20/20 - True Crime Vault: Rocky Mountain Horror

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

A serial killer works as an FBI informant while concealing horrific crimes. (OAD 5/12/23) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This show is sponsored by Deadly Nightmares, a podcast from ID. Picture yourself alone in the middle of nowhere, and somebody's following you. On Deadly Nightmares, a podcast from ID, you can hear real stories from ordinary people who were stalked by predators. On each episode, survivors describe the moment they sensed something was wrong and how they managed to escape. Then investigators and family members speak to the details of each case, sharing exactly. what happened. These terrifying stories are the stuff of nightmares, and they're all completely real. Listen to deadly nightmares wherever you get your podcasts. Step into the 2020 True Crime Vault, where each story is unforgettable.

How many years had your daughter's been missing when you met each other? Believe about two years. Rob McLeod and Bob Markham are part of a club that Nobody wants to join. Fathers of adult women who have gone missing. So these two still grieving fathers join forces to find their daughters. I was really losing hope that she was gonna show up on her own.

That's when they told me that there were more than Casey, there were other people missing. Describe Jennifer Markham, 25 years old, a single mom? She was. Lived here in Denver. She lived about 20 miles south of where Casey He looked, Markham, and his wife in the eye, and says, your daughter is dead, and I know where she's buried. I had a chill run down my spine, and I couldn't.

Did you really, really, really know how my daughter died? At this point, we knew we had a serial killer on her hands. But has he tried to kill before? I remember screaming, stop the car. Why aren't she stopping? him grabbing me by my face and then pushing me out by my face. He went like this and pushed you out. I thought I was going to lose my brother.

I've never been so scared of my life. This is the story of someone who was so charismatic and yet so devious that they were able to manipulate the system to conceal horrific crimes. And in the process, they inflicted excruciating pain on those who cared for and trusted them. But more than anything,

it was a betrayal of those closest to this person and the theft of what we all cherish most, the lives of those we love. I've had a 35-year career of telling stories, and every so often there's one that haunts me. This is one of them. It's a story that I first covered almost two decades ago,

and it begins as a heartbreaking tale of a missing teenager. Back in 2008, I began looking into this story. That's when I first spoke to Lori McLeod, a divorced mother of a beautiful girl, the light of her life. She just happy all the time, smiled all the time. This was Lori back then. This is her today.

Casey was beautiful and sweet. She was a peacekeeper. She didn't make waves. In 2003, Lori McLeod was living with her daughter, Casey, who was 19. I just lived my life with my daughter, and I worked a lot. Very simple life, and I liked it that way. She was mid-30s at that point, divorced from her husband, Rob. In spite of the divorce and the drama between her mom and I,

Casey was a very bubbly, happy, go-lucky kid. She really was a special kid. As Casey grows into a teenager, Lori's got a little more free time, and she enjoys doing a little gambling at a nearby casino. Boston Five poker, that's her game. I was playing a card game, and he walked in. Scott Kimball met Lori McLeod when they both went to a casino up in Black Hawk. Scott was wheeling in.

his mother, Barb, in a wheelchair, and they all sit at the same poker table. He's moving chairs for her so she could play cards. I thought, well, what a nice guy. You know, he's taking care of his mother. And we just started chatting at the table. What did he tell you about himself in that first meeting? He said he worked for the FBI. Scott was nice and he was pleasant and he laughed and he was funny.

All of the things a woman looks for. And Lori believed after many false starts that this could finally be the man of her dreams. Scott Kimball is 36 years old and divorced. He's a burly, outdoorsy type of a guy with a goatee and an engaging smile. Guys like him and women find him charming. In fact, long before Lori, Kimball was married to a woman named Larissa. In 1993, Scott married Larissa, and they settled out. in Spokane, Washington.

For the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Scott and Marisa Kimball. They had two boys together. I was three months pregnant when we got married. Justin was born soon after, and then two and a half years later, had Cody. Say, Cody.

Say, say, go, Cody. Say, hi. I just thought that we would be the perfect family. Kimball is often away from home working for long stretches, but he always takes time to be with his sons, Justin and Cody, and he makes them feel special. Justin, look up here.

What do you think of that? Cartoon. We would go paintballing. We would do go-cards. We'd go out to eat almost like every single night. When I sat down with Justin for this exclusive interview, he told me he would need to wear sunglasses to protect his eyes from our bright lights. It's because of a traumatic brain injury that he suffered as a child.

But that's its own story, which he will share later for the first time. My dad was very big on trying to spoil us and see how happy you can make a spy just pines us whatever he wanted. He was a great dad. Good dad, dad. Hi, baby. He was everything in a dad that I wanted growing up. Justin and Cody were too small to see this, but this whole time, the marriage itself was not strong. I found out that he was dating and actually living with another woman. In 1996, Larissa filed for divorce, and four years later, she and their two boys moved to the Colorado area. By 2002, Scott Kimball is also living and working in Colorado, once again near his boys, Justin and Cody.

A year later, he moves in with Lori McLeod. Scott Kimball is living with Lori McLeod at her house in Lafayette. They're getting quite close during this period, and Casey is living at the house as well with her mother, and now this new man who has entered her mother's life. Where they lived together was a rural area that was largely ranchettes, mostly prairie land. Scott had two boys of his own. Yes, he did.

Justin and Cody. Yeah. And they'd come to visit? Yes. I loved his boys. And his boys loved your daughter. Oh, yeah. They were great with Casey, too.

Having two little brothers was fun for her. So how did he act around Casey? He acted like the guy every woman would be looking for to be in their child's life. Unfortunately, Casey is struggling. Her mom's divorce seems to be taking a heavy emotional toll on her. When she was in her later teens, mid-teens, she was kind of getting rebellious. Running around with the wrong crowd, doing the wrong things.

Casey had been into drugs, had run away, but she seemed to be coming back into who both Rob and Lori hoped she would become. This video was shot at Casey's high school graduation. It was a time full of hope and promise. I'm really confident that I'll be able to do something with my life after this. I just want to thank you for inviting me. She had found a new boyfriend, CB. They were both working at Subway, and she and CB were serious.

They were even talking about marriage at the time. She was trying to get her life kind of back. Labor Day of 2003? What made you believe that Casey was doing drugs again? Scott brought a vial of something with white substance in it, chunky white substance. Crack cocaine or something. Right. And he said, I think Casey's in trouble.

And so when I approached her and asked her if she was doing drugs again, she swore she was not. I didn't believe her. So you told her you're going to take her to the police? Yes, I did. And what happened? So I went in and got my wallet, and Scott came in the house, and I said, where's Casey? And he says, she's outside, and I said, I'm very certain she will take off. and sure enough, she did.

