Kenneth "Kenny" Floyd (Wild Card, Colorado)

When the unknown stirs, its trail leads to our podcast, so supernatural, I'm Eva Gentile.

An I'm her sister, Rochifekarero. Together, we explore all of the world's most bizarre mysteries. Listen to so supernatural, every Friday, wherever you get your podcasts. Our card this week is Kenneth Floyd, a wild card from Colorado. When Kenneth Floyd was found dead inside his apartment in Aurora, Colorado, detectives

didn't have to guess which way the suspect went. The trail of blood led straight from Kenneth's door to the front of the building, as if the killer had drawn them a map. And that trail of blood held one very important clue, their suspect's DNA, the kind of evidence that's supposed to make this case solvable.

And for a minute, it seemed like it might. That DNA led investigators right to one particular island in the Caribbean.

They were this close to a breakthrough.

There was just one problem, and I'm talking a big problem. Of volcanic eruption on the island had destroyed, the very records they needed to track down their suspect.

“The general lava was the only thing standing between investigators and justice for Kenneth.”

But that's where you come in. There's a chance that some of you listening right now have roots on this same island without even knowing it. And if you do, you may be able to help detectives finally find Kenneth's killer. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is the deck.

It was mid-March 1995, 6 p.m. when an apartment complex manager was about to do what I'd imagine is the worst part of being an apartment manager, nothing on the door of a tenant who is being evicted. This manager's name was John, and his tenant, 32-year-old Kenneth Floyd, was supposed to be out by noon that day.

He hadn't come by to turn in his key, though, and John hadn't seen him leave.

So now he had to climb the stairs to the third floor and be the bad guy.

On knocked on the front door of apartment 303, but there was no sign of Kenneth, not even rustling or the sound of TV behind the door.

“John tried the handle, but it was locked, so he pulled out his master key and let himself in.”

And it was instantly clear why Kenneth Floyd hadn't moved out. Kenneth, who everyone called Kenny, was lying on the living room floor surrounded by packed up boxes in a pool of his own blood. He was lying on his side in a fetal position with one gash to his neck visible above the collar of his bathrobe.

His hands were bloodied by what appeared to be defensive wounds, and there were cuts to the fabric of his robe as well. When John called police some 30 years ago, it wasn't detected Jason McDonald who showed up on scene, but he has had to make this his job now to interpret old reports and evidence in order to solve this mystery.

So an officer that had arrived on scene noticed that they were spots of blood going down the hallway from Kenny's apartment, and it's carpeted, flooring, and it's like a cream-colored floor, so red blood drops would stand out pretty well on it, unfortunately. And he noticed that the droplets went down three fights of stairs to the exit. But that's where the trail just stopped.

Was it Kenny's blood? The killers? They didn't know, I mean at that point they didn't even know the full extent of his injuries, because police weren't allowed to touch the body or check what wounds the robe might be hiding.

That was the job of the coroner investigator.

“A coroner investigator's role at the crime scene is pretty important because their initial”

examination of the body gives the detectives an idea of what we're looking at, what type of murder we're dealing with, what weapon was used. This initial assessment helps detectives because it allows them to start their investigation right away without waiting for an autopsy which could take days to happen, and even longer to get results.

But that Kenny's crime scene, for reasons we don't know, Detective McDonald said his

According to those records, he or she apparently ruled that there was no sign of foul play. "And listen, given the scene, I don't know how you could say this, without looking at his body even, and neither does Detective McDonald.

He told us that he's never been to a crime scene where someone died and a coroner investigator

failed to examine the body."

“"That baffles me, I think he clearly had blood on his hands, blood on his neck, visible”

injuries, and his dead." Without that preliminary examination, the original detectives were lacking the most basic information about Kenny's injuries. But they still had to work and process what was clearly a crime scene to everyone else. So they collected Kenny's glasses and a broken-beaded necklace, made note of a bloody footprint

on the living room floor, and they zeroed in on some very important evidence in the bathroom.

There was a blue wash cloth on the ground near the toilet that had some blood on it, and

in the bathroom sink there was droplets of blood and a wash cloth that had blood on it. There's a phrase that's popular in crime culture that every crime scene the killer leaves something behind.

