A Deal with the Devil

Speaker 1 It's time for Black Friday, Dell Technologies' biggest sale of the year.

Speaker 1 Enjoy huge savings on select PCs like the Dell 16 Plus, featuring Intel Core ultra-processors, and with built-in advanced features. It's the PC that helps you do more faster.

Speaker 1 Plus, earn Dell rewards and enjoy many other benefits like free shipping, price match guarantee, and expert support.

Speaker 1 They also have huge deals on accessories that pair perfectly with your Dell PC and make perfect gifts for everyone on your list. Shop now at dell.com/slash deals.

Speaker 2 Dateline is sponsored by Capital One.

Speaker 7 Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees.

Speaker 11 Just ask the Capital One Bank guy.

Speaker 10 It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way.

Speaker 3 What's in your wallet?

Speaker 8 Terms apply. See Capital One.com/slash bank, Capital One NA member FDIC.

Speaker 15 If I was not at work, I was driving around. Have you seen her yet? We were all over town.
It was

Speaker 15 maddening.

Speaker 15 Her boyfriend said Casey didn't come home last night.

Speaker 16 Leanne Emery's father confirmed, yes, my daughter's been missing. Where is Jennifer?

Speaker 17 Where's Jennifer stuff?

Speaker 15 He told me, the police won't help you, I will help you.

Speaker 18 If he knew where she was, the only way he would know is because he put her there.

Speaker 15 At that point, I knew he was doing nothing but lying to me.

Speaker 16 It was pretty clear that we were probably dealing with a serial killer.

Speaker 20 He says you need to call me by the name of Hannibal.

Speaker 22 Did he fit that?

Speaker 23 The movie character? Yes.

Speaker 21 I saw numerous images of women being tortured and possibly being killed.

Speaker 21 My voice was cracking when I said I think I finally am.

Speaker 16 We have only a small little snapshot. There's a lot more out there that we don't know about.

Speaker 25 They loom along the Colorado-Utah border.

Speaker 31 The Book Cliffs, 250 miles of high, dry desert, concealing secrets of what ironically is called Operation Snowball.

Speaker 34 A mystery that grew and grew as it rolled along.

Speaker 29 So big and multi-layered, it took years to find the center.

Speaker 14 So deadly, those who solved it could not quite believe what they'd uncovered.

Speaker 37 And so evil, the families of the victims are still trying to understand

Speaker 34 why.

Speaker 41 It was a February day in a small casino, in a small casino town out in Colorado, a place called Blackhawk.

Speaker 44 How did you meet him?

Speaker 15 I met him playing cards.

Speaker 28 A little casual poker.

Speaker 46 Not like she was looking to meet someone.

Speaker 26 Having already survived a few of the wrecks love can make of a person, out of the market, pretty much

Speaker 15 her name is lori mcloud divorced and my daughter was living with me and i didn't do a lot of dating but then the dealer was dealing and she looked up and he walked in with his mom he was wheeling her along in her wheelchair and I thought what a sweet guy and what a doting son

Speaker 45 he was open revealing told her his name was Scott Scott Kimball.

Speaker 11 Couldn't take his eyes off her.

Speaker 15 The dealer said, Laurie, you're driving this guy nuts. Just give him your number.

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 15 so he said, can I get your number? And I slid it over to him and I said, you're not a felon or anything, are you? And he says, Laurie, we were just talking. You know, I work for the FBI.

Speaker 41 In fact, an agent for the FBI, said Scott, bought this thing from a felon.

Speaker 36 He was divorced with two kids, loved the outdoors, loved camping and hunting.

Speaker 45 And that's how it all began, at least for Lori, the whole awful thing.

Speaker 53 When things, when people vanished, when life stopped making sense.

Speaker 8 Though just then everything seemed extra fine, like a happy new beginning for Lori McLeod.

Speaker 15 He brought me flowers and just didn't set everything right.

Speaker 8 Their first date was Valentine's Day.

Speaker 11 He opened her doors, squired her her around, a real gentleman, paid for everything.

Speaker 55 He even took her deep sea fishing.

Speaker 56 He had a lot of money.

Speaker 57 Really?

Speaker 15 Yeah, rarely would he be anywhere without like two huge gangster wads in his pants, you know.

Speaker 32 What a change. What a sweet surprise.

Speaker 11 Her lawman was loaded.

Speaker 15 I was a single mother and, you know, I wasn't going to nice expensive restaurants. I wasn't going shopping a lot or anything like that.
and that's what he offered.

Speaker 3 Wasn't all he offered, mind you.

Speaker 59 Scott was not just a gentleman with Laurie, he was that way with her daughter, too, 19-year-old Casey.

Speaker 15 She thought he was great. He was very good to her, too.

Speaker 30 Scott started spending more and more time at Lori's place in suburban Denver, and they seemed to be a family of sorts, or on their way to being one, which was very good because things had been a bit up and down with Casey as she matured into adulthood after such a wonderful start when she was little.

Speaker 15 She was an angel. She was the easiest kid and just precious.
She was always happy and smiling.

Speaker 62 Casey's getting ready to start fifth grade.

Speaker 44 This is

Speaker 46 you couldn't help but smile yourself when she was around, said her dad Rob McLeod.

Speaker 64 She was a joy and she was fun and jovial and smart and giggly.

Speaker 12 And so it looks.

Speaker 58 Going places, too.

Speaker 66 I'm really confident that I'll be able to do something with my life after this. So I just want to thank you for inviting me.

Speaker 67 But life happens.

Speaker 37 Not always as we intend it to.

Speaker 64 Her mom and I got divorced when she was pretty little.

Speaker 32 By the time she was a teenager, she was acting out some.

Speaker 37 And after high school, she discovered meth and other drugs.

Speaker 5 Sometimes partied with the wrong crowd.

Speaker 64 And even took off and ran away a couple times.

Speaker 44 How did you deal with that?

Speaker 70 Just patience.

Speaker 64 She's gone, can't find her, but

Speaker 64 she's off with friends or whatever.

Speaker 44 She had that way of disappearing for a while.

Speaker 57 Yep.

Speaker 2 But now she was on the straight and narrow, stable, happy, clean.

Speaker 30 Though, life choices being what they were, the best job she could find, she told her dad, all embarrassed, was minimum wage at Subway.

Speaker 72 But he said, I don't care what it is, you know.

Speaker 64 An honest job and you're out honestly working. Take pride in that.

Speaker 51 But

Speaker 12 always a butt.

Speaker 9 It was going on Labor Day 2003.

Speaker 61 Scott discovered something very disturbing inside the apartment, brought it to Lori.

Speaker 15 He showed me a little glass vial

Speaker 15 of

Speaker 15 white chunks of something.

Speaker 15 And he said, I think Casey's using it again.

Speaker 73 So you said, no, no, no, it can't can't be.

Speaker 56 It can't be.

Speaker 55 So she confronted Casey, had to.

Speaker 15 She kept insisting, I didn't do it. Please listen to me.
Please believe me. This is not mine.

Speaker 65 It got loud then.

Speaker 13 Accusations, denial, disbelief.

Speaker 15 I thought the police would be the best place to go. I just knew that I couldn't sit back and watch her destroy herself with drugs.

Speaker 33 So she told Casey, we're going to the police station.

Speaker 30 Lori went to get her wallet.

Speaker 42 And when she came back, that was it.

Speaker 23 Casey was gone.

Speaker 76 She'd taken off on her bike.

Speaker 15 Scott was there. And I said, get in the car.
You have to hurry. I'm envisioning all these horrible things happening to her.

Speaker 25 It was hours later by the time Scott found her.

Speaker 49 Actually, treated her and her boyfriend to a motel room where she could cool off.

Speaker 67 Don't worry, he told Lori.

Speaker 34 She'll be back.

Speaker 15 And when you're ready to talk with her and she's not afraid that you'll turn her in, everything

Speaker 15 work out.

Speaker 3 A day went by and two.

Speaker 46 And then Casey called Scott's phone, asked to speak with her mom.

Speaker 15 And she says, I just want to say that I'm sorry and I love you. And the phone went dead.

Speaker 80 And even then, Lori had no idea she'd entered purgatory.

Speaker 53 on her way to her own private hell.

Speaker 55 Bad news from Casey's boyfriend.

Speaker 15 He said Casey didn't come home last night.

Speaker 41 And Lori starts the search.

Speaker 15 I would see somebody that looked like her from the back, and I'd circle the, you know, the block. You'd start to see things.

Speaker 13 When Rob McLeod heard his 19-year-old daughter, Casey, had run away after a nasty spat with her mom, his ex, he wasn't too worried.

Speaker 67 Not yet, anyway.

Speaker 64 I was a little concerned, but Casey had taken off before, and I just thought she's got to figure this stuff out herself.

Speaker 26 Just what Lori's boyfriend, Scott Kimball, said, too.

Speaker 58 That's why he was helping Casey get some space.

Speaker 84 By putting her and her boyfriend up in a motel for a bit so she could cool off before returning home.

Speaker 44 What was going on in her head, though, then? What was she thinking?

Speaker 56 That she was afraid of me, that I would turn her in.

Speaker 29 Scott tried to calm the waters, brought Casey food, gave her some rides to and from work.

Speaker 60 But then a few days later, the boyfriend knocked on Lori's door.

Speaker 15 He said Casey didn't come home last night.

Speaker 48 Subway called Lori, said she hadn't shown up there either.

Speaker 76 Even though her boyfriend said he could have sworn Scott came by to pick her up as usual.

Speaker 15 He says, well, he picked Casey up to go to work.

Speaker 40 But maybe the boy who was upset was also confused, thought Lori.

Speaker 60 Besides, Scott was adamant.