In the late summer of 2003, Casey McLeod disappears. And Lori McLeod is understandably upset by this. She was nowhere to be found at that point. After a few days, you get a call from Casey, right? What did she say? She said, I am sorry and I love you. I told her I loved her. That was the last thing we said to each other.

One of the first indications that Casey went missing, it was Lori gave us a very panicked phone call and that Casey had run away. Now Casey insists that the drugs her mom's boyfriend, Scott Kimball, finds, don't belong to her. But her mom, Lori, isn't buying it. So Casey takes off to avoid the police. And she meets up with her boyfriend, CB. I was more angry at her than concern. You know, I mean, I was praying for her to get her act together and to come home, but in the back of my mind I was a little bit more unhappy with her.

Kimball is able to locate Casey and her boyfriend, CB, offering them a temporary haven to cool off. So Scott finds Casey, finds CB, and puts them up in a motel 6. And her and her boyfriend lived there for several days, unbeknownst Solow. Laurie. Tells them, stay away from Lori because she's mad and she'll turn you into the cops. On August 23rd, Casey's boyfriend gave her an engagement necklace and she was headed to work. CB comes, kisses Casey goodbye and CB puts their engagement necklace, the one that he bought her around her neck, says, I love you.

Scott shows up at the Motel 6 and offers to take Casey to take Casey to to her job at a Subway sandwich shop. She gets in the car, and off they go to her shift at Subway. So Subway calls a couple hours later, both Laurie and CB, because Casey didn't show up for work. They call each other confused because they have two different stories. CB says Scott took her to work. Laurie says, no Scott's out hunting.

Laurie's, of course, a bit confused, because Kim had told her he was going to go elk hunting for a few days and wouldn't have been around. When Scott returns from his hunting trip, he's confronted by CB Casey's boyfriend, who insists that he saw Casey get into a truck with Scott at the Motel 6, and he says, where is she? Scott had picked Casey up and CB had seen it. CB confronted about where Casey was. Scott denied picking Casey up and said he didn't know what CB was talking about. When I confronted Scott about picking her up to take her to work, he said, C.B.'s lying.

Did he appear supportive while Casey was missing? Absolutely. Let's go looking for her. Let's drive around. With my connections, we'll find her. Scott went with me to the police. So when I am describing my missing daughter, he's giving me. information that she had been on drugs before and that she had left before. The police said we aren't looking for her because she's 19 and she's allowed to be missing. And remember, since Kimball is working with the FBI, Lori is convinced he's the only one who can help.

Scott and I had planned to go to Las Vegas before Casey went missing. I wanted to cancel. And he said she's an adult. She'll come home when she's ready. When we get there, it was just this heavy push. You need me, let's get married. You know, I can help you. Nobody else is going to help you. The police made that very clear

that they won't help you find her. Basically, he was it. He was my only hope of getting her back. Lori was dazed and distraught at her daughter's disappearance. And in addition, Scott said that Scott said that he was an FBI agent, and nobody would know better how to find Casey than him. It was a drive-thru wedding chapel where I think you can get French fries with your marriage certificate. For the honeymoon, Scott takes Lori up to the mountains, and it's in the Walden area, and says, you just need to relax for a day.

We went camping for our honeymoon. Colorado Mountains are our... beautiful and and just some peaceful surroundings. And he took off on his four-wheeler to go scouting for a hunting spot. Days later, it appears that Rob and Lori McLeod's prayers have finally been answered. When I came home, her necklace was hanging on her bedroom door, and that to everyone was a sign that she had been there. Her necklace was a gift from CB, her boyfriend. I was very happy that she was coming by even if I wasn't there, that just knowing that she was okay. And Scott points to that and says, there, now that is proof that she's still around.

She's leaving you clues. It's a glimmer of hope, but months pass with no other signs from Casey. With the holidays fast approaching, Lori and Rob slip back into despair. Christmas is where's the mile marker, I guess, because Christmas is the mile marker, I guess, because Christmas Eve, especially at our house, ended up being a big deal. I remember the first Christmas, she's only missing a few months

and wondering if she's just going to show up. The 2003 holidays come and go and still no Casey. Lori and Rob are left with only empty chairs at their table and a bunch of presents that were never opened. The second Christmas was hoping she'd show up and really, really, really, concerned that she hadn't. It's a constant worry.

Is she hungry? Does she have a coat? And then the third Christmas, something's up. She should have shown up by now. I remember going to bed and like 10 minutes later, it's like midnight and the doorbell rings. And I actually flew. I remember going to bed and like 10 minutes later,

it's like midnight. And the doorbell rings. And I just like, flew. My neighbor was there, and she goes, oh, I thought I'd come let you know your garage doors open. The fear and frustration felt by Casey's heartbroken parents, Rob and Lori McLeod, is becoming overwhelming. And then in 2006, a detective by the name of Gary Thatcher shows up.

Yes. He shows up, and he says, I need to speak with Scott Kimball. But Detective Thatcher's interest in Scott Kimball is not about Casey, but rather about a scheme that sends investigators down a rabbit hole they never imagined. Gary Thatcher is a young detective with the Lafayette Police Department. Mostly he's dealing with white-collar crimes in this town where there's not a lot of crime. Lafayette is just 30 minutes from Denver, but it feels like a world away from the big city. This whole thing started with a call from a local bank about check forgery. In 2006, Heritage Bank reported that there was a check fraud,

and one of their customers had over $50,000 funneled out of his checking accounts. Thatcher digs deeper into the apparent check fraud case, and it's clear someone is forging the bank customer's checks. Detective Thatcher pulls surveillance video from the bank. to see who might have been cashing those forged checks. And sure enough, cameras capture a stocky Caucasian male with a goatee on numerous occasions, cashing those fraudulent checks. Detective Thatcher saw numerous checks made out to either Rocky Mountain on Natural Beef or Rocky

Mountain Cattle Company. He did some investigation and found out the owner of Rocky Mountain Natural Beef was Scott Kimball. Scott Kimball, the same man. appearing on that bank surveillance video. We found that he lives just on the outskirts of Lafayette. Laurie said that Scott had taken off and that she didn't know where he was at. At this point, Detective Thatcher doesn't know what or who he's dealing with, and he wonders if maybe Lori is covering for her husband.

So Thatcher invites her in to answer a few questions. You can sit wherever it don't matter to me. trying to decide whether or not Lori was in on this, whether she was a suspect or what was her role in this. Any suspicions that Thatcher has about Lori's involvement? Well, they disappear when Laurie drops a bombshell that alters the course of the investigation. As we continue talking, she starts to tell me that Scott Kimball is an employee of the FBI. And so, of course, I'm like, what do you mean an employee of the FBI? Why would an employee of the FBI be stealing, you know, 50,000 plus dollars in money from somebody? I knew there were pieces of Scott's life that just didn't make sense. Lori also mentions her daughter, Casey.

