Shattered Bonds

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Speaker 3 911, where's your emergency? It is a fire right now. I'm telling you, my apartment.

Speaker 4 I had that intuition it was going to be bad, and then

Speaker 4 it was.

Speaker 5 It was highly disturbing to know and see what happened here.

Speaker 4 They found human remains in a trunk.

Speaker 6 Did you have any theories as to what might have happened?

Speaker 7 At that point in time, we did not.

Speaker 8 This whole thing is just getting absurd.

Speaker 7 He had his voice recording diary going. He left it for us.

Speaker 5 Was there more to this story?

Speaker 7 We saw a garbage can filled with items, a tarp, a rope, a four by four.

Speaker 6 Everything you might need for a murder.

Speaker 7 Exactly.

Speaker 11 Its time is already in motion.

Speaker 10 You need to do your part.

Speaker 5 These are not the same people that the public thinks that they are.

Speaker 12 You realize how cold this family is.

Speaker 6 The most sick and twisted case you've ever heard? Absolutely.

Speaker 4 Unbelievable.

Speaker 3 911, where's the emergency? There's a fire card in. It may be a car.
Think it might be a car.

Speaker 6 As a hot August night turned into day, a car burst into flames. The sound of popping tires woke up the neighbors on a quiet street near the Jersey shore.

Speaker 13 Is anybody in the car? Can you tell?

Speaker 6 No one knew how it happened or why. But when those questions were finally answered, a bigger mystery unraveled.

Speaker 6 Only four miles from there, but a world away, was a cozy cul-de-sac, where the Dorset family lived.

Speaker 6 Everyone knew the Dorsets. There was Thomas, busy with his refrigeration business, but not too busy to lend a hand.
Wife Leslie, a school board member, and daughter Kathleen, a kindergarten teacher.

Speaker 6 Kathleen loved her work, loved her parents, and seemed happy nestled into the neighborhood where she grew up. But she longed for a family of her own.

Speaker 6 And then she met Stephen Moore.

Speaker 6 Could she have found someone more different? Stephen grew up in Southern California, chilling at the beach, taking things easy, according to his friend Cam Graham.

Speaker 14 Never really held a job, but he always was working. He always would find something to do.

Speaker 6 Stephen's mom Evelyn says her son wasn't lazy, just laid back.

Speaker 15 He got by, but he wasn't truly motivated.

Speaker 6 But if Stephen was serious about anything, it was skating.

Speaker 16 We'd go skating on the beach.

Speaker 6 His friend Missy Queen skated too, but not like Stephen. He took the bronze at the national speed skating competition.

Speaker 16 He would encourage me to, you know, to skate fast.

Speaker 17 He'd be way ahead of me.

Speaker 6 When he wasn't skating, he was happy to go go wherever, whenever. Like when his mother Evelyn, a travel agent, invited him to see the world.
He was 30-something, free, and he loved his mom.

Speaker 6 So why not?

Speaker 15 He was adventurous.

Speaker 14 Here I am on an elephant ride.

Speaker 6 What countries did you take him to? Oh, boy.

Speaker 15 Well, we did most of Asia.

Speaker 19 I can hear you.

Speaker 14 Who smiles beautiful?

Speaker 6 Most of Europe.

Speaker 15 South America.

Speaker 1 Here we go. Here goes mom.

Speaker 14 Mom's smoking a cherrier.

Speaker 15 We've had a lot of interesting experiences and had a lot of fun.

Speaker 6 I have not inhaled.

Speaker 1 She hasn't inhaled.

Speaker 17 Don't inhale.

Speaker 6 Eventually, Evelyn decided to retire to the Jersey Shore, and she wanted Stephen to come too. She needed his help.
So her loyal son grabbed his skates and the rest of his stuff and jumped in his car.

Speaker 16 It was packed with

Speaker 16 every single thing that he owned was in that car.

Speaker 16 It was funny.

Speaker 6 He knocked around for a few years and then one day in 2006 he met Kathleen Dorset.

Speaker 14 I knew she was a school teacher and that she lived in Jersey and that he was in love with her and it seemed like he found the ones.

Speaker 6 And if opposites attract, this match couldn't miss. Kathleen Dorcet seemed as grounded as it gets.

Speaker 6 She had her own house right across the street from her folks and she was great with children, as friends noticed when Stephen brought her out to California.

Speaker 14 And they came down and stayed, I think, a week with us. She seemed really nice.
They took my kids out and took them shopping and bought some games for them and stuff like that.

Speaker 6 Stephen started taking life a little more seriously. He got a job at the local Honda dealership and did really well, according to his coworker and friend, Lloyd McCracken.

Speaker 13 Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker 7 He was a team player.

