The Trouble at Dill Creek Farm

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Speaker 2 Tonight on dateline.

Speaker 7 What do you see when you walk into the bedroom?

Speaker 9 A deceased male laying on the bed, blood on him.

Speaker 11 My brother has been murdered. Things like that just don't happen to a person, but they were happening.

Speaker 12 She said to me, they butchered my catty.

Speaker 7 How scared were you for your sister?

Speaker 12 Oh, I was terrified. There was a piece of paper on the bed with a knife through it that said, bitch.

Speaker 12 I believe they came in there to kill my sister.

Speaker 7 This is a real Whodunit.

Speaker 6 Correct.

Speaker 8 We had a cast of characters that we needed to look into.

Speaker 7 To make things even weirder, one of these men was Eddie Munster.

Speaker 14 Yes.

Speaker 11 Yes.

Speaker 7 An actor from like Last from the Past.

Speaker 15 That's exactly right.

Speaker 15 It's like, what do we got here?

Speaker 16 Murder on the farm.

Speaker 9 A mystery from the heartland that will haunt you.

Speaker 18 I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline.

Speaker 2 Here's Andrea Canning with The Trouble at Dill Creek Farm.

Speaker 7 You'll find it at the end of Maple Road.

Speaker 7 A farm where years ago children played in the creek and rode their father's prize horses.

Speaker 7 Where life was good.

Speaker 7 He was a gentle giant, and the farm nestled in the heart of Wisconsin was his very own Shangri-La.

Speaker 7 Until the violence came,

Speaker 7 ripping them all apart.

Speaker 19 911 emergency, can I help you?

Speaker 7 It was early morning, August 2006. A woman in a car tore out of the driveway and lurched to a stop at the neighbor's house.
She hammered on the door, desperate to use the phone.

Speaker 7 Her cries pierced the country stillness.

Speaker 7 What's the problem, ma'am?

Speaker 7 What's the home?

Speaker 7 Then, just as suddenly, she was gone, racing to another neighbor's house, begging that neighbor to call 9112.

Speaker 11 I'm calling for Ken, Mrs.

Speaker 6 Ken Edith.

Speaker 19 She's in the house here, and she said her husband is in their house all full of blood and her phone will work tell her to say

Speaker 19 do we know if he's breathing at all is he breathing i don't know

Speaker 19 and you don't know if he's unconscious or i don't know she doesn't know

Speaker 19 they'll they'll get some help

Speaker 19 don't worry they'll get help

Speaker 7 An ambulance sped down the country roads and word spread.

Speaker 7 Laurie Yedis was on the other side of the country in Washington state when she got a call that something had happened to her older brother, Ken. Maybe a farming accident of some kind.

Speaker 11 I call the sheriff's department and say, what happened?

Speaker 11 And they said, oh,

Speaker 11 hang up the phone and we'll call you back.

Speaker 7 Is your heart pounding at this point? Like, what is going on? It must be scary.

Speaker 11 I'm driving the car. I got my kids in the backseat.
And then, like,

Speaker 11 the heavens opened up and the world cracked.

Speaker 7 Within minutes of arriving at the farm, an EMT called the Marathon County Sheriff's Department. We're here before a detective possibly code.

Speaker 21 I was actually in my squad car when the call came in.

Speaker 7 Detective Sean McCarthy knew the people who lived there. Dill Creek Farm belonged to 58-year-old Ken Yiddis, a local pharmacist, married to his second wife, Cindy.

Speaker 7 She was the woman woman who'd called 911 and was now holed up at her neighbor's house. The detective met up with his partner, Greg Bean, at the farmhouse.
This was an active scene already.

Speaker 7 Deputies everywhere.

Speaker 22 Active scene.

Speaker 9 We had the yellow tape cordon off the area there at the end of the driveway.

Speaker 7 You come inside. What's the first thing you see?

Speaker 8 First thing I see is the butler off to my right.

Speaker 7 Not a real butler, a life-size Halloween mannequin. It was a ghoulish introduction to what was going to be a very strange case.
Did it scare the responding officers at first? Yes.

Speaker 7 It's almost like guns drawn and then there's a butler. Oh, it's not real.

Speaker 18 Right, exactly.

Speaker 8 And you have to walk through this master bedroom.

Speaker 7 Their next stop was the bedroom.

Speaker 8 And on the bed was the victim. He was laying unclothed with some major injuries to his chest.

Speaker 5 Bullet wounds. Bullet wounds.

Speaker 7 Ken had been shot twice at close range. And there was something else that caught the detective's eye.

Speaker 22 On the other side of the bed, there was a knife sticking through a pillow.

Speaker 15 It had a white note on it, and on the note was written the word bitch.

Speaker 14 Wow.

Speaker 7 That's something you see in the movies.

Speaker 15 It definitely got our attention. Like, we hadn't seen that before.

Speaker 7 That sounds like a revenge thing.

Speaker 9 And then you wonder what's going on here and what was really meant to happen that night.

Speaker 18 Right.

Speaker 7 The detectives wondered whether the note was a message not for Ken, but for his wife.

Speaker 18 You gotta think, was she a target as well?

Speaker 7 Across the country in Washington, Ken's sister Lori got a call back from the sheriff's department.

Speaker 11 And they said, oh, yes, your brother is dead.

Speaker 24 Wow.

Speaker 11 I think I stopped breathing.

Speaker 11 Because I just, I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 7 Did you say how, why, where? I mean, there's so many questions.

Speaker 25 All of those.

Speaker 11 And all they would say is he was killed with two shots to the torso now it's murder yeah now my brother has been murdered things like that just don't happen to a person but they were happening i felt like this was a nightmare

Speaker 7 when we come back who would want to kill ken yeatis investigators dig in you're actively looking for the murder weapon in the house you're talking like a 105 acre farm so that's a lot of property to cover any security cameras security system?

Speaker 15 They did have a camera on the garage.

Speaker 2 What would the first clues reveal?

Speaker 7 Pharmacist and farmer Ken Yidis had been shot to death in his bed.

Speaker 7 Detectives and crime scene investigators were searching Dill Creek Farm. The medical examiner said Ken had been killed with a shotgun.
You're actively looking for the murder weapon in the house.

Speaker 15 Yes. No, again, you're talking like a 105-acre farm, so that's a lot of property to cover.

Speaker 7 And he has a lot of guns. He's got a lot of guns.

Speaker 15 Because he's a hunter.

Speaker 18 Yes.

Speaker 7 The detectives checked to see if any of the dozen or so rifles and shotguns Ken owned were used in the murder.

Speaker 15 We did an inspection of them. There was dust on them.
No evidence that they had been recently handled or anything like that.

Speaker 7 Any security cameras, security system?

Speaker 15 That's a great question, because they did have a camera on the garage, which would be facing the driveway, and I think one towards the back of the house.

Speaker 7 Did the cameras pick anything up? Anything unusual?

Speaker 7 Anybody who shouldn't have been there? Suspects?

Speaker 15 No. We looked at it.
There was no footage of that night.

Speaker 7 As investigators worked and day turned to night, there was still one important person who had no idea Ken was dead.

Speaker 15 His mother, Margaret.

Speaker 7 She'd seen Ken just the day before when he dropped by to mow the lawn and take her to visit his father at a nearby nursing home.

Speaker 26 He came to say goodbye, and what I never will forget is he said, you are the best parents a guy could have.

Speaker 7 Twelve hours after Ken's bloodied body had been found, a pastor and two police officers knocked on her door.

Speaker 26 So they came in, and that's when they told me that Ken had been murdered.

Speaker 7 Ken's kid sister Lori and younger brother Don, who both lived out of state, rushed home to be with their mom. How is your mom doing when you get to her in Wisconsin?

Speaker 11 She is made out of some strong stuff.

Speaker 11 But she, it totally destroyed her.

Speaker 29 She had to go up and inform my father, who was in a nursing home,

Speaker 29 that his oldest son had just been murdered, and that had to be tough also.

Speaker 7 Lori says Ken was her mom's favorite, although she probably wouldn't admit it. A standout athlete in high school, lettering in football and basketball.

Speaker 7 He'd scored top grades and worked a part-time job at McDonald's.

Speaker 11 And, on top of that, had a very good party life.

Speaker 11 So, I don't know how he did that. How did he do all this? In 24 hours in a day?

Speaker 11 He just didn't stop. He was just fun.

Speaker 11 When you were around him, you felt warm just because he had so much energy.

Speaker 7 Lori says Ken powered through college too, the first in his family to graduate. He trained to be a pharmacist.

Speaker 11 That was beyond anything my parents ever thought possible.

Speaker 7 They must have been so proud of Ken. My mother just revered him.

Speaker 11 He was like the shining star.

Speaker 7 And Ken adored her. He dropped by at least once a week to help with chores and to hug his mother.

Speaker 29 He would come right up to her and wrap his arms around her, give her a big old bear hug and lift her off the ground.

Speaker 7 He bought an old farm nearby and that's where he proposed to his first wife Betty. It was actually, you think you want to live here with me and do this together? And I mean, that was the proposal.

Speaker 7 Together they fixed up the farm, turning it into the perfect place to raise their four kids. When it came maple syrup time in the spring, they were out there with him collecting the sap.

Speaker 7 They were propped up on the backs of the horses. They got to ride in the parades that the horses were pulling the wagons in.
Sounds like you were a happy family.

Speaker 12 We were.

Speaker 30 We were.

Speaker 7 Until things changed.

Speaker 7 They'd been married about 20 years when Betty says she noticed Ken growing increasingly restless.

Speaker 7 Do you think for you two it was less about disagreements or fighting, more about just kind of drifting apart? I believe so. It was just growing apart in our interests more than anything else.