She believes that Scott is going to use his connections with the FBI to help find her daughter Casey, who had gone missing in 2003. I have a suspect who's committing check fraud, finding out that he's potentially an employee of the FBI, and then now she also has a daughter that's missing. See, B swears that Scott's along the picture up from the hotel to take her to work. And she had her in seeing since. And to be perfectly honest, at first, I thought Scott knew where she was.

And that's sort of why I kind of wanted him in my life. It was a lot to take in, especially when you're sitting down and you're expecting to just be talking about a check fraud. You must be wondering, is he an FBI agent or a con? It did not make sense that he would be an FBI agent. be an FBI agent. But what Lori was telling me was conflicting with that, given that he had a laptop with an FBI seal. He had a badge. He had a gun. Where I'm at right now is I'm just kind of gathering information from everybody trying to kind of get a grasp as to what's going on. He's not a viable. It doesn't seem like he's unfortunate. But I think he might run.

Thatcher was expecting answers, but he was left with only more questions. Chief among them, is Scott Kimball actually an agent for the FBI? Or is he as far? phony as the checks he was allegedly cashing. Detective Thatcher wants to check the information, of course, and he calls the FBI. He eventually gets hold of Special Agent Carl Schloff. Carl Schloff quickly informs me that Scott is actually an informant for them, a cooperating witness. Thatcher is surprised to learn that it's true. Kimball is working for the FBI as a paid confidential informant.

Carrie Thatcher meets with Carl Schloff, the FBI handler, who was handling Scott Kimball as a confidential informant. Detective Thatcher told me he was working on a white-collar case involving Kimball, and then he asked me what I knew about Casey's disappearance. Thatcher says, Carl, are you aware that, in fact, Kimball was the last person to see Casey McLeod alive? I did not know that, and I told him that. But it triggered another thought in Schlau's head to say that, well, in fact, Scott Kimball was the last one to see another woman who also disappeared in 2003. So that basically at that time we discussed, well, that's two women now that Kimball was lasting alive with. It suggested that Scott was responsible for their disappearance, but we didn't know if they were alive or dead. Investigators are now trying to connect the dots between Scott Kimball, Casey McLeod, and the disappearance of yet another woman, Jennifer Markham.

When Jennifer was growing up, she was always a happy child. She had a lot of friends. There was no other description, but beautiful. Bob Markham's nightmare begins in February of 2003 when his daughter Jennifer vanishes from a Denver suburb. And this is six months before Casey McLeod disappears. Johnny, describe Jennifer Markham, 25 years old, a single mom? She was. I lived here in Denver.

She lived about 20 miles south of where Casey disappeared in the heart of Denver and had a five-year-old named Austin. And to support herself and her son had begun dancing at an exotic bar named Shotgun Willys. Markham was a knockout. She was the type of woman that other strippers envied because all the men were all over her. I didn't really like the fact that she was working there, but she was easier to make money there to try and provide a better life for her son. She took me to a coffee shop this one day, where they served sandwiches and Java coffees

and things. She was trying to open a place like that someday. Before she disappears, Jennifer is dating a man named Steve Ennis. Steve Ennis was a good-looking guy, a gym rat, the type of guy that an attractive young woman like Jennifer Markham could fall for. This was the guy that she really loved, and she really cared about him. Steve Ennis gets involved dealing ecstasy and gets some time. Jennifer Markham is visiting Steve Ennis in prison.

regularly. Eventually, however, Jennifer Markham stopped showing up. Jennifer goes silent, her phone, any communications with family. Eventually, her 1996 green Saturn is found at Denver International Airport. But there was no record of Jennifer having ever boarded a flight at DIA. Her car was left in February, but nobody even recovered it until June. We kept looking and then And then my wife went down to the police officer down in the corner, and she asked him if he could run a search on Jennifer.

And he said he would. The following Monday, we had a voicemail from a FBI agent to call him. That agent is Carl Schloff, who's working out of the FBI's Denver Bureau. Agent Schlaff tells Bob Markham something surprising. They were already looking for Jennifer and had been for a while. And then we flew out to Denver to meet with the FBI and the district attorney trying to learn as much as we could possibly learn. Turns out Jennifer and her boyfriend, Steve Ennis, are somehow involved in an ongoing FBI drug investigation. And it's during that investigation that Jennifer vanishes.

And then they told me that some guy had her belongings. That didn't make sense to me whatsoever. That guy, Agent Schloff says, is a confidential informant working for the FBI who goes by the name Joe. So I told him we wanted to meet with this person. And so in the summer of 2005, Bob and his ex-wife Mary meet the informant. at a park just outside Denver. We sat down with him at a picnic table. This informant looks Markham and his wife in the eye

and says, your daughter is dead. The informant tells Jennifer's parents that their daughter was killed by a drug dealer and acquaintance of Jennifer's boyfriend, Steve Ennis. I had a chill run down my spine, and I couldn't... Bob Markham wants desperately to find his daughter. He said, I can take you up and show you where she's at. It's up there in the mountains, and I know where she's buried.

But Bob Markham, spidey sense is just going off, and he just knows that this man is bad news. I figured if I went to the mountains, my ex-wife and I wouldn't be seen anymore. But Mary is having a tougher time saying, No. Now it's during this encounter at the park that Joe the informant takes Mary aside and presents her with an indecent proposal, a proposal that he says she must keep secret from her ex-husband, Bob.

He says, if you're willing to meet with me at a local hotel. You give me sex. Then I'll tell you what happened to your daughter. And not until then. He made up his own FBI form. And he was going to have Mary fill in her name. I do authorize the informant to bind, gag me, engage in sexual activity. Mary is staying in a separate hotel room from her ex-husband, Bob, and is actually contemplating this.

Mary even wrote a letter to be left in her hotel room. It said, if anything happens to me, I've gone with this strange man. Why would Mary even consider meeting the informant alone? Jennifer, by now she's been missing for. two years, and this FBI informant might be the key. Mary was willing to do whatever it took. Well, then about 2 o'clock in the morning, she goes over and knocks on her door. And she looks through the people, and he's sitting there looking through the people at her. She called Bob. She told Bob about this plan. Bob told her, if you let that guy in your room, he will kill you.