Speaker 53 He wasn't even around the day Casey disappeared.

Speaker 15 He said, I did not pick Casey up. It must have been somebody else.
He said that day he was not available because he was going up to the mountains scouting a hunting spot.

Speaker 61 But now Scott devoted himself to finding Casey, told Lori he'd use his FBI connections to help. which was more than the local police said they could do because...

Speaker 15 She was over 18.

Speaker 57 Yeah.

Speaker 15 It was her right to be missing. They just said, go home and relax.
She'll come back one day.

Speaker 80 Just what Scott told her they'd say.

Speaker 15 The police won't help you. I will help you.
He would keep track of her social security number in case she ever had a job. He would know where to look for her.
And,

Speaker 15 you know, he had friends on the street who could help after she was gone. I really felt he was my

Speaker 15 lifeline. He was going to help me find her.

Speaker 43 So, with Scott promising to help, they decided to take a long-planned trip to Las Vegas, where Scott made it very clear just how committed to her he was.

Speaker 15 Let's make it solid. Let's get married.

Speaker 44 He felt he could be more helpful to you as your husband.

Speaker 15 He told me that.

Speaker 57 Yeah.

Speaker 56 Yeah.

Speaker 15 It felt more secure than me doing it on my own.

Speaker 9 So she said yes, and they got married, Vegas style.

Speaker 73 All things considered, their honeymoon a few weeks later was very low-key. It was up in the mountains, a spot Scott had picked for the occasion near the Rout National Forest.

Speaker 9 It happened to be Casey's birthday, and Lori could think of little else.

Speaker 73 As each day went by, did it get better or did it get worse?

Speaker 15 It got much worse.

Speaker 11 But then a few weeks later, Scott, very excited, told Lori that while they were out of the house, Casey must have been there.

Speaker 2 There were signs. He showed her.

Speaker 46 Casey's necklace appeared on a doorknob.

Speaker 2 A neighbor who said he saw her there.

Speaker 59 Which at first gave Lori hope, but not for long.

Speaker 15 I would see somebody that looked like her from the back, and I'd circle the, you know, the block, and I think that was her. That's definitely her.
I think she had that jacket. You start to see things.

Speaker 44 And your heart sinks again.

Speaker 15 And then as time goes on more and more, it's like, if she is into drugs again,

Speaker 15 would I even recognize my own kid? You know, who am I looking for now?

Speaker 46 Casey always spent Christmas with her dad, Rob, and his family.

Speaker 82 But when that holiday rolled around four months after her disappearance, he too was worried about just what Casey he'd find at his door.

Speaker 64 If she shows up stoned or drunk or high,

Speaker 64 I'm going to be ticked off. So I almost don't want her to show up.

Speaker 9 Christmas 2003 came and went. Still no Casey.

Speaker 64 Months start rolling by, and now the prayers are desperate.

Speaker 72 I want my kid home.

Speaker 69 And the months became another year.

Speaker 64 Second Christmas shows up and nothing. I remember finally going to bed and five minutes after I go to bed, the doorbell rings and I fly.

Speaker 64 It's my next door neighbor telling me, well, I saw you were out front, but I also noticed your garage door was still open, so I thought I'd come over and let you know.

Speaker 64 And we go into the next year, and

Speaker 65 I mean, I want her home. I want her home.

Speaker 12 As did Lori, of course.

Speaker 9 But life had to go on.

Speaker 83 In 2004, she and Scott moved to a new place outside Denver and started a cattle business, Rocky Mountain All-Natural Beef.

Speaker 76 Scott's two sons often came to visit.

Speaker 15 Every other weekend, we had his boys, and they were always fun.

Speaker 46 But it was that summer one of Scott's sons, Justin, was severely injured in a freak accident on the ranch.

Speaker 28 And while he recovered, Scott's uncle Terry moved from Alabama to help.

Speaker 27 Although...

Speaker 15 He made me uncomfortable. He was a very strange man.

Speaker 32 Strange indeed.

Speaker 28 Two or three weeks later, without a word to Lori, he was just gone.

Speaker 12 Scott told her it was pretty wild. Terry had won the lottery and left the country to live the good life with a stripper he'd met named Ginger.

Speaker 15 Scott told me that he had taken off to Mexico. I was just glad he was gone.
I just was thrilled he was not in my house anymore.

Speaker 12 Besides, Lori had other worries.

Speaker 7 The business wasn't going too well.

Speaker 25 And of course, the uncertainty about Casey.

Speaker 29 It was all taking a toll.

Speaker 61 Scott, she said, was away a lot.

Speaker 92 And when he was home, became short-tempered, downright nasty sometimes.

Speaker 15 He just had a way of making sure that I knew he was smart and that I was not smart.

Speaker 29 Eventually, Scott and Lori grew apart, and she, once so happy and optimistic, fell into a kind of desperate confusion. Was Casey alive?

Speaker 58 Or was she dead?

Speaker 15 I did at one point start to feel like I was just losing my mind. It was all just craziness that I had created in my head.
I was hoping it was me losing my mind instead of her being gone.

Speaker 12 And in a little town not far away, a local detective heard about some bogus checks and pulled on that investigative string.

Speaker 81 No idea that what was going to come unraveled had a lot to do with Casey.

Speaker 40 Scott's interesting past.

Speaker 16 I'm like, who is this guy and what's this whole business about the FBI?

Speaker 34 And was Scott looking for Casey or busy elsewhere?

Speaker 15 My gut told me he was just cheating on me.

Speaker 29 Lafayette is a sweet little place steeped in Colorado history about 30 miles north of Denver.

Speaker 50 And here, in early 2006, a local bank called the police to report that $80,000 had vanished from a client's business account.

Speaker 76 Looked like somebody was forging checks.

Speaker 9 A young detective named Gary Thatcher got the call.

Speaker 16 We started tracing the checks, and all the money was being written to Rocky Mountain All-Natural Beef.

Speaker 33 Thatcher looked it up and discovered the company belonged to a guy named Scott Kimball.

Speaker 76 A name that meant nothing to Detective Thatcher.

Speaker 16 We went to the banks and we had video footage of him at the the banks cashing these checks.

Speaker 47 Did you begin to form the impression this was a con man you were dealing with here?

Speaker 16 Yes, definitely. Yeah, we started looking at his background and could see that he had an extensive history, what we'd call paper cases.

Speaker 16 And so we could tell that this wasn't the first time that he had done something like this. And, you know, he'd actually served some time for it previously in another state.

Speaker 59 Now, that was,

Speaker 9 as they say, a red flag.

Speaker 46 So Thatcher went to Scott Kimball's house, and Kimball's wife, Lori, came to the door.

Speaker 15 He said he needed to talk to Scott Kimball, and I said, well, he didn't come home last night, so I don't know where he is. And my gut told me he was just cheating on me.

Speaker 37 So Thatcher asked Lori to come to the police station for a formal interview, intending to dig into the fraudulent habits of her wayward husband.

Speaker 68 Instead, Laurie surprised him with a whole new revelation that her daughter Casey was missing, had been gone more than two years.

Speaker 90 And one of the last people to see her was Scott Kimball.

Speaker 62 He had actually given her money to take off. I knew Scott was in contact with her.
He had been taking her to and from work.

Speaker 16 She had talked about some suspicious things that Scott had done that

Speaker 16 made her believe that, you know, Scott kind of knew where she might be. She didn't know if Scott was just trying to hide from her and he knew where she was staying and just wasn't telling her.

Speaker 9 Then Lori dropped another bombshell about Scott.

Speaker 62 I knew that he worked for the FBI.

Speaker 55 An FBI agent with a rap sheet?

Speaker 43 That didn't make any sense to Detective Thatcher.

Speaker 16 Why does this guy who's committing check fraud forgery and his wife is suspicious of their missing daughter? This is the same guy that's also working for the FBI. And I'm like, who is this guy?

Speaker 16 And what's this whole business about the FBI?

Speaker 88 Probably not inclined to believe it at first, huh?

Speaker 16 Absolutely not. This has got to be part of a con.
He's probably just impersonating an FBI agent and telling that to people so that he can, you know, manipulate them and get what he wants.

Speaker 79 So Thatcher called the FBI and couldn't quite believe what he heard.

Speaker 24 Scott Kimball was not an agent, but he did work for the Bureau.

Speaker 16 Scott had been an informant.

Speaker 76 So what'd you think when they said, yep, he works for us?

Speaker 16 Yeah, it was really surprising. I certainly was concerned about what Scott had been up to.
And I was also worried about, you know, how much does the FBI know about?

Speaker 16 Do they know everything that he had been doing while he was an informer for them?

Speaker 7 Hiring informants is a common practice for the FBI, which uses, sometimes even pays, criminals and ex-cons for inside information to help crack cases.

Speaker 68 But now, Detective Thatcher was beginning to realize he knew a lot more about Scott Kimball than Kimball's own handlers at the FBI did.

Speaker 11 Not only about his nefarious past, but also how he might actually be involved with Casey McLeod's disappearance.

Speaker 16 I was beside myself. It was complicating my case really fast.

Speaker 23 Complicated was an understatement.

Speaker 39 Soon, Detective Gary Thatcher felt like he'd stepped into a horror movie when the FBI told him why they'd hired Kimball in the first place.

Speaker 16 He was involved in a murder for hire case

Speaker 16 that they were working, and

Speaker 16 they had a female that was also missing.

Speaker 43 Another young Colorado woman gone missing?

Speaker 34 Oh, boy.

Speaker 61 An anxious father meets with a mystery man.

Speaker 18 I had a chill down my spine by the time I got done talking to him.

Speaker 80 Who says he knows things?

