, including a sit down interview with 60 minutes. I was married to a wonderful man.

He was a big ol' Irish man. Kenny looks a lot like him. There was the interview on 60 minutes. Everybody was talking about him. There they were, mother and son accused murderers.

Looking a little too intimate. Sontic and Kenny were sitting way too close together and they were holding hands. And it just didn't look exactly normal for a mother and son to be sitting that close or holding hands. And there was the gushing about how beautiful this mother was.

“I think she's a beautiful person spiritually and intellectually.”

And physically. What was going on here exactly? Can't saw that TV interview too, of course. So are the very public intimacy. Because of the 60 minutes interview, they're holding their hands and stuff like that.

The whole insist thing. It was weird. It just... I mean, it's catnip. You know, I don't believe in it, it's not because I don't want to believe it.

I know it didn't happen. And I will say this. Their relationship was not normal. It was short of sexual. It was put in that way.

I mean, it was an instrument. I'm sure it was intimate. But I don't think it was anything sexual. I asked her about it.

Who could back it anybody ever say something like that?

“I only held Kenny to my breast when he was a baby to keep him warm.”

It's disgusting." Kenny denied a two. And she said, "She believed Dante." Two point. But maybe there is such thing as an emotional insist,

where they're so close that it just feels a little unnatural to anyone on the outside. Ronda was inside for a while. Saw Dante tried a groomed cat and then succeed with Kenny. All of his grooming gears. He was completely under her.

Yeah. She never let him go. She took him everywhere. Yes, and this whole so-called incestuous thing, whether it happened or not.

She didn't really matter.

It was they were always like that tear.

And I have no, I can't say that any of that happened because I never saw it. Yeah. You know, I'm not saying it didn't. But I never saw it happened like that. But I mean, it's the codependency that matters.

Yes, yes. He was victim because he never had any influence from anyone else. So a new question now. Kenny was behind bars, separated from his mother for the first time in years. What would Dante's son do?

Left to his own devices. Next thing I know, he's around my back with his arm across my, neck. And he did say to me, this is a hostage situation. The moment of reckoning had arrived.

The trial of Sonsan Kenny Times, for murdering Irene Silverman, began in the Manhattan Courthouse. It was a tricky case in a way. No body and no DNA or other physical evidence to time other and son to the crime.

But detective Hovegan was feeling as confident as he could be. We had such circumstantial overwhelming evidence that I knew we'd get a conviction. I think the DA presented 103 witnesses. The motive was pure, cold, but agreed.

Said the prosecution. Sonté wanted that townhouse. And so they killed Irene. And Sonté pretended to be Irene, dupping a notary into approving the legal documents to steal the house.

They got the notary to come in. They forged the deed. They got her signature. The notary testified to that. But where was the deed now?

Well, the jury learned that police had been listening in on Sonté's jailhouse calls. And so they heard when she asked C.C. and another private detective to go pick up a bag she checked at New York's Plaza Hotel. It sounded urgent.

“You have to go and pick up the bag at the Plaza.”

You have to go. You have to go hundreds of times. When the PI went to get the bag, investigators were right behind. What was in the bag?

In the bag was the deed to the house.

The most important piece evidence that we needed.

That's what we were searching for. That was the nail in the coffin. A jury found Sonté and Kenny Kim's guilty of 118 charges, including second-degree murder. Just rang out in the courtroom over and over again,

guilty guilty guilty guilty. I think at the time they found Soverman, I think they'd gotten away with so much up to that point, where they didn't have a fear of going for that big score. They thought they were going to get away with it.

Right after it was over. C.C. went to check on Sonté. I expected tears. I expected hysteria because of her volatile personality. Instead of that, she threw arms around me and she just said,

"We have to start on the appeal." Kenny's reaction was starkly different. He was absolutely gray. Ashen is the perfect word. He could not believe what had happened

because his mother told him a thousand times. We're innocent. We're innocent.

“Despite the guilty verdict, crucial questions remained.”

Like, where and how was Irene murdered? Only they knew that. And neither would say, yet. Kenny was sentenced to 125 years, his mother to 120.

and that's where Freenance journalist Maria Zone went to interview him,

“while working on a court TV documentary.”

The interview was at noon. The corrections officer brings me to an empty cafeteria. There were two chairs. And Kenny walks in in his prison garb. And I'm sitting down with my two-man crew.

