Going West: True Crime - Kaitlyn Arquette // 225

Episode Date: August 10, 2022

In July of 1989, an 18-year-old woman was heading home to her parents house when she was shot in her own car. Her mother, an acclaimed mystery author, launched her own investigation and spent years hunting for her daughter's killer. And finally, after many years, answers came to the case. This is the story of Kaitlyn Arquette. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. Real Crimes: http://www.realcrimes.com/Arquette/Kaitlyn_Arquette.htm 2. Kait Arquette Family Website: https://kaitarquette.arquettes.com/index.htm 3. ABQ Journal: https://www.abqjournal.com/1341394/30-years-later-kaits-death-is-still-a-mystery-ex-family-takes-up-quest-by-kaits-late-mother-for-justice.html 4. Unsolved Mysteries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDqn0sx1vm4 5. Unsolved: https://unsolved.com/gallery/kaitlyn-arquette/ 6. People: https://people.com/crime/suspected-serial-killer-indicted-in-1989-murder-of-authors-daughter/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host T.A.D. and I'm your host Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. Thank you so much everybody for tuning in today. Heath and I have just been in wedding land of what feels like years. A whirlwind of wedding things. My sister just got married, so we've been so busy with her wedding stuff for weeks and now the next wedding on the list is ours. Yep, we're the next ones up. Which will be sometime next year.

So anyway, thank you guys for tuning in today and thank you to Sarah for recommending this one today. This is a case that we've been wanting to cover on the show for a bit after learning about it through one of our favorite movies ever, which we will definitely go into in today's case. And if you're a fan of thriller and horror movies, you will find this story interesting for sure and of course, very tragic. If you know anything about Daphne and I, then you know that we love horror films and especially 90s thrillers.

And one of our favorite 90s thrillers, which we will be talking about in today's episode. All right guys, this is episode 225 of Going West. So let's get into it. In 1989, an 18-year-old woman was heading home to her parents' house when she was shot in her own car. Her mother and acclaimed mystery author lodged her own investigation and spent years hunting for her daughter's killer. And finally, very episode, so we're going to start a little farther back than we usually do and go into Caitlyn's mother's life first.

So lowest Dunkin Steinmetz was born on April 28, 1934, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to lowest and Joseph's Steinmetz, and she was the oldest of two children. Her parents were both photographers and known for photographing the Ringling brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. Which if you don't know, Barnum and Bailey Circus is like the inspiration for animal crackers. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, on the side of the animal crackers. So true.

Very, very famous circus. Yes. So when Lois was young, the family relocated to Sarasota, Florida, where Lois spent much of her upbringing. And she actually started doing a lot of modeling for her parents' magazine shoots, but her true passion was writing the stories to be printed alongside them instead. And her first story was published for a magazine called Calling All Girls when she was just 13 years old. Her work was regularly published in Teen

Magazines and most notably in 17 magazine. Lois described herself as Chubby and Shy, a bookworm and a dreamer. She took refuge in the pieces she wrote, and she dreamed of publishing a novel one day, and publishing a novel one day she would do. Now, after graduating from high school in 1952, she attended Duke University in North Carolina, but left after meeting her first husband, Joseph Cardozo. And together, they had three children, a son named Brett and daughter's Robin and Carrie. But just a few years later, in 1962, Lois and Joseph divorced and Lois relocated to Albuquerque,

New Mexico. She started teaching journalism at the University of New Mexico, while also continuing to publish articles in women's magazines and even becoming the editor of Woman's Day. In 1965, she met and married her second husband, an electrical engineer named Donald Arquette. They shared two children, Donald Jr.,

and their youngest, a daughter named Caitlin Arquette. So this would bring Lois' children count to five. So she had five kids, her youngest, like you said, is Caitlin, who we're talking about today. Yeah, that's who we're going to be talking about. So the family became very close and Lois' three oldest children even took Donald's last name. But by the end of her career, Lois had written almost 50 books, ranging in style from horror to children's picture books.

Big difference. Yeah, big difference. But she was best known for her young adult thriller novels, including one that all horror fans will have heard of. I know what you did last summer, which was released in 1973. Yeah, and like many of us know, this was turned into a movie starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Geller, Freddie Prinz Jr., and Ryan Felipe. And that came out in 1997. Yeah, so the book was written in 1973, and the movie came out in 1997. Yeah, so it took 24 years, but you know, this is one of, I mean, he's favorite movies of all time. So he's got the book, what was it, like this year, last year?