Speaker 18 If he knew where she was, the only way he would know is because he put her there.

Speaker 28 When Detective Gary Thatcher set out to find a check fraud suspect named Scott Kimball, the trail led to a missing woman named Casey McLeod.

Speaker 55 That was a surprise.

Speaker 53 But nothing like the surprise Thatcher got when he learned that his suspect, Kimball, was not only working for the FBI,

Speaker 29 he was working on the case of another missing woman.

Speaker 11 Her name?

Speaker 12 Jennifer Markham.

Speaker 18 I couldn't believe, you know, how beautiful she was.

Speaker 38 This is Jennifer's dad, Bob Markham, who told us she also vanished from a suburb outside Denver, maybe 20 miles south of where Casey had disappeared, six months earlier than Casey, though.

Speaker 82 Or at least, that's when Jennifer stopped calling her parents back home in Illinois.

Speaker 18 We We were trying to call her and we didn't get any response on her phone.

Speaker 7 Bob could sense that something wasn't right.

Speaker 18 She was a very happy person. I mean, she laughed a lot and she was always smiling and joking.

Speaker 46 Jennifer was 25, a single mom with a five-year-old boy.

Speaker 7 To make ends meet, she worked in a local strip club.

Speaker 73 Bob didn't like it, but he understood.

Speaker 18 She was doing what she had to do, and she was trying to keep her personal life separate. There's no doubt in my mind she was a good mother.

Speaker 55 And she wanted better.

Speaker 46 She and her boyfriend, a handsome guy named Steve Ennis.

Speaker 18 She really loved him. She said, This is the guy that, you know, this is really the one.

Speaker 44 What did she want to do with her life?

Speaker 73 Did she have hopes and dreams, plans?

Speaker 18 She said, I'd like to open up a sandwich and coffee shop and then go into that and get out of the stripping.

Speaker 79 But things happened.

Speaker 76 Steve Ennis Ennis went to prison on a drug conviction.

Speaker 52 And the next year, Jennifer Up and vanished.

Speaker 46 Strange how this doting mother suddenly left her only child behind.

Speaker 18 Oh, yeah, we were worried.

Speaker 95 Did you ever sense at all that she was in any danger?

Speaker 18 We wondered if something happened with the drugs.

Speaker 94 Had you to do with Ennis?

Speaker 18 Yeah, with Ennis.

Speaker 39 More than a month after she disappeared, her car turned up in the Denver airport parking lot, but no record she caught a flight.

Speaker 88 And then nothing, nothing at all.

Speaker 29 Though Bob, for two years, kept looking, sticking up posters around Denver, talking to her friends.

Speaker 46 And one day he asked a cop friend to run her name, Jennifer Markham, in a police database.

Speaker 45 And the very next day, Bob got a call from an agent at the FBI who said he'd been investigating Jennifer's disappearance.

Speaker 18 But, said the agent, the case is going nowhere. There's no new evidence.
We haven't got any breaks in the case.

Speaker 96 But Bob kept calling, prodding.

Speaker 32 And finally, the FBI agent set up a meeting with somebody he called his guy, a confidential informant, who was helping with Jennifer's case.

Speaker 18 I said, well, what's his name? And he said, well, we'll just call him Joe Snitch.

Speaker 76 Joe Snitch.

Speaker 65 Yeah, and that was it.

Speaker 76 So, on an August afternoon, Joe Snitch and Bob Markham met at this park outside Denver.

Speaker 37 The informant did seem to know a lot about Jennifer's case, but not what Bob was hoping to hear.

Speaker 18 He told me that he knew exactly where my daughter was buried. We needed to go get Jennifer's body so that she could have a Christian burial, because she was just,

Speaker 18 you know, laying covered with dirt somewhere.

Speaker 12 Wait. She was dead?

Speaker 7 First time anybody had flat out said that to Bob.

Speaker 8 And then another shock.

Speaker 73 Sitting at that picnic table in the park, Joe Snitch made Bob an offer to take his family and him up to the mountains to actually find Jennifer's body.

Speaker 23 What did you think when you heard that?

Speaker 18 I had a chill down my spine by the time I got done talking to him.

Speaker 9 Still in shock about what the guy said about Jennifer, and with a sudden, very bad feeling about Joe Snitch.

Speaker 18 If he knew where she was, the only way he would know is because he put her there.

Speaker 57 Well, why didn't you go?

Speaker 18 Because I knew that he would kill me.

Speaker 61 Just that one conversation, and Bob was sure Joe Snitch was Jennifer's killer, seemed obvious.

Speaker 32 That night, Markham called the FBI agent who had set up the meeting.

Speaker 18 I told him this guy killed my daughter, and he said he was blowing smoke up our butts.

Speaker 37 Joe Snitch was just making up stories about Jennifer, said the FBI man.

Speaker 9 But Bob's instincts were still screaming.

Speaker 37 Joe Snitch must have killed his daughter.

Speaker 73 A few days later, Jennifer's mother, Mary, called Joe Snitch and recorded the call.

Speaker 17 Where is Jennifer? Where's Jennifer stuff?

Speaker 97 Listen, Mary, you can't be doing this for two minutes. You can't be freaking out.

Speaker 17 Did you really, really, really know how my daughter died? Actually,

Speaker 97 I already told you what I knew. I told you what I can and can't say.
And I already told you what I was willing to show you. You had your chance.

Speaker 17 I don't get it. What can you show me, Joe?

Speaker 97 I'll see you later. All right.

Speaker 97 Joe!

Speaker 97 Joe.

Speaker 2 Joe Snitch hung up.

Speaker 83 But Bob Markham had secretly written down his license plate number.

Speaker 27 He had a family friend run the plate and learned Joe Snitch's real name.

Speaker 18 We knew it was Scott Kimball.

Speaker 69 Scott Scott Kimball, Lori's husband, FBI informant, and now a potential killer?

Speaker 58 Who was this guy?

Speaker 39 This gets weirder and weirder.

Speaker 49 Right, very confusing.

Speaker 11 Another possible victim.

Speaker 99 I was convinced that it was not an accident or a series of accidents.

Speaker 100 2006, January.

Speaker 49 It was cold in Colorado.

Speaker 50 But in the little town of Lafayette near Denver, a young cop was trying to grip a case that felt almost too hot to hang on to.

Speaker 59 It started with a batch of bogus checks that led him to a missing woman, and then another missing woman, and then a person of interest who worked for the FBI.

Speaker 30 Not an agent exactly, but Scott Kimball was on the payroll paid by the Bureau as an informant.

Speaker 9 Detective Gary Thatcher had never trained for a thing like this.

Speaker 16 I was the check fraud and forgery guy, and this had landed in my lap, and it was overwhelming.

Speaker 24 It was about to get more overwhelming.

Speaker 29 Thatcher started calling around to other police agencies in the area, trying to see if anybody else had crossed paths with Scott Kimball.

Speaker 59 What do you know?

Speaker 6 Someone had.

Speaker 74 Thatcher got a call from a detective in a town down the road, a place called Louisville.

Speaker 16 I was contacted by that detective saying, we're looking into Scott for the attempted murder of his son.

Speaker 74 Attempted murder of his son?

Speaker 11 Yes.

Speaker 83 The investigation stemmed from that freak incident on Kimball's ranch in 2004 involving his 10-year-old son, Justin.

Speaker 16 Justin Kimball had an accident on this property.

Speaker 82 The boy was seriously injured when a heavy steel grate fell on him.

Speaker 76 But Thatcher learned there was much more to that story.

Speaker 16 He had a bad traumatic brain injury, and Scott put him in the Jeep and was taking him to the emergency room.

Speaker 23 When he came to, Justin told the police something horrible happened on that ride to the hospital. He said his dad actually pushed him out of the car.

Speaker 34 As he was driving.

Speaker 16 Yes, while he was driving.

Speaker 39 This gets weirder and weirder.

Speaker 16 Right, very confusing. So, this is how he was moving the money.

Speaker 46 Thatcher met with Boulder County Chief Deputy DA Katerina Booth, who had investigated the incident back when it first happened.

Speaker 99 I was convinced that it was not an accident or a series of accidents.

Speaker 7 Kimball denied trying to hurt his son in either incident, but Booth believed Kimball did try to kill his son, not once, but twice.

Speaker 28 First, by toppling that steel grate on him, and when that failed, pushing him out of the car.

Speaker 85 As for why a man would do that to his own son, Booth had a theory.

Speaker 99 Scott Kimball had been checking and snooping around the insurance policies and who was the named beneficiary on his son's policy the same day as those accidents.

Speaker 4 Booth discovered that if the son had died, Kimball would have collected $50,000.

Speaker 99 It was criminally motivated, financially motivated, so that Scott could just get his insurance proceeds.

Speaker 60 Did the son survive?

Speaker 63 He did.

Speaker 32 That is when Kimball's uncle Terry came to help the family.

Speaker 46 And then just as abruptly vanished after Kimball said he won the lottery and ran off to Mexico.

Speaker 26 Could Terry have shed light on what happened to Kimball's son?

Speaker 53 Too late now.

Speaker 26 And Booth, who surely wanted to prosecute Scott Kimball for attempted murder, was frustrated.

Speaker 34 How far along were you?

Speaker 98 Were you ready to press charges? No.

Speaker 99 It was just a horrific crime that he had committed on his son, and we didn't have the right amount of evidence that we could prove that he had committed that crime against his son.

Speaker 99 I had always felt incredibly troubled that this young child was so hurt and he didn't have justice.

Speaker 32 So when Detective Gary Thatcher showed up at Katarina Booth's office in Boulder and told her he had a pretty solid check fraud case going against Kimball.

Speaker 63 Booth had her own light bulb moment.