“For this crime scene, this blood in the bathroom might be it.”

Their crime scene was mostly contained to the living room, so taking this into consideration with the blood droplets that they found outside the apartment leading to the exit. It seemed highly possible that the killer injured themselves during the attack. In our experience, we've seen this in many murder cases that evolved in life, especially

brutal attacks where there's multiple stab wounds.

There's a lot of blood and blood's very slippery, and once it gets on the handle of the knife that's being used by the killer, it often times ends up causing the killer's hand to slide down the handle and cut themselves, and now they've left their own blood at the scene. I know they didn't know exactly what their murder weapon was, but one can take an educated guess, and they only had to guess for a couple of days before all their assumptions were confirmed.

The autopsy found that Kenny had been stabbed multiple times to the neck and chest with the half inch wide blade, and the blood in the sink matched up with other blood we found at the scene, and those blood samples were not Kenny's blood, so that's who we believe is our killer. And they believed that person was someone Kenny knew. It seemed very personal, it seemed like the attacker, most likely knew him, versus a random attack.

knife attacks in particular are pretty personal murders, and the number of stab wounds tells the story as well. They definitely wanted this person dead, that one stab wound to the chest was not going to be enough for the killer, that they wanted this person dead in a bad way, and that there was anger towards the victim. So who might that be? At the scene, they learned some surface-level information about Kenny

from John, who owned and managed the building. He said that Kenny was being evicted for numerous complaints. He was throwing loud parties that were bothering his neighbors. An investigators discovered that police had actually been called to Kenny's apartment just a few days before his murder. Officers had responded that night and took an individual name Leslie Taylor to detox, because he was drunk and being very loud, because he'd been

partying and was drunk at Kenny's apartment just three nights before his murder. It turns out Leslie was more than just a friend or acquaintance. When investigators tracked him down, he told them that he and Kenny had been in a romantic relationship, but Leslie said that he'd recently ended things. But before you go thinking that might be a good motive for murder, he also told them where he'd been when Kenny was killed. He was still at detox,

and that's a rock solid alibi. He didn't check out until the 19th, and so they did get those records from the detox facility, and we're able to rule Leslie out because of that. While detectives were polling police reports related to Kenny or his address, it wasn't just Leslie's name that popped up. They also found a report from a few months earlier. A report filed by Kenny, alleging a man named Kevin Ransom, had forged his signature

on a money order.

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effective learning program out there at the best price. According to police records, Kenny claimed that Kevin ran some forged his signature on a money order. Kevin had been interviewed just two months before Kenny's murder, and he was cooperative at the time. Kevin's story when he was interviewed was that he and Kenny were doing crack together one night and they ran out of crack and Kenny wanted

“Kevin to go out and buy more crack for them. And he gave Kevin ransom his rent check and told him”

just scratch out my landlord's name and write your name and go cash this money and buy his more drugs. Kevin ransom said he did that and they came back to drugs and that later now that Kenny is out of rent money decided to make a police report. At the time, police hit Kevin with some minor charges and that was the end of it. But now that Kenny was dead, they brought Kevin back in again, and again, Kevin cooperated. He allowed detectives to photograph him and look for injuries on his

body, like a cut, you know, that might have left behind all that blood. Because it's one thing inspecting somebody's body a year after a murder and we're looking for a cut load, those can obviously heal and be totally gone. But a week after, if you cut yourself to the point where you're bleeding out of a building, you would still have that injury and Mr. Ransom did not. He wasn't a DNA match

for the blood found at the scene either. So, Kevin ransom became the second name crossed off

an ever-growing list. Between friends from Kenny's parties romantic partners and just generally trying to run down all possible connections, police did not have an easy time. And some of these folks are hard to track down. Some are transients. There are other people that don't have permit residences that kind of count surf from a place to place. Luckily, investigators didn't have trouble finding Kenny's big, tight knit family. But many of Kenny's relatives, who we spoke to,

felt that they weren't appropriately interviewed or kept up to date as the investigation unfolded. Like Kenny's niece, LaFondra Johnson. In the mid-90s, around the time that her uncle was killed, she worked with him at the Denver Rescue Mission, a shelter for folks experiencing homelessness. She's at right next to Kenny in their call center and gave him a ride home most nights. She saw him

every day. But LaFondra said police never contacted her for an interview after Kenny was killed.