Speaker 14 You know,

Speaker 13 if you needed something,

Speaker 13 you can always depend on him.

Speaker 6 Kathleen was eager to start a family of her own. So about a year after they met, she and Stephen got married.

Speaker 16 He couldn't believe this is happening. He was just so happy.

Speaker 6 So there he was, Stephen Moore, solid citizen with the steady job, the wife, and the nice in-laws across the street.

Speaker 13 You know, he said, I'm finally settling down. You know, I got a family.
Besides taking care of his mother, he had somebody else he could actually take care of.

Speaker 6 And kids couldn't come fast enough. Elizabeth was born about a year and a half after the wedding.

Speaker 15 Do you remember the day she was born? Oh my God, yes. And I can remember standing at the nursery, and he stood there with his arms around me, crying, both of us looking at her.

Speaker 6 Kathleen seemed born to be a mother. And Stephen?

Speaker 15 All of a sudden, it all came together for him, and his daughter made a man out of him.

Speaker 6 That should have been the beginning of the happy ending for Stephen and his wife, Kathleen. But in 2010, on a Monday morning in August, Stephen just didn't show up for work.

Speaker 6 The guys at Honda called Kathleen. She hadn't seen him since early morning.

Speaker 13 I knew something was wrong because he's there before me. And when he didn't show up, I started calling his phone, but I kept on going to voicemail.

Speaker 6 His mom, Evelyn, was taking a little vacation in Maine. Maybe he'd blown off work to join her.
Lloyd McCracken doubted it.

Speaker 13 When I finally got a hold of her,

Speaker 13 I just said, do you know where your son is? She says, no. And then she started panicking.

Speaker 15 I called him and he didn't answer.

Speaker 6 The Honda folks waited a couple of hours, then called the police. Detective Al Vega handled the missing persons investigation.

Speaker 4 About noon on August 16th,

Speaker 4 we received a call from the employer of Stephen expressing that he didn't show for work.

Speaker 6 Police learned Stephen had loaned Evelyn his own car to make the long drive to Maine because it was newer and safer. He was driving his mom's car until she got back.

Speaker 4 Maybe he drove somewhere in his bad car crash and no one knows where he's at.

Speaker 6 Where was Stephen Moore? As police followed his trail, they caught a tantalizing glimpse of where he had been. But the question remained, where did he go?

Speaker 6 The first clues to Stephen's sudden disappearance. A text from Kathleen.

Speaker 7 It said, where are you? Everyone is looking for you.

Speaker 6 And a stop at the store.

Speaker 4 There was a transaction at a local quick check.

Speaker 6 Where would they lead? Even investigators could not have imagined that.

Speaker 5 I've never had a case with so many twists and turns.

Speaker 6 As the day wore on, Stephen's work friends grew more worried. On no-show at the dealership, he wasn't answering his phone.
Detectives looking for him needed a crash course in Stephen's life.

Speaker 6 They started with the family he had married into.

Speaker 6 There was Kathleen, of course, dedicated teacher, attentive mother, the kind who made her own baby food and fretted over every detail of her daughter's care.

Speaker 6 Did you check into their standing in the community?

Speaker 1 I knew what and who they were,

Speaker 4 to the fact of that she was a teacher and where they resided.

Speaker 6 Detective Jeff Wilbert learned that Stephen's father-in-law Thomas adored his granddaughter and he got along with the neighbors too.

Speaker 7 We had stories of Thomas shoveling sidewalks and driveways and if there was a mechanical failure on an air conditioner or something like that, a simple phone call and Thomas would be there.

Speaker 6 And Stephen's mother-in-law Leslie, nearly everyone saw her campaign ads when she ran for the school board.

Speaker 6 Today I wanted to introduce myself and tell you who I am and why I am qualified to serve you. Detectives also learned that the Dorsettes often hosted pool parties and barbecues on this little block.

Speaker 6 Stephen's friend Cam came for a visit.

Speaker 14 Her parents lived on the corner right there. So, I mean, it was just like right across the street.

Speaker 6 But when investigators talked to Kathleen and her parents about where Stephen might be, they weren't much help. Because, as it turns out, Stephen didn't live there anymore.

Speaker 6 For Stephen and Kathleen, wedded bliss didn't last very long. Detectives learned the marriage went downhill after the baby was born.
Kathleen, always driven, was a supermom.

Speaker 6 And friends say she made Stephen feel like he couldn't do anything right.

Speaker 16 He wasn't holding the baby right. He wasn't changing the diapers right.

Speaker 16 He wasn't putting her down for naps at the right time.

Speaker 14 You know, just very protective of the child, which is sometimes, you know, mothers are like that at the beginning.

Speaker 6 So in love with her baby. Friends told police how Kathleen hovered over her care.