Speaker 46 Here was how she could get the guy.

Speaker 99 I really wanted to work on these other cases that Detective Thatcher was working on. Although it was not my specialty, I said, I'll take those and I'll work hard on those.

Speaker 99 Let's hold him responsible for what we can prove.

Speaker 58 We just had to put a case together.

Speaker 99 We just had to put a case together.

Speaker 12 If they could get him behind bars, even for simple fraud, they'd have the time and chance to get him on the big stuff.

Speaker 32 Because it was increasingly clear to them this wasn't just any case.

Speaker 99 The more and more we learned about him and believing him to be a potential killer, working for the FBI as an informant at the same time, that became hard to believe.

Speaker 28 An informant who had apparently gone rogue, way rogue, leaving a trail that Thatcher and Booth were just beginning to follow.

Speaker 48 If only they knew what they were getting into.

Speaker 43 Time to talk to Scott Kimball.

Speaker 53 But first, they'd have to catch him.

Speaker 16 I was concerned about whether or not we were going to find him because, you know, a very intelligent, slippery guy.

Speaker 37 In March 2006, Detective Gary Thatcher and Prosecutor Katerina Booth were ready to arrest Scott Kimball for check fraud.

Speaker 58 And he, quite suddenly, vanished.

Speaker 23 He was out of there because he knew the heat was on.

Speaker 16 Yes, that's correct. I was concerned about whether or not we were going to find him because, you know, a very intelligent, slippery guy.

Speaker 63 From his hideout, wherever that was, Kimball kept in touch with Lori.

Speaker 15 When he was calling me and he was on the run,

Speaker 15 he kept telling me he was coming back.

Speaker 3 Lori prayed it would all work out, that Casey would come home just as Scott said she would,

Speaker 38 and that the check fraud charges were no big deal.

Speaker 31 And she,

Speaker 91 confused, decided to hang on to his things just in case.

Speaker 15 I thought, well, if it is true what he's saying, and, you know, everybody's just blowing everything out of proportion, when things calm down, he'll come back.

Speaker 15 I want for him to have his clothes and things.

Speaker 44 Sounds like you believed his story to some degree.

Speaker 15 At At first, yeah.

Speaker 24 Yeah.

Speaker 15 He sent me pictures from

Speaker 15 Alaska, and that's where he was.

Speaker 5 But investigators had been tracing Scott's calls, and they weren't coming from Alaska, they told Lori.

Speaker 15 At that point, I knew he was doing nothing but lying to me, and I felt no loyalty after that.

Speaker 53 And finally, weeks into the search, his own cell phone pinned him down in Palm Springs, California, driving a pickup.

Speaker 16 We were able to put the authorities in California within a two-block radius of where Scott was at.

Speaker 73 A dramatic car chase ensued, which lasted for hours.

Speaker 16 It was Mayhem. He was crashing through farmers' fields.
He wasn't at all looking to give himself up.

Speaker 22 But finally, he literally ran out of gas.

Speaker 9 and surrendered.

Speaker 99 We were ecstatic that he had been caught and now it was like it was go time.

Speaker 7 Soon after, Detective Thatcher finally sat in front of his fugitive and tried to pry a little truth out of him.

Speaker 16 He always had a fall guy and always had somebody to blame it on and he was very manipulative.

Speaker 68 So what was your impression at the end of that interview about A, his intellect?

Speaker 16 One of the smartest people I had ever interviewed.

Speaker 69 It was clear I had a lot of work ahead of me and that this wasn't going to be an easy case.

Speaker 78 Convinced they were dealing with a very dangerous criminal, Thatcher and Booth hit on a way to keep him locked up as long as possible.

Speaker 69 Kimball's trail of financial crimes was so long, it placed him in a special category of crook.

Speaker 99 We could do what we call the

Speaker 99 big habitual criminal. We call it the big bitch.
The big bitch or the little bitch. He was the big bitch.

Speaker 26 By charging Kimball as a habitual criminal, they could put him in prison for a very long time.

Speaker 99 And we were able to do the the greater habitual criminal which gave me 48 years on um that white collar crime that theft right around that time he developed a name for you didn't he he did there was another da in the office who was working on the case and he termed us the boulder bitches i didn't mind thought that meant i was doing my job

Speaker 73 The FBI didn't seem to know exactly what their informant was up to, but Thatcher and Booth believed he was involved in the disappearance of two young women.

Speaker 28 But remember, Kimball was locked up for bank fraud, not murder.

Speaker 61 And the parents of those missing women were still desperate to find their daughters.

Speaker 35 So Bob Markham put up this giant billboard above the strip club where Jennifer once worked.

Speaker 18 We were just hoping that somebody would see the billboard and come forward on something.

Speaker 9 Bob had also spoken to a local newspaper called Westward about the creepy guy he'd met at the park and about the private sleuthing he'd done to get his ID.

Speaker 61 Bob was convinced this man, Scott Kimball, was with Jennifer the day she disappeared.

Speaker 52 And guess who came across that article?

Speaker 42 And that one crucial detail?

Speaker 58 Casey's dad, Rob McLeod.

Speaker 64 I was reading that online, and

Speaker 64 down deep in the stories, last person I ever saw her alive was Scott Kimball.

Speaker 44 That'll jump right out at you.

Speaker 64 Yeah, pulls the air right out of your chest.

Speaker 87 Yes, because Scott Kimball was the last person known to have seen Casey alive, too.

Speaker 49 So Rob called Bob, and the two fathers suddenly understood the awful thing they had in common.

Speaker 18 When I heard that his daughter was missing

Speaker 18 and then found out that his

Speaker 18 daughter's mother was married to Scott Kimball,

Speaker 65 unbelievable.

Speaker 12 Also unbelievable was when Rob called the FBI and was told by an agent this bad man was a paid informant who worked for the Bureau at the time Casey disappeared.

Speaker 64 He didn't think he was the kind of bad guy to be violent. He says he might embezzle $100,000 from somebody or write $10,000 bad checks, but he says he'd never give an inkling that he would be violent.

Speaker 4 But that didn't make Rob any less suspicious of Scott Kimball.

Speaker 42 Because if something, Lori finally got around to telling him.

Speaker 64 And she comes to me and said, well, there's something I also haven't told you.

Speaker 56 And she's

Speaker 56 the

Speaker 64 week Casey went missing, Scott went missing too. I didn't know where he was from the time Casey went missing until a week later.

Speaker 98 He just took off, was gone.

Speaker 72 Oh, my. I never heard that before.

Speaker 12 And now the FBI was about to hear it, too, because in the fall of 2006, Rob McLeod and Bob Markham arrived at the Bureau's Denver office, loaded for bear, demanding answers.

Speaker 64 We laid out what we thought was going on with Scott Kimball and our daughters, and

Speaker 64 pretty much told them, you know, you have two choices: you could be the hero or you could be the zero.

Speaker 102 My thing is, that's my daughter.

Speaker 64 She's dumped like a piece of trash somewhere.

Speaker 27 I want her home.

Speaker 22 Dead or alive?

Speaker 27 Dead or alive.

Speaker 72 I didn't care if it was a fingernail.

Speaker 72 I and

Speaker 27 I wanted her home.

Speaker 9 By now, Casey and Jennifer had been missing for more than three years.

Speaker 75 But then, in a little town far from Denver, a tiny clue, flimsy, probably insignificant, one small slip of paper from this place

Speaker 73 that was about to change everything.

Speaker 16 Everywhere we went, the case just got bigger and bigger and more terrifying.

Speaker 21 I saw numerous images of women being tortured and possibly being killed.

Speaker 103 Some stories never make national headlines, but stories from small towns and coastal communities deserve recognition too.

Speaker 103 I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast that gives voice to victims through investigative journalism and powerful storytelling.

Speaker 103 Set in my home state of Maine and the greater New England area, it's my goal to dig through the archives to bring the stories of the people at the heart of these cases to light.

Speaker 103 Listen to Dark Down East, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 104 Hi there, it's Andy Richter, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, The Three Questions with Andy Richter.

Speaker 104 Each week, I invite friends, comedians, actors, and musicians to discuss these three questions.

Speaker 53 Where do you come from?

Speaker 104 Where are you going? And what have you learned? New episodes are out every Tuesday with guests like Julie Bow and Ted Danson, Tig Nataro, Will Arnett, Phoebe Bridgers, and more.

Speaker 104 You can also tune in for my weekly Andy Richter call-in show episodes, where me and a special guest invite callers to weigh in on topics like dating disasters, bad teachers, and lots more.

Speaker 104 Listen to the three questions with Andy Richter wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 70 If you're a custodial supervisor at a local high school, you know that cleanliness is key and that the best place to get cleaning supplies is from Granger.

Speaker 70 Granger helps you stay fully stocked on the products you trust, from paper towels and disinfectants to floor scrubbers.

Speaker 70 Plus, you can rely on Granger for easy reordering so you never run out of what you need. Call 1-800GRanger, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.
Granger for the ones who get it done.

Speaker 25 It was just before Thanksgiving, 2006, in Denver, when FBI Special Agent Jonathan Gruzing got the call.

Speaker 26 The boss wanted to see him.

Speaker 21 He said that we had a problem. He had just visited with two fathers whose daughters were missing.
And he thought a former informant of ours might have been responsible for their disappearances.

Speaker 22 That cannot be a very encouraging thing to hear, hear as an FBI agent.

Speaker 52 No, we deal with problems all the time.

Speaker 21 We try to solve them, but this one was unique.

Speaker 31 Unique?

Speaker 30 Well, Agent Gruising had just gotten a complex, controversial, and downright messy case suddenly dumped right in his lap.