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But when he shows up, Mary hesitates and calls her ex-husband, Bob. Bob told her, if you let that guy in your room, he will kill you. He bangs and yells, saying, I know you're in there. She still does not answer. They call security. And he ends up peeling out around the parking lots and leaving the hotel. Days later, Bob's ex-wife, Mary, calls the informant, and this time she records the conversation. Yeah.

Joe? Yeah, it's Mary. Hey, what's up? Did you really, really, really know how my daughter died? You had your chance. I couldn't let you perform those things on me. The only thing that means a damn thing to me is my daughter. Some things that I think are important are classified and I'll be in a huge trouble if I tell you.

I have to show you. I'll see you later. All right. Joe. Joe. It seems as if any leads about Jennifer's whereabouts have dried up. But when Bob met the informant in that park, he had covertly taken a picture of his license plate.

It belonged to Scott Kimball. I called Carl Sloth, FBI agent, and I taught him this guy killed my daughter. He felt Kimball was more involved, and I supported him on that. If she is a victim of a homicide, we have to find the body. By 2003, I'd put out all the feelers I could on Jennifer's disappearance. We interviewed countless people. We kind of had a pretty good feeling she was dead. But we didn't have anything to corroborate it.

For investigators in Colorado, what started out as a small check fraud case has exploded into something clearly larger. Little do they know they're just getting started. started. I first heard the name Scott Kimball in 2004. It was around this terrible accident where this young boy Justin had been severely hurt. We've always called it an accident but it's not an accident. Whatever you call it it happened back when Scott was living with Laurie McCloud. His two sons Cody and Justin are visiting for the weekend. Justin is just 10 years old at the time.

On or about July 1st of 2004, Justin had been in the house with Lori, Scott, and his younger brother, Cody. They were outside playing. His dad, Scott, told them to dig some holes to try to catch some of the field mice. This was at about 10 o'clock at night. So he takes them out onto the property, which is about five acres or so. And then he has a shovel. Our dad has this idea to go outside and hang out and play, which I thought was kind of cool, but I always thought it was a little weird because it was pretty late Dark definitely dark. Yeah, a lot later than any of us usually play outside You were 10 years old, right? Yeah There was this big steel grate that was usually just like laying down on the dirt

But it was propped up against a truck, which I thought was a little weird The cattle grate was 8 to 10 feet long and they're guessing weight about 300 pounds. And he sent Cody inside and then he told me that he wanted me to dig a hole specifically in like a spot where he pointed on the ground. Right under the grate. Uh-huh. He told me to dig this hole and he said, I need you to look at the horizon and don't break your stare. Be a good soldier and do what I say. All of a sudden, Justin says he's digging and then he sees a bright light. I saw a bunch of stars flashes in front of me and then came to big wham. and I heard it hitting me.

And I remember running back out the door and I just see my dad carrying my brother. I just see blood coming from Justin. And he's in a lot of pain. And I was very scared that I don't know what's wrong with him. Cody came outside and I just had a huge head injury and I could barely keep conscious. And all I was trying to tell Cody was

it's a trick. Scott grabs Justin, throws him in the car and starts heading to the nearest. hospital. Justin is in a state of shock. I was trying to tell him I can't breathe. I need to sit up and roll down the window. So I rolled down the window all the way. And as I'm trying to use the door to pull myself up, that's when I feel the door open. And I remember screaming, stop the car. Why aren't you stopping? How fast was it going? Oh, at least 60 miles per hour.

What I do remember him pushing me out was by my face, because I remember how big his hand was and how warm. how warm it felt on my cold face. It went like this and pushed you out. His whole hand covered my face. It pushed me out that way. I was holding on one leg right here, one arm right here, and the other leg was right here. And I just remembered screaming,

telling him to stop the car, and it just kept going. I just sort of accepted the fact that I was going to die right then and there. And I let go. And I just remember thinking this guy is going to kill me and it's obviously making it look like an accident and no one's going to know because I'm going to be dead. However, according to a police report, Kimball has a very different version of the events, telling officers he was inside the house when Justin was playing on the steel grate. He told him he looked out and saw the large metal grate had fallen on top of Justin.

And as for the car ride to the hospital? Scott said I was trying to pull you back in the car, but it's an odd way to do it by putting your hand on his face instead of grabbing a coat or something. There were no break marks at the scene, and then allegedly Scott just threw Justin back in through the window. The police report goes on to say that at this time, we have no reason to believe there was any criminal activity involved.

I got a call on my cell phone from a hospital. We have your son here. He's in the ER. We need you to come to the hospital. It must have been traumatizing for you. Yes. The surgeon came in and he said, I just want to tell you right now it doesn't look good.

Justin had been severely hurt, substantial brain damage. It's been about 16 years, but to this day, I still have a hard time. talking about my brother in that night. I thought I was gonna lose my brother. I've never been so scared of my life. He was in a coma for a month, a chemically induced coma, and the whole family was standing around. As police officer there, Justin regains consciousness.

And the first thing that he says is, why did Dad do this to me? Why did Dad do this to me? Why did Dad do this to me? The people gathered around Justin in his bed were wondering, how could a father possibly have any motive to kill his son? And as investigators searched for answers, their case is about to get a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more terrifying. He says, Merry Christmas. Dig here.

And boy, do we all dig. He's in federal custody now, arrested after this wild police chase. Is it starting to dawn on you that this guy is a day? We've got two women who've never been seen again. These two dads show up at the FBI office, saying that an informant for the FBI had murdered their daughters. I just wanted her home. I hope and I pray all the time. That God would tell me something so that I can find here.

Was Scott Kimball such a good con man that he duped even the FBI? Kimball's nickname in prison is rather ominous. is rather ominous. They call him Hannibal, after Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lamb. You don't take a guy that's lied all of his life or totally wrong lies on his life and didn't ever invest the truth in one day. We just made a deal with the devil. Much to everyone's surprise. Justin recovers. He's in a coma for a month, but he comes out of it. When you woke up, what's the first thing you said? I remember saying, my dad did it, because I remember thinking my last thought before I lost consciousness was,

no one's ever going to know that he tried to do this to me. What in the world would motivate a father to harm, maybe even kill his 10-year-old son? Scott stood to benefit $50,000 if Justin died. It turns out there is a life insurance policy on his son, Justin. And just days before the accident, Kimball changed the beneficiary, removing his ex-wife Larissa and making himself the sole beneficiary. How did you feel about that? To be honest, I think I threw up. Because then it all started making sense.

This was no accident. We call it Justin's very bad day. The medical personnel at the time said, given the extensive... amount of brain trauma, Justin had sustained. He could not actually still have independent memories of the accident that had happened. That statement by the neurosurgeon really hurt that part of the case. For Justin, there was a long convalescence ahead. And that's why Kimball's relative, his Uncle Terry, shows up to help.