Speaker 14 It says like, hey, you know, it's the hormones and everything going on with her and blah, blah, blah. Just relax and just kind of go with it a little bit and see what happens.

Speaker 6 But Stephen complained, it didn't get better.

Speaker 14 She wasn't.

Speaker 14 showing him any love anymore and no there was the intimacy everything was gone

Speaker 6 And there was another problem for Stephen. The cozy life across the street from the in-laws had gotten a little too cozy.
Police learned that the doting grandparents couldn't stay away.

Speaker 14 They would just pop in unannounced, not even knock, just walk in the house at any time. He was kind of felt that was kind of weird.

Speaker 6 Investigators learned that Stephen felt so smothered that when Elizabeth was 10 months old, he walked out on his wife and in-laws and moved back in with his mom.

Speaker 6 The divorce became final just a few months before Stephen disappeared. Cam had to wonder, maybe Stephen just needed to get away.

Speaker 14 It did cross my mind, you know, when you're going through this things, sometimes you just want to disappear for a little bit and not

Speaker 14 talk to anybody and kind of get your thoughts together and find out exactly what's going on.

Speaker 6 But that's not the vibe investigators were getting. His mother said Stephen didn't sound like he wanted to get away.
In fact, he sounded pretty happy the night before he disappeared.

Speaker 6 He was enjoying an overnight visit with 20-month-old Elizabeth.

Speaker 15 He called me. He said, we're in our jammies and we're watching cartoons.

Speaker 15 And I said, sleep tight. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Speaker 6 The next morning, he left the baby with Kathleen.

Speaker 4 Stephen showed up to her house around 7.45 a.m. with their daughter.
He drops him off.

Speaker 6 Kathleen told investigators she hadn't heard from him since, even when she sent him a text. What was the text message she sent to him?

Speaker 7 She showed me her phone and it said, where are you? Everyone is looking for you.

Speaker 6 So investigators ran through all the possibilities. Did he have a girlfriend? No, not that we were aware of.
Was he into anything bad? Was he into drugs? Anything that would get him into trouble?

Speaker 4 No, not that we're aware of.

Speaker 6 Financial issues?

Speaker 19 No.

Speaker 6 But when police looked at his checking account, it showed something. Two debit charges posted on Monday afternoon.

Speaker 4 I found out that there was a transaction at a local quick check on that date for like $9.

Speaker 4 And then there was another transaction later on that day at a Chipotle in Eatontown, which is in the same town as Daddy works in.

Speaker 6 This is after he dropped off his daughter at California. Correct.

Speaker 19 Correct.

Speaker 6 So whatever happened to Stephen could well have happened later on Monday. Another day went by.
No Stephen. Then, in the early morning hours of Wednesday, August 18th, a 911 call came into dispatch.

Speaker 3 911, where's your emergency? There's a fire right outside outside of my apartment.

Speaker 6 A car fire had erupted in a lonely section of Long Branch, New Jersey, not far from the Dorsets, tidy, peaceful little street. The question, where was Stephen Moore, was about to be answered.

Speaker 4 I had that intuition he was going to be bad, and then it was.

Speaker 6 A whole new mystery begins as police uncover a secret diary.

Speaker 8 This whole thing is just getting absurd.

Speaker 6 Recorded by Stephen himself.

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Speaker 6 The call went out just after four in the morning. A car had erupted in flames in Long Branch, New Jersey.

Speaker 6 By the time Detective Alvega arrived on the scene, he'd already gotten word the car was Evelyn Moore's, the same one her son Stephen was driving when he disappeared. Detective Vega had a bad feeling.

Speaker 4 I'm like, ooh, gosh, here we go. You know,

Speaker 4 I knew, I had that intuition it was going to be bad, and it was. During fire suppression efforts, they found

Speaker 4 unidentifiable human remains in a trunk.

Speaker 6 It was the body of a man burned beyond recognition, but investigators could make out a tattoo that was identical to Stevens. The missing person's case had just taken a tragic turn.

Speaker 6 Stephen Moore, devoted father and loving son, was dead.

Speaker 6 Detective Jeff Wilbert with the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office took charge.

Speaker 7 The vehicle was parked here, and this is when we picked up the homicide investigation.

Speaker 6 And then it took on a whole new direction?

Speaker 7 It did.

Speaker 6 Did you have any theories as to what might have happened?

Speaker 7 No. At that point in time, we did not.

Speaker 6 One thing was clear, whoever torched the car had started with the trunk where the victim was.

Speaker 7 The rear bumper just completely melted off the rear of the vehicle.

Speaker 6 Could you tell how the fire was started?

Speaker 7 Once you opened the trunk and once the body was removed, there definitely was an obvious odor of gasoline.