Speaker 21 I had no idea that this was going to last possibly the rest of my career.

Speaker 46 Three years after Casey McLeod and Jennifer Markham vanished, finding them was now a top priority for the FBI.

Speaker 76 So FBI agent Grusing teamed up with small-town detective Carrie Thatcher, who'd been working the case for months.

Speaker 16 Agent Grusing wanted to get to the bottom of this more than anybody in this case, more than any law enforcement agency.

Speaker 16 FBI really stepped up and tried to do the right thing once they knew that there was an issue. And their informant had done bad things.

Speaker 12 Lots of bad things.

Speaker 7 So how and why did Scott Kimball become a confidential informant for the FBI?

Speaker 7 Grusing found out in his file.

Speaker 2 Kimball was a career criminal, but his convictions were for grifting crimes, nothing violent.

Speaker 49 He'd been lying and conning and conniving on and off for years, and had persuaded the FBI he could help prevent a double murder.

Speaker 13 It was all there in the file.

Speaker 2 Back in 2002, one of Kimball's cellmates was Steve Ennis.

Speaker 22 Remember him?

Speaker 91 Jennifer Markham's boyfriend, the guy who went to prison for dealing drugs.

Speaker 90 Ennis and Kimball were buddies.

Speaker 48 And there in prison, Scott promised Steve that when he got out, he'd help Jennifer achieve a long-standing dream.

Speaker 21 He told Steve he was bringing Jennifer to Washington to set up a coffee shop and get her out of the stripping business.

Speaker 12 But Kimball double-crossed Steve Ennis.

Speaker 46 That was when he'd secretly contacted the FBI, claiming that the murder plot he could help foil had been hatched by Ennis.

Speaker 46 and Jennifer.

Speaker 21 Scott was going to prevent two homicides from happening. Two people that were going to testify against Innes

Speaker 57 in a trial were about to be killed.

Speaker 21 That was his reporting.

Speaker 73 And the killer was going to be Jennifer.

Speaker 21 Yes.

Speaker 41 That was pure nonsense.

Speaker 30 But at the time, Kimball's story sounded credible.

Speaker 55 So after he was released from prison in 2002, the FBI paid him to keep tabs on Jennifer.

Speaker 21 He made it his job. He structured it so he would be working with Jennifer.

Speaker 76 Specifically wanted to, correct.

Speaker 91 Kimball found Jennifer in Denver, told her about the promise he'd made her boyfriend to launch her in the coffee business.

Speaker 25 She went to Ennis and asked in a recorded jail conversation, can I trust this guy?

Speaker 42 And Ennis said, yes.

Speaker 57 And I'll be able to support us both until you get on your feet. You're going to be on your feet in no time and you're going to have a good job.

Speaker 57 I'm happy.

Speaker 21 She saw Scott as a means to an end to get her out of the stripping business and was trusting that Scott was someone she should be associating with.

Speaker 9 But of course, Kimball had no intention of helping Jennifer and her boyfriend.

Speaker 29 He'd made up that crazy murder for hire story to get himself in the good graces of the FBI.

Speaker 33 And then he spun a web to trap Jennifer.

Speaker 63 his prey.

Speaker 61 And she, the single mom, had no idea who she was dealing with.

Speaker 21 Highly intelligent and very manipulative and a very good reader of the person he's talking to.

Speaker 78 Now, Gruising like Thatcher thought Scott Kimball was very likely responsible for Jennifer's disappearance.

Speaker 41 Probably Casey's, too.

Speaker 6 So they went back to Casey's mom, Laurie, to break the news.

Speaker 44 When did you begin to suspect that Scott had something to do with what happened to Casey?

Speaker 15 When they started saying something is big or wrong, he's not just a thief. We think he's a really bad guy.
I think you need to buckle up. This is not good.

Speaker 15 Too many missing people surrounding Scott Kimball.

Speaker 41 That's when Lori suddenly realized somebody else was missing.

Speaker 12 Uncle Terry.

Speaker 46 He was also living in the Denver area, just like Casey and Jennifer.

Speaker 82 And remember, he was actually staying with Scott before he mysteriously vanished.

Speaker 15 Scott told me that he had met a stripper and that he was going off to Mexico.

Speaker 30 And she bought it until now.

Speaker 16 We fact-checked it right away. He hadn't won the lottery.

Speaker 16 We knew that Uncle Terry was missing as well, knowing who Scott was and what the circumstances were, that he was probably also a victim of Scott Kimball.

Speaker 76 Three people who had close contact with Scott Kimball all suddenly gone.

Speaker 16 We actually ended up dubbing this case Operation Snowball because it had that snowball effect. Everywhere we went, the case just got bigger and bigger.

Speaker 30 Bigger still, when Lori remembered something else in her apartment.

Speaker 88 Trash bags with Scott's personal stuff.

Speaker 15 I kept everything.

Speaker 15 He had just junk and whatever.

Speaker 44 But even the little bits of paper and things, you kept all.

Speaker 15 I didn't go through anything. I just left it intact.

Speaker 27 Including...

Speaker 88 A grocery receipt from the tiny town of Walden, Colorado.

Speaker 21 I figure this could have just been a passing through sort of thing. Without context, that receipt didn't mean much.

Speaker 44 But you filed it away.

Speaker 65 Filed it away, yeah.

Speaker 26 And then they got a look at Scott Kimball's computer.

Speaker 63 Ugly.

Speaker 21 I saw numerous images of women being tortured and possibly being killed.

Speaker 76 Those so-called snuff videos, is that what they called it?

Speaker 21 It looked like them, yes.

Speaker 88 But also on that computer, this was puzzling and kind of dreadful.

Speaker 63 There was a simple photo of a young woman.

Speaker 67 No name, no description, and no idea who she was.

Speaker 13 A real-life Hannibal?

Speaker 22 Did he fit that?

Speaker 21 Yes, the movie character of Hannibal, he thinks two steps ahead, and Scott Kimball does the same thing.

Speaker 84 By June 2007, Scott Kimball had cooled his heels in jail for more than a year on those check fraud charges, while Detective Gary Thatcher and Special Agent Jonathan Gruzing tried to sort out exactly what else the man had done.

Speaker 9 And what really happened to Casey and Jennifer and his own uncle, Terry.

Speaker 13 Finally, they were ready to confront Kimball.

Speaker 82 And he said, of course, he'd talk to them.

Speaker 32 No attorney, no ground rules, just denials, which he repeated for hours and hours.

Speaker 90 I've never murdered anybody.

Speaker 105 I've never had anything like that.

Speaker 37 Thatcher and Gruising patiently listened as they wedged in questions about all those missing people, like Kimball's uncle Terry.

Speaker 106 Terry's not missing.

Speaker 90 He didn't win the lottery.

Speaker 20 He didn't go to Mexico. We know that much.
So he's somewhere, I guess, hiding out in the United States.

Speaker 105 Or Canada or somewhere.

Speaker 20 It's real convenient, Scott, that he's hiding out, that Casey's hiding out, and that Jennifer's hiding out.

Speaker 56 You know what?

Speaker 105 I can't tell you anything about where Terry or Casey or Jennifer are. And if you're going to ask me if I've hurt any of them or killed any of them, the answer is no.

Speaker 23 I'd love to have heard the conversation between you and Gary coming out of that interview room.

Speaker 21 Yeah, we called it Pixie Dust. We joked about it, but it's Scott's uncanny ability to get people to do things they would not normally do.

Speaker 38 Then they set out to break down Kimball's shaggy dog tales, a fact-checking mission.

Speaker 50 And they found one of Kimball's prison mates who was still behind bars outside Denver, a bank robber named Stephen Hawley.

Speaker 21 He's in prison for life. He's got nothing to lose at this point.

Speaker 75 Before arriving, they checked Hawley's prison records and noticed he had a frequent visitor a few years earlier, a young woman named Leanne Emery.

Speaker 21 He was still very passionate about his relationship with Leanne.

Speaker 93 Love with her? Mm-hmm.

Speaker 21 Absolutely.

Speaker 38 Stephen Hawley told them that he and Kimball had once hatched an elaborate escape plan when they were in prison together.

Speaker 3 A plan to get Hawley into Mexico, where Leanne would be waiting for him.

Speaker 21 And then Scott said, if you give me your girlfriend's number, who's Leanne,

Speaker 21 I will figure out a way to get you two together in Mexico. But he says, you can't give her my name.
You need to call me by the name of Hannibal.

Speaker 4 Yes, that Hannibal.

Speaker 7 Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal.

Speaker 22 Did he fit that?

Speaker 22 Yes.

Speaker 21 The movie character of Hannibal is very high-functioning. He thinks two steps ahead.
of most of the investigators. And Scott Kimball does the same thing.

Speaker 21 He is normally two steps ahead of the rest of us.

Speaker 13 And it seemed miles ahead of his prison mate, Stephen Hawley, and Hawley's girlfriend, Leanne Emery.

Speaker 98 What did her boyfriend say?

Speaker 98 How was she to treat Hannibal?

Speaker 21 Hawley told her that Hannibal was someone not to be messed with, but someone that she could trust.

Speaker 26 So, where was Leanne?

Speaker 21 We find out that she has a dad, and I call the number and ask to speak to Leanne.

Speaker 68 This is Leanne's father, Howard Emery.

Speaker 54 And here is what he told FBI agent Grusing.

Speaker 34 She's been missing for almost five years.

Speaker 43 Leanne lived in Centennial, Colorado, a Denver suburb not far from where Casey, Jennifer, and Terry Kimball once lived before they all suddenly vanished.

Speaker 61 Howard had been looking for his daughter ever since she disappeared in early 2003.

Speaker 102 She had a loving spirit for people who most people would kick out of the way.