Speaker 7 In 1998, he asked her for a divorce.

Speaker 7 Ken kept the farm and they shared custody of the kids. He started dating again, and a few years later, he introduced the family to Cindy Schultz, his new girlfriend.

Speaker 7 She did seem quite friendly, quite nice. Ken's mom liked her too.

Speaker 26 You know, she would help me.

Speaker 5 She'd have the whole house cleaned and just really nice.

Speaker 12 I can only describe it as one thing. They were in love.

Speaker 7 Pam Ewer is Cindy's younger sister. I've heard a couple of times that Ken and Cindy had major chemistry with each other.

Speaker 12 Right, you could see it when they walked into the room. They were arm in arm, hand in hand, his arm around her neck, hers around his shoulder.
People said nobody could be that happy.

Speaker 7 In 2004, Cindy moved to the farm, and they got married a few months later.

Speaker 12 It didn't matter what Cindy looked like. It didn't matter what she was wearing.
That was his beautiful.

Speaker 12 And that's what he called her.

Speaker 7 That was his nickname for her?

Speaker 12 Beautiful.

Speaker 31 Maybe the father wasn't going to call, but then...

Speaker 7 That's what he called Cindy in a message he left her a few days before the murder.

Speaker 31 I'll be here until 6.30.

Speaker 31 Bye.

Speaker 7 So what had Ken's beautiful seen that night at the farmhouse?

Speaker 16 Coming up. I opened up the door, and then I saw her.

Speaker 2 Cindy recounts that awful morning. But was she the one now in danger?

Speaker 12 They said there was a piece of paper on the bed with a knife through it that said, bitch.

Speaker 7 Did you think that was for Cindy?

Speaker 24 Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 17 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 7 Investigators needed to talk to the wife of murder victim Ken Yides.

Speaker 7 She was the one who had found him lying on the bed in a pool of blood. She was the one who had made those frantic 911 calls from her neighbor's house.

Speaker 7 That's where detectives went to interview her in the hours after Ken's body was found.

Speaker 48 These two gentlemen would like to ask you a few questions. Here's my husband.

Speaker 7 Cindy didn't seem to know yet that her husband was dead or what was going on.

Speaker 49 They haven't gone in to take care of him.

Speaker 7 Before breaking the news that Ken was gone, detectives asked Cindy to go back to the beginning to tell them everything about that morning. She told them she hadn't slept in the house the night before.

Speaker 7 I've had a headache.

Speaker 48 This will be going on by third week.

Speaker 7 Cindy said she'd been struggling to sleep for days, plagued by migraines. She said she was still groggy from her medication as she was talking to them.

Speaker 7 I've tried to rest in the house, but the phone rings all the time when he's on call,

Speaker 7 even in the middle of the night.

Speaker 6 So,

Speaker 48 two nights ago,

Speaker 49 he said,

Speaker 49 why don't you try resting down in the duckling so you don't hear the fall?

Speaker 7 The duckling was what Ken and Cindy called a camper they parked in the backyard, their special place to relax. With the help of some sleep medication, Cindy said she'd slept soundly there all night.

Speaker 7 She said she knew something was wrong when she went into the house the next morning and saw Ken hadn't made coffee. His car was still in the driveway.
She realized he hadn't left for work.

Speaker 49 So then I went into the bathroom and opened up the door.

Speaker 49 And then I saw him.

Speaker 49 And he was... a very weird color

Speaker 48 and I said Kenny and then all I could hear

Speaker 48 is screaming.

Speaker 49 And I went to the phone by the bed

Speaker 49 to dial 911,

Speaker 49 and the phone wouldn't work.

Speaker 49 And then I went to the kitchen phone, and all I could hear was screaming.

Speaker 7 Cindy said she was in shock and later realized she was the one screaming.

Speaker 49 I should have gave him CPR.

Speaker 49 I went down the road

Speaker 49 to get a phone to get somebody to call an ambulance.

Speaker 7 Cindy, still at her neighbor Marion's house, asked detectives how her husband was doing.

Speaker 9 Well, Cindy, what I'm going to tell you is going to be tough, but Kenny is dead.

Speaker 6 Oh, Marion.

Speaker 6 Oh.

Speaker 24 I got a phone call at quarter after 10

Speaker 11 and

Speaker 12 an officer said

Speaker 7 told me that ken had passed and that my sister needed me cindy's sister pam went to pick her up at the neighbor's house she was sitting in a recliner

Speaker 12 and the only thing that i could describe

Speaker 12 she looked hollow i had never seen her look like that ever you know and i said

Speaker 12 Sin,

Speaker 7 what happened?

Speaker 12 And she said to me, they they butchered my candy.

Speaker 7 Did you have questions? Like, who's they?

Speaker 24 And what do you mean butcher?

Speaker 28 Oh,

Speaker 12 I had tons of questions.

Speaker 7 The next day, she had even more questions. When Pam asked detectives if Cindy could stop by the farmhouse, she says they told her about that note left on Cindy's side of the bed.

Speaker 7 Did you think that was for Cindy?

Speaker 24 Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 12 I believe they came in there to kill my sister. 100% they came in there to kill my sister and they didn't find her.

Speaker 7 Investigators agreed that the murder seemed like a targeted killing.

Speaker 8 When you have an armed robbery or an unknown suspect entering a home, there's broken windows, there's busted open doors, and there was none of that at this scene.

Speaker 7 So they began looking at the people closest to the couple, those with access to the farmhouse. It turned out there were quite a few, starting with a handful of teenagers.

Speaker 7 Cindy Cindy was licensed to take care of foster kids who had been in trouble with the law. She and Ken had taken in half a dozen boys over the years.
Some of these kids were high risk?

Speaker 11 Yes.

Speaker 7 With violent pasts?

Speaker 11 Violent past, difficult for the parents to control.

Speaker 7 Detective McCarthy remembered interviewing Ken and Cindy about one of the foster kids just the year before.

Speaker 15 I was called to respond to alleged sexual assault.

Speaker 7 Detectives quickly learned there had been other incidents. One of the foster kids had gotten in trouble for taking a knife to school.
Cindy said another boy made threats against her.

Speaker 7 You really had to look at these teenage boys. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 8 We traveled to go get the backgrounds of these troubled youth and to find out if there's similarities in the crimes that they already committed to the crime we were investigating.

Speaker 7 Detectives had barely started tracking down the foster kids when Cindy told them about an even more disturbing suspicion. She said they should take a look at another kid, someone even closer to Ken.

Speaker 16 Coming up.

Speaker 7 The police interview your children. Oh, yes.
Trying to see if they had anything to do with this. Yes.

Speaker 7 Seems like none of the kids liked Cindy.

Speaker 15 There was a wedge there, and just trying to find out what that wedge was.

Speaker 7 Tucked away in the heart of Wisconsin farm country was Dill Creek Farm, Ken Yidis' haven, his special place.

Speaker 7 After Cindy moved in, they decided to share it with a group of foster kids, some of them with violent pasts. Cindy had been a professional caregiver most of her life.

Speaker 7 Before she met Ken, she ran a group home for adults with disabilities. What was it about Cindy's personality that was a good fit with, you know, people who needed help?

Speaker 12 Just a caretaker. She was just a good caretaker, you know, wasn't in it for the money, but was in it to make their lives better.

Speaker 7 Now that Ken was dead, investigators wondered if that kindness had come at a terrible cost.

Speaker 7 Could one of the couple's foster children be Ken's killer?

Speaker 7 Were any of the teenage boys living in the house at the time?

Speaker 8 Yes, but they weren't there that evening.

Speaker 20 Where were they?

Speaker 15 One was in a treatment facility, another one was in secure detention.

Speaker 7 Were they really in these places?

Speaker 20 Yes.

Speaker 15 Everything checked out with them.

Speaker 7 Pam says that didn't make her sister feel any better. She says Cindy was convinced whoever killed Ken could come for her next.

Speaker 7 She installed a brand new alarm system at the farmhouse.

Speaker 12 And I said, Sin, I said, why don't you come and stay with me?

Speaker 12 She said, because I don't want to put you in danger. She said, if they kill me, I'll be with Ken.

Speaker 7 Detectives stopped by a week after the murder. They noticed something strange.

Speaker 8 The photos of Ken's biological children were taken off the wall. And Cindy's sister made the comment to me, yeah,

Speaker 8 Cindy took them down and she actually spit on them.

Speaker 8 and threw them in the corner.

Speaker 7 Why would she do that? Remember that note left on the pillow next to her dead husband?

Speaker 12 She went,

Speaker 12 you know, that's what the kids called me, was the bitch. I was the bitch.

Speaker 7 Cindy's thinking maybe one of the kids did it.

Speaker 12 Yes, yes.

Speaker 7 At the time of his murder, Ken's four children from his first marriage ranged in age from 23 to 16.

Speaker 7 Alex was the youngest.

Speaker 7 Specifically, she's thinking, Alex.

Speaker 12 She don't want to think that because, you know, this is a 16-year-old kid. You know, she don't want to think that,

Speaker 12 but it's possible.

Speaker 7 Cindy told detectives that Alex was angry about his mom and dad's divorce. She said he told someone at his high school that he hated her and Ken so much, he could kill them.
And there was more.

Speaker 7 Cindy said that he stole a gun.

Speaker 15 She says that Alex was like taking ammunition, some of dad's ammunition, out of the house. And then she talked about the shotgun of hers that was stolen.

Speaker 7 Detectives were all ears as Cindy laid out her suspicions, especially when they found out that the missing shotgun was a 20 gauge, just like the murder weapon.

Speaker 7 Did you think Alex could have left the bitch note on Cindy's pillow?