Scott's Uncle Terry lived in Alabama. He immediately came out to Colorado to be with his great next. and to help him through his recovery. Uncle Terry is recently divorced, and he's coming to town with his pickup, his camper, his two dogs, and a briefcase full of money from his divorce. Uncle Terry was a little creepy,

wandered around in his underwear in front of me, and yeah, he's an odd bird. Pretty soon, Lori comes home from work one day, work one day to find Scott in their backyard cleaning a couch. He said Uncle Terry was embarrassed because one of his dogs vomited on the couch and he knew he had ruined it and he didn't want to face you. So she asked Scott, where did your uncle go? And Scott says, oh, he won the lottery and went down to Mexico with a stripper.

You're probably not going to see him for a while. Anyway, I'm like, well, for whatever reason, Uncle Terry is no longer here, so I'm okay with that. All these series of unfortunate events have Detective Gary Thatcher and district attorney, Cotterina Booth, thinking that Scott Kimball has been passing more than just a few bogus checks. Is it starting to dawn on you that this guy is a dangerous man? Yeah, absolutely. So, Conorina and Gary filed charges that would stick, and those were the check fraud forgery charges. Scott didn't know that I was in contact with the police at this point.

And he says, no, they're trying to pin a crime on me that I didn't do. So I'm going to take off for a little while. We were able to determine that Scott was in Southern California. We got together with the U.S. Marshals, and they were able to identify his truck. And then that's when the chase ensue. He leads police on a three-hour car chase. They put down spikes. He goes off roads.

39-year-old Scott Kimball captured yesterday after a four-hour police chase. Part of this traumatic chase even makes the news that night. Finally, his truck begins to run out of gas. He puts up his hands and he gets you down, face down on the ground. We know he's safely in custody. What was most important is we needed to keep him in custody. They're suspicious that Scott is involved in much more than just financial fraud. and in fact in the disappearance of several people.

But they don't have any bodies. So prosecutors from Boulder County decide to devise a strategy. Scott had enough prior felony convictions that he qualified for what we call the big bitch. Big bitch means habitual criminal. Turns out Scott Kimball has a long rap sheet for crimes including forgery, theft, and fraud. If someone has a rap sheet that's worth bragging about, you can eventually charge them as a habitual criminal. It can put them behind bars for decades beyond any single charge.

Kimball is behind bars, but the surge continues for those two missing women. 25-year-old Jennifer Markham disappeared in February of 2003. Her parents helped erect a Billboard in 2006 near the strip club where she worked as a dancer. After we put up to Billboard, I got a call from a reporter, and he was doing an article. said on missing girls of these clubs. We told him that we needed him to put in there that the last person that Jennifer saw was Scott Kimball. I came across an article about a family

whose daughter was missing and I thought, okay, this sounds like what I'm experiencing. And it mentions just out of the blue that the last person she had been seen with is Scott Kimball. and then I just thought, oh, crap. Rob McLeod and Bob Markham are part of a club that nobody wants to join. Their fathers of adult women who have gone missing, and both were last seen with a guy named Scott Kimball.

Rob reaches out to Bob, and soon they meet, bound by the tragedy they share. How many years had your daughter's been missing when you met each other? I believe about two years. I felt I was like living in a nightmare or a kind of a haze. And when I met Bob, he was like the pit bull. Really focused. I asked him if he could call Laurie, his ex-wife,

and see if I could talk to her. I asked her, you know, do you know anybody else that is missing? And she said, yeah, now that you said that, Uncle Terry. He says, we're going to the FBI tomorrow. tomorrow. I said, we are? He dragged you? Do you just go there? He said he basically dragged him to the FBI office.

Yes. Rob McLeod and Bob Markham come into the FBI office in November 2006. Both Rob and Bob tell my boss that our informant, Scott Kimball, took their daughters. The FBI have an informant linked to two missing women. They realize that they are in really hot water here. were trying to keep the FBI from not only have an egg on its face, but right the wrongs that had happened to these families that we didn't even know was happening. Rule number one in the FBI is don't embarrass the Bureau.

That goes with any job you take. Rob McLeod and Bob Markham come into the FBI office in November 2006. Both tell my boss that our informant, Scott Kimball, took their daughters. hearing from these two fathers, the FBI assigned special agent Johnny Gruising to look into Scott Kimball. We didn't know how bad the mess was going to be when I was brought in. Groosing looks into Kimball's history as a career criminal, theft, bank fraud, bad checks, and while there was no history of violent crimes, he did serve time in prison. While he was in prison back in 2002, Kimball's cellmate is a guy named Steve.

Steve Ennis. Now, if that name sounds familiar, it's because Ennis was Jennifer Markham's boyfriend around the time she disappeared. Ennis tells Kimball that Jennifer is a stripper, but that she desperately wants a way out. And Kimball, he seems only too willing to lend a helping hand. Steve Ennis is facing drug charges, and there are key witnesses who will testify to against him in his case. An opportunistic Kimball then sets a plan in motion to con Ennis.

Because he's soon to be released from prison, Kimball tells Ennis that he'll take care of the witnesses. And not only that, he'll help set up his girlfriend, Jennifer Markham, in a legitimate business just as she always wanted. Scott says, hey, listen, when I get out, I can set up Jennifer in this legit business. It's a coffee shop.

But it's all. a setup. Kimball turns around, goes to the FBI, and he throws Ennis under the bus. Kimball now tells the authorities that his cellmate Steve Ennis has put out a hit on the outside, and that he can help stop the murder plot. Not only does Scott Kimball claim that Steve Ennis wants to kill witnesses, Kimball says Ennis is going to use his girlfriend, Jennifer Markham, to get the job done. This information winds up with FBI special agent Carl Schloff, who had reason to believe that it was true. Kimball had information on prisoners or inmates who were plotting to kill witnesses, federal witnesses.

Carl believed that Scott was going to save lives, and he needed to be an informant when he was released. He had been an informant before for the FBI in Alaska prior to even coming here to Denver. So his previous work had panned out. At that time, yes. There was reason to believe he was pretty good. Yes. His information was good. The FBI has a long history of using informants.

But who better to catch a crook than a crook? As a boss once told me, there are no swans in the sewer. Scott Kimball gets out of federal prison in late December of 2002. Once he got out, he was under Carl's supervision. So that leaves you to watch over Scott Kimball. As much as you can, I mean, we don't live with the person, but when you say watch over, it's not the only case we're working on. How about that? His job is to check in once in a while, give him some money, give him some recording equipment, and see what information he can get on his own.