Yeah, about six months ago. And that was when we found out that the movie was even based on a book, because I didn't know that originally, did you? No, I didn't either. So, you know, that's when we originally discovered, because I remember you got the book and you were like, did you know that this was based on a book and also the author's daughter was murdered.

And that's how we found out about it. Yeah, and I'd never heard of Louis Duncan before, ever in my life, and then come to find out that she wrote all these amazing books, and she wrote, I know what you did last summer. Yeah, and we have, we're gonna talk about a few other books that she wrote that were turned into movies here in a bit. But basically, if you don't know, I know what you did last summer, the plot of the book

is slightly different than the movie, but it maintains the same, very eerie, suspenseful town. So in Lois' version, four teenagers hit and kill a young boy on a bike, and they flee the scene after calling the cops. Over the course of the next year, the four are tormented, finding newspaper clippings of the accident, and notes threatening that someone knows what they did. And by the end of the book, the four finally agree

to do the right thing and confess to the accident. But the 1997 movie adaptation is much more of a slasher with five gruesome revenge killings, and the culprit is different than the one in the book, but we won't spoil it. And more than one of Lois' novels were turned into movies, like I said, including Hotel for Dogs, which was published in 1971,

and then produced and made into a film in 2009, and funny enough, my cousin stars in that movie, and I went to the premiere, but it's definitely more of a kids movie so like we said very different styles. Yeah, very a huge range of films and movies. Yeah, because another book of hers that became a movie was her book called Summer of Fear, which was published in 1976 and then adapted into a West Craven directed horror film in 1978, starring Linda Blair, who was Reagan in the Exorcist.

So very devery. Lots of horror trivia for you guys today. Yeah, but I like that. I think it's cool that she had a passion for both this kind of horror thriller genre and then childrens as well. And she was like, screw it, I'm doing both. I think you could do it all. Very cool of her.

So Lois was awarded the Mystery Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award and the American Library Association or ALA Margaret A. Edwards Award for quote a significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature among many other accolades. And she is still lauded as one of the most pioneering voices in young adult literature. So how does this all relate to our victim? Well, let's get into that. Yes. So Caitlin Claire Arquette, who went by Kate, was born on September 18th, 1970 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, joining her four older siblings.

Much like Lois was as a young girl, she was described as bubbly, kind, and imaginative, and Lois referred to Kate as her starry-eyed girl. And Kate dreamed of becoming a doctor and dedicating her career to helping others. Kate was known for being popular, friendly, and outgoing, and she was an excellent student. She had accepted and offered to attend the University of New Mexico, where her mom taught and had also attended grad school for journalism. She graduated from Highland High School in Albuquerque on June 14, 1989, and that same summer she was living with her boyfriend in an apartment there that they rented together.

Kate had received a sum of money in an insurance settlement that was used to obtain the apartment, excited to start the next phase of her life and live away from her parents' home for the first time. Loa said of Kate's boyfriend, Yong-Win. He seemed like a nice guy and he was around the house a lot. We liked him. But her boyfriend wasn't quite who he said he was. Kate began to suspect that he was involved in a major insurance scam that may have been operated

by a Vietnamese gang that her boyfriend was a part of. And they were referred to by some as the Vietnamese Mafia. So he had just mentioned that, you know, they got this apartment with money from... And the insurance settlement. Yeah, so we're going to kind of go into what that whole thing is about. So in March of that year, which was 1989, shortly before Caitlin graduated from high school, she and Jung took a trip to California together, and Kate came back with some highly sensitive

information about a criminal organization that her boyfriend was involved in, committing complex insurance fraud. Lois was not aware of this until after her daughter's death, but Kate had told her some stories that she and Jung had rented a car on her parents' credit card when they were visiting Southern California, and that the two had been involved in a fender bender. But everyone involved had been treated by a doctor for soft tissue damage in their necks and lower backs. They also all hired a lawyer, filed a claim with their auto insurance company, and gotten

a settlement, including Kate and Jung. So they used this $1,500 insurance payout to move into their apartment. But supposedly, everyone involved in the accident, the drivers, doctors, and lawyers were attached to this gang. As Lois explained it, quote, it was evidently a major multi-million dollar insurance scam, and Kate had found out about it. Although Kate kept pretty quiet about the operation in general, like I said, she didn't tell her mom,

but it definitely bothered her to see something so flagrantly illegal happening right before her eyes and inadvertently involving herself. Yeah, of course, because she's probably not expecting this either from her boyfriend. Yeah, and this is the kind of the trouble with him. Is there some lies in here and just kind of some sketchiness that she seemed to want to get away from closer to the time that she died, which we're going to talk about? Yeah, we're going to get into that.