And right away, I could tell something was going on. Like, his mind was racing. Are you saying, though, that Mr. Silverman was aware that you were sharing your part with your mother? Absolutely.

And after about 10 minutes, he said, "Can I go to the bathroom?"

So he went to the bathroom the first time.

Asked him a couple of more questions. 10 minutes must have gone by. Can I go to the bathroom again?

“Can we take a break and maybe five or ten minutes?”

Then finally, the third time he said to me, "Maria, I'm really hungry. Would you mind getting me something to eat?" So Maria got a Snickers bar on the water from a vending machine. And then she handed them to Kenny. Big mistake.

It all happened incredibly fast. Next thing I know, he's around my back with his arm across my neck. And he did say to me, "This is a hostage situation." The court TV crew recorded a few seconds of it until Kenny demanded they stop.

Do you hear me? He was holding a pen to Maria's throat. The same pen you could see him handling during the interview. Maria was terrified, but like a good reporter kept asking questions. I said to him, "Can he wire you doing this?"

And he basically said, "I want to be extradited to Canada.

My mother is an elderly woman. She can't live the rest of her life in prison." He held her there on the floor for hours. Well, hostage negotiators kept looking for an opening. And Maria kept talking.

But I finally said, "You know how to pray." And he said yes. And he actually was very receptive to it. I know I needed some comfort. So we said the Lord's prayer together.

There was a hostage negotiator that after we prayed together, he said to Kenny, "I'm going to try to help you." Here is my business card and he pulled out a business card, and he reached out to Kenneth. That was the distraction the authorities needed. The guards count.

They must have just all jumped on him and I heard him grunting and groaning. And I didn't look back. For his violent stunt, Kenny got sent to solitary confinement. And years were passed before he would see his mother again. A reunion in an L.A. courtroom where a chilling story would come tumbling out.

They got her in the bathtub and he had his hands around her throat. And he said, "I didn't know how long to squeeze." The times were serving time for killing Irene Silverman. But the story was far from over. California was waiting to try them for the murder of David Cazden.

Mother and son faced the death penalty for that one. They were extradited to Los Angeles, I wanted to see Kenny. Can't urge his little brother to play. Let's make a deal. I was in Kenny's ear and I was telling him, "You're not going to win this one. You've got the death penalty. Do not put me in the position.

Why I have to explain to you, my kids, that you actually can't do that." advice Kenny took. He agreed to plead guilty if prosecutors took the death penalty off the table. And not just for him, but for his mother too. It was a no-brainer for L.A.

We liked the deal. The DA liked it. So we made a deal with Kenny. Sonté, however, wasn't quite so flexible. Confess? Not a chance. Not even when they told her that her Kenny, though few would have imagined it possible,

was going to testify against her. It began in June 2004. It was theatrics from the start. Sonté was wielding in a wheelchair.

“This was for dramatic effect, which is, if you know, a Sonté, her life is dramatic effect.”

Defense investigators, CC McNair, was there when Kenny took the stand. He then told the story of murdering David Castan.

As Kenny spoke, a lifetime of loyalty died.

He told the jury it was Sonté who decided Castan had to go, because Castan got wise to their scams. Sonté who ordered him, Kenny, to do it. And so, of course, Kenny went and took his pistol, when he presented his smiling face at Castan's door.

He recognized Kenny, and so he let Kenny in.

“So, Kenny walked in, I think, Mr. Castan offered him some coffee or something,”

and when Mr. Castan turned around, in the kitchen, and that's when Kenny took the gun and shot him in the back of the head. And then he heaved Castan's body into that dumpster by the airport. And there on the way home to see Mom, Kenny stopped and bought a hundred dollar bouquet of flowers to give to her, to celebrate the job accomplished.

Kind of a wonder how sick her might as well. Oh, but there was more.

Kenny described exactly how he and his mother murdered Irene Silverman.

His mother came into Irene's bedroom, turned on the television. They hit her with a stun gun, they got her in the bathtub, and he had his hands around her throat. And he said, "I didn't know how long to squeeze." After, said Kenny, he put Irene's body in the trunk of that stolen Lincoln,

and dumped it in a trash bin in Hoboken, New Jersey, and drove back to Manhattan just in time to be arrested with his mother. It was horrifying to hear.