Speaker 6 Now that he had gone from missing person to murder victim, investigators had to look at everything in Stephen's life.

Speaker 7 We spent some time looking into Stephen's background. We learned that Stephen was a competitive speed skater.

Speaker 6 But his life as a skater turned up nothing.

Speaker 7 How was he doing at work? We learned that he was doing really well at work.

Speaker 6 So investigators took a closer look at Stephen's brief marriage to Kathleen and learned how bad it really got.

Speaker 6 Friends like Missy Queen thought Kathleen had gone mad with motherhood, like the time Stephen tried to feed Elizabeth the smidgen of sauerkraut.

Speaker 16 And she just screamed at him.

Speaker 16 There's that,

Speaker 16 you know, you don't feed a baby sauerkraut, you know.

Speaker 16 That's not baby food.

Speaker 6 Stephen's divorce attorney Veronica Davis said she'd never seen anything like it.

Speaker 23 She had a list. Well, she gave him a schedule, a written schedule, an outline, and she wanted him to fill in the blanks.
What did she eat today? When did she nap? When did she go to the bathroom?

Speaker 23 How long did she sleep? And she would call. Even if he had her for three hours, she would call four times.
What is she doing? It was very disconcerting.

Speaker 23 It was dysfunctional.

Speaker 6 The dysfunction was seeping into Stephen's life at work. Lloyd McCracken told police how Kathleen would bring the baby over, it seemed, just to humiliate him in front of his co-workers.

Speaker 13 I think it was more out of a spite. She would bring the baby in.

Speaker 13 He would try to pick up the baby or hold the baby and she would just take the baby out of his arms and then it became into a yelling match. And then she would storm out.

Speaker 14 He goes, I just feel like

Speaker 14 that's all she wanted out of me, was just the baby. It was basically a sperm donor, basically.
Yeah, that's how he felt.

Speaker 6 Investigators learned that even though the divorce was final, the custody battle was never ending. Stephen fought for more time with his daughter, but to his mom, it looked like an uphill battle.

Speaker 6 He couldn't afford the endless litigation.

Speaker 15 Her parents had more money than I did to help him.

Speaker 15 And so

Speaker 15 he didn't stand a chance.

Speaker 6 But his divorce attorney saw him toughen up, deciding when enough was enough.

Speaker 23 She was issuing all these edicts, and that's when he came to me, panicked. And we did go into court immediately.

Speaker 6 So Stephen was pushing back, and investigators looking at this case took note.

Speaker 6 Stephen's friends and family believe Kathleen thought she had married a passive go-along guy, but ended up with a man who wouldn't roll over.

Speaker 14 He had overnight visits and stuff like that, and know that

Speaker 14 she did not like that at all because she could not control what was happening.

Speaker 6 Detective Wilbert heard plenty about the custody battle from friends and family, but then discovered evidence that was both powerful and unique. Stephen had kept an audio diary.

Speaker 7 He was documenting all the issues that were going on between he and Kathleen.

Speaker 6 Stephen made this recording about three weeks before his murder.

Speaker 9 I'm getting very tired of Katie calling me

Speaker 9 and

Speaker 9 questioning every move I make.

Speaker 8 I'm able to take care of our child just as well as she can.

Speaker 7 It's one of those few homicide cases that when you really want to get into that victim's head and know exactly what's going on, Stephen left it for us.

Speaker 9 It's always BS

Speaker 9 and it's her way or no way.

Speaker 9 I just want to be able to spend time with my daughter with no bull.

Speaker 6 Investigators also heard Stephen standing up for his rights. He recorded one exchange with Kathleen as he was picking up the baby for a short visit.

Speaker 6 Kathleen was planning to take Elizabeth for a weekend trip out of state against his wishes.

Speaker 9 Are you still planning on going to Florida? Yeah. Okay, I would like an itinerary.

Speaker 9 I would like to know what airline you're flying on.

Speaker 7 Why?

Speaker 9 Because it's my right.

Speaker 9 Okay.

Speaker 9 And times?

Speaker 9 Okay, we'll see. Yeah, sure.

Speaker 18 I'll get them to you.

Speaker 9 And when are you leaving?

Speaker 18 Thursday, like I told you.

Speaker 14 Okay, I'm still not right.

Speaker 9 This is still not right.

Speaker 18 Good for you that it's not right.

Speaker 6 Investigators could hear Kathleen digging at Stephen in front of their daughter. I know you don't want to go, but it is what it is.

Speaker 18 It is what it is, my princess.

Speaker 6 And what it was was ugly and bitter. But a lot of custody fights are like that, and they don't end in murder.

Speaker 6 The mystery of who killed Stephen Moore was still a puzzle, but the pieces were about to come together.

Speaker 6 Police pay another visit to Kathleen. Small talk in the kitchen.