But other problems plague the young couple's relationship as well. Young, reportedly often had other members of the gang over to their apartment, and it made Kate really uncomfortable. Kate and Young's landlord at the time told a reporter, quote, I got the impression from the neighbors that Caitlin was more afraid of her boyfriend's friends, rather than her boyfriend. She would get disturbed when they only spoke Vietnamese around her and they tended to make fun of her.

Cait did not like her boyfriend's friends and I think the feeling was pretty mutual. And actually, Jung wasn't even the age that he told them he was. According to Lois, quote, he was eight years older than she was, but we thought he was only four years older because they lied to us. She knew that we wouldn't let her date someone that much older. So he would have been 26. Yeah. I mean, it seems like that's kind of a weird

difference, you know, in that moment. Yeah, and I think, I mean, I think the big thing here is just knowing that he's involved with these not so good people, and he's older and she's very young and impressionable and she's only 18, this her first serious relationship. Right, but also why lie? You know, why lie about your age?

I think she probably maybe was just nervous to tell her parents. Sure, yeah. So on July 16th, things had gotten worse. Kate went over to her parents' house and confessed that she and Jung had been fighting and that she had decided that she was going to break up with them and ask him to move out.

And that she planned to have a girlfriend of hers actually move into their apartment. So after he was out. She also instructed her mother to lie about her whereabouts if he called the house looking for her. So it really seemed like she was trying to get away from this guy. Her mom also stated, quote,

Kate told us that she'd had a big fight with her boyfriend. She was breaking up with him, and she was going to a girlfriend's house for dinner. She said that she would either spend the night there or come back and spend it at our house. She was not going to go back to that apartment. Young, however, told a very different story. Cated left him a note that afternoon saying something to the effect of, Hun, I'll be home by this time. Young went out to dinner and to play pool with some friends,

brought back a few people to the apartment for drinks, and then supposedly went to bed. After leaving her parents' house around 6.15pm to go spend time with this friend, Kate went to the house of a new friend Sharon Smith, who we're also going to mention a little bit later. She remembers Kate's behavior being erratic that evening. Sharon said she kept bursting into tears and also kept making Sharon phone her apartment every few minutes just to see if her boyfriend was there, but he never answered. Caitlin left Sharon's house around 10-40 pm, driving east back toward her parents' house. So it's, you know, it's,

kind of goes to show you she was going to her parents' house, she's not going home. Yeah. Well, driving home on Lomis Road, a car pulled alongside Kate's red 1984 Ford Tempo. An unknown assailant fired two shots and Kate's car jumped the median and collided with a telephone pole at the intersection of Lomas and Arno Street. Violent crimes detective Ronald Meriman, no relation to my wonderful co-host, Keith Maryman. Don't know the guy. Happened to be passing by and saw two vehicles parked on the sidewalk.

Cates and would appear to be a grey Volkswagen Beetle. And at this time, a man hovered outside Cates' car. Kind of weird. Ronald continued driving but radioed in what he saw, asking if there had been an accident reported. And when there was none, he called in a report of an accident with no injuries and returned to the scene of the crime. But after getting out of his car, he saw Caitlin, and realized the situation was much more serious than he had originally thought.

He found Kate unconscious, bloody, and laying across her two front seats. So it's interesting here that without even knowing the situation, he reported that nobody had been injured in this crash. I wonder why, yeah. Yeah, it's like, why didn't you gather the information first? I mean, obviously, nothing on him for that. He probably just wanted to report the situation

as soon as possible, but then come to find out there's actually something very serious going on here Very serious. Yeah, and so obviously when he saw that he's like, oh wait Yeah, so when the first responding officer Mary Ann Wallace arrived at the scene less than a minute later She observed only one car not two and it was of course kates Ronald was questioning the man who had been standing next to Cates' car, a man who introduced himself as Paul Apidaca, asking if he'd seen what had happened. Ronald called for an ambulance citing an injured woman as a result of a traffic accident, but Marianne noticed that the driver's side window had shattered from the outside, as if something had hit it,

and recognized the accident as something far more sinister. Upon opening the door to the vehicle, Kate was moaning and bleeding profusely from her head. It's so terrifying to know what happened to her and know that she is conscious. Absolutely terrifying. So Mary Ann and Ronald took the man's name, which they learned was Paul Abadaka, and his number, and all three left the scene. But when the paramedics from the Albuquerque ambulance arrived, they found no one there, but Kate.