“Even though she knew him so well and spent nearly every day with him. That's why it was”

especially heartbreaking that she had to learn about her uncle's murder on the nightly news. LaFondra told us that she had been worried about her uncle for days before she found out about what happened to him. She hadn't seen him at work and she'd been trying to call him, but was having no luck. And at the time it was landlines, you know, that kept calling to call him. That annoying feeling in her gut was growing stronger. And her mom, Deb, Kenny's sister,

had started to worry too. And Deb became more than worried one night when she was watching the news. I want to say it was like channel four news or something. Was that an issue? It was like, "Well, do you know where Kenny lives?" And I'm like, of course, I drop him off. And she's like, "Well, it just came on a news about a man named Ellen apartment building in Aurora, so she said, "Come, want me, it take me over there." They drove over.

They couldn't get inside the lock building, but LaFondra could see Kenny's third floor window.

And the curtain was blown and I was like, "Oh, he's right there. I get my head. I thought I'd seen him." And I was just like, "Uncle Kenny, Uncle Kenny, come open the door." And then I'm standing there. And so I looked again on my, "Oh, maybe that's just the window before I'm with the curtain." They eventually got into the building with the help of a couple who lived there. And then when we went up there, it was police tape on his door.

So that's how we do for sure it was him.

Her youngest son was dead. We asked Detective McDonald to confirm whether police called Kenny's mom

“Joyce, who would have been his next of kin to notify her of the murder.”

And he said that Kenny's mom actually called them. According to the reports McDonald had, whoever Joyce spoke to at the Aurora PD advised her to call the coroner's office to ask about a body that hadn't yet been identified. After Kenny was identified, Detective McDonald says that records show the original detectives talked to Kenny's mom and to Deb and a few other members of their family,

including his other sister Cheryl. But how in-depth those conversations were is up for debate. Like for example, Cheryl had been arrested at the scene the night that they found Kenny for disorderly conduct when she had rushed to Kenny's apartment and tried to get inside to check on her brother. They took her to jail, but they didn't ask her any questions about Kenny

“until later on. And though Deb is listed in police records as someone who is interviewed,”

she told us that likely only happened because she just happened to be at her mom's place while they were talking to her. She only remembers being asked a couple of questions and getting very little information in the less than one hour that police were there, or any time after that for that matter. When we met with them in early 2026, they still weren't even clear on how Kenny was killed. They thought he'd been dead for a week or more instead of less than 24 hours by the time

he was found. And they also had no idea that the killer had left evidence behind, but that didn't mean they didn't want to know what happened to him. We found there is an entire extended family who is still showing up for Kenny even decades later. When we went to meet with Kenny's nephew cleetus or rookie as they call him, he showed up with five members of his family, a whole crew of people who wanted to talk about Kenny. They said Kenny had the same booming voice as his father who

was a preacher, and he was always the life of the party. A sharp dresser, a social guy who could

befriend anyone, but he kept his close circle small and he was pretty regimented. He had a good career and always showed up to work with a home cooked meal for lunch. rookie actually lived with Kenny for a bit and he said that his uncle ran a tight ship. My uncle had to get up and go to work early in the morning so I couldn't just walk into door any time a night like I had to be there about a certain time where I wouldn't get into the house like there was losing regulations.