Speaker 7 She offered us food, a drink.

Speaker 6 And a big discovery in the bushes.

Speaker 7 Make sure the entire crime scene unit gets here as quick as possible.

Speaker 6 Kathleen Dorset and Stephen Moore seemed to be at war over custody of their baby.

Speaker 6 So detectives were surprised to learn that the couple had actually agreed on something a couple of months before Stephen's disappearance. They were planning a move together.
Were they moving soon?

Speaker 7 They were. She said construction was ahead of schedule and that they planned on moving in the next couple weeks.

Speaker 6 The plan came together after Kathleen announced she was taking the baby and moving with her parents to Florida. Instead of fighting it, Stephen worked with his attorney to iron out an agreement.

Speaker 6 The Dorsets could take Elizabeth to Florida if they took Stephen too.

Speaker 23 They would get him an apartment and he would only have to pay $600 a month towards the rent and that it would be in close proximity to where they lived and that they would actually give him financial support until he got a job.

Speaker 6 With this agreement, did Stephen sort of think that things were turning around? I mean was he okay with it?

Speaker 23 Yeah he was hopeful. He was willing to move to Florida.

Speaker 6 Stephen's friend Cam thought it was a bad idea.

Speaker 14 I really told him no, no, don't do it. I just wouldn't trust him.

Speaker 6 And in fact, investigators learned the Florida plan wasn't solving the problems between Kathleen and Stephen. His friend said Kathleen was criticizing him more than ever.

Speaker 6 So Stephen stopped answering his phone so he could save Kathleen's voicemails, just keeping a record in case he needed it someday. I'm going to tell you for the last truth.

Speaker 6 We are following the schedule we've been following since we got a divorce. Investigators heard the hostile relationship reaching the boiling point.

Speaker 7 Stephen left it for us. He left it for the investigative team.
Even leading up 10 days prior to his death, he had his voice recording diary diary going, and it was very helpful.

Speaker 7 Now, I don't give a f ⁇ what you think. You're right.
My way or the highway.

Speaker 6 As police considered the awful problems between Kathleen and Stephen, another key piece of information came to light. Those debit charges that hit Stephen's account after he dropped the baby off?

Speaker 6 Well, another check with the bank revealed that Stephen made those charges a few days before. Here he is at a Chipotle a few days before he disappeared.

Speaker 6 That charge he made just didn't show up until Monday.

Speaker 7 Once we realized it brought us back to the fact that Stephen was last seen alive in front of Kathleen Dorset's house that Monday morning.

Speaker 6 So, with all that information, investigators made a beeline back to Kathleen Dorset and that cozy cul-de-sac. Detective Wilbert began with an update from the medical examiner.

Speaker 7 I said the medical examiner ruled it as a homicide.

Speaker 7 Traumatic blunt force trauma was the

Speaker 7 cause. And I said,

Speaker 7 do you have any questions? And she said,

Speaker 7 how am I supposed to respond to this?

Speaker 6 So calm. It still wasn't clear where this line of questioning would lead until another investigator pulled Detective Wilbert aside.
He'd been talking to the neighbors and they had a story to tell.

Speaker 7 On the morning of August 16th, they were both woke from their sleep after hearing screams.

Speaker 7 And in fact, one of the neighbors actually looked out her window, her bedroom window, and she saw Kathleen towards the back of the house. And the neighbor, she inquired, are you okay? What's going on?

Speaker 7 And Kathleen said,

Speaker 7 close the window.

Speaker 6 Screams. On the morning Stephen disappeared.
Later, Kathleen told the neighbors that it was the dog having a seizure. Detective Wilbert thought he might be standing at a crime scene.

Speaker 6 He asked asked Kathleen if they could search her property.

Speaker 7 Without hesitation, she said, no, that's fine.

Speaker 6 The detective was struck by her nonchalant response, but still wasted no time in telling his investigator.

Speaker 7 Make sure the entire crime scene unit gets here as quick as possible. And while we were waiting for the crime scene unit to show up, she offered us food, a drink, the bathroom.

Speaker 7 I remember eating grapes with her in her kitchen and like everything was normal.

Speaker 6 Kathleen also talked about her gardening efforts. They put in some new mulch to spruce up the yard for the upcoming open house, she said.

Speaker 7 It was odd, and it was an area of interest.

Speaker 6 It seemed like she was just trying to make small talk, but when the crime scene investigators showed up, it was one of the first places they checked.

Speaker 7 One of the forensic detectives put on protective gloves. He had put his hand into the mulch and in fact came up with

Speaker 7 blood on the protected glove.

Speaker 6 Not a few smatterings, lots of blood, and it tested human.

Speaker 6 The ex-wife takes a trip to the station.

Speaker 7 Do you wish to?