The driver remembers, quote, it was so quiet, it was eerie. Well, it's weird too that they would leave her alone. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. So weird. When interviewed later, Ronald claimed that he couldn't interview Paul about what he had witnessed, because he had to stay with the victim, but he had left the scene. So Marianne claimed that she hadn't interviewed Paul because Ronald was going to, so she instead directed traffic around this accident.

But Kate had been left alone. Lois explained first hearing about her daughter's fate, quote, It was a call from the hospital emergency room. They said Kate was there and that she'd been injured. They wouldn't tell me what had happened on the phone, so my husband and I drove to the hospital and Learned Kate had been shocked twice in the head and she was in a coma And just the fact that she was driving and it was hit twice in the head is wild Like obviously this person is a good shot

Well, yeah, and sometimes like you hear stories about like people getting shot on the freeway where a random bullet flies through a cart No, this was not that it was very purposeful. It was a target. Absolutely. So while Kate was being treated at the local hospital and just clinging to life, more police showed up to start an investigation. Two bullet holes were found in Kate's head, but only one bullet hole was found in her Ford tempo after having left her body

and no bullets were found at or near the scene in the car or in Kate's body. Police her eyes that she had been shot at a stoplight through her driver's side window at the corner of Lomas and John Street's, which had shattered the glass and struck her in the head. Her car then corined over 700 feet across two lanes of traffic, the median, and then three more lanes of traffic going the opposite direction before jumping the curb and colliding with a light pole. However, no evidence, including broken glass, was recovered from the scene, so it seems that someone quickly cleaned up after themselves.

Yeah, I'd say so. Five hours after the accident, with Kate's family already at her bedside. Police went by Kate and Young's apartment, and Young had apparently been asleep and was allegedly unaware of what had happened to Kate. After being questioned, he rushed to the hospital to join the Arquets, hoping that she would awake from her coma. But sadly, 20 hours after being shot on July 17, 1989, 18-year-old Caitlin Arquet passed away. 89. 18-year-old Caitlin Arquette has to weigh. Before their daughter was even buried, Lewis and Donald knew that the investigation indicates

mysterious death was off to a terrible start. Authorities attempted to question Paul Apidaka, the supposed bystander at the crime scene, but found that he'd given police a fake number. Sketch-hee. Yeah, obviously. So the responding officers who arrived after Marianne and Ronald had left were reportedly held up by another shooting. Sergeant John Gallegos of the Albuquerque Police Department was the first investigator on

the scene after Kate was taken to the hospital, and the report appears to be observations made by him alone. According to reports of police corruption, John has since been let go from APD for robbing a liquor store while on duty. What in the fuck? Yeah. So shortly after Kate's murder, Lois discovered that three phone calls had been made from her apartment at almost the exact time that Kate died on July 17th,

at 9.10 pm, 9.15 pm, and 9.21 pm. So very weird that these three phone calls would be going out at the very time that Kate is being murdered. Right because remember they tried to call earlier. She tried to call with Sharon earlier and young was there. Yeah, young wasn't answering the phone and he's not home at this time. So very weird.

Lowest stated quote, they were made just minutes after she was pronounced dead when her boyfriend was with us at the hospital and the apartment should have been unoccupied. The number turned out to belong to a Vietnamese paralegal in Orange County. It was the same paralegal who set up the car wrecks. This is just really bizarre because this means that someone was in her apartment making these calls and it certainly wasn't Kate but it wasn't young either apparently because he was at the hospital. So this just makes you wonder if the person who killed her was connected to this insurance

fraud and connected to her boyfriend or at least at this point in the investigation. Well, it does certainly appear that way on the surface. Yeah, just very eerie detail. So on July 21st, 1989, so just days after Kate's death, Dear Kets held a funeral for her. And while mourning the sudden loss of their youngest daughter, her parents began to notice strange incidents plaguing the people that they believe

may have been involved. Sharon Smith, the friend of Kate's whose how she had been coming from the night of her death, the last person I see her alive, was unable to attend the funeral because she had incurred a mysterious injury. So she said she was in the hospital being treated for a dog bite from her own dog, but she refused to release the emergency room report. That's really bizarre. And it just makes you wonder if what she's lying, why would she lie though, right? It's very odd. Also just a very strange story, like you just got bit by your own dog.

