Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - Sante Kimes Pt. 3

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

You may have heard of ‘boy moms’, but we promise you’ve never heard of one like Sante Kimes. In the final part of our story you’ll hear about how Kimes’ grifts grew in scale and complexity, and how the only person she trusted to carry out her deadly plans was her own son, Kenny Jr. Keep up with us on Instagram @serialkillerspodcast and Tiktok @serialkillerspodcast! Have a story to share? Email us at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Well, due to the graphic nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder and incest. We advise extreme caution for children under the age of 13. You've heard people say that blood is thicker than water, right? Well, that's not actually the whole quote. The saying originally went, Blood of the Covenant is thicker than water of the womb. So despite what people believe, this particular idiom is not about familial bond.

It's describing the relationship formed on the battlefield, someone you've shed blood with. But for Sante Kheims, both versions of the quote hold up. She shared a link with her son, Kenny, that went beyond your typical family ties. And as their crimes escalated, their intense connection only deepened. Sante made it clear they were in a war. It was them against the world. They had to do whatever it took to protect themselves. And if that meant they needed to spill a little blood, then so be it.

I'm Vanessa Richardson, and this is Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. Over the last two weeks, we followed Sante Kimes from Dust Bowl, Oklahoma, to the tropical beaches of Hawaii. Along the way, we learned about her thefts, insurance schemes, and human trafficking. Somehow, Sante always came out on top, protected by her husband's wealth. That was, until he died. unexpectedly, and she had to pull out all the stops to keep her hands on his millions. This week, we'll hear the end of Sante's story. We'll discover how she recruited her son to be

her literal partner in crime. But as suspicions grow and acquaintances threaten to expose her, Sante and Kenny's crimes get violent. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Whether you're hiring for a role or searching for a killer, the hunt can be exhausting. When detectives looked and searched to find any kind of evidence to find the person they were looking for, like Jack the Ripper, the Golden State Killer, the Unit Bomber. It's tedious work to find what you're looking for. So, if you're hiring, I've got news for you.

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Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Bonnie and Clyde, the Lonely Hearts Killers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. These are infamous criminal duels. But you don't need to break any laws to find your perfect business partner because you have Shopify. It's the commerce platform that can help you with literally everything,

website design, marketing, shipping, and more. So start your business today with the best partner, Shopify, and get that. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash killers. That's Shopify.com slash killers. Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activio yogurt today for two weeks and see if you feel a difference. With billions of probiotics and 20 years of scientific expertise,

Activia is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual. Try Activia today. Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. Sante's dead husband sat in the back seat. Well, his ashes did, at least. She hadn't even bothered to put a seatbelt around the urn.

After Kenneth Kime's senior left her out of his will, she saw no reason to fuss over his remains. She was glad he was dead. Less appealing was the prospect of telling her 19-year-old son, Kenny, the news. She'd instructed him to leave school in Santa Barbara and fly out to Hawaii, but she hadn't told him that it was to scatter Kenneth's ashes. When Kenny's plane landed and he saw only his mom standing there, he knew something was up.

He asked where his dad was. In typical Sante fashion, she handled the situation with zero empathy. She got into the car and pointed to the back seat. That's where he was. She hit the gas as her son's jaw hit the floor. Kenny was devastated, but when Sante told him the father he loved so much, had left him nothing. It likely sent Kenny into a tailspin. Why would his dad rob him of his inheritance?

Had he not cared at all? It's possible Kenny simply felt confused, maybe a little angry, definitely very hurt. Sante stoked those flames. She wanted her son to be as angry as her. Kenneth didn't deserve to be on a pedestal. He'd left them destitute. But they wouldn't stay that way for long. Not if Sante had anything to say about it.

To be honest, unraveling the mess that Sante created gives me a headache. Lawyers later said it took them years to understand what exactly she did with Kenneth's fortune. And even with the benefit of hindsight, we'd be here all day if we got into the weeds of it all. So here's the gist. Basically, without Kenneth around, Sante was cash poor. That's what happens when someone has a lot of economic assets,

but they aren't able to liquidate them for cash. For Sante, the problem was that none of the properties she shared with Kenneth were in her name. And since it seems they weren't technically married, she didn't have any legal grounds to claim them. Instead, she had to choose which complicated hoops she was going to jump through to cheat the system. Option 1 was to find a way to transfer the assets

into her name posthumously, but doing that risked letting Kenneth's remaining family discover he was dead. That left her with option 2, make some sketchy trades for other properties, which she could then sell and make a profit. To confuse things even more, she used a whole slew of fake name,

She knew that Kenneth's family would eventually realize he was dead and that his money was gone. When that happened, she didn't want them to be able to easily trace any of it to her. So that's where the Shell corporations came in. All of this is to say that Sante got really good at forging documents during this time. She faked signatures left and right. She even had a notary on retainer who was open to more questionable methods. Like notarizing documents that weren't entirely. filled out yet. In case you're not up to date on notary procedures, that's a big no-no.