That was my uncle's rule of the house like period. In the time rookie lived with Kenny,

“he said that he doesn't think his uncle even gave him a key so he definitely wasn't handing out”

keys to people that he hardly knew. Like his house wasn't an open door for just like homeless people, but he worked at a homeless shelter. So him seeing you every day, if you're starting to have conversations, I could see him maybe invite you to his home knowing that your homeless. He was that kind of person, but like it wasn't for any anybody. He was more or less private and nobody was ever really there while I stayed with him. This was a very different picture of Kenny than the one painted by the

police investigation. Now the family is not saying that Kenny didn't party. I mean when the family thought of Kenny they thought of a solid dude who liked to drink and have a good time, but had his life in order. So they were surprised to hear for the first time from our reporter that Kenny had allegedly been parting to the point of being evicted and we shared with them that according to Detective McDonald and Old Report in the files says that Kenny had been let

go from the rescue mission. The family didn't know that either. With this new information, they all agreed that something must have taken a sharp turn in Kenny's life. And now that he learned who Kenny was hanging around with, rookie wonders whether his uncle may have started using drugs. I just know that there was something going on. You know, hang out with too many people that

do crack. I mean, you don't do it. rookie said he never saw his uncle use drugs. Never

smelled drugs in his apartment, but he knew his uncle was dating Leslie and he had seen Leslie with a crack pipe. He thinks if Kenny was losing control of his home and his job, he probably was using to. A reporter asked LaFandra Kenny's niece who saw him almost every day if Kenny had been acting different if he looked different. And she said he hadn't seen totally like himself. If you knew my uncle Kenny, you would know that he kept his hair trimmed. He was always patting on his

outfit like, wouldn't know here be out of place. He always kept a comb and it's pocket, but sometimes it seemed like maybe close to the end he just kind of started showing up with like sweaters and jeans. And I don't know it just seems like he was just a little off.

to her. LaFandra said that her family followed up with police to try and learn anything they could,

“but after years of being stone-walled, ignored, dismissed, they stopped trying.”

And eventually, police stopped trying to, at least for a while. Kenny's case went cold, whether that's because police lost hope, felt like they read a dead end or if his case was just

lost to time, we may never know. But nothing happened in Kenny's case for years.

But during a recent review of Aurora's cold cases, Kenny's was flagged as having viable DNA evidence, prime for retesting. When detected McDonald took over the case in 2022, he knew that original detectives had sent the suspects blood from that trail in the hallway, and in Kenny's bathroom to the lab, and that they'd been able to get a DNA profile on their suspect. Now, it had already been run through codists, no hits there, but this was recent enough now in 2022

that he knew that wasn't the end of the line anymore. And luckily, their killer had left enough blood behind, that they had plenty of it to retest with different methods,

like the kind needed for genetic genealogy, which by 2022 had already been closing

cold cases left and right across the country and beyond. So they turned to a local forensic genealogist whose name might sound familiar to you if you have listened to our recent episode about another Colorado case, Joan Hamlet. Joan started to build out a family tree, and she was able to trace the suspect's ancestry to this tiny island in the Caribbean. I'm talking a total population less than 4,500 people. She found family connections that made her think they just might

be able to solve this case. I mean, they were this close, but Mother Nature had other plans. Hi, everyone. Ashley here was some exciting news. The deck will not only land right here in your

feed for you to listen to every week, but now we are also on camera for you to watch on YouTube.

Now you can see the cards, the case files, and the people behind the coldest cases as I share these stories with you. So no matter where you get your podcast, whether you prefer to listen to watch

“or maybe both, I will be there with stories you need to hear. Join me for the deck on YouTube,”

subscribe to audio check investigates on YouTube today. According to the family tree Joan started to build, the suspect's ancestors had roots in two places, South Carolina, and a tiny Caribbean island called Montserrat. In a typical case, investigators might hop on a plane and start digging through local records. The problem was, those records in Montserrat were destroyed by hot fiery lava. Because in 1995, the same year that Kenny was killed,

a dormant volcano, real weakened, it erupted over and over for years, making the island partly uninhabitable, and forcing most people to flee, dispersing them all across the globe. The destruction also reduced most of the birth and marriage records to ash. Those two things, many was almost impossible to track down the family members that Joan had identified. Still, this was the biggest lead they'd had in more than 20 years. But when our reporter

Taylor Harts asked Kenny's nephew rookie, if anyone had ever told them about the suspects linked to