Well right, you had to go to the... But which, you know happens, but... All right. But this is even weirder just shortly after this happened share and moved out of the state oh definitely are you gonna say your line are you gonna say your line we're all very suspicious here are you not does that not weird to you well no obviously I just wanted you to say do you know what that it's very suspicious when people move out of state after. That's so, yeah. And I'm not saying that she's involved in what happened to Kate.

I just mean that, well, I'm just going to keep going because what I'm going to say next is really odd. And it just connects, like I said, to all these weird things that followed Kate's death. So later that day after attending her funeral, Jung allegedly stabbed himself in the home of one of the men with whom he had been with on the night of the shooting, the shooting, sorry, and it was ruled a suicide attempt. Two weeks later, another close friend

of Jung's Ray Padilla had his wrist slashed in what was reported to be another suicide attempt. So strange. That same day, two of Ray's friends had their wrist slashed as well. There's just somebody slashing wrists out there. No, but this is weird. This is really weird. No, it is. It is. I mean, that's creepy. Yeah, within like, you know, two days, all these things are happening. And then, so Lois believes that this was like, it

was all intimidation of people who knew something about Kate's murder, like an attempt to keep them quiet. So this is, this is what I mean. It's like all these weird things happening. And even with Sharon, who had allegedly been bitten by her own dog in the move down the state, like, here's Lois saying that she doesn't really believe that and that she's wondering if all of this, these things were done onto these people to keep them quiet about what they may have known. Yeah, I mean, it kind of seems that way, you know, like, like why would these, these, these incidents are just bizarre in themselves, but why would they happen surrounding, you know, Kate's

funeral? Yeah, and one after the other, and most of them the same style. Right. Right. So Lewis and Donald hired private investigators and also appealed to the Bernalillo County Cold Case Squad, which is not affiliated with the Albuquerque Police Department. Their conclusion was that Kate was not the victim of a random drive-by shooting, but that

she was intentionally and specifically pinpointed ahead of time. They also believed that she had not been shot until after her car had struck the telephone pole, and that the shots were fired at close range. So it appeared that, you know, initially it appeared that she was shot at a stoplight while she was driving, but now it appears that after the car had crashed, then she was shot. Right. They felt that had the shooting taken place while Kate was actually driving her car, like

actively driving it, she would have veered to the right instead of the left and that her having fallen to the right would have also led the vehicle to the right side of the road. And there was also some damage to the left side of her rear bumper which suggested that she may have been rear-ended first and forced into the telephone pole before being shot. Which would make sense, especially like I was saying earlier how the person would have had to have been a really good shot to shoot her from maybe their vehicle, obviously not not impossible. Yeah.

But it made more sense also with the evidence at the scene that she was just shot like close range after the accident occurred. They tried to push her off the road so that they could get the car stopped and then they could shoot her. Right. So, six months after Kate's death, police ruled it a random act of violence, but Lois refused to accept this answer and spent the rest of her life chasing down justice for her daughter. She was particularly attached to the theory that Kate had known too much about her boyfriend's

alleged gang involvement. Another reason for this was the note that Kate supposedly left for young on the day of her death. So Mike Gallagher, a reporter that Lois contacted to do some digging on the case on Lois' behalf, tracked down the actual note and he compared it to another sample of Kate's writing. This is what he observed, quote, it was obvious just by comparing the handwriting of the note with Caitlin's writing that she did not write that note.