But Sante wasn't concerned with the ethics of her antics. She just wanted what she saw as rightfully hers, and for the time being, it seemed to be smooth sailing. The same couldn't be said for Kenny, who wasn't taking his dad's death well. After returning to school, he lashed out at fellow students. Allegedly he punched one kid, and another student even took out a restraining order against him. It seemed like the only person who understood him was his mom. With each passing day, he leaned on her for more support. All the teenage angst and hatred he'd once felt toward her seemed to melt away. She was the only family he had left. Sante relished it. And then she took advantage of it. Kenny might have been miles away in California, but he was never

far from his mom's influence. She managed the money in his accounts. She gave him. She gave her opinion on his girlfriends, who she always hated, and when she visited, she slept in his room with him. There wasn't an ounce of privacy between them. Sante was what we'd call a controlling parent, more like bordering on a toxic one. Before we continue with Sante's psychology, please note that I'm not a licensed psychiatrist or psychologist, but we have done a lot of research for the show. According to family therapist Esther Boykin, controlling parents don't leave space for their children to have their own emotional experience. These types of parents tend to use manipulative tactics when their kids are young, but it can

go well into adulthood. As a result, children lose their autonomy and never learn to speak up for themselves. They defer to the parent who makes all the decisions. That's when the relationship between parent and child can become toxic. Psychotherapist Matt Lundquist points out that such a occurs when a parent acts in their own self-interest rather than their childs. Generally, these types of relationships are high conflict and involve either verbal, emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. In Sante's case, she used emotional manipulation to control her son. Her actions were designed to make it look like she cared only about Kenny, but really, she was focused on what she wanted and needed. And just then, she was determined to have her son, by her son, by her child,

her side. Given that she was such a good puppet master, it's not surprising that Kenny came running when she insisted he'd drop out of school and come be with her. After all, mother knows best. So in the spring of 1996, 21-year-old Kenny became his mom's full-time, and I'm saying this with air quotes, business partner. Together, the two ran various schemes. At least one was semi-legit. They sold Cuban cigars online. Not exactly legal, but at least they were selling an actual product. At least, we think they were. There's really no way to be sure about that. Anyway, they quickly scrapped that idea, and Sante's attention returned to her late husband's fortune. That's where the real money was. If only they could get a hold of it. And here's where it's a good idea to

strap in, because this is where things really start to go off the rails. Later that summer, Sante took Kenny to the Bahamas. The goal of the trip was simple, to withdraw money from Kenneth's offshore account. Like many millionaires, he'd used Cayman banking to hide a portion of his wealth. There was just one small issue. A bank auditor named Syed Bilal Ahmed suspected Sante was up to something. Now, there are various accounts of what exactly sparked his curiosity. According to the New York Times, Sante and Kenny had actually approached him about an online business venture. Others, like his colleagues at first came in bank, said he'd noticed irregular withdrawals from the Kimes account over the last two years.

For those of you paying attention, that was since Kenneth died back in 94. Whatever the case, Sante, Kenny, and Ahmed were all in the Bahamas at the same time. And when Sante learned Ahmed was onto her, she felt like her back was up against the wall. If he proved she was stealing from Kenneth's accounts, they'd lock her up. She couldn't have that, so she didn't have that. she decided there was only one thing to do. Ahmed had to die. That might seem like an illogical escalation.

With the exception of Sante's jaunt into trafficking and slavery, she and her son were standard white-collar criminals. Generally, those don't resort to physical violence. But researchers Frank Perry and Terence Lichtenwald actually found that, quote, imminent threat of detection is a sufficient motive for the white-collar criminal to respond violence. They even gave it a name.

Fraud detection, homicide. This explains how Sante's response to danger rocketed so easily. She felt like violence was the only way to protect themselves. And by this stage, Kenny was primed to do anything his mother asked of him. If she said that killing one banker meant they were safe, he'd do it.

So, Sante contacted Ahmed and invited him to dinner with her and Kenny. She knew he'd take the bait. it was the banker's chance to have a true face-to-face with her. Multiple people witnessed them in a restaurant together, although no one knew what exactly was said during the meal. Afterward, Sante and Kenny lured Ahmed to a secondary location. There, they got rid of the banker. As for how Ahmed died, it's difficult to be certain.

However, some sources agree that Kenny drowned him in a bathtub, then dumped his body in the ocean. After the deed was done, Sante and Kenny fled the Bahamas. By the time anyone realized Ahmed was missing, they were long gone, but they left in such a rush that Sante hadn't collected the money from Kenneth's account. That meant they were still cash poor, and Sante needed a new plan. But she wasn't phased. She'd do whatever it took.

And if she had to kill again, well, she'd cross that bridge when she came to it. Coming up, Sante antagonizes an old friend. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigue, ask your doctor about Zepbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zep-bound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet

and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zepound contains terseptitide and should not be used with other terseptide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pins or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck.

Stop, Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