Speaker 18 Certainly a possibility at this point.

Speaker 7 But the accusations against Ken's kids didn't stop with Alex. Cindy told investigators about about a conflict with another one of his sons, Noah.

Speaker 15 Noah had a vehicle that Cindy let him take down to college in Florida, and Noah was trying to get the title and the registration of his name in Florida, but Cindy found out about it and was very upset, very upset with Noah, and arranged to have the car

Speaker 15 removed from Florida.

Speaker 7 Oh, so that was payback for him trying to take ownership of the vehicle.

Speaker 18 Right, yes.

Speaker 7 Seems like none of the kids liked Cindy.

Speaker 15 I think initially at the onset when they first met, I think that she did have like a stronger connection with Alex at that point. I think that dissolved relatively quickly.

Speaker 15 And there was a wedge there. And just trying to find out what that wedge was.
And

Speaker 15 what are the underlying factors? Why are we at this point?

Speaker 7 Detectives went to talk to Ken's first wife, Betty, and the kids. The police interview your children.
Oh, yes. Trying to see if they had anything to do with this.
Yes.

Speaker 7 They came to my mother's house where we were staying. And they separated the kids.
One went outside on a picnic table, one in the house, in various

Speaker 7 positions, and interviewed them about

Speaker 7 the murder. Cindy told people that the kids you share with Ken would swear at her and call her a bitch.

Speaker 7 Had you heard anything about that?

Speaker 7 I don't know my kids to talk like that or be like that, although also being teenagers and if they were upset or angry, they could have.

Speaker 7 The police also had questions for Betty. Turns out in the months before the murder, Ken and Betty were back in family court fighting over money in custody of Alex.

Speaker 7 Cindy told police things got ugly after one particular hearing. Cindy made the accusation that you said that everyone would be better off if Ken was dead.

Speaker 7 Sounds like something Cindy would say. You never said that.
I never said that.

Speaker 7 But detectives were about to learn Ken had other strained relationships. The investigation was headed to a place called Monster Hall.

Speaker 16 Coming up.

Speaker 2 A sporty new investment for Ken, the Monster Hall Raceway. But the deal with a business partner was about to veer way off track.

Speaker 11 He told people if Ken continued to try and take away his business, he would kill him.

Speaker 17 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 7 In the aftermath of Ken Yidis' murder, his current wife, Cindy, suggested investigators investigators check out his ex-wife, Betty. Six years after the divorce, the exes had been clashing in court.

Speaker 7 What did you tell them when they asked you, did you kill Ken?

Speaker 20 No,

Speaker 7 I did not. Detectives said they believed Betty, but they still needed to check out Ken's children, starting with 16-year-old Alex.

Speaker 7 Betty said the conflict between father and son came to a head about two years before the murder. I drove Alex out to his dad's place

Speaker 7 for his week there,

Speaker 7 and we were met with

Speaker 25 two

Speaker 7 big black garbage bags sitting on the porch. And Cindy came out of the house and she said,

Speaker 7 Alex, you're no longer welcome here. She said, I packed up your stuff.
You can go and live with your mom.

Speaker 30 Wow.

Speaker 20 Yeah.

Speaker 7 That was a huge shock to me. and

Speaker 7 I can only imagine how Alex felt because he loved being out on the farm. Patty says Alex was confused and hurt, but that didn't make him a killer.
Was Alex capable of killing his own father?

Speaker 20 No.

Speaker 7 Absolutely not.

Speaker 5 He

Speaker 7 loved his dad so much.

Speaker 7 Alex told detectives he didn't steal the shotgun and he didn't threaten to kill his dad. He said he'd always hoped to patch things up with his dad one day, and he said he had a strong alibi.

Speaker 7 He was at his mom's house that night with two of his siblings.

Speaker 8 After all was said and done with

Speaker 8 speaking with Alex based on

Speaker 8 years of experience, it was obvious to me that Alex would not have killed his father.

Speaker 7 As for Ken's son Noah, who'd been battling Cindy and his dad over that car, detectives determined where he was the night of the murder too.

Speaker 15 He was in Minnesota and we had alibied him that night as well.

Speaker 7 Ken's sister Lori never thought for a minute that his children were behind the murder. She says everything just felt so surreal with her big brother gone.

Speaker 11 He was so full of life. You know, he was bigger than life.

Speaker 11 How could he not be here anymore?

Speaker 7 And for a sister who lived thousands of miles away, she realized how little she knew about Ken's life.

Speaker 7 Of course, he was a pharmacist and he was devoted to his farm, but he was also passionate about something else.

Speaker 7 Ken was part owner of a local racetrack.

Speaker 29 Oh, he loved it.

Speaker 29 He was playing Ken at the track. Yeah, he had his camper sitting right there, and you know, there were always things going on, and people walking by and saying hi and stopping in and stuff like that.

Speaker 29 So, yeah, it was happy times.

Speaker 7 It was called Monster Hall Raceway, a nod to the old 60s sitcom, The Munsters. Butch Patrick, the actor who played Eddie Munster, would come and sign autographs.

Speaker 7 But the pharmacist's fun side hustle had quickly turned into a disastrous money pit.

Speaker 7 Lori said the worst part for her brother wasn't his own financial loss. It was that he'd encouraged his friend and fellow pharmacist, Ed Cost Levy, to invest too.

Speaker 11 I think he felt a sense of responsibility that he had gotten his friend into this losing business and that his friend was suffering the consequences as well.

Speaker 7 Cindy's sister Pam said that wasn't the only strain on the friendship.

Speaker 12 Before Cindy met Ken, Ken went to Vegas.

Speaker 28 Ken

Speaker 12 did the old lap dances or whatever they do or whatever. That was Ken.

Speaker 12 And Ed was his number one person that he drug around.

Speaker 7 But you say that all stopped when he met Sam.

Speaker 12 Because he wasn't going to wreck this relationship.

Speaker 7 So bye-bye, naked ladies.

Speaker 12 Bye-bye, naked ladies. And Ed wasn't happy.

Speaker 7 He lost his partner in crime, so to speak. Police tracked Ed down very early in the investigation.

Speaker 51 There were a lot of interviews, especially at first.

Speaker 7 Detectives asked Ed where he was the night Ken was killed. He said he was at home with his girlfriend, an exotic dancer he'd met years before.
A friend of hers was there, too.

Speaker 51 They moved in with me about Thursday before it happened, and then after the murder, I helped him get an apartment in Wausau.

Speaker 7 Ed said his friendship with Ken was solid, and his alibis seemed to check out. But detectives weren't done investigating Monster Hall Raceway.

Speaker 7 They had plenty of questions for the other part owner of the raceway. His name was Randall Landware.

Speaker 51 We found out that being in business with him, he wasn't the person we thought he was.

Speaker 7 Randall owned the campground next to the racetrack. Ed told detectives he had lied to him and Ken about the value of the raceway to get them to invest.

Speaker 7 They'd filed a lawsuit against him and were helping police investigate him for fraud.

Speaker 7 So how did Randall take all this that they're coming at him to try to, you know, get him in trouble and drive him out?

Speaker 11 I was told that at at a town hall meeting for the town that this

Speaker 11 racetrack was in, Randall told people at this meeting if Ken continued to try and take away his business, he would kill him.

Speaker 7 Pet says he heard Randall threaten Ken to his face. It happened at their regular hangout, the bar at the campground near the racetrack.

Speaker 51 And I was standing in between them and Randall kept repeating

Speaker 51 that he was going to kill this MFer. I was shocked.

Speaker 7 Do you know how Ken responded to this alleged death threat?

Speaker 11 Yes, it just made Ken more determined.

Speaker 7 More determined to push Randall out of Monster Hall for good. But detectives wanted to know, had Ken pushed Randall too far?

Speaker 7 They needed to talk to the business partner right away.

Speaker 16 Coming up.

Speaker 7 He does have a possible motive.

Speaker 15 Certainly not one to cross off the list.

Speaker 2 That list of possible suspects was about to get longer.

Speaker 11 They found a will and I said, oh my gosh, what does a will say? Cindy gets everything.

Speaker 32 Hi, I'm Jenny Slate. And believe it or not, someone is allowing us to have a podcast.

Speaker 5 I'm Gabe Leidman.

Speaker 34 I'm Max Silvestri.

Speaker 22 And we've been friends for 20 years.

Speaker 35 And we like to reach out to kind of get advice on how to live our lives.

Speaker 36 It's called I Need You Guys.

Speaker 37 Should I give my baby fresh vegetables?

Speaker 38 Can I drink the water at the hospital?

Speaker 39 My landlord plays the trombone and I can't ask him to stop.

Speaker 40 You should make sure that you subscribe so that you never miss an episode.

Speaker 24 I need you, girl.

Speaker 53 Need to restock inventory, cover seasonal dips, or manage payroll?

Speaker 56 OnDeck's small business line of credit provides immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, exactly when your business needs it.

Speaker 57 With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and full control over repayment, you can tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat.

Speaker 53 Apply today at on deck.com and funds could be available as soon as tomorrow.

Speaker 58 Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by ONDEC or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota, all loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

Speaker 59 Just got a new puppy or kitten?

Speaker 28 Congrats!

Speaker 59 But also, yikes! Between crates, beds, toys, treats, and those first few vet visits, you've probably already dropped a small fortune, which is where Lemonade Pet Insurance comes in.

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Speaker 59 Pro tip: LemonAid 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 7 Leading up to his murder, Ken Yidis had been feuding with his business partner from Monster Hall Raceway, Randall Landware.

Speaker 7 He'd been helping police investigate Randall and filed a lawsuit against him.

Speaker 11 Randy had a reputation as being somebody with a horrible temper. It was a very flammable situation.