Speaker 6 And then a stunner on surveillance tape.

Speaker 7 It looks like a tarp, a rope, a 4x4.

Speaker 6 Everything you might need for a murder.

Speaker 7 Yes, exactly.

Speaker 6 Someone's caught on camera, and it's definitely not Kathleen.

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Speaker 6 Some home improvement had changed the landscape of the Stephen Moore murder investigation in ways no one saw coming.

Speaker 6 Crime scene investigators found human blood around some new mulch at the home of Kathleen Dorset.

Speaker 7 Let's see here.

Speaker 6 Detective Wilbert brought Kathleen down to the station, and the chatty woman who'd just been serving him grapes now refused to talk.

Speaker 7 Do you wish to?

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 6 Prosecutor Mark Lemieux had the blood, along with the reports of screaming the morning Stephen disappeared, and the bad history between Kathleen and Stephen.

Speaker 6 But he wanted to nail down the details of the case, so he let her leave the station.

Speaker 5 We do not charge her yet, and the reason for that is that we wanted to sit back and figure out was there more to this story.

Speaker 6 Two days later they made a decision. With police cameras rolling the investigation team went back to Kathleen's home.

Speaker 7 I remember walking up to the door knocking on the door. Thomas had answered it and invited me in.
I told Kathleen that she was under arrest for the murder of Stephen Moore.

Speaker 7 She was handcuffed and she was quickly escorted from the residence.

Speaker 6 The neighbors watched, flabbergasted, as Kathleen Dorset, teacher, devoted mother, and daughter of a nice, respectable couple, was arrested for the murder of Stephen Moore.

Speaker 6 Her father, still standing in her house, was clearly devastated. Who knows what triggered his next move? But very early the next morning, Thomas Dorset drove to his attorney's office.

Speaker 7 He parked there and it looked like he was taking a nap.

Speaker 6 Was he really taking a nap?

Speaker 7 No, when his attorney arrived shortly after 8 a.m., he pulled in, he parked his vehicle next to Thomas Dorsett's vehicle, and then all of a sudden, panic set in.

Speaker 6 Thomas wasn't sleeping.

Speaker 7 Thomas had a tube hooked to a 30-pound refrigerant canister, and a tube was in his mouth.

Speaker 6 Police busted through his truck window and pulled him out. He was rushed to the hospital in a coma.

Speaker 6 Suicide attempt?

Speaker 7 That's what it was.

Speaker 6 His daughter's arrest may have pushed him over the edge, but police suspected something other than despair caused Thomas to try to kill himself. Like maybe guilt.

Speaker 6 Detective Wilbert remembers something Thomas did when they arrived to arrest his daughter.

Speaker 7 As soon as we entered into the residence, Thomas Dorsett removed his wallet from his back pocket as if he was going to turn it over. Like

Speaker 7 exactly, like, let me get rid of my property right now.

Speaker 6 He was going to get arrested, was what it looked like.

Speaker 16 Right.

Speaker 6 But more than anything, the prosecutor focused on the cause of Stephen's death, blunt force trauma and strangulation. What was the significance of the injuries?

Speaker 5 The significance of that led us to clearly know that this was something more than just Kathleen being involved.

Speaker 6 But police still didn't have any hard evidence to connect Thomas to the crime until...

Speaker 7 It was a phone call that came in from a restaurant owner in Long Branch.

Speaker 6 This restaurant owner had some videotape, he said, that might be of interest to the investigators.

Speaker 7 We left the scene where Thomas tried to commit suicide, and we immediately responded to the restaurant in Long Branch.

Speaker 6 There, they found this security video recorded Monday, August 16th, the morning of Stephen Moore's disappearance. It shows two cars arriving, one after another.
The first car grabbed their attention.

Speaker 6 It was Evelyn Moore's, the car Stephen was driving before his death.

Speaker 7 And there, behind the wheel, we saw Thomas Dorsett driving Evelyn Moore's vehicle and Kathleen Dorsett following Thomas in her vehicle.

Speaker 6 This is such a moment for you.

Speaker 7 It's a breaking moment.

Speaker 6 Evelyn Moore's car? What was Thomas doing with it? The investigators were sure at the moment the video was taken, Stephen's body had to be in the trunk of that car.

Speaker 6 An hour later, Thomas returned to the dumpster, this time in his white van.

Speaker 7 It got better. Thomas Dorsett pulls back into that parking lot area.

Speaker 7 Thomas is seen wearing protective gloves and discarding a number of items into the dumpster to include a garbage can filled with items. It looks like a tarp, a rope, a four by four.

Speaker 6 Everything you might need for a murder.

Speaker 7 Yes, exactly.