“I was visually affected by this description.”

And Kenny had one more story to tell. This went about that missing banker in the Bahamas. Sayed Ahmed, last seen having dinner with Kenny in Sunday. Last meal of his life. The spiked his drink, they had already filled the bathtub,

because they knew that we were going to drown him. And when he passed out from drinking, Kenny takes him into the tub. But he says as soon as I put his head under water and held him, he said the fight was on.

He said that guy was stronger than what I thought. It was a bigger battle than I thought. But he eventually was able to drown him. Just imagine that scene, huh? I know. I know.

So was he sorry for his crimes? Is that why he offered his confession? Kenny's brother didn't think so. His confession was not exoneration. It was purely self-serving.

It was, you know, the rest he can do at the time. Dante was convicted and sentenced to life without parole, and installed in New York's Bedford Hills prison. They are to spend the rest of her days, though, not quietly. I went up to see her.

And you would think she would claim that her son had turned against her by confessing. And instead of that, she said, Kenny saved my wife. He saved my wife. But we didn't do it. This is the greatest miscarriage of justice in American history.

Defiant is usual. But for the victim's families, at least the not knowing was over. Except, not quite. There is one more story. This wouldn't happen back when Kenny Jr was still a teenager.

Not yet a killer. It's the story about that other son named Ken. And his father, Elmer.

“I think he just got caught up in a situation.”

He didn't know how to get out of it. Elmer Holmgren, the down on his luck lawyer, sent a somehow persuaded to burn her house down in Hawaii. For the insurance, of course. Except, the feds got blinded at it.

And Holmgren decided to cooperate. Where a wire. He was working with the ATF. You know, to implicate the crimes on this. But then, Ken Holmgren is sure.

Santé and Ken a senior found out. And they took Elmer on a little holiday to Costa Rica. He was never seen again. My father was gone, and I mean, mysteriously gone. Murdered is some beliefs.

So there was never a trial.

There was never a charge. There was never anything. Having to do with your dad. Does that matter to you a lot? It did at the time.

You know, the ATF agent said, "Well, they're going to be imprisoned for the rest of their lives.

Well, it made a difference to me, and it made a difference to the family, too.

“I'm sure Elmer Holmgren's name would have been there as somebody”

whose death had been accounted for. And some kind of justice done. Correct. Yes. Justice.

Ken, he kind of says that more than two decades in prison to reflect on that. And to make sense of the broken life and love, he shared with his mother. I find that very interesting, actually.

Kenny, that you can say you love your mother, that you... I love my mom and dad forever. I know.

It is first TV interview in decades.

He's going to try to explain. [music playing] Even in prison, Sontake Cimes could seem glamorous and terrifying. I've bearded for my life.

For a long time? For years.

“Ronda Martin, kids high school girlfriend,”

finally got the news with everyone else in 2014. After 16 years behind bars, Sontake Cimes died. Are you more comfortable now? Yes, because she's dead.

Well, that's saying something, isn't it? A woman who charmed and harmed, whose death, even for the son who ran from her all those years ago, was very, very hard. I knew I was the only personalist planet

that would feel painful. And no one else could understand why. And, you know,

one thing I'll never apologize for,

is love for my mother. Though there is Kenny, so, Kent is not the only son to feel of the pain. I still carry a lot of guilt with Kenny.

I mean, it's my biggest regret. And I try and harder to pull him from that grasp. But, um, I was outmatched. Mom's wrong with me in that department. The attitude down of an correctional facility

is San Diego, California. Today, Kenny Cimes is a middle age man, serving as time in a prison in San Diego. A little good morning. He agreed to speak with us on the phone,

which is what the California prison system allows. This would be his first recorded interview since the day he took that court TV reporter hostage at quarter century ago. And it was a much different Kenny this time.

The first thing I want to say is that I absolutely regret my past and the ignorance of my past crimes makes me want to do better and makes me want to engage in what I would call tangible confusion.

This was his reason for talking to us. To tell us he had come up with on his own a grand idea.

If I can prove the ability to raise a million or more

for a San Diego unified for education, could I do basic military training on film while in custody? This could help teachers, kids, the military and prisoners.

That's what I'd like to do. Just how did this convicted killer plan to raise a million while in prison for life? No. He has an exactly sure about that, he said.