Speaker 7 What happened when you went to go see Randall?

Speaker 15 He basically said I want to meet with an attorney, which was certainly his right.

Speaker 7 With his attorney at his side a few days later, Randall denied ever threatening Ken and told police that he and his nephew were playing video games the night of the murder.

Speaker 15 I just didn't think I had the murderer at this point.

Speaker 7 Just instincts were telling you?

Speaker 18 Yes.

Speaker 7 He does have a possible motive.

Speaker 15 There's a motive there. There certainly is.
Certainly not one to cross off the list.

Speaker 7 But you put him on the back burner for now yes while you continue to investigate yes as more time went on and the murder went unsolved pam says cindy was living in fear she made panicked calls to detectives and 911 there was a strange car in her driveway she thought someone had opened her doors and though it turned out to be a false alarm she once reported an intruder in the farmhouse this is marathon county sheriff's department yes the police officer here

Speaker 12 how scared were you for your sister Oh, I was terrified.

Speaker 7 Ken's brother, Don, said he had no idea how Cindy was doing after Ken's murder.

Speaker 29 Cindy was not communicative with us. I think I placed three calls to her after Ken's murder, and she never returned one of them.

Speaker 7 Lori didn't particularly miss her. She says she hadn't liked Cindy from their very first phone call, back when Ken and Cindy were dating.

Speaker 7 She says Cindy lied to her.

Speaker 11 She started talking about Ken's wedding earlier that spring to to her in Las Vegas.

Speaker 7 Lori knew Cindy and her brother weren't married yet, but she says Cindy went on and on about it.

Speaker 11 It was very romantic and Ken could be very romantic. And I guess as a little sister, I wouldn't know that.

Speaker 11 And

Speaker 11 so here I am talking to this woman about a wedding that I know didn't happen.

Speaker 7 Did you call her out right there on the phone? I did. Wow, this is quite the first impression.

Speaker 11 But it gets even worse than that. So up to this time, she was just warm and buttery.
Hi, I'm Cindy. Her voice was very soft and mellow.

Speaker 11 As soon as I broke that news to her, it was like I was talking to a different person.

Speaker 11 She was

Speaker 11 just angry and her voice even changed.

Speaker 7 Two years later, Lori's brother was dead, her mother grieving, and and not a word from Cindy to anyone in Ken's family.

Speaker 7 Lori and Don were surprised to find out Cindy had been talking to the town funeral director.

Speaker 11 He mentioned that my brother's body was going to be cremated. Now, my mother is very Catholic, and she already had a burial plot, so she didn't want him cremated.

Speaker 7 Is it possible that Ken had

Speaker 7 told Cindy that he did want to be cremated?

Speaker 11 I didn't know if it was his wishes or not,

Speaker 11 but I knew it certainly wasn't my mother's wishes. And I think that Ken

Speaker 11 was a good son and respected his mom and loved her so much that I doubted that he wanted to be cremated against her wishes.

Speaker 7 And at the very least, Cindy should be having a conversation with the family about the next steps.

Speaker 11 Yes, yes.

Speaker 7 Of course, as the spouse, Cindy had been on the detective's radar since day one, ever since her first first interview with them.

Speaker 7 The moment you interact with Cindy at the neighbor's house, how's she doing? What's her demeanor?

Speaker 15 She was flat. I would call it just flat, like talking real low, kind of muttering.

Speaker 48 And then I saw him and he was a very weird color.

Speaker 48 And I said, Kenny.

Speaker 15 And just sitting on a recliner. with her feet up as we go through this interview.

Speaker 7 A little too comfy?

Speaker 15 Comfy is a good word, yes.

Speaker 7 The detective said there was no sign Cindy, who was recently trained in CPR, had tried to help Ken when she found him covered in blood. Her white bathrobe was spotless.

Speaker 7 But it was taking a look at the camper parked outside the farmhouse that really made detectives start doubting Cindy's story.

Speaker 7 Cindy said she'd slept there the night of the murder because she had a headache.

Speaker 8 I don't think it would be something anyone would do on a fairly warm summer day here in Wisconsin.

Speaker 8 The camper itself didn't have air conditioning, so.

Speaker 7 That was something you noticed right away.

Speaker 8 Absolutely. It was very warm that day.

Speaker 7 But she did need peace and quiet. She wanted almost...
It sounds like she kind of wanted a cocoon where she could just...

Speaker 18 Yeah, and I would say the camper was also painted in the Harley-Davidson motif, so it was black and, you know, August sun beating down on that.

Speaker 60 But it was...

Speaker 15 It was her cocoon, as you said.

Speaker 7 Detectives asked friends and family about Ken and Cindy's relationship. Nearly everyone said they seemed like a good match.

Speaker 7 Then investigators got a glimpse of something at the farmhouse, something Cindy apparently didn't want them to see.

Speaker 8 Detective McCarthy and myself were, again, speaking with Cindy in her home, and we're at this desk. And I looked down below the desk, and there was a clothes basket.

Speaker 8 filled with paperwork and I happened to look up at Cindy and

Speaker 8 she noted that I was looking at at the stuff and she took another pile of paper and put it on top of that.

Speaker 13 What was it?

Speaker 8 Well, I know it was life insurance documents.

Speaker 7 And it wasn't just life insurance. A few weeks after Ken's death, Lori got a call from her brother, Don.

Speaker 11 And Don said, they found a will.

Speaker 11 And I said, oh my gosh, what does the will say? And Don said, oh, the will says that Cindy gets everything.

Speaker 7 What did you make of that?

Speaker 26 We couldn't figure that one out.

Speaker 29 The marriage was less than three years old, and so that for him to cut his own children out just again seemed inconceivable.

Speaker 7 Maybe the pharmacist with the racetrack was worth more to Cindy dead than alive.

Speaker 7 Detectives named her a person of interest.

Speaker 7 And then a brand new lead landed on the detective's desk. A strange letter with something even stranger tucked inside.

Speaker 16 Coming up.

Speaker 12 There was like a little jewel bag, and it had a hair in it.

Speaker 7 In this letter?

Speaker 12 In this letter.

Speaker 7 What does that mean? I don't know. Are they trying to say this? The hair belongs to the kid?

Speaker 12 I don't know.

Speaker 7 This is a crazy twist to the story.

Speaker 24 Right.

Speaker 17 When dateline continues.

Speaker 7 As the weeks passed, Pam says Cindy listened to Ken's voice voice on the answering machine again and again.

Speaker 31 I knew if I wasn't going to call, but just check in. I'll be here until 6:30.

Speaker 31 Bye.

Speaker 12 Every day, she would listen to this same recording of Ken. She'd go about her day cautiously, believing

Speaker 12 it's not real.

Speaker 7 Pam knew her sister was being investigated for her husband Ken's murder, but she says Cindy was no killer.

Speaker 12 I would consider her perfect.

Speaker 12 She's caring

Speaker 12 for everybody.

Speaker 7 And the person she cared for most of all, according to Pam, was Ken.

Speaker 7 When he lost his job early in their relationship, she said Cindy hadn't hesitated to step up.

Speaker 12 Cindy was the one that stepped forward and lent him money, $18,000 to live because he was paying child support and had his bills and everything.

Speaker 7 She was helping him get by.

Speaker 12 Yes, yes, definitely.

Speaker 7 At the time of his death, Ken was back to earning good money as a pharmacist.

Speaker 7 The family, the police, they believe this is all over the money, the life insurance money.

Speaker 12 Cindy didn't care.

Speaker 7 As for Ken's will, Pam says Cindy knew nothing about that. She stumbled across it stuffed in the back of her wedding album.

Speaker 7 The family finds that awfully convenient that, you know, she happens to find this will in the wedding album and that, you know, everything, lo and behold, goes to her, nothing to the children.

Speaker 12 That's because Ken was mad at the kids.

Speaker 12 Ken finally stood up to the kids and wasn't going to let them rule who he had a relationship or what he did, that he was no longer going to go back to their mother.

Speaker 7 Pam says there was also nothing suspicious about Cindy sleeping in that little camper.

Speaker 12 It was Ken's idea that Cindy sleep there. And as far as it being hot, we're talking about the end of August.

Speaker 12 By the time the sun starts going down behind the trees, it cools down.

Speaker 7 You know, I'm from Canada. The nights start to get a little chilly.
Absolutely. Just like while we've been staying here this week, we're pretty close to the time that this happened.
Absolutely.

Speaker 7 And it's cold at night.

Speaker 12 Absolutely.

Speaker 7 Pam says Cindy had nothing to hide. She cooperated with investigators from day one, meeting them whenever they needed her.

Speaker 12 You know, she said, well, you can look at me. It doesn't matter.
You know, you'd be remiss if you didn't, you know, investigate me.

Speaker 7 You're saying Cindy understood she's the spouse. Right.
You know, the police always look at the spouse. They have to ask those tough questions.
Right.

Speaker 7 In fact, Pam says Cindy was so determined to prove her innocence, she arranged to take a voice layer analysis at a neighboring police department.

Speaker 7 It's like a lie detector test, but measures your voice. Hi, Cindy.
This is Detective Katie Crumpsting. She got the results a week later.
From what I can see, you did not shoot your husband.

Speaker 7 But if Cindy wasn't the shooter, who was?

Speaker 7 Cindy and Pam put up posters around town, offering a $25,000 reward for tips. Pam didn't bargain for what happened next.
An anonymous letter showed up in her P.O. box.
What did the letter say?

Speaker 12 I have a copy of the letter.

Speaker 7 Just, you know, paraphrase for us

Speaker 12 that he wouldn't give up his bitch.

Speaker 12 So he got hers, too.