Speaker 102 The handicap, the disadvantaged.

Speaker 94 She was always looking for that person with the broken wing, right? Exactly.

Speaker 102 It was sort of a compulsion she had.

Speaker 46 Leanne was a straight A student. She was adventurous, liked exploring.

Speaker 91 caves particularly, loved animals, especially Dalmatians.

Speaker 80 But there was something else about her.

Speaker 34 Not her fault, just how she was.

Speaker 102 She was diagnosed as having bipolar situation. So she would have periods of depression and periods of anxiety and being impatient.
She made bad judgments.

Speaker 13 Like the man in her life, Stephen Hawley.

Speaker 102 She's convincing herself that I'm in love with this person.

Speaker 102 And he needs me.

Speaker 85 Howard didn't know anything about the escape plan, didn't know anything about Hannibal.

Speaker 71 All he knew was Leanne said she was going on a caving trip with her friends to Mexico.

Speaker 3 Not long after she left, said Howard, Leanne called him from the road.

Speaker 102 She said,

Speaker 102 Dad, I want you to know I love you very much. You know, when you get a message like that, you know something's wrong.

Speaker 3 Then, just a few days later.

Speaker 102 There was a message actually sent to Leanne saying, your car has been found abandoned not far from Moab, Utah.

Speaker 94 What'd you think when you heard that?

Speaker 102 I didn't believe it at first. I said, no.

Speaker 67 Howard called the cops in Moab,

Speaker 37 and they read him the license plate.

Speaker 45 Dal Gal,

Speaker 78 Dalmatian girl.

Speaker 107 When I heard that, my stomach got sick.

Speaker 102 I mean, I couldn't.

Speaker 95 I mean, I didn't know what I didn't. It was a total shock.

Speaker 23 Howard filed a missing persons report, and nothing happened.

Speaker 91 So he started his own investigation and discovered a trail of credit card charges and bounced checks in several western states, which certainly didn't seem like something Leanne would do.

Speaker 73 And Howard read and reread some disturbing emails Leanne sent a cousin before she left on her trip.

Speaker 24 I'm currently having to trust someone I don't know very well, but I have to do it to get what I want and need.

Speaker 37 My orders come from Hannibal for the moment, and he is a dangerous person to mess with.

Speaker 36 If Hannibal knew I was talking to you, he'd have me killed in a second.

Speaker 9 Howard wrote to Leanne's boyfriend, Stephen Hawley, and heard back.

Speaker 4 Hawley hadn't heard from Leanne either and was quite concerned.

Speaker 102 And he's saying,

Speaker 102 she is in big, big trouble.

Speaker 95 Says, you have got to contact the FBI as quick as you can.

Speaker 69 When Howard first called the FBI,

Speaker 67 again,

Speaker 63 nothing happened.

Speaker 7 But now, nearly five years later, the FBI was very much on the case.

Speaker 31 And as Special Agent John Gruising looked at photos of Leanne and compared them to that image he had seen on Kimball's computer, the mysterious, dark-haired young woman, he knew.

Speaker 4 That was Leanne Emery.

Speaker 21 Her hair was dyed, and it was only a couple days prior to her disappearance.

Speaker 43 There was no mistaking this very disturbing pattern.

Speaker 16 It was pretty clear that we were probably dealing with a serial killer.

Speaker 6 Scott Kimball makes an offer.

Speaker 21 He said, I didn't kill any of these girls, but I think I can help you find them.

Speaker 21 You're gonna say what you're gonna say because only you know the truth, Scott.

Speaker 105 Yes, I do know the truth.

Speaker 96 It was a strange and frustrating experience talking to Scott Kimball.

Speaker 105 I know what I have done and I know what I haven't done.

Speaker 49 Whatever you have is what you have.

Speaker 105 But whatever you have, I know what I have done, I know what I haven't done.

Speaker 10 The guys seem to revel in toying with detectives.

Speaker 105 I'm not talking anything about Casey. I don't know anything about poor little Casey.

Speaker 105 I don't know where she's at.

Speaker 16 Scott likes to throw in little nuggets here and there of truth. And I think that any good lie is usually pretty close to the truth.
And so he was really good at that.

Speaker 35 In the end, Kimball always shut them down.

Speaker 105 You know, maybe you guys should just take me back to my cell. Put me in prison, put me in jail, and I'll do my time.

Speaker 73 But in early 2008, investigators finally had ammunition, or at least something to trade, since he was facing almost 50 years for fraud.

Speaker 44 So they leaned on it hard.

Speaker 82 And for the first time, Kimball seemed to give a little.

Speaker 21 He said, I didn't kill any of these girls, but I think I can help you find them.

Speaker 40 Now that would mean something.

Speaker 29 But having dangled what they wanted, he looped right back to his complex webs of deceit.

Speaker 2 And then it was another prison conversation months later.

Speaker 43 Kimball actually seemed to slip up and perhaps unintentionally reveal something.

Speaker 21 He said,

Speaker 21 because federal prison is a little nicer to serve time end than state prison, he said, well, what if one of these girls disappeared on federal forest land?

Speaker 21 And it was at that moment when he said that that that receipt clicked in my brain.

Speaker 45 Yes, that receipt.

Speaker 7 The one Gruzing came across in Scott's stuff and saved.

Speaker 89 A grocery store receipt from a little Colorado town called Walden near the Route National Forest.

Speaker 21 I thought, well, what if that Walden receipt had something to do with Casey's disappearance and this forest?

Speaker 61 So, Gruising dug the receipt out of his files, and

Speaker 74 lo and behold, it was dated August 24th, 2003, one day after Casey vanished.

Speaker 73 But it's a big forest, over a million acres.

Speaker 25 Even if she was here, could they ever find her?

Speaker 90 Gruising called the U.S. Forest Service.

Speaker 21 I said, can I just get a map of that area? Because I'm ignorant as far as Walden and what it looks like. And they said, no, it costs $8 for a map.

Speaker 21 And I said, do you know how much FBI paperwork that is?

Speaker 22 And they said, well, we can't give you a map.

Speaker 89 A clash of federal bureaucracies over an $8 map.

Speaker 83 After much back and forth, Gruzing talked to another employee, and this time he asked directly and said, have you guys had any missing hikers or someone recovered?

Speaker 21 She said, well, right before winter, they did recover a hiker.

Speaker 1 Months earlier, a hunter, pure chance, spotted the skull through his rifle scope deep in the woods.

Speaker 81 The local sheriff had collected the remains back then. And now, Gruising sent them to the FBI lab for DNA analysis.

Speaker 21 And then he knew we had a hit that that was Casey McLeod.

Speaker 36 The news traveled quickly to Katarina Booth.

Speaker 99 I remember running down to the courtroom because my coworker was in the courtroom and we hugged and we cried. It was this mixture of excitement and relief

Speaker 99 all mixed into one.

Speaker 61 Finally, one mystery solved with a saved receipt.

Speaker 73 and some pure luck.

Speaker 40 It was like hitting the number in the lottery, frankly.

Speaker 22 Right, exactly.

Speaker 23 Well, How is it that a silly little thing like that receipt would pop right into your head?

Speaker 21 I don't know if you call it providence, luck, whatever. If I had called on that receipt when I first got it from Lori and say, do you have any missing people out there? They would have said no.

Speaker 21 And I would have closed that part of the investigation. It just makes me grateful that we found her.

Speaker 13 No one more grateful than the parents who could finally bring her home.

Speaker 64 During all this, I had to redefine what home meant.

Speaker 57 Yeah.

Speaker 72 Home used to mean, you know, my house.

Speaker 15 I want it.

Speaker 64 And it had to change because that wasn't going to happen.

Speaker 64 If you have a deceased daughter, she belongs

Speaker 64 in a respectful place with dignity.

Speaker 44 A place you can go visit.

Speaker 64 Or a place you could go visit.

Speaker 64 That's the closest definition of home that I had for her.

Speaker 14 Though there is no explaining, for the uninitiated, the kind of pain that goes with all that.

Speaker 15 Mind-numbing?

Speaker 15 I don't remember how I reacted. I really don't.
At that point, there's no hope.

Speaker 56 There's no hope she'll be found alive.

Speaker 72 It was just over.

Speaker 9 And then it got worse when it dawned on Lori.

Speaker 44 That particular part of the forest, the place where Casey was found, was familiar to her.

Speaker 57 Horribly familiar.

Speaker 44 This was where Scott took her during their honeymoon.

Speaker 15 We camped in the woods at a campsite, and he took me,

Speaker 15 as it turns out, to where he had taken her.

Speaker 44 What does it do to you?

Speaker 15 Makes me sick.

Speaker 15 I think he went to check out his handiwork. Because he took off on the four-wheeler, he would be gone for hours.

Speaker 44 That's really an awful thing to think about.

Speaker 56 Yeah.

Speaker 12 It cut into her heart like a knife.

Speaker 61 That whole so-called drug episode with Casey, he must have staged it, staged it all. The clues that she was alive, Scott's assurances.

Speaker 9 Just lies, more lies.

Speaker 13 And now there's no healing, ever.

Speaker 49 She annulled her marriage to Scott Kimball eventually, but there's no escaping the torture he inflicted.

Speaker 15 You have one job as a mother, and I failed to keep her safe.

Speaker 15 And I failed.

Speaker 15 I'm the one that has to live with that forever.

Speaker 9 But now, Deputy D.A.

Speaker 94 Booth was armed with actionable evidence, and she turned up the heat on Kimball.

Speaker 99 When that tide finally turned for us, that's when we got communication back that he was willing to sit down and talk to us a little bit about these missing women in exchange for how we would file those homicide cases.

Speaker 41 They made a deal.