Speaker 6 That put Thomas as well as Kathleen in the thick of the crime. So when he woke up from that coma, Thomas Dorset was transferred to the Monmouth County Jail.

Speaker 6 What do you think happened that morning in that driveway?

Speaker 5 I think that on Monday morning, a plan was made for Kathleen to have

Speaker 5 Stephen to go down the driveway to go get some tools from a basement.

Speaker 5 And as he came down, Thomas was standing behind a bush next to the driveway.

Speaker 5 And as he came down, he was

Speaker 5 struck right in the face. Stephen was bleeding all over that driveway, bleeding into the bushes.

Speaker 5 And we know that Thomas takes a rope that he throws out later, and he uses that rope to extinguish any ounce of life that Stephen had left.

Speaker 6 With Kathleen and her father in jail, a court decided that Kathleen's mother, Leslie, wasn't a fit guardian. So Grandma Evelyn, Stephen's mother, got the baby.

Speaker 6 In the end, the investigators believed Kathleen and Thomas killed Stephen because they wanted him away from the baby and out of their lives.

Speaker 6 If they had ever made it to Florida, did they have a backup plan for Stephen?

Speaker 7 Someone that got close with Kathleen after the murder had told her that one of their plans was to feed Stephen to the alligators down in Florida.

Speaker 6 It's like it just keeps getting taken to a whole new level.

Speaker 7 Exactly.

Speaker 6 It seemed like a slam-dunk case, but as Kathleen sat in jail awaiting trial, she didn't sound like a woman facing hard time.

Speaker 6 On On the phone with her mother, she sounded oddly breezy, almost cheerful. How was dinner?

Speaker 11 Very nice. We went to the place where Wechie's funeral was.
Oh, okay.

Speaker 6 Just the beginning of a conversation that got stranger and stranger. There's another crime brewing, a whole new chapter in the tale of Kathleen Dorset and her family.

Speaker 6 How much can you come up with in cash? An underhanded plot and an undercover sting.

Speaker 26 How do you want this dog to put in the accident?

Speaker 12 They wanted to make it look like some type of medication overdose.

Speaker 6 Mother and daughter were in for a hit, just not the kind they were expecting.

Speaker 6 Four months after the death of Stephen Moore, Kathleen Dorset and her father were in jail awaiting trial for his murder.

Speaker 6 Given all that, you'd think Kathleen would have been wallowing in despair while she was sitting in jail. That's not how she sounded when she called her mother.

Speaker 11 How was the party today? How was everybody?

Speaker 11 Wonderful time. Everybody sent you their regards.

Speaker 11 Laura specifically. Oh, really? Oh, good.

Speaker 6 They talked about the weather.

Speaker 10 We're only supposed to get four or six inches.

Speaker 6 And the cats.

Speaker 11 Do you know when those fatty cats knocked down Elizabeth's strawberry shortcake plate and broke it? Oh no, there's a little sign. I didn't think it could be broken.

Speaker 6 And gossiped about a friend's kids.

Speaker 11 Yeah, she can't take care of them by herself. Oh, they're uncontrollable.
They're uncontrollable. Yeah.

Speaker 6 And they also talked about money. Kathleen, an inmate, suddenly needed a lot of cash.

Speaker 11 How much can you come up with in cash?

Speaker 11 I told you. Just a thousand? That's it.

Speaker 11 About all I have left.

Speaker 6 Mother and daughter met in person after that. Then came this KG call.
What we discussed at the visit?

Speaker 10 Yeah, it's kind of already in motion.

Speaker 6 You need to do your part. Something was brewing.

Speaker 11 Remember, natural?

Speaker 11 Right that.

Speaker 11 The word diabetic.

Speaker 11 That's it.

Speaker 11 And the original amount I told you in money, $1,000. That's it.
I'm going to seal it.

Speaker 6 Someone will meet you there. It's not even going to be someone, you know.

Speaker 6 That someone was this man.

Speaker 12 I'm Sammy. I'm the guy Kathleen Dorsett hired to kill Evelyn Moore.

Speaker 6 Evelyn Moore, the grandmother who had custody of baby Elizabeth.

Speaker 12 Kathleen Dorsett had set up that I would meet the mother at the target in Ocean Township.

Speaker 6 So on the appointed day, Elizabeth's grandmother, Leslie Dorset, arrived at the target with an envelope of cash and Evelyn Moore's address, ready to put the hit on the other grandmother.

Speaker 6 There she is, looking for Sammy.

Speaker 6 Did she have the $1,000?

Speaker 12 She provided me a white envelope with the $1,000 cash.

Speaker 26 How much is in here? $1,000. Cash? Cash.

Speaker 26 $100, $2,340.

Speaker 12 They also provided me Evelyn Moore's address on that envelope.

Speaker 26 How do you want this not put in the epidemics?