Speaker 12 And Ken was shot twice.

Speaker 24 This is very cryptic.

Speaker 12 It's very cryptic. And then if you don't believe what I'm saying, check out the baggie.
What baggie? There was a little tiny, like a little jewel bag, and it had a hair in it.

Speaker 7 In this letter?

Speaker 12 In this letter.

Speaker 7 What does that mean? I don't know. Are they trying to say this, the hair belongs to the kid? I don't know.
This is a crazy twist to the story.

Speaker 12 Right, right. Cindy offers a reward.
This comes in. Here we've got this,

Speaker 12 which turned out to be a pubic hair that wasn't Ken's. Yeah, that's what the detective said, that it was sent in.
It wasn't Ken's.

Speaker 7 Why would someone do that?

Speaker 24 I don't know. Ew.

Speaker 12 I don't know. That's what the detectives told us.
They said it was a pupi care.

Speaker 7 Who are you thinking this letter's from?

Speaker 8 I have no idea.

Speaker 30 No idea.

Speaker 15 It's certainly possible.

Speaker 7 The detectives sent the Heron letter off for analysis by the state crime lab and the FBI. But they got no new leads.
Almost a year had gone by since Ken's death.

Speaker 7 Lori says the wait for answers was taking its toll, especially on her father.

Speaker 11 My father was in the last months of his life,

Speaker 11 and we knew it.

Speaker 7 Before he died, Lori's dad said he was sure Lori would figure out who killed Ken.

Speaker 7 Did you take that to heart? Him saying that you're going to figure this out?

Speaker 11 Absolutely. Absolutely.
I didn't care if it took the rest of my life and every penny in my bank account. I was going to figure this out for dad and for Ken.

Speaker 11 Coming up, I said, hey, do you know anything about Ken's murder?

Speaker 2 A sister turned sleuth, questioning the business partner, the neighbor, and that will.

Speaker 11 It didn't look legitimate at all.

Speaker 32 Hi, I'm Jenny Slate, and believe it or not, someone is allowing us to have a podcast.

Speaker 5 I'm Gabe Leidman.

Speaker 34 I'm Max Silvestri.

Speaker 22 And we've been friends for 20 years.

Speaker 35 And we like to reach out to kind of get advice on how to live our lives.

Speaker 36 It's called I Need You Guys.

Speaker 37 Should I give my baby fresh vegetables?

Speaker 38 Can I drink the water at the hospital?

Speaker 39 My landlord plays the trombone and I can't ask him to stop.

Speaker 40 You should make sure that you subscribe so that you never miss an episode.

Speaker 24 I need you, girl.

Speaker 52 Need to restock inventory, cover seasonal dips, or manage payroll?

Speaker 56 OnDeck's small business line of credit provides immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, exactly when your business needs it.

Speaker 57 With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and full control over repayment, you can tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat.

Speaker 14 Apply today at on deck.com and funds could be available as soon as tomorrow.

Speaker 58 Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by ONDEC or Celtic Bank.

Speaker 55 OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota.

Speaker 58 All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

Speaker 42 If you're an experienced pet owner, you already know that having a pet is 25% belly rubs, 25% yelling, drop it, and 50% groaning at the bill from every vet visit.

Speaker 47 Which is why Lemonade Pet Insurance is tailor-made for your pet and can save you up to 90% on vet bills.

Speaker 42 It can help cover checkups, emergencies, diagnostics, basically all the stuff that makes your bank account nervous. Claims are filed super easy through the Lemonade app and half get settled instantly.

Speaker 46 Get a quote at lemonade.com slash pet and they'll help cover the vet bill for whatever your pet swallowed after you y'all drop it.

Speaker 7 A year after Ken's murder, there had been no arrest. His children and Cindy were slugging it out in court over his estate.

Speaker 11 So that first year, it was destroying all of us. It was soaking up our lives.

Speaker 7 Lori was determined to live up to her dad's faith in her, that she would figure out who killed Ken. She decided it was time to act.
Where do you start?

Speaker 11 Well, that's just it.

Speaker 13 Right?

Speaker 11 Just imagine me. I know nothing.
I know nothing about any of this. Where do I start?

Speaker 7 Before she became a stay-at-home mom, Lori had worked as a computer systems engineer.

Speaker 11 So I went back to the methods that I used to to solve computer problems because that's all I knew.

Speaker 11 And the thing that you do is gather data.

Speaker 11 Right? That's how you solve a problem.

Speaker 7 Lori flew home to Wisconsin and started hunting for clues.

Speaker 7 She knocked on doors around Ken's farm asking if anyone had any information.

Speaker 11 And everybody pointed to this one neighbor, his name was Mark, that lived just a few miles from Ken and was very involved in the racing thing.

Speaker 7 The neighbor told Lori Ken wasn't acting like himself right before he died. He seemed on edge.

Speaker 7 And he had a strange story about going over to the farmhouse one time when Ken was out of town and finding the locks tampered with.

Speaker 11 And at the end of my talking with him, I said, well, what did you tell police?

Speaker 11 And he said, well, they never asked me anything. And I just found that incredible.

Speaker 7 Lori also had questions about that copy of Ken's will Cindy said she found in her wedding album.

Speaker 11 It didn't look legitimate at all.

Speaker 7 You think Cindy made it up?

Speaker 11 I do.

Speaker 7 She noticed the witness to the will was Ken's fellow pharmacist and friend, Ed Costlevy, so she asked him about it.

Speaker 51 I didn't sign it. Both Ken Edis and myself were at work that day for all day.

Speaker 7 Lori sent a copy of the will and some of Ken's life insurance documents to a handwriting expert. What did she tell you? What was her conclusion?

Speaker 11 She told me that because I had not sent her the original documents, she couldn't say conclusively.

Speaker 11 But she did say there was a high probability that those signatures were forged.

Speaker 7 Cindy has always denied forging the will, but Lori wasn't just focused on Ken's widow.

Speaker 11 My mom would babysit the kids. And I would go talk to everybody,

Speaker 11 including people that I thought were involved in his murder.

Speaker 7 That could be dangerous.

Speaker 28 Yes.

Speaker 11 I really didn't care.

Speaker 7 She wanted to know everything she could about her brother's feud with his business partner, Randall Landware.

Speaker 7 This is a man that allegedly publicly threatened to kill Ken, and you're going to confront him.

Speaker 18 Yes.

Speaker 7 She took Ken's daughter with her. They found him at the campground bar next to the racetrack.

Speaker 11 It's like one of those old westerns where there's a bar scene and the doors doors open and the person walks in and everybody stops talking. Well, that's what happened.

Speaker 25 I walked on this long, long bar

Speaker 11 and I tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around and he looked at me and his eyes got wide like he had seen a ghost.

Speaker 7 What did you say to him?

Speaker 11 I said, hey, do you know anything about Ken's murder? And he said, no, he didn't know anything.

Speaker 11 He did go out and talk with me, though. He said that the first time that Cindy came to his bar campground thing,

Speaker 11 he said he thought she looked like she was surveying it, like how can I get my hands on this?

Speaker 7 Did you feel like he was pointing the finger at Cindy?

Speaker 11 Yes, I did.

Speaker 7 Were the police interested in hearing about some of the things you were finding out? Were they listening to you?

Speaker 13 No.

Speaker 11 No.

Speaker 7 The detectives say that's not true. They took Lori's calls and suggestions seriously.
But Lori started bombarding local officials with complaints about the investigation.

Speaker 7 She wanted to know why detectives never tested Cindy's hands for gunshot residue. And she wondered why they'd given the farmhouse back to Cindy after less than 36 hours.

Speaker 7 Did you think that in hindsight, maybe you should have kept the house longer?

Speaker 15 I think in this case, I think, and I'm sure you would agree with me,

Speaker 15 maybe holding this house for a little longer would help to maybe look through. Like I said, it was a large property.
We felt that we had done our due diligence.

Speaker 7 Lori thinks that you did not do a good job. Right.
She started investigating on her own because she felt you weren't doing enough.

Speaker 8 I'd like to see her findings.

Speaker 15 Right.

Speaker 15 I would say, and I appreciate, you know, that her brother

Speaker 18 was

Speaker 29 killed.

Speaker 15 in such a violent and brutal manner.

Speaker 15 I get that part.

Speaker 15 What Lori became and her allegations really hindered this case.

Speaker 7 You feel like she got in the way.

Speaker 5 Yes. Oh yeah.

Speaker 7 There were times when they said that you were getting a little too involved, too much in the way.

Speaker 11 I may have been getting too involved as far as they were concerned because I was finding out things that they hadn't looked into.

Speaker 7 But detectives also weren't sharing everything they were up to. There were new witnesses witnesses and new stories.

Speaker 16 Coming up.

Speaker 7 Do you have any fears about sitting here today and telling your story? Yes.

Speaker 2 And what's this guy have to do with this case?

Speaker 15 Eddie Munster.

Speaker 7 An actor from like Blast from the Past.

Speaker 15 That's exactly right.

Speaker 17 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 7 It was just after dawn, the summer after Ken Yiddish's murder, when Detective Sean McCarthy got woken up by an urgent phone call from the Marathon County Jail. Someone has information about the case.

Speaker 15 That's right.

Speaker 7 That someone was Brian Demler, a bartender at the campground attached to the racetrack. Brian was under arrest for his fifth drunk driving violation.
Why is he doing this? Why is he calling you?

Speaker 15 I think he was dealing with some of his own legal troubles, and I think think he wanted some help that way.

Speaker 7 Maybe cut a deal?

Speaker 15 Possibly.

Speaker 7 The detective rushed to the jail with his tape recorder in hand.