And that led me to believe that within hours of her shooting, her boyfriend was already lying to police. So as I had mentioned, I don't know if I mentioned her, you mentioned it earlier about, oh, you did. The note how you said it was like, huh, I'll be home at such and such time. And we were kind of like, that's weird because her mom had said that she was supposed to come to her house and it seemed like her car was on the way

to her parents house, not her own apartment because she was trying to break up with her boyfriend. So her writing, I know that said, hey, huh, I'll be home at this time. Doesn't connect or connect anyway. Yeah, it seems out of character. And now this reporter, obviously this is just a reporter, I don't know if he got this examined professionally

or if he's just comparing the two with his own eyes, but it's not like we can't look at two different writing samples and be able to say these look different, you know? But it seems like that's what he did. And he does not believe that Kate wrote that note, which would mean that young is lying. So Lois believes that young and the friends that he had over that night were all involved in the insurance fraud scheme and that they had contacted the Orange County Parallegal

on the night of Kate's death after sending one of their own to murder her. But the strange thing was that police actually disagreed with this. Detective Steve Gallegos, as far as we could find, no relation to Sergeant John Gallegos, said quote, I don't think that the Vietnamese connection is related to this case. Thus far, I have not received any information to indicate positively that the Vietnamese are involved in this homicide. And I get that if you don't have enough evidence, you have to be careful what direction you

spearhead. Sure. But all that weird stuff that happened to that circle afterwards is just so odd. And it also doesn't mean that it has to be connected to Kate's murder, but it is still just so weird. Yeah, I mean, it seemed like be connected to Kate's murder, but it is still just so weird. Yeah, I mean, it seemed like a very sketchy group of people and there was obviously crimes being committed through this insurance fraud. Yeah, and just knowing that Kate didn't like his friends, it was almost afraid of them and knew a lot about this insurance fraud scheme. And,

you know, that would be reason to silence somebody especially because it was said that this was a multi-million dollar scheme. So that's a big crime here. Big deal. But police zeroed in on a different suspect. A man named Huvinal Escabeto who went by Jose Hernandez. After police declared Caitlyn's death a random act of violence, an informant tipped them off to Jose after he sold his car, a brown Chevrolet Camaro.

And also pretty big deal that they're now saying this is a random act of violence because originally they didn't believe that at all. Yeah, exactly. So a truck driver had reported seeing a car with that very description chase a car that fit the description of Kate's car on the night of her murder. And what felt like a huge break in Kate's case? Three men were arrested for Kate's murder. Jose Hernandez, Miguel Wangarcia, and Marty Martinez. The informant who was a teenage boy named Robert claimed that he and Marty had been in

the backseat of the Camero that Jose had been driving and that he had dared Miguel to shoot her, and so he did. However, Robert later recanted his testimony and said that he was subjected to scare tactics by the police and had made a false confession, and we've obviously seen false confessions before, and a lot of true crime cases. This was found to be true when police did more digging and discovered that Robert had actually been incarcerated on the night of Kate's murder. So his story was impossible. The men were released from custody, but tragedies be felt almost all of them shortly thereafter.

Again leading Kate's family to believe that they were being silenced by the Vietnamese gang, who they still believed killed Kate. Marty was found in front of his home with his wrist-slashed, which was ruled a suicide attempt just like before. Yeah, again, so creepy. Why is this, I just don't understand why this is happening? That's why it seems like it is connected to this game that they're trying to silence these people.

Like it's the only thing that makes sense. Yeah. So Miguel was shot in the stomach, another alleged suicide attempt. And I'm not saying no one attempts suicide this way, but come on. No, no. There's no way that all these people

are attempting suicide around the same time. That would just be completely bonkers. And just a shot in the stomach seems like, just not the way, not that there is a way, but you know what I mean, it just, it seems, I don't know. Anyways, you guys know what we're saying here. I mean, that's just completely odd.

So Robert Leiter died of a drug overdose and his body was abandoned in an alley. Marty, who was described as a loose cannon with an alcohol problem, phoned 911 and told the operator that the gang had paid him and his friends $100 to shoot Kate, and that he had fired four shots and the dispose of the murder weapon. Police believing that this was a false tip chose not to pursue it. So were these men just criminals who happened to live nearby or were they actually involved? Were all these tragic occurrences shortly after Kate's death victim intimidation or just merely coincidences. Under growing pressure from Kate's family, the police detained

young once again for questioning regarding his involvement in Kate's death. He did admit to having been caught up in the insurance scam, which he did not do in the first round of questioning, so there's one thing. But he maintained his innocence in her murder. Mike Gallagher, again the reporter who is helping Lois with the case, noted, quote, I think it's important for the police and anybody who looks at this case to remember that Caitlin's boyfriend's friends