Speaker 34 It wasn't pleasant.

Speaker 9 Kimball would plead guilty to the white-collar crimes and get 48 years in prison, no death penalty, no first-degree murder charges.

Speaker 29 But he would plead to second-degree murder and in exchange, agree to lead investigators to the places he left his remaining victims, Leanne and Jennifer and Uncle Terry.

Speaker 99 He was talking actively about where they were going to be, what kind of equipment we would need. He was talking about helicopters.
He wanted horses and high-tech equipment.

Speaker 99 There was a jail deputy just looking at me like, what are you doing?

Speaker 99 And I scribbled on a piece of note and passed it to him and said,

Speaker 99 we just made the deal with the devil.

Speaker 58 The search begins.

Speaker 21 He goes to a different creekbed, says, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas. And then we put the flag there.

Speaker 108 Hi, I'm Jenny Slate. And believe it or not, someone is allowing us to have a podcast.

Speaker 27 I'm Gabe Weedman.

Speaker 106 I'm Max Silvestri. And we've been friends for 20 years.
And we like to reach out to kind of get advice on how to live our lives.

Speaker 16 It's called I Need You Guys.

Speaker 106 Should I give my baby fresh vegetables?

Speaker 108 Can I drink the water at the hospital?

Speaker 100 My landlord plays the trombone and I can't ask him to stop.

Speaker 108 You should make sure that you subscribe so that you never miss an episode.

Speaker 51 I need you, girl.

Speaker 109 Just got a new puppy or kitten. Congrats! But also, yikes!

Speaker 109 Between crates, beds, toys, treats, and those first few vet visits, you've probably already dropped a small fortune, which is where limited pet insurance comes in.

Speaker 109 It helps cover vet costs so you can focus on what's best for your new pet. The coverage is customizable, signup is quick and easy, and your claims are handled in as little as three seconds.
Pro tip.

Speaker 109 Lemonade offers a package specifically for puppies and kittens. Get a quote at lemonade.com slash pet.
Your future self will thank you. Your pet won't.
They don't know what insurance is.

Speaker 110 A mochi moment from Tara, who writes, For years, all my doctor said was eat less and move more, which never worked. But you know what does? The simple eating tips from my nutritionist at Mochi.

Speaker 110 And after losing over over 30 pounds, I can say you're not just another GLP1 source, you're a life source. Thanks, Tara.
I'm Myra Ammet, founder of Mochi Health.

Speaker 110 To find your Mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com.

Speaker 111 Mochi members have access to licensed physicians and nutritionists and are compensated for their stories. Results may vary.

Speaker 8 It took time to make that deal with the devil.

Speaker 82 It was February 2009 when a convoy of cars pulled out of Grand Junction, Colorado, heading west toward Utah in search of two women who'd now been missing for almost six years, Leanne Emery and Jennifer Markham.

Speaker 10 Inside one of those SUVs, Scott Kimball.

Speaker 50 In another, prosecutor, Katarina Booth.

Speaker 99 And there was, no kidding, about nine big black SUVs, tinted windows, and you'd watch people on the street stop and pause and look as if like the president was going down, you know, the street.

Speaker 99 Scott loved that there was that much of a production around him.

Speaker 39 All that was missing was the movie crew.

Speaker 99 That's right. Like, this was his show.
This was his production.

Speaker 30 They crossed into Utah and entered a remote and rugged area called the Book Cliffs.

Speaker 16 The Book Cliff area is a very vast area. Without his help, there would never be any finding these bodies.
It was a needle in a haystack.

Speaker 85 But there was optimism in the air as they rolled through the rugged canyons.

Speaker 99 I think we all went there thinking by the end of the day, we might have Leanne and Jennifer and we were excited and eager.

Speaker 75 Then Scott Kimball said, here,

Speaker 3 stop here.

Speaker 99 As he got out of the car,

Speaker 99 just this grin that came over his face. And I remember vividly watching him and how he felt very in control and he was loving every minute of it.

Speaker 3 But there was nothing there.

Speaker 4 Not then.

Speaker 13 And not all day.

Speaker 53 The convoy rolled home, disappointed. A couple of days later, they tried again.

Speaker 21 He goes to a different creek bed, says, Merry Christmas. This is creek bed number two.

Speaker 21 This is Jennifer. Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas. And then we put the flag there.

Speaker 99 And everybody dug. I even dug.

Speaker 16 We excavated this whole area and found absolutely nothing.

Speaker 22 And he knew it.

Speaker 16 We think he did. He played games with us.

Speaker 94 You start to feel like an idiot after a while.

Speaker 16 Yeah, that's where Johnny and I had to keep our patient hats on. Let's keep searching.
Let's keep searching.

Speaker 16 But, you know, we didn't really have any other choice but to play the game with him and to keep going.

Speaker 46 But after another grueling, futile day, no Jennifer, no Leanne.

Speaker 99 I was so heartbroken and angry and frustrated

Speaker 99 because, again, I'm convinced he knows exactly where Jennifer is. And we didn't get either.
We didn't get Jennifer or Leanne.

Speaker 41 But patience.

Speaker 30 A month later, they went out again.

Speaker 71 Hours in, they approached a dry creekbed.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 Scott starts to act a little weird. And we're watching his mannerisms.
And then all of a sudden, it was, let's go this way.

Speaker 21 It was just kind of odd.

Speaker 16 So Agent Grusin decided he's going to stay back while we took Scott the direction he wanted to go and search that area.

Speaker 7 It seemed like they were close to finding something.

Speaker 37 But then, Kimball appeared to be leading them astray again.

Speaker 21 So Scott's going that way, and I'm going this way. And I walk about 25, 30 feet, just through some trees, over over some gravel, stepping over some logs.

Speaker 21 And eventually I find a small gray hair clip with hair in it, with some bones beside it.

Speaker 79 Whoa.

Speaker 21 And that was a moment. My voice was cracking when I said, I think I found Leanne.

Speaker 21 And Scott was standing over me. I can still see him today.
And he just had an odd look on his face. It wasn't anger, but it was frustration, maybe.

Speaker 21 And he says, we are not in the right place. Let's go search somewhere else.
So they got him out of there, and we secured the site.

Speaker 37 They called the local coroner, who would come out the next day to start digging for Leanne's remains.

Speaker 91 And now the search team's attention turned to Jennifer.

Speaker 21 We took Scott back to the Jennifer site.

Speaker 11 That is...

Speaker 3 the place he said, Merry Christmas.

Speaker 21 And that became then multiple sites.

Speaker 69 Because she wasn't there, wasn't in any of the places Kimball seemed to so enjoy taking them to and insisted they keep searching.

Speaker 16 At some point, you got to stop. At some point, you got to say, we're done.
And we eventually got to that point.

Speaker 46 They shut down the search for Jennifer and sent Scott Kimball back to jail.

Speaker 88 Word traveled fast to Jennifer's dad, Bob Markham, once so hopeful.

Speaker 33 He was now crushed.

Speaker 18 I prayed to God and I was hoping that maybe somehow he would find something.

Speaker 44 It hurt you.

Speaker 112 Yep.

Speaker 7 The next day, the coroner and search team, Minus Kimball, returned to excavate Leanne Emery's remains.

Speaker 30 Then Gruising made the difficult phone call to Leanne's father, Howard.

Speaker 102 and said, we have found her remains, and we were almost 100% it is Leanne. But he said, I wanted to know you ahead of time.
I don't want you to hear it in the news.

Speaker 102 I want you to know from us that, yes, this is her.

Speaker 86 Later that day, in the dust around Leanne's bones, they found the bullet that killed her.

Speaker 102 And that was it.

Speaker 94 There was no more hope from that point on.

Speaker 92 Over the next month, local teams searched without Kimball.

Speaker 25 excavating creek beds and tracking with cadaver dogs, hoping to find a trace of Jennifer.

Speaker 9 No luck.

Speaker 69 But there was one more big play,

Speaker 8 this time high in the mountains.

Speaker 25 Who would they find this time?

Speaker 12 Another body.

Speaker 16 They spotted a gray tarp that was wrapped with rope underneath a tree.

Speaker 5 Another bullet.

Speaker 15 A perfect bullet hole on the back of the skull.

Speaker 7 They waited for the snow to melt way up in the mountains. Yet another search.

Speaker 88 Not for Jennifer Markham, who was still missing, but for another of Scott Kimball's victims, his very own uncle, Terry.

Speaker 7 He was the guy who'd moved in with Scott in 2004, then mysteriously vanished, supposedly won the lotto, and moved to Mexico.

Speaker 82 With no such luck for Terry, Kimball admitted he killed Terry too, hid his body, and remembered every detail.

Speaker 21 He reeled off from memory exactly where Uncle Terry was. He provided us a map that was extremely detailed, and he told us what clothing Terry was wearing, including the change in his pocket.

Speaker 73 Kimball said he dumped Terry high in the hills above the famous ski resort, Vale, Colorado.

Speaker 89 Up and down they walked in that wilderness for hours, 10,000 feet up.

Speaker 16 It was getting towards the end of the day and I spotted a great tarp that was wrapped with rope underneath a tree.

Speaker 4 It was him, the uncle who'd come to help Kimball and wound up dead.

Speaker 99 Parts of his body had been kind of mummified over the years and right there at the back was a perfect

Speaker 99 bullet hole on the back of the skull. We actually actually found the bullet.
And that matched the same bullet as Leanne.

Speaker 11 Poor Uncle Terry never saw it coming.

Speaker 34 Why his own Uncle Terry?

Speaker 76 Why was he a victim?

Speaker 21 Uncle Terry came to town with a suitcase full of money from a divorce.