Speaker 48 Apparently, there were some things you wanted to get off your chest.

Speaker 7 The bartender said he'd overheard some men talking about the murder.

Speaker 7 Brian said it was not Randall Landware, Ken's business partner at Monster Hall Raceway. He said there were three other men detectives needed to investigate.

Speaker 48 The few conversations you had and Barclay's death laugh and everything.

Speaker 6 I really think them three had something originally happening.

Speaker 48 Those three pretty tight then?

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 So who were they? According to the bartender, the first man was Jerry Gentry, a businessman they called California Jerry. Then there was Gary Upton, also known as Dr.

Speaker 7 Dissect, who scared visitors at the campground's haunted mansion. But it was the third name that really got the detective's attention.

Speaker 15 Eddie Munster.

Speaker 7 Or more precisely, Butch Patrick, the child actor who played Eddie Munster in the TV sitcom The Munsters.

Speaker 7 An actor from like Blast from the Past.

Speaker 15 That's exactly right.

Speaker 7 He visited Monster Hall from time to time, signing autographs and hanging out at the bar.

Speaker 48 Why would someone have issues with Kevin O? I mean, what was what do you think would have been?

Speaker 48 I think what happened was

Speaker 48 pretty shouldn't know what happened, but

Speaker 48 today I fall no know what

Speaker 48 the drugs.

Speaker 48 Everything was reassuring.

Speaker 7 Brian, the bartender, said Ken had sold illegal drugs from time to time. In fact, the morning of the murder, he said he'd given California Jerry a ride to Ken's house to get some cocaine.

Speaker 7 The detective wasn't sure what to make of this. He thought the guy pointing finger still seemed drunk, talking in circles.

Speaker 48 You didn't have any personal involvement with Ken's death at all or anything?

Speaker 48 No.

Speaker 7 And then a few weeks later, detectives found out Brian the bartender was talking about the murder to people at the campground. Only his story had changed.

Speaker 8 He changes his story to where he was the the getaway driver of these other three after they went in and killed Ken.

Speaker 7 This This is a big shift from being suspicious of these three to now he's actually involved.

Speaker 15 Right.

Speaker 7 Do you bring in the three guys that he implicates?

Speaker 8 Absolutely.

Speaker 7 Well, not quite everybody. The actor who played Eddie Munster wasn't so easy to reach.

Speaker 15 Butch Patrick had to be reached via a publicist.

Speaker 18 Hollywood.

Speaker 18 Hollywood, right?

Speaker 15 Yeah, so he

Speaker 15 was out and about, but we did have a conversation with both Upton and Gentry.

Speaker 7 Both men denied the bartender's story. Jerry Gentry said he'd been in California the night of the murder.
Gary Upton said he'd been home.

Speaker 7 What's more, the detectives found zero evidence Ken had been dealing drugs. There's a lot of dead ends in this case.

Speaker 15 A lot of dead ends.

Speaker 7 For a while, the lead about the three guys from Monster Hall went nowhere. Until several years later, a woman popped up with her own story about one of those guys.

Speaker 7 Rainy, do you have any fears about sitting sitting here today and telling your story?

Speaker 14 Yes.

Speaker 7 Rainy is the ex-wife of Gary Upton, the guy who worked in the haunted house. She says Gary told her something nearly eight years after the murder.

Speaker 7 According to Rainey, Gary said he was there at Ken's house with some other guys the night Ken was murdered.

Speaker 62 And they went in the house and he says by the time everything was done, Ken was dead. He was definitely dead.

Speaker 7 Unlike the bartender's story, Her story put Ken's business partner, Randall Landware, squarely at the center of the crime.

Speaker 62 Randall had asked Gary several times if he would kill Ken, and Gary would continuously tell him no.

Speaker 7 And he says, finally, one day, I just said, okay, I'll do it. So he's like a hitman, essentially.
Yes.

Speaker 7 Rainey says Gary told her to keep quiet, but she eventually worked up the courage to call the police. It was like almost a two-hour interview that day.

Speaker 7 She even handed over a shotgun she says she found hidden in Gary's belongings. And you think this might be the murder weapon?

Speaker 15 Yes.

Speaker 7 Was this the the break everyone had been waiting for?

Speaker 2 Coming up, a new detective with new questions about the actor known as Eddie Munster and about the widow Cindy.

Speaker 7 You think she's completely acting on the 911 calls? Yes.

Speaker 32 Hi, I'm Jenny Slate. And believe it or not, someone is allowing us to have a podcast.

Speaker 5 I'm Gabe Weedman.

Speaker 22 I'm Max Silvestri, and we've been friends for 20 years.

Speaker 35 We like to reach out to kind of get advice on how to live our lives.

Speaker 36 It's called I Need You Guys.

Speaker 37 Should I give my baby fresh vegetables?

Speaker 38 Can I drink the water at the hospital?

Speaker 39 My landlord plays the trombone, and I can't ask him to stop.

Speaker 40 You should make sure that you subscribe so that you never miss an episode.

Speaker 24 I need you, girl.

Speaker 52 Need to restock inventory, cover seasonal dips, or manage payroll?

Speaker 56 OnDeck's small business line of credit provides immediate access to funds up to $200,000 exactly when your business needs it.

Speaker 57 With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and full control over repayment, you can tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat.

Speaker 14 Apply today at on deck.com and funds could be available as soon as tomorrow.

Speaker 58 Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by ONDEC or Celtic Bank.

Speaker 55 OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota.

Speaker 58 All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

Speaker 42 If you're an experienced pet owner, you already know that having a pet is 25% belly rubs, 25% yelling, drop it, and 50% groaning at the bill from every vet visit.

Speaker 47 Which is why Lemonade Pet Insurance is tailor-made for your pet and can save you up to 90% on vet bills.

Speaker 42 It can help cover checkups, emergencies, diagnostics, basically all the stuff that makes your bank account nervous. Claims are filed super easy through the Lemonade app and half get settled instantly.

Speaker 46 Get a quote at lemonade.com/slash pet and they'll help cover the vet bill for whatever your pet swallowed after you y'all drop it.

Speaker 7 There was a brand new witness in the Ken Yidis murder investigation. A woman who said one of the guys from Monster Hall told her he was involved.
And a mystery shotgun stashed away in his belongings.

Speaker 7 But when investigators sat him down for an interview, Gary Upton said his ex-wife Rainey had gone off the rails.

Speaker 7 Gary told the investigators that you're a liar, you made up the entire confession story.

Speaker 18 I'm sure he did.

Speaker 7 Not only that, he says that you were paid off to make all this up and that he has emails to prove it. Oh, he said that?

Speaker 7 Did you ever accept any money from anyone to make up stories about Gary?

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 7 That's a harsh accusation he's making about you.

Speaker 62 If you were in that place, you'd probably fight tooth and nail to make it sound like I was lying about it too, and yeah.

Speaker 7 After a few conversations with investigators, Rainey says they never contacted her again.

Speaker 7 That gun she found, police said it was the wrong gauge, not the murder weapon.

Speaker 7 The case seemed to stall. Years passed, and Ken's family started to lose hope.
How frustrating was it for you, Margaret, that all this time was passing and there was no arrest?

Speaker 26 Just was terrible.

Speaker 27 Yeah.

Speaker 7 At night, you couldn't sleep very well my mother waited every day for a phone call from the police that never came your family put ads in the newspaper on the anniversaries of ken's death we wanted to make sure that it didn't become a dad case and that that they were going to continue to do it

Speaker 7 and then finally 10 years after the murder The family got a call about a new detective. His name? Dennis Blazer.

Speaker 21 I had a reputation of looking at cases and not letting it go until there was a resolution.

Speaker 7 He'd been handpicked by the original detectives to take a fresh look at the case.

Speaker 21 I had a whiteboard that was like four by six and at one point it was full of people that I needed to interview.

Speaker 7 As you're going through all these suspects, are you keeping everybody on the table in the beginning?

Speaker 21 Everybody started on it.

Speaker 7 Detective Blazer quickly ruled out Ken's kids and the foster kids. That still left a long list of potential suspects.

Speaker 7 Ken's widow, Cindy, the business partner, the bartender, and the three men the bartender implicated in Ken's killing.

Speaker 7 This is really like a central part of the murder investigation, this track. The detective headed back to Monster Hall Raceway.

Speaker 7 Randall Landware no longer owned the track. He'd moved out of state.
But Blazer found his sister who backed up his alibi.

Speaker 15 She said that he was at home with her and her kids and they were watching movies that night.

Speaker 7 How important was that to you to get that piece of information?

Speaker 15 It's somebody who was able to tell me where Randall was at the time of the homicide.

Speaker 7 He still had to answer the question, though: did Randall get someone else to do it? The detective got Randall on the phone.

Speaker 21 You didn't line anybody up to help kill Ken, anything like that?

Speaker 10 Absolutely not. How would a person even live with themselves? I mean, you know, there's no way.

Speaker 7 But what about Brian the bartender's story of driving three men to Ken's house the night of the murder? The bartender told the detective everything he said before was a lie.

Speaker 7 He said he hadn't even been in town that night.

Speaker 10 You weren't involved. No, I was not.
You don't know who it was? No.

Speaker 7 Why make it up, though? Why would you put yourself at a scene of a crime that you weren't involved in?

Speaker 21 We talk a lot of times about people not making sense. Brian didn't make sense because he's an alcoholic trying to get out of a felony OWI charge.

Speaker 7 Did Brian have a decent alibi?

Speaker 21 Not that I could ever prove.

Speaker 22 None of these people I could prove.

Speaker 7 There were no records to prove California Jerry was in California. And as for the actor who once played Eddie Munster?

Speaker 7 Detective Blazer surprised the actor at a Wisconsin car show.