Speaker 26 Natural. Natural? It's possible.

Speaker 12 They wanted the murder to look like it was natural.

Speaker 6 Natural? Did they have any suggestions?

Speaker 12 Poisoning.

Speaker 26 So, like a poisoning, or do you tell me?

Speaker 6 She was a diabetic. Okay.

Speaker 12 They told me that Evelyn Moore was a diabetic and they wanted to make it look like she either died in her sleep, some type of medication overdose, but certainly they didn't want a brutal murder where it would bring attention coming back to them.

Speaker 6 You also had asked for a photo. Was that provided?

Speaker 12 It was not. She said that Kathleen Dorset did not tell her to bring the photo.

Speaker 11 I thought I told you to have one, Dosis. I did, you did not.
Yes, I did. I told you to write the stuff on the back of the picture.
That's what I told you. Nope.
Yes, I did. Evelyn, I did.
Yes, I did.

Speaker 11 Yes, I did. Yes, I did.
Yes, I did, Mother.

Speaker 6 So Mother did as she was told. She got the picture of Evelyn, got back in her car, and headed out to mail the photo to the hitman.
However, this hit was never really going to happen, was it?

Speaker 12 It was not. Why not? Because I'm a detective from the Mammoth County Prosecutor's Office.

Speaker 6 Not hitman, Sammy, but Detective Scott Samus. It turns out Kathleen's cellmate tipped him off that Kathleen wanted to put a hit on Evelyn.

Speaker 6 The cellmate said Kathleen was so angry Evelyn had custody, she wanted to have Evelyn killed. So the cops were onto them from the start.
Lots of people don't like their mother-in-law, but murder?

Speaker 5 It was highly disturbing

Speaker 5 to know and see what happened here.

Speaker 6 Leslie was arrested with Evelyn's picture in an envelope on the passenger seat. And now Kathleen, Kathleen, already charged with murder, was also charged with attempted murder.
How shocking was it?

Speaker 6 How did you even find out that this plan was in motion?

Speaker 15 To kill me? Jeff will tell you.

Speaker 7 I said, Leslie's been arrested for a conspiracy to commit murder. And she said, on who? And I said, on you.
Leslie and Kathleen had plotted to kill you.

Speaker 6 With the murder for hire plot revealed, the case against the Dorsets came together. So three years after Stephen was killed.

Speaker 3 After Stephen was convinced to retrieve his tools, I took my daughter into my house, knowing all the time my father was back there waiting to kill him.

Speaker 6 The Dorsetts had a family reunion of sorts in Monmouth County Superior Court. Kathleen Dorsett, the former school teacher, pleaded guilty to those charges of murder and attempted murder.

Speaker 6 Thomas Dorset, doting grandfather and good neighbor, pleaded guilty to murder and arson for hire.

Speaker 6 Leslie Dorset, former school board member, pleaded guilty to second-degree conspiracy to commit murder.

Speaker 15 The goal is to kill Evelyn.

Speaker 6 Kathleen got 58 years in prison, Thomas got 45, and Leslie was sentenced to seven years. She was released on parole after serving about half her time.

Speaker 6 Thomas wrote a letter to Dateline to say that Stephen's murder was not planned. It was, he wrote, the first fight of my life, and Katie was not involved.

Speaker 6 He also wrote that he and Kathleen took the pleas to save my wife's life. The crazy thing about this is that it all centered around a child, and she so desperately wanted to have this child.

Speaker 5 And that's what she never thought about. She didn't realize at the end of the day, she was eliminating her own ability to be a mom.

Speaker 6 Did it feel, though, like Kathleen was the ringleader of everything that happened in this family?

Speaker 7 Absolutely. Definitely.
She was running the show. It was her world and everybody else was just living in it.

Speaker 6 Evelyn tries not to think about the Dorsets. She is so grateful to the prosecution team who solved her son's murder and saved her life.

Speaker 15 And Scott had my back, literally.

Speaker 6 What's your nickname for him?

Speaker 15 He's my hitman.

Speaker 15 My own private hitman.

Speaker 6 And Detective Jeff Wilbert has a special place in her heart.

Speaker 15 Jeff, I couldn't love him more if he was my son.

Speaker 7 That's really the way I feel.

Speaker 6 Mostly, she wants to give her youngest son the credit she feels he deserves. What do you tell your granddaughter about her father? What's the most important thing that she knows as she grows up?

Speaker 15 That he loved her.

Speaker 15 That he's in heaven and he's looking down

Speaker 15 and he'll always be there loving her.

Speaker 18 How are you doing, big girl?

Speaker 18 Hi there.

Speaker 18 Oh, daddy loves you. Oh, daddy loves you.

Speaker 19 Yes, he does.

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