were involved with large-scale organized criminal activity in Los Angeles and multi-million dollar insurance frauds. I don't think the police ever took that seriously. As the investigation tapered off, the Arquette family and in particular, Lois, maintained her conviction in chasing down answers for her daughter. In 1992, so about three years later,

or three years after Kate's murder, she published a book called Who Killed My Daughter, detailing every nuance and possibility in the case, and her harrowing journey hunting killer. She really hoped that it would bring renewed public interest in the case since it had been a few years and didn't feel like that many people were still talking about it. And here is what she said, she said, quote, our family doesn't have any real idea who pulled the trigger on Kate. The one thing we feel very strongly about is that she was not shot randomly by people just out on a spree, having fun shooting a pretty girl in a red car. We believe Kate was killed

because she was going to expose illegal activities involving her boyfriend and his companions. Lois even went on Good Morning America to promote her book and this case and went head-to-head with the district attorney and Albuquerque police chief handling her daughter's case, claiming that they had wasted valuable time and fumbled the investigation. In 2013, so over 20 years later, she released a follow-up book about the ordeal called One to the Wolves on the Trail of a Killer, describing her fight for justice in all the information and theories that had come out in the 24 years since her daughter's death.

She and Donald built a website with all these theories and information along with a place to leave tips. They said, quote, too much for them, and families have to live with that. What we should not have to live with, however, is a deliberate police effort to conceal or alter important evidence. We believe there's an official cover up going on with our daughter's case. After her daughter's death, Lois began writing children's picture books, saying that she could no longer write about young women in life-threatening situations. She and Donald moved back to her beloved Florida to get away from the scene of the gruesome murder.

On June 15th, 2016, at the age of 82, Lois Duncan passed away at home after suffering a series of strokes. She was never able to find out what really happened to Kate. Well, thankfully the rest of her family did and sadly it was only about five years after this, so not too long after. And so on July 20th, 2021, just last year, almost 32 years to the day that Kate was killed, a man was arrested by the Albuquerque Police Department for violating his parole. This man was homeless at the time and told the arresting officers of his deep hatred and disdain for women, which is

always such a scary red flag when killers just have such a hate for women. I feel like a lot of that sometimes can stem from how they were treated by their mother. We've seen that in so many cases, but it's always really scary when there's just this deep hatred for women. Yeah, and a lot of times it's also people who can't handle rejection.

Yes, there's lots of traumas that can lead to this horrific feeling. So not that I'm a psychologist. So he had already served time in 1995, so six years after Kate's murder, for raping his step sister. Piece of shit. Yeah, a crime which he claims he only committed to join his brother in prison, which is so ridiculous, and his brother at this time was serving a 45-year sentence for murder. So yeah, it seems like being a piece of shit runs in the family.

Yeah, the shit doesn't fall far from the shit tree. Oh my God. So after the parole violation arrest, answers came swiftly in Kate's case, because the man confessed both to her murder and the killing of two other young women her age that happened in the area around the same time. And guess who it was?

Paul Apadaka, who you may remember as the first person on the scene of Kate's murder. That is so wild to me. It's so frustrating, you know, like... It's so wild to me. This guy was seen hovering over her car originally, and they spoke to police. They did give, or he did give them a fake phone number, but you had his name and as you're about to go into, they didn't even look up the guy. This is just insane. So, while Paul was awaiting the sentencing of his rape charge, the Arquette's private

investigator actually did interview him, but he denied involvement at the time. Kate's remaining family are just shocked and disappointed that police didn't pursue him as a suspect in the first place, given that he was the only person at the scene of the crime other than Kate. Aside from asking for his name and phone number, which he faked anyway, they failed to obtain an address or search him in their database, where they could have discovered his long history of violent crimes against women. In fact, Paul was actually the very first person registered as a sex offender in Bernalillo County, under new legislation requiring convicted offenders to make themselves known to local law enforcement.

Kate's older sister Carrie said that she and her family are still left with so many questions and feel that the investigation failed its victim. They said, quote, this is one of the things that breaks our hearts. This man was at the scene of the crime with the cops. How obvious did it need to be to look into this guy? They just let him walk away. And just knowing how, you know, how much this family suffered all these years

not knowing who killed her and why and just the fact that her mom wrote two books about it and spent so much time doing her own investigating and, you know, having the reporter do do digging as well, hiring a private investigator, they did so much on their own as a family to try to figure this out and then lowest dives without knowing and then it's just Paul at the end of all this yeah I can't even imagine what you would be thinking years and years and years later as an investigator you know a first responder on this case being like wow it was literally the guy that was standing over the car.