Speaker 7 He said he couldn't remember where he'd been the night of the murder.

Speaker 63 I was not in the hill, but I heard establishing that it's really difficult to pinpoint an exact case nine or ten hours ago.

Speaker 7 He said his old promoter might be able to help.

Speaker 7 But instead of backing him up, the promoter told the detective she was pretty sure he'd been in Wisconsin around the time of the murder.

Speaker 63 Did he admit to you at all that he was involved in this?

Speaker 63 I'm going to say no comment.

Speaker 7 The detective couldn't find any records to prove where the actor had actually been.

Speaker 7 Finally, Detective Blazer had to figure out what to do with Rainey, Gary Upton's ex-wife. He listened to the previous investigators' interviews with both her and Upton.

Speaker 29 What's Rainey

Speaker 29 got her teeth out against you so much for?

Speaker 23 I have no idea what her deal is.

Speaker 23 We didn't even have a bad marriage.

Speaker 7 Blazer decided Rainey wasn't credible. He believed she was just sore about a bad breakup.
He didn't even interview her. Why didn't you interview her if you're taking a new look at the case?

Speaker 7 Don't you think that might have been an important thing to do?

Speaker 21 From watching the interview that DCI did with her, and I watched it multiple times.

Speaker 15 It didn't make sense to me.

Speaker 7 For the record, Rainey says that she is 100% telling the truth and that this was not about revenge or a grudge. She was trying to do the right thing.

Speaker 21 But I don't believe that Rainey was telling the truth.

Speaker 7 The detective was far more interested in another woman in the case file. Another woman he thought was lying.
Ken's widow, Cindy.

Speaker 7 In fact, he believed the very first words out of her mouth about Ken's death had been lies. You think she's completely acting on the 911 calls? Yes.

Speaker 7 I didn't know that he did call you for her.

Speaker 7 I didn't know I had caught her. Sounds quite frantic.

Speaker 21 Everything in there is about Cindy. I, I, I.
I found my husband. It's not about asking for help for Ken.

Speaker 7 He thought Cindy's description of how she'd found Ken's body was just as fishy.

Speaker 21 She said when she got up in the morning, she went into the house and she went to the bathroom.

Speaker 7 Cindy told detectives she walked through the house to get to the bathroom, then back into the living room and kitchen before finally heading to the bedroom.

Speaker 7 But when the detective mapped out her route, it didn't make sense to him.

Speaker 21 The most direct route is to come in the house, take a right turn, go through the bedroom into the master bath. But then she would have had to walk right past Ken.

Speaker 7 She would have seen Ken right away?

Speaker 21 As soon as she walked into the bedroom door.

Speaker 7 Too hard to miss, in your opinion, if she came in from the camper? Yes.

Speaker 37 It was very obvious.

Speaker 7 But the clincher for the detective was this. Certain things had to be in place for the murder to happen that only Cindy would have known about.

Speaker 7 Ken, usually so conscious of security, had left all the doors unlocked. A house often full of foster kids was empty.
The surveillance cameras were switched off.

Speaker 7 And it turns out Ken wasn't just naked, he was passed out drunk on his bed, unable to defend himself.

Speaker 21 To have all of these things line up, she had to have been involved in it.

Speaker 7 It had been years since investigators had spoken to Cindy, so Detective Blazer picked up the phone and called her.

Speaker 21 Would I be able to sit down and talk with you?

Speaker 7 I suppose you could, yeah.

Speaker 16 Coming up.

Speaker 12 When they said that they were coming, Cindy was just so excited. Finally, finally, they're going to do something.

Speaker 16 Cindy's excitement would not last long.

Speaker 41 You think that it's possible that I could have done that?

Speaker 23 Oh, definitely.

Speaker 17 When dateline continues.

Speaker 7 Cindy's life had changed dramatically in the years since the murder. She'd sold Ken's farmhouse, moved in with her daughter, and written a novel in which a husband covers up the murder of his wife.

Speaker 7 The title, Spider Lake.

Speaker 7 But Pam says Ken was never far from her sister's mind.

Speaker 12 When they said that they were coming to interview her, Cindy was just so excited because she said, finally, finally, they're going to do something to find who killed my Kenny.

Speaker 64 Where are we going? I brought it back with you. Okay.

Speaker 7 Detective Blazer and his partner met Cindy at her house. They asked her to tell her story one more time.

Speaker 7 She described those terrible headaches and Ken tucking her into bed in the camper to sleep.

Speaker 41 He says, make sure you take your meds and take everything that I put out. So I was really medicated.

Speaker 7 She said the surveillance cameras were switched off, but that was normal.

Speaker 41 He'd always want it off because the humming was so loud.

Speaker 7 It didn't take long for her to point her finger yet again at Ken's kids. And not just the kids.

Speaker 41 Well, I think that Alex probably had the gun, but I think there was more of the fun involved.

Speaker 41 And I know that Betty, well, for one thing, I know that Betty Nitas, his mother, put that idea in his head, and Lori Rennie, Ken's sister, hated Ken.

Speaker 64 Do you know who shot Ken?

Speaker 41 I believe that it was...

Speaker 21 Let's just go yes or no.

Speaker 64 Do you know who shot Ken?

Speaker 41 No, not positively.

Speaker 64 Did you shoot Ken?

Speaker 41 No, I did not.

Speaker 41 No.

Speaker 7 How does she feel as you're kind of pushing back?

Speaker 21 It got pretty contentious during the course of the interview.

Speaker 41 Do you think I'm lying?

Speaker 64 I'm on the fence.

Speaker 41 You're on the fence. Uh-huh.

Speaker 41 So you think that it's possible that I could have done that?

Speaker 23 Oh, definitely.

Speaker 7 The detective suggested Cindy might have shot Ken during an argument. She said they never fought.

Speaker 64 So you got all these things going on. There's threats of lawsuits and losing money and you have no idea what's going to happen next.
And yet you guys never bickered. Tempers never got flared.

Speaker 64 Nobody ever got upset. Nope.

Speaker 64 I'm going to call

Speaker 7 me.

Speaker 20 I'm going to call

Speaker 41 me a liar.

Speaker 7 Is she asking for a lawyer? Is she telling you, okay, you can go now?

Speaker 21 No.

Speaker 7 The detectives press Cindy again and again to give them some kind of explanation about what happened.

Speaker 21 I want you to tell us.

Speaker 21 I don't want you to make up the story.

Speaker 41 Ken was drunk, and I grabbed a gun and I shot him.

Speaker 64 Is that what happened?

Speaker 64 No!

Speaker 64 Then what happened? I went to bed. I woke up to a dead husband.

Speaker 6 What don't you get about that?

Speaker 7 After seven hours of talking, Cindy asked the detectives to leave.

Speaker 24 No,

Speaker 41 And I'm good with God.

Speaker 5 And Ken.

Speaker 41 And I'm good with Ken.

Speaker 7 The interview produced fireworks, but no smoking gun. Even so, the detective shared everything he had with Marathon County District Attorney, Teresa Whetstone.

Speaker 7 You decided after that final interview with Cindy that you would go ahead and press charges. What was the tipping point? That you finally said, after all these years, let's go get her.

Speaker 7 At that point, I I felt that the detectives had done everything that they could do. This was the case.
This was as good as it was going to get. Witnesses were getting older, memories were failing,

Speaker 7 so it was

Speaker 7 time. It was time to bring it forth.

Speaker 7 She sent Detective Blazer to arrest Cindy at home.

Speaker 7 What's the look on her face when you knock on the door after all these years? And you've got the cuffs.

Speaker 21 She kept saying that I didn't do this. I didn't shoot my husband.

Speaker 7 How surprised was she?

Speaker 21 Let's just say she doesn't like me very well.

Speaker 29 Dennis sent us a picture or her mugshot of being booked into the Marathon County Jail. And so we were happy.
We were all very, very happy.

Speaker 7 And finally, it was a sense of relief that this was

Speaker 7 happening.

Speaker 7 The prosecutor wasn't ready to celebrate just yet. She knew her circumstantial case was was no slam dunk.
There were plenty of alternate suspects with shaky alibis the defense could point to.

Speaker 7 So she charged Cindy, not with pulling the trigger herself, but with being party to the murder. Are you essentially saying you don't know if Cindy acted alone?

Speaker 7 I am saying that I don't know if Cindy acted alone, yes.

Speaker 7 But when Cindy's murder trial opened at the Marathon County Courthouse 15 years after Ken's death, the prosecutor had one sole focus. Good afternoon.
Cindy.

Speaker 7 The defendant had found herself the goose that laid the golden egg.

Speaker 7 Greed had driven Cindy to kill, the prosecutor told the jury. She said Cindy had been attracted to Ken for his pharmacist's income and that beautiful farm.
But even that wasn't enough.

Speaker 7 She grew impatient.

Speaker 7 She knew the golden egg's real wealth, $1.2 million,

Speaker 7 wasn't hers until Ken was dead. Also, there's almost a...
And then the prosecutor called witnesses to show how Cindy had methodically stacked up insurance policy on top of insurance policy.

Speaker 7 This one is just a flat fee, $280,000, if the death occurred. The amount of the coverage was $301,000.

Speaker 7 Five policies that added up to nearly $1 million.

Speaker 7 Throw in the property Cindy inherited from Ken, she stood to make a fortune from his death.

Speaker 7 And contrary to what Cindy told investigators, the prosecutor said there was tension in the marriage over money.

Speaker 7 The neighbor Laurie found, he told the jury he overheard Cindy pushing Ken to sell some land.

Speaker 21 What, if anything, did she say they needed to sell the land for?

Speaker 4 They needed money.