“this island, or that there was DNA evidence at all? Not at all. Not at all. I think that we were”

just told that he was stabbed, and that was in the story, and I think that that's where I'm not going to say we gave up hope, but we didn't have no hope. My uncle just found it. There's no DNA. There's we were just left. I think everybody just had people in there monitoring their head. I think it was this person or whatever, and I think that that's where it was just stuck at. But as soon as Taylor explained the ancestry, we all started turning for the family,

and for one of Kenny's sisters, Ivan, a light bulb went off. Ivan remembers that Kenny, had an ex-boyfriend who, around the time of Kenny's murder, allegedly was in a new relationship, with a guy who seemed to not like Kenny very much. And she thinks she remembers him being from another country. Maybe, Monsera, she wondered. Now, police knew about Kenny's ex back in 1995, but he was one of the many people who were hard

to track down. And since Leslie was Kenny's most recent ex-boyfriend, I ventured to assume that they

was somehow connected to this guy all along? We took this lead right to Detective McDonald,

“and he ran with it. He was able to track down the ex-boyfriend and interview him for the first time,”

and as of the time that we're recording this episode, detectives were still working with him and following up on his relationships to see if any of them could be connected to Kenny's murder at all. Kenny's family is hopeful that now that they're in the loop, Detective McDonald can make up for lost time. Knowing the DNA that's been discovered now, I'm hoping that we get a little bit closer. They've held out hope for answers for over 30 years, in their angry,

because it fell at the time and now that Kenny's case fell through the cracks because of who he was. Here is Kim Briggs, Kenny's niece. And then when my uncle, a black man, a black gay man,

“it's killed, you know, it was in the news and that was it for like a day.”

Kim, who later came out herself, said, at a time when being openly gay, wasn't always easy.

Her uncle made her more comfortable in her own skin, and she loved him for that. To this day, the whole family still celebrates Kenny, gathering on his birthday to light fire works in his honor. He loved him some fireworks, yes, especially um, artillery shows and pop on the rockets, as long as they're around and he was going to be lightened. Kenny's niece Kim wishes she could tell Kenny's killer what they took from their family. You took someone that someone

loved, like my uncle has so many great nieces and nephews that he'll never get the chance to me.

We have spouses, he'll never get the chance to meet, you know, they just took so much.

If you have any family from Montserrat or think you might, we even have ancestry on the East coast of the US, please, please consider uploading your DNA profile to Jed Match and selecting the option to opt in for law enforcement. If anyone you know might have ancestry connected to that island, please tell them about Kenny's case and encourage them to do the same. Solving this case depends on people like you. Here's Joan Hammond. We've done everything

in our hour and knowledge to analyze the DNA shared matches that we have. It can be solved. We just need more matches and so I beg you please consider uploading to Jed Match and opt in for law enforcement. I just I can't do this without the community. And she wants everyone listening to know that they might be the one who can help even if they don't think that's the case. The excuse I hear over and over is I know my relatives and if there was a

criminal in my family I'd know and that drives me absolutely crazy because even in my own family

I don't know my first cousins grandchildren. I they could run into me in the street. I wouldn't

recognize them. And those distant connections are exactly what we need to solve cases like Kenneth's and someone out there right now listening to this podcast could be holding the key to identifying Kenneth's killer. So if you have information on the murder of Kenny Floyd, contact Aurora police cool case detective Jason McDonald at 303-739-6013. We're also going to put his email in the show notes. Or if you'd like to remain anonymous you can call the Metro Denver

Crime Stoppers tip line at 720-913-7867. The deck is an audio chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis to learn more about the deck in our advocacy work visit thedeckpodcast.com.

“I think Chuck would approve. Hi everyone Ashley Flowers here. If you're like me”

diving into true crime is about more than just the details of a case. It is also about giving a voice to the victims and understanding the lives behind the headlines. And this is what hosts Kylie Low does each week on her podcast Dark Down East. Every Thursday Kylie Dives into New England's most gripping mysteries uncovering stories in a way you won't hear anywhere else. And she digs through archives connects with families and shines a light on the voices that deserve to be heard.

investigations and honoring the stories behind them. You can find Dark Down East now wherever you're listening.