Yeah like how do we not just you know pursue him for a second. So Paul's other two crimes were quite similar and seemingly random acts of violence against young women and cases that went cold quickly. His first known victim was 21-year-old Althea Oakley, so she was about three years older than Kate. On June 22, 1988, so about a year before Kate's murder, Althea was walking home from a party near the University of New Mexico, and she was attacked and stabbed to death. Paul was apparently working as a security guard near by at the time, and Althea greeted him as she walked by. In his confession, this is so annoying, Paul said, quote, my intention was just to take

her at knife point to rape her, but what happened was that I was sitting there and when she walked up, she smiled at me. She said hi and she smiled at me. That's the worst part. I hurt someone that smiled at me. Like, then worst part. I hurt someone that smiled at me. Like, then why'd you hurt her? Like, what? Yeah, you idiot. It's not like you hurt her first and then she smiled at you. She smiled at you and then you hurt her. First of all, you're not gonna make yourself... No, we're not doing that. We're not gonna make you the victim. Like,

oh, oh, make my crime seem less bad. Like, you... Like, oh, I feel bad she did this. Then why'd you do it? You had the intention to rape her and kill her from the get go. Like, shut up, dude. It's so dumb. So, getting fired up. So, his next known victim was 13-year-old Stella Gonzalez.

In the early morning hours of September 9, 1980, it's just a couple months after Althea's murder, Stella and a friend were walking home near the Rio Grande River that divides the city when she was shot in the back of the head by an unknown assailant. She was rushed to the hospital but died two days later. How sick is that though? That's a a game. She's a 13 year old girl, like just chilling, minding her own business with her friends, and some monster decides to walk up

behind her and take her life. Yeah, he's just, I mean, he's horrible. And they also linked him to a non-fatal shooting just hours prior to Stella's murder. And Paul had no links to Stella, by the way, and police believe that he targeted her simply because she was in a vulnerable position and he saw an opportunity to do so. And Stella's case received considerably less media attention than his other two known victims, and her family went without answers for over three decades. And then in July of the next year, 1989, was Kate. And investigators are still unsure whether or not he has more victims, but presently, Paul is still in prison in New Mexico awaiting trial.

All of Lois' children pursued creative paths just like their mother. Robin is now a singer and composer and even collaborated with her mother on an album for kids entitled Songs of Childhood. Inspired by her sister's case, Carrie became a criminologist, but also writes children's books just like her mother. Yeah, and even co-owns a publishing company. How bad ass. And Brett is a horror author.

Love it. And Donald Jr. or Donnie is an artist. After Kate's death, Lois said that it was her dream to write a follow-up to who killed my daughter, hoping to draw the family's real life horror story to a close. She said, quote, but of course, for that to be possible, Kate's case must be solved. Although Lois never

got to see her daughter's killer pay for what he did to Kate and to their family, she did everything in her power to get answers, and also helped others do the same. Lois founded a research center to investigate cold cases, which is now known as the Resource Center for Victims of Violent Deaths. Written in Kato Bichouerry is the phrase, quote, Wind blows softly here. Green sawed above. Lye light, lie light. Good night dear heart. Good night, good night. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Friday we'll have an

all new case for you guys to dive into. I'm sure there are many of you out there who are lowest-dunk in fans and who have read her books, but if you haven't, feel free to check them out. She has so many and of different kinds as we know. And what a wonderful woman who worked so hard to figure out what happened to her daughter, and I just feel so bad for this family because we still just don't get it. We still don't understand.

No, we don't. But really knowing what Paul did to his other victims, he just wanted to stir the pot. Like he's just the kind of guy who just wanted to cause trouble for no reason. Just an absolute evil man, but the greatest part about this entire story is that he didn't get away with it.

After all those years, finally, he was taken down. But how frustrating that he almost wanted to be in prison. Yo, I mean, he raped his step sister allegedly just so he could go be in prison with his brother. Like, that is dumbest shit I've ever heard. Yeah, he's a moron and an evil person. Absolutely. So thank you guys so much for tuning in.

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