Speaker 7 The prosecutor argued this is why Cindy had set in motion a murder only she could have pulled off.

Speaker 7 The only one to know that the surveillance system was off,

Speaker 7 the doors were unlocked,

Speaker 7 the foster children would not be there, was the defendant.

Speaker 7 And if it was hard to believe that Cindy could be cold enough to shoot her husband twice at close range, the prosecutor asked the jury to listen to his mother, Margaret. How old are you, Miss Yedis?

Speaker 26 One or two.

Speaker 7 Did you look at Cindy in the courtroom?

Speaker 26 Not directly because she sat on the side and I was looking at the jury, you know.

Speaker 6 I didn't want to.

Speaker 7 Margaret told the jury how nice Cindy seemed before Ken's death. Afterwards, she was a completely different person.

Speaker 26 I asked her if we could have the body back so we could have a Christian burial.

Speaker 65 And she said, no, she's going to take care of it.

Speaker 7 Did you have any contact with Cindy about having any of your son's remains given to you?

Speaker 26 Yes, but she said no.

Speaker 7 The prosecutor played a pleading voicemail. Margaret left Cindy.

Speaker 31 I don't know why you don't give me a call back.

Speaker 31 Maybe you would know more about who murdered him than we do. Would you please call back?

Speaker 7 Cindy didn't.

Speaker 7 Finally, the prosecutor directed the jury to take a look at one of the first clues detectives found at the scene. That note left on Cindy's pillow.
She asked them to consider who had written it.

Speaker 7 There were notes on the mirror that were actually affectionate notes that Cindy Schultzitis had pretty clearly stated were from Ken to her.

Speaker 7 And there was a very distinct way of writing a B that looked like the number six.

Speaker 7 The prosecutor told the jury to check the B on the note found next to Ken's body. Could Ken have written that too? The detective certainly thought so.

Speaker 21 My personal opinion is that Ken and Cindy were arguing. There was a note that was stabbed in the pillow on her side of the bed.
I think that Ken just had enough that day.

Speaker 21 And when Cindy came in and saw the note in the bed, She had enough and she just went and got a shotgun and shot her husband.

Speaker 65 Your Honor, the defense calls Cindy.

Speaker 61 She'll see this to the stand.

Speaker 65 All right, thank you. Please come forward, Miss Warren.

Speaker 7 But now it was Cindy's turn to tell her story to the jury,

Speaker 7 and she was ready.

Speaker 50 Coming up, I didn't kill my husband, and I wanted

Speaker 50 to find out, I guess, who did.

Speaker 2 Cindy on the stand and the other suspects, too.

Speaker 2 Who would the jury believe?

Speaker 7 Pam Ewer says the picture the prosecutor painted of her sister as a money-hungry murderer was plain wrong. She says Ken was the one who wanted all those insurance policies, not Cindy.

Speaker 12 Cindy wasn't planning for Ken to die. Cindy wanted her husband.
Cindy wasn't looking for money.

Speaker 7 The prosecutor said that that there was only one person who could have lined everything up perfectly, you know, to commit this murder, and that was Cindy.

Speaker 7 You know, she had the motive and the means to pull this off.

Speaker 12 What do I say to that?

Speaker 12 Somebody planned it, and it wasn't my sister. Believe me.

Speaker 7 Someone else did it. That was the crux of Cindy's defense in court, too.

Speaker 65 There was a man at the campground named Brian that was telling people there that he was a driver in a getaway car.

Speaker 7 Cindy's defense attorney, Earl Gray, called one of the campers who'd heard Brian's stories to the stand.

Speaker 61 He told me that he was the getaway driver of the vehicle.

Speaker 7 The defense attorney also called Brian the bartender. It was something the prosecutor had expected and planned for.
And it's why she made a bold decision before trial.

Speaker 7 You decided to give these men immunity. What was the logic behind that since you weren't even sure if they were involved? Because we needed the truth.

Speaker 7 Immunity meant the prosecutor could not criminally charge the men for any secrets they revealed on the witness stand. Brian, the bartender, didn't reveal much.
He denied being involved in the murder.

Speaker 7 He even denied telling some of those stories.

Speaker 65 Did you tell Calvin anything about the murder of Ken Yitos?

Speaker 15 No.

Speaker 7 Rainey's ex, Gary Upton, also denied being part of any murder plot. He did admit to knowing Cindy.

Speaker 26 Did you ever call her a witch?

Speaker 8 Possibly.

Speaker 7 Butch Patrick was adamant, too. He didn't kill Ken, but the defense asked him what proof he had.

Speaker 61 The only proof that you have

Speaker 30 that

Speaker 61 you weren't here is zero, correct?

Speaker 6 You don't remember where you were on the days of the shooting.

Speaker 61 Is that right?

Speaker 15 Yes.

Speaker 7 Then there was this defense witness, a friend of Ken's, who said a few days before the murder, Ken was afraid not of his wife, but something at the racetrack.

Speaker 7 So afraid, he told the jury, that Ken asked him to go there with him because he didn't want to go alone.

Speaker 17 I observed he was very nervous and

Speaker 60 looking around a lot more than he usually did.

Speaker 7 And in case the jury was wondering if Cindy and the guys from Monster Hall were in it together, the defense said there was no proof she conspired with them or anyone else.

Speaker 7 Then it came time for Cindy to take the stand.

Speaker 50 I saw Ken on the bed.

Speaker 61 And what did you do? Did you do anything?

Speaker 50 I remember making my way to the phone and then as I'm looking at Ken trying to use the phone, I felt like I was floating above him,

Speaker 50 looking down, and I could hear screaming,

Speaker 50 and I didn't realize that it was me.

Speaker 7 And she explained she'd done her best to help detectives, talking to them whenever they needed her.

Speaker 27 Why did you agree to all these interviews?

Speaker 50 Because I didn't kill my husband, and I wanted

Speaker 50 to find out, I guess, who did.

Speaker 7 The prosecutor pounced on Cindy in a testy cross-examination.

Speaker 7 You do not administer any aid whatsoever, correct?

Speaker 50 The first rule of CPR.

Speaker 7 Your Honor, I'd ask that she answer the question, yes or no?

Speaker 34 All right, answer the question, please.

Speaker 50 I did not administer first aid. No.

Speaker 7 When you opened the door to the bedroom from that bathroom, what did you see?

Speaker 50 I think you've asked me about this

Speaker 50 before, and I've answered it before, so ask and answered.

Speaker 7 The prosecutor asked Cindy how she could have slept through the murder. The camper was parked just steps from the house.
I think the volume of the inconsistencies was compelling.

Speaker 7 You didn't hear two shotgun blasts?

Speaker 50 No.

Speaker 7 You said you're a light sleeper, correct?

Speaker 65 Ordinarily, yes.

Speaker 7 But not that night.

Speaker 50 I was medicated.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 the medication that you say you took

Speaker 7 allowed you to sleep so soundly that you slept through two shotgun blasts.

Speaker 65 Check to his argument.

Speaker 7 After nearly six six hours of testimony, Cindy walked back to the defense table. It was time for the jury to take the case.

Speaker 7 Then, after four and a half hours of deliberation, a verdict.

Speaker 65 We, the jury, as and for our verdict, find the defendant Cindy Schultz.

Speaker 34 He is guilty of first-degree intentional homicide as a party to a crime.

Speaker 7 What's that moment like?

Speaker 29 It was wonderful. It was absolutely wonderful.

Speaker 29 Everybody was hugging each other.

Speaker 7 At the sentencing, Don read a letter written by his mother.

Speaker 29 Were it not for Cindy's actions, Ken would now be 74 years old, still providing assistance to me and enjoying the best years of his life.

Speaker 7 Was that so painful for you reading that on behalf of your mom in that courtroom?

Speaker 29 It was sad that

Speaker 29 I had to do it, yes.

Speaker 7 The judge sentenced Cindy to life without parole. Anything you want to say to her now?

Speaker 12 You're a beast, Cindy.

Speaker 27 That's all I can say.

Speaker 15 That's how I feel.

Speaker 7 Cindy hired a new legal team to fight her conviction.

Speaker 12 The truth's going to come out. The truth is going to come out.

Speaker 7 So, what do you say to people who say you're just blindly supporting her? You're not going to be able to do it.

Speaker 12 Oh, they're wrong.

Speaker 7 They're wrong. You think the real killer and accomplices are walking around? All the liars?

Speaker 12 Oh, yes, they are.

Speaker 7 The other sister in this story, Ken's kid sister Lori, also thinks there are unanswered questions. She's convinced Cindy didn't act alone.
You feel like someone got away with murder.

Speaker 11 Yes, I do.

Speaker 7 Cindy didn't live to see another day in court. Nearly two years after her conviction, she was found beaten to death in her cell.
Her cellmate has been charged with murder and is pleaded not guilty.

Speaker 7 Margaret Yiddis died in February 2024.

Speaker 7 The rest of Ken's family is looking for peace, finding it in their memories of Ken. A brother, a dad, a son.

Speaker 7 A man with a gentle smile and big dreams, who, for a brief moment in time, created his own little heaven at the end of a Wisconsin country road.

Speaker 9 That's all for now.

Speaker 17 I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 2 Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 60 Hey, everybody, Ted Danson here to tell you about my podcast with my longtime friend and sometimes co-host Woody Harrelson.

Speaker 60 It's called Where Everybody Knows Your Name and we're back for another season.

Speaker 60 I'm so excited to be joined this season by friends like John Mulaney, David Spade, Sarah Silverman, Ed Helms, and many more. You don't want to miss it.

Speaker 60 Listen to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with me, Ted Danson, and Woody Harrelson sometimes, wherever you get your podcasts.