And it's not long before he's making contact with Jennifer Markham. So then you sanction a meeting, right, between Kimball and Jennifer Markham? Yes. What was the plan? The plan was to try to corroborate his information. He says that people in this drug conspiracy wanted to kill witnesses. So he offered to, as an informant, to wear wire. Kimball wears a wire in these meetings, but despite his promises to the FBI,

Jennifer never says anything about wanting to kill witnesses, and there's nothing to charge Jenna's with. And then February 17th, her phone goes dead. And that is the last anyone ever hears from Jennifer Markham. In the weeks after Jennifer's disappearance, Carl Schloff is beginning to wonder what exactly happened to her. Did Scott Kimball say what happened to her to Jennifer? He first told us that Jennifer was dead. Dead?

Yes. Did you press him for details? Oh, yes. Kimball tells Slough he knows who killed Jennifer, but he doesn't give an exact exact, location of where her body may be. She was last seen alive in Colorado Springs. Her car was found abandoned at Denver International Airport. That's another jurisdiction.

Kimball had said her body was dumped in Rifle, Colorado. So we didn't really have an agency that was going to take the lead on the case because it wasn't enough for them to investigate based upon those circumstances. Schlaff says the FBI, Kimmelk, working on it, but without a body, the Jennifer Markham case stalls. When Scott was let out of prison, he basically had one year to prove his worth as an FBI informant. He was basically running free for a year. But after a year, since nothing was provided, Carl basically was moved away from the case, and a different case agent came, and the Jennifer thing was

starting to basically die on the vine. Nobody saw a big picture who Scott Kimball was. It wasn't until we started really looking at his criminal history and piecing things together that we could see that each individual agency had no idea of what they were really dealing with. But in 2007, Gary Thatcher, Johnny Grusing, and Katerina Booth are starting to connect the dots. We've got two women who've never been seen again, who both were last known to be with Scott Kimball. That is not a coincidence. It doesn't just a end with Jennifer Markham and doesn't end with Casey. We find out from Lori that Scott Kimball's uncle Terry

was also missing. I was able to get a search warrant for Scott's laptop. And what they find there is photograph of a young woman. There were two pictures of a girl. One she had dark hair and one she had blonde hair. They are concerned, giving Kimball's history, she might have met the same fates as Casey McLeod and Jennifer Markham.

And at long last, Kimball will be questioned about those missing women face to face. If you're asking me if I know where Jennifer Acacy is the answer is no. This message is brought to you by avocado mattress. And if healthy, comfortable sleep matters to you, this is one organic brand worth knowing. That's because what you sleep on actually matters. Most mattresses rely on synthetic foams and chemical materials that trap heat, breakdown over time, or off gas. Avocado does it differently. Their mattresses are handcrafted with natural materials,

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Ready to get started? Visit night and day, day, decor.com, or call 647-360-6151. That's night-and-day decor.com. As Kimball sits in jail facing some 48 years on habitual offenses, Special Agent Johnny Gruising and Detective Gary Thatcher meet him face to face. You see this guy is a murderer. But right now, you just have missing people.

You have missing Uncle Terry, missing Jennifer, missing Casey. Those aren't homicides until you prove them. This was one of our first interviews with Scott, now that we've had time to put more pieces together. Gary and I sit down, I interview myself as the FBI, and then he tells me he wants a pizza. And then I said, well, we'll get one at a break. He goes, no, I'll have one right now.

I'm like, wow, I wonder who's in charge here. So we ordered him a pizza. I'm trying to help you. Whether you see it as we want to help you or not, I am. Scott was a 10 on narcissistic behavior. I knew that he would not talk with me if I did not appease that narcissistic side of him first. You don't take a guy that's lied all of his life

or totally monolize on his life and get him to her best the truth in it. a day or a few hours. It just doesn't happen. Talking with Scott, it wears you out. I mean, he'll talk for hours and hours and hours. If you let him go, he'll go 10 hours. If we can get to the bottom of what happened to Jennifer and Casey, we're pretty convinced that you had something to do with their disappearances. You're the last one known to be with both of them. We've interviewed. I disagree. That's pretty much the case. And I know you can disagree. You can put it however you want to. It was clear he was denying everything and he wasn't giving us anything.

You're going to say what you're going to say. Because only you know the truth, Scott. Yes, I do know the truth. And we don't know the truth. And that's what you got going for you now. You have that knowledge, we don't have it. Gary Thatcher and Johnny Gruising are getting nowhere with Kimble. Despite being behind bars, he's not giving an inch.

But they catch a break when they start showing around the photograph of the young woman from Kimball's computer. Another former cellmate of Kimball's from way back in 2002, Stephen Holly knows exactly who she is. And he sees this photograph and says, oh yeah, that's my ex-girlfriend. That's a young woman named Leanne Emery. Leanne Emery is a young woman who, like Jennifer Markham and Casey McLeod, is a woman who's fallen on hard times. She ends up in this relationship with Stephen Hawley. Holly is in federal prison and ends up being roommates with Scott Kimball.

Stephen Hawley told Kimball that he was looking for a way to escape prison. And he had a plan in mind that would involve his girlfriend on the outside, Leanne Emery, to help him execute it. Again, it's just classic Scott. Manipulate whoever he's with no matter where he's at. He tells Stephen Hawley, I'll help you break out. And Kimball offered to take care of his girlfriend when he got out. Another girlfriend of his cellmate that he's going to take care of. He was promising Steve Hawley that he would break him out of prison and reunite him with Leanne in Mexico.

Stephen Hawley tells Leanne she needs to connect with his soon-to-be-released fellow inmate. He tells her his name is Hannibal and that she just needs to trust Hannibal. Kimball's nickname in prison is rather ominous. They call him Hannibal, after Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lamps. A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some father beans and a nice kianti. Maybe a little bit of insight into his psyche about who he was as a person. Seven days after Kimball's release from prison,

He made his first contact with Leanne Emery. And of course, once Kimball gets released, he just double-crossed Steve Hawley. Scott reports to the FBI that Steve Holley's trying to escape. And he gives the details of the escape plan, but he takes himself out of it. Instead of helping him get out of prison, he squeals on him to the authorities, gets Stephen Hawley thrown into solitary confinement so that Stephen can't communicate at all. But Leanne still believes, is there to help.