Speaker 21 Scott's white-collar crime and check fraud forgery, he will even admit, is because he has an insatiable appetite for money and he will steal from anybody he can.

Speaker 45 Or the prosecutors wondered, did Kimball commit the crime as part of a cover-up?

Speaker 99 It was shortly after him trying to kill his son. And we also wondered if there was ever anything that his Uncle Terry figured out about that not really being an accident.

Speaker 73 Scott had delivered Terry and Leanne's remains, but not Jennifer's.

Speaker 30 So now his original plea deal was dead.

Speaker 99 Once Once Scott did not get us to the place so that we could recover Jennifer, then that was renegotiated and he lost the benefit of his original deal and then received a more stiff sentence.

Speaker 11 From Colorado's high-definition newsleader.

Speaker 30 NBC Denver affiliate KUSA-TV was there in the fall of 2009 when Scott Kimball appeared in court in a wheelchair.

Speaker 42 nursing an injury, where he agreed to a new plea deal that included two counts of second-degree murder.

Speaker 68 He would now be sentenced to 70 years in prison.

Speaker 11 How do you plead guilty or not pleading?

Speaker 94 Guilty.

Speaker 3 But 70 years wasn't nearly enough for the families of his victims.

Speaker 43 They spoke at his sentencing.

Speaker 61 Scott Kimball has destroyed our lives. Our lives would never be the same.

Speaker 18 Scott tried to look so humble and everything in the thing, like he was being mistreated.

Speaker 112 Scott's an animal.

Speaker 107 He really is.

Speaker 32 Howard Emery, six years of pent-up rage, stood face to face with Kimball and let it all out.

Speaker 86 Since he will not get the death penalty as he deserves, Mr. Kimball must be locked up for the rest of his life.

Speaker 102 Me sitting right over here, and I'm right here, and let him know

Speaker 102 what I felt and that he didn't just enjoy killing people, he enjoys torturing them mentally.

Speaker 13 Rob McLeod had a somber but equally powerful message.

Speaker 64 First thing I said was I was there the very moment Casey took her first breath.

Speaker 64 And you, Scott Kimball, were there to

Speaker 82 take her last.

Speaker 36 And then Lori, Casey's mom and Scott Kimball's ex-wife, surprised just about everybody.

Speaker 15 I told him that I think that Casey forgave him.

Speaker 15 And because of that, I have to forgive him. If I keep hate for him in my heart, he keeps winning.
And Satan keeps winning. I just can't have that.

Speaker 43 Scott Kimball didn't say a word, showed no remorse, and then they wheeled him away, presumably to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Speaker 87 Except, as you will see, Scott Kimball, the man who likes to be called Hannibal,

Speaker 8 wasn't done yet.

Speaker 41 In the movie, Hannibal Escaped.

Speaker 94 Could Scott Kimball bring a helicopter in?

Speaker 16 It was another scheme that had Scott Kimball all over it.

Speaker 71 And were there other victims yet to be discovered?

Speaker 16 We have only a small little snapshot of what Scott's done. There's a lot more out there that we don't know about.

Speaker 7 He was here now, the Sterling Correctional Facility, where, after decades of homicidal con games, Scott Kimball was serving his 70-year sentence.

Speaker 74 That was the idea, anyway.

Speaker 101 New developments today in the case of one of Colorado's most notorious serial killers, Scott Kimball.

Speaker 9 In 2017, the men who liked to be called Hannibal the confessed killer organized an escape.

Speaker 16 Scott and another inmate were going to have another inmate try to break them out.

Speaker 93 Bring a helicopter in or something?

Speaker 16 Yeah, they were going to try to use a helicopter to bring it into the yard and help them escape out.

Speaker 81 But the chopper never came because the FBI got wind of the plan and foiled it before it got off the ground.

Speaker 89 This is another event worthy of a movie.

Speaker 16 Yeah, it was another scheme that had Scott Kimball all over it.

Speaker 95 So, was this finally the end of Operation Snowball?

Speaker 90 Hardly.

Speaker 28 FBI agent John Gruising is still investigating Scott Kimball in other cases, like this one from 2004.

Speaker 7 The victim, a young woman named Katrina Powell, was found mutilated and murdered and dumped in this alley near Kimball's workplace in a Denver suburb.

Speaker 30 and not far from the places where Kimball's known victims were taken.

Speaker 7 Detective Bernard Vonfeld led the investigation.

Speaker 113 What made it difficult was this lady was nude, no identification, no clothing near her, and the hands were not present.

Speaker 50 Agent Gruising consulted Detective Vonfeld.

Speaker 76 It was obvious Katrina was a lot like Scott Kimball's known victims, young, attractive, vulnerable.

Speaker 29 In fact, Katrina had hit hard times, recently resorted to working the streets.

Speaker 113 We were were able to find in Scott's own handwriting that he killed a prostitute.

Speaker 22 Well, this was a letter he wrote to somebody?

Speaker 113 Yes, it was writings that we recovered from his jail cell while he was in prison.

Speaker 79 Kimball's cellmate also confirmed he heard Kimball bragging about killing a prostitute.

Speaker 76 But when questioned by Detective Vonfeldt, He denied killing Katrina.

Speaker 90 But though Kimball had fooled polygraphs before, he failed this one.

Speaker 76 At this point, Scott Kimball is the prime suspect.

Speaker 113 We've got a lot of circumstantial evidence that points towards him being responsible for that murder.

Speaker 23 The charges?

Speaker 9 Not ready, not yet.

Speaker 83 But there are more such cases.

Speaker 82 More like Katrina and Jennifer and Casey.

Speaker 43 In fact, Agent Gruising believes there are many more murders.

Speaker 46 Murders committed by Scott Kimball.

Speaker 21 If I were to guess, I were to say the number is somewhere between 15 and 21.

Speaker 23 Which is pretty disturbing.

Speaker 40 There are that many people, that many families, that many unsolved cases.

Speaker 21 Yeah. Well, if you look at how he killed his four victims so quickly, this can't be your first homicide.

Speaker 16 We have

Speaker 16 only a small little snapshot of what Scott's done. There's a lot more out there that we don't know about and that he hasn't been connected to yet.

Speaker 31 But Kimball is connected to that attempted prison escape and is currently facing charges.

Speaker 61 So could prosecutors use that as leverage to squeeze Kimball into admitting to other murders?

Speaker 31 And maybe, finally, leading investigators to Jennifer Markham's remains.

Speaker 99 I would certainly always be open to the idea of entertaining that if we could get Jennifer Markham back. And I think that weighs heavy on everyone.

Speaker 26 Especially Jennifer's long-suffering father, Bob.

Speaker 18 It would be the best thing that ever happened in my life

Speaker 27 to be able

Speaker 112 to bury her and let her mom and her sisters and brother have a

Speaker 112 closing.

Speaker 23 This has kind of taken over your life to a great extent, hasn't it?

Speaker 112 It does.

Speaker 27 I've cried off and on for 15 years.

Speaker 18 Maybe Scott will finally tell him where she's at.

Speaker 76 In September 2018, the FBI once again resumed searching for Jennifer's remains in the Bulk Cliffs, but they cannot comment on their progress.

Speaker 9 Kimball was not there.

Speaker 49 He just turned 52 and will be eligible for parole in his 80s if he lives that long.

Speaker 76 But Scott Kimball will forever be known as the man who once conned the FBI and committed a string of murders right under the Bureau's nose.

Speaker 57 How the hell could this have happened?

Speaker 23 I think it was just really a perfect storm.

Speaker 37 Calvin Shivers is special agent in charge of the FBI's Denver division.

Speaker 25 The Kimball case happened before his time, but he's been dealing with the fallout ever since.

Speaker 114 How was this guy able to persuade multiple police agencies that he was credible?

Speaker 114 Apparently, he was able to provide just enough information and backstop some of the information that he provided with valid information. And that was the dilemma.

Speaker 114 You're looking at, is this information credible? Is it something we can corroborate?

Speaker 23 But he would know exactly what you're going to do to corroborate his information, because he was good that way, right?

Speaker 114 I would say a master manipulator.

Speaker 11 Able to manipulate the FBI agent assigned to manage him and, for a while, to get away with murder.

Speaker 47 Does the FBI feel it needs to take responsibility for some of that?

Speaker 114 We have made adjustments to how we deal with informants.

Speaker 47 So that's how you took responsibility.

Speaker 22 Absolutely.

Speaker 114 I'm really focused on, you know, what can we do differently. We, I think, are more diligent as an organization to deal with sources.

Speaker 114 We recognize, again, there's potential risk, especially with those who are involved or have been involved in criminal activity.

Speaker 46 There is one special agent who continues to work the Kimball case with the promise he will never stop.

Speaker 88 Not until we know all the victims of the con man killer, Scott Kimball.

Speaker 22 What's your motivation for continuing through this?

Speaker 21 A huge injustice was

Speaker 21 done.

Speaker 21 It was somewhat on the FBI's watch, even though that agent didn't have any idea what was going on.

Speaker 21 Yet, these dads were losing their daughters. And it's enough to justify me spending the rest of my career trying to right this wrong if I need to.

Speaker 9 Among the families we met, the pain and sorrow will never end.

Speaker 12 Any more than it will for the many others looking for loved ones Scott Kimball may have killed.

Speaker 87 No telling how many more secrets and stories might be buried in the book cliffs.

Speaker 25 Only Scott Kimball knows for sure.

Speaker 82 Hey everybody, it's Rob Lowe here.

Speaker 21 If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe.

Speaker 115 And basically, it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J.

Speaker 82 Fox.

Speaker 115 There are new episodes out every Thursday.

Speaker 60 So subscribe, please, and listen wherever you get your podcasts.