It was that kind of conversation. Friendly, with some kind of limit we sensed, coming soon. Is there anything that you would like to say now to the families of those people,

to the survivors of those people that would be... I'm sorry. I'm 100% I'm sorry. My answer is I am sorry and I was an idiot and my ignorance, I'm ashamed of.

Mind you, he said it was his mother who did it, who made him a killer.

“There was a lot of chaos in my youth key at the end.”

When you needed an isolated life in, and I was isolated, I only saw one road forward. And I didn't have a support system, I didn't have an escape belt. So, her fault?

Well, yes. And yet... I love my parents, but there was a lot of complexity there. I find that very interesting actually,

can't it that you can say you love your mother, that you... I love my bond and dad forever,

And have those positive feelings towards them,

even though your mother was the one who instructed you to kill people.

“It's something for people to wrap their heads around.”

I'd like to wrap my head around it. I, your perspective, and my perspective, and anyone's perspective, the culmination of their existence. And I choose to not focus on the negative elements of my parents. And that is just what feels right and appropriate to me too.

Still, friendly, but his mood seemed to have changed. When your mother died, it was at very difficult for you. It hurt like hell. It hurt. And... There's just nothing I can do without it, but pray.

He was baptized at Catholic in prison, he told us.

Then I probed a little more about his mother, rather gently, and the conversation grew strained. Well, I was just curious to know if your mother, like you, came to regret her crimes, and try to achieve her own kind of redemption,

or whether she was just, you know, Santé all the way along to the end. I don't know. I don't know. I'm sorry. Yeah, there was no, they cut off one.

Could we take a little break real quick? Yeah. And that was that. But as we tried to understand why that would be a trigger for a hang-up, Kenny called back.

To tell me he didn't want to talk about his mother anymore. I don't want to go into my family in the media venue. I'm going to keep my laundry to myself. All right. Maybe in the future, we could talk about more rehabilitative elements

and so forth, and I hope that could happen. By which he meant his pitch to raise a million dollars for education is tangible contrition.

“I think that maybe I can pay for my crimes,”

but supporting education. But there is one more bit of family laundry and it is still unwashed. Your brother, Kent. The last time I talked to him, he talked about how he regrets

not being able to help rescue you from that situation. Is that something that bothers you, too? I wish Kent, well, I wish he would have done a little more.

In the Times family saga, what if seemed never ending?

As to the questions, but after 35 years Elmer Holmgren's son finally learned some truth. This past January, three coal case detective showed up at Kent Holmgren's door. Autopsie photos in the hand. It was a definite.

I was my dad. Elmer's body was found not in Costa Rica as Kent had long believed.

“But in a dumpster near LAX, just like David Cazden.”

Elmer's body had been unidentified for decades. He was found on February 19, 1991, maybe four or five days after I talked to him last. Now, all these years later, genetic genealogy led investigators to Kent.

They told him his dad's killer was probably a woman and very likely, some day, herself. Even the corner didn't think it was a man landing those blows. He felt a man would have inflicted a lot deeper wounds. And though they're still investigating,

it feels like the resolution, it's like Kent. There's a lot of times over 35 years where you just, you know, your mind kind of runs wild. It's nice to be able to put it to rest. But Kent, Kent ever put it to all the rest, not completely.

Though he is trying, Kent told us he doesn't visit Kenny. Often, not sure he wants to anytime soon. Because, for one thing, that contrition Kenny talked about, Kent is a skeptic. "I still don't believe he has regret for what he did.

Which is hard for me." The sons of 선택 kimes, that magnetic criminal homicide or mother, that tireless teacher of grift and chaos, violence, one who kills or locked up for a lifetime.

The other, focused on gratitude, were escaping her lethal orbit, defined a life that's full and a little more boring.

And I'm looking back now 25 years later,

“it feels good to be poor once in a while.”

It's okay, you know?

The normal state of things.

I didn't know what normal was.

“My normal was different than everyone else was.”

I like it this way a lot better.

That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us. I'm Craig Melford. Cheers, cheers.

“I've always been a glass half full kind of guy,”

and now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that we too. It's really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, challenges, their stories, their funny, and my candy.

So I hope you'll join me each week and who knows. You might just come away with your own glass half full. Search glass half full with Craig Melford from today. On YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.