Now, Leanne Emery is completely isolated, isolated even from her boyfriend in prison. And that's when Scott closes the circle around her and takes her on a trip. So Scott tells Leanne, we've got to do these check frauds and thefts and stuff in order to get money for this big escape plot where they're going to break out Stephen Hawley

and they're going to go to Mexico. While Leanne is on this journey of the journey with Scott Kimball, she writes some emails to her cousin, and she is so frightened that she's not willing to share a lot of information with her cousin. She writes, my orders come from Hannibal, and he's a dangerous person. If Hannibal knew I was talking to you, he'd have me killed in a second. So they do go on this little crime spree for a couple weeks, before then he takes her out to the bookcliffs of Utah. And Leanne is never heard from again. Now that authorities are aware that Leanne Emery is likely a victim of Scott Kimball, they can see that this has become quite a list of people. Casey McLeod,

Jennifer Markham, Terry Kimball, now Leanne Emery is added to that list. We needed to figure out how to hold something over Scott's head. We had no leverage. And when all else fails, these investigators have to come to grips with the fact that they may only have one option left. So this is the turning point in our entire investigation. We just made a deal with the devil. Spring has a way of reintroducing your home to the light. The days stretch a little longer. Mornings feel softer. Your home opens up after a long winter. But with more light comes more glare, more heat, less privacy. That's where Hunter Douglas comes in. Hunter Douglas shades are designed to do more than cover windows. They shape the light itself.

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Ready to get started? Visit night and day, day, decor.com, or call 647-360-6151. That's night and day decor.com. Some crimes are so shocking. They don't just make headlines. They forever change our society. I'm Katie Ring, host of America's most infamous crimes. Each week, I take on one of the most notorious criminal cases.

Each case unfolds across multiple episodes. release every Tuesday through Thursday from the first time that something was wrong to the moment the truth came out or didn't. Listen to and follow America's most infamous crimes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I remember sleepless nights

that went on for months. And I remember increasing telling us, don't live in the place of thinking this is going to be a happy ending. It probably isn't. Okay, what do I pray for now? I don't care if it was a fingernail. That's what I kept praying for.

I just wanted her home. We're trying to figure out how do we get something on Scott where we can convince him to cooperate with us. We had no leverage with Scott. You can spend eight hours talking to Scott Kimball and you might come out with five seconds worth of really good information. And sure enough, during one of these tenacious interrogations, Kimball blurts out something which, intentionally or not,

gives the investigators the first glimmer of hope they've been waiting for. Scott tells us what if one of these girls could be found on National Forestland. Kimball seems to be asking if a missing girl's body is found on federal property. Would that mean he could serve out his time in a federal prison? Scott was trying to get time in federal prison because it's easier life for him than in state prison. When Scott said National Forestland, we already knew he went hunting on the day Casey disappeared. Johnny Grusing remembers that when he first conducted a search of Scott Kimball's belongings, he recovered a receipt from a grocery store in Walden, Colorado.

Walden is surrounded by National Forestland. I figured she hadn't been recovered up there, but I went ahead and called the National Forest Service and said, I've got a receipt up in Walden, do you have any missing people? So I was just following up on a lead that was probably a one out of a thousand. They finally put me through to someone who said,

yeah, they recovered a hiker right before winter in the middle of nowhere. And it was a female, but they didn't think it was a homicide. This hunter saw off in the distance something glinting in the sun. He didn't know what it was. He felt like he should at least go check it out. And when he did, he found a skull lying on the ground. Based upon what Scott had said, based upon the receipt,

based upon the godforsaken place, this hiker was recovered, I had a really good notion it was Casey. Gary and I drove up the next morning to meet with the sheriff. I went and recovered. All the skeletal remains sent them to our lab, tested them against Lori's DNA, and it came back as Casey. This is the turning point in our entire investigation, and now we had the body, and we had Casey here,

and we were able to get her back to her family. The FBI calls, it says, hey, we need to have a meeting. You know, there's been some newer development. When I had given up, she'd been found. Somebody picked her up, taken care of her, and now she's come home. We took our whole evidence response team was up to that hillside, and we walked up and down until we recovered every piece, every bone

of Casey that we could. And Lori and Rob went with us. But there's something else. Lorry had been here before. It's where Scott Kimball had taken her on their honeymoon, and that was only weeks after he had left her body there. He killed your daughter at the place you went on your honeymoon. Yes. With him. Yes. It was like a punch in the stomach. He wanted to check on the status of her remains, I'm sure. I thought we were just camping, and that's, in fact, where Casey was. Lori would eventually have her marriage to Scott Kimball a null. It's tough to prove a homicide when you don't have the body.

And now we had the body, and we had Casey here. This was the moment in the case where Johnny and I really, really knew that now we had Scott. We're getting that momentum. We might be able to file a homicide. case. And I think Scott knows those things are shifting. Defense comes to us and says, should we talk about a deal? He knew the gig was up. He knew a homicide charge was coming. It was clear to him that he was not getting out of prison. We had Casey, but we didn't have Jennifer, Leanne, or Terry. And the deal would be, are these families willing to give up prison time

that Scott might serve for him to tell us where their bodies are? We had spoken with the families, they wanted their girls home. We started negotiating terms of a deal with Scott. And as a part of that, it would be to sit down with us and start figuring out how do we locate these other bodies. Scott Kimball is going to lead us to the bodies in exchange for some reduced charges from first degree murder down to second degree murder.

And for that, he would get 48 years in prison. He definitely wants to take the deal. Scott wanted to avoid any kind of a death penalty. We're finally going to sit down and Scott's going to tell us where are we going? Where are we going to be finding Jennifer and Terry and Leanne? What kinds of things are we going to need? Scott started laying out. We needed to go to Utah.

And he was almost giddy or excited. He's like, you guys need helicopters. We need four wheelers. And I'll just never forget Scott just loving himself in that limelight. And then I remember looking at the jail deputies. I said, we just made a deal with the devil. And then we get out to this area, and it's vast, and it's huge. He walks over, and he taps his foot.

He says, Merry Christmas. Dig here. Boy, do we all dig. And we dug and dug and dug. Prosecutors have just made a deal with the devil. And that devil agrees to lead investigators to the remains of Leanne, Uncle Terry, and gentlemen. Our plan was to collect both Leanne and Jennifer in the first day. He said this would be a piece of cake.

I thought by the end of the day we were going to have Jennifer and Leanne. Like I'm just pumped with excitement. You've got nine big black SUVs headed out to the mountains. We had a big convoy of multiple FBI vehicles. SWAT team, evidence response team, the local sheriffs, his defense attorneys, Gary and Katerina and her crew, so we had 40 people out there. out there. People are stopping and pausing thinking like the president's rolling through town. It was all about him and you could tell that he really enjoyed that.

They crossed from Colorado into Utah and enter a remote rugged area called the book clips. It's just this huge wall of kind of mountain, foothill-eish and they go forever. You just get a feeling like it's forsaken land. You don't see people. or you don't hear wildlife. It's dirt and dust and heat. They go through washes and gullies at Kimball's direction to the burial site that Kimball says he left his victims.

He kept pointing to different creeks and saying it could be this one, could be this one. And our team kept digging and finding nothing. We would all meet every morning and Scott would then start taking us out into the wilderness. And in that second or third trip, He walks over and he taps his foot. He says, Merry Christmas.

Dig here. And boy, do we all dig. Every single one of us, including me, we're all digging on this one spot. We dug and dug and dug. No, Jennifer Markham. And this wild goose chase plays out day after day. Search after futile search. We ran those book cliffs up and down.

And we did not find. them. On day seven, Kimball directs the team to a dry creek bed. And as we're walking down here, he points to the right and says there's a bone. And there was a bone. It didn't look human. But he said, okay, well, I think we're in the wrong place. Let's turn around and go the other way. It was really odd behavior. And so Johnny decided he was going to stay back and kind of search that area a little bit more. And so I started walking up here and eventually I found a hair clip.

And it's got brown and blonde hair in it. So I said I'd found Leanne. And my voice was cracking a little bit. I remember going and picking some flowers and bringing them back and just laying them in that spot. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. That day and the whole next day, we recovered Leanne. It was a very painstaking. weakingly slow process.

Where her cranium should have been, there was a spent 40 caliber round, which we traced back to Scott's handgun. After we did not find Jennifer, but we found Leanne, we said he's in violation of the plea agreement and we're going to trial. So Scott said, I'll give you a map where Terry was. Now Scott actually drew this map. He did. He drew the precise exit.

He provides a key down here. Kimball told them that they would find a gray tarp and a rope between some trees, and that that's where he left Terry's body. But this time, Detective Search without Scott Kimball. We refused to take him when we went for Uncle Terry, given the manipulation and the nonsense that we went through out in the book cliffs. We followed this logging road, John, and we found the exact tree that he said Uncle Terry would be. We're able to find Terry Kimball wrapped up in a tarp.

Scott had tied him up in a rope and just flung him over like a piece of trash. When the anthropologist put him back together again, they found that he had been shot in the back of the head. The search continues for at least one victim, Jennifer Markham. I hope and I pray all the time that God would tell me something so that I can find her evidence or something, whatever it takes. Now, since Kimball didn't lead authorities to all four victims, his plea deal is renegotiated. Two counts of second-degree murder, one of them for Leanne, Casey, and Jennifer, and the second

count for Uncle Terry, together carrying a 70-year prison sentence. The sentence he has is probably longer than his. natural life will be, so sometimes good enough is as good as you can get. Today, Campbell took responsibility for the murders of four people. But even so, there were still some surprises. Kimball entered the courtroom in a wheelchair. The courtroom in Boulder was filled with relatives of the victims. I did go to the hearing, and everyone told him how they felt about what he had done.

I was present right there at the very first moment. She took her first breath. Scott Kimball is there to take her last. Hearing from all the families that he hurt, that was hard. My daughter was a young woman with feelings and dreams. And to treat her like trash is despicable. Kimball remains unmoved throughout all of it. He is a monster with no conscience and should be treated as such.

This man should never be free again. You never had your day in court? No. Can you forgive him? No. He's unfordivable. He needs exactly where he belongs. After Scott Kimball's sentencing, he's sent to Sterling Correctional Facility in Sterling, Colorado.

But you know what? That's not where Scott Kimball's story ends. Even behind bars, he's still plotting schemes. I was supposed to come in with a helicopter and get him. I said, it's a done deal. I'll be coming in. It's hot. Scott Kimball's cons don't stop, even after he's sentenced to see.

seven decades in prison. Eight years later, he's plotting an elaborate helicopter prison escape from the Sterling Correctional Facility in Colorado. I was stuck in a cell with him and went from that to a great escape. So this guy is Jimmy Tanksley. He was the one who had been hired by Scott to hijack the helicopter, fly it into the prison. I was supposed to come in with a helicopter and get him. But instead, Jimmy Tanksley begins working with...

the FBI, and he tells Kimball their escape plan is rock solid. I said, it's a done deal. I'll be coming in. Hot. And the day of this great escape comes Scott out to the yard. Looking up, looking up, just waiting for that helicopter to come. It never showed. And so now the con man is the one who gets conned, at least this time. And he pleads guilty to the escape attempt.

He's never going to stop scheming. Scott will never stop. Lessons learned the hard way for former Special Agent Carl Sloth, whose one-time confidential informant committed unspeakable crimes. Was Scott Kimball such a good conman that he duped even the FBI? He duped me. The FBI has to make deals with criminals all the time. All law enforcement does to catch other criminals.

But they're valuable. They're valuable. Sometimes they have evil intent and we get conned. Were you reprimanded by the FBI for your handling of Scott Kimball? Yes. My files were gone through and administratively. I found some things were lacking. What did they say was lacking? It was more in regards to paperwork. It was never an admonishment that we shouldn't use them as an informant. Some of the families of the victims hold you responsible. Should that responsibility fall on you?

No, it falls on Kimball. I certainly understand it, though. They do? They've lost loved ones, and we didn't have the evidence to arrest on those four persons until Agent Gruising and Detective Thatcher got involved and connected all the dots.

We reached out to the FBI who declined comment on this case, but former Special Agent Grucing tells us they've made adjustments as to how they deal with informants. The FBI's looked at it as had best practices and lessons learned from handling informants. How many other victims do you think are out there that Scott Kimball killed? If I were to give you a number today, I would say somewhere between 21 and upwards of 40. We may never really know.

The search continues for at least one other victim, Jennifer Markham. Scott was talking to me and he said that you'll never find your daughter. And so far, he's done what he said. I'm not letting this go. That is a fact. Hopefully, I can find her. And then there's Scott Kimball's son, Justin, who still suffers, not just from his injuries, but also from knowing that he's the child of a serial killer. How do you come to grips with that?

It was definitely really hard at first, being just... saying out loud my dad is a convicted serial killer. Justin, Cody, and myself, we survived. We're the lucky ones. There are others out there that aren't. We're here. I'm really confident that I'll be able to do something with my life after this. Casey did serve her purpose on this planet. Her purpose was to catch him. And by finding her remains, it all came together. So it wasn't the destiny I had hoped for for my daughter, but God has her and nobody can ever hurt her again. And we should point out tonight that Scott Kimball is currently in a Kentucky prison and not eligible for parole until the year 2054 when he's 87 years old. That is our program for tonight. Thanks for watching. I'm David Muir and

from all of us here at 2020 and ABC News. Good night. You've been listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault. Friday nights at 9 on ABC, you can also find all new broadcast. episodes of 2020. Thanks for listening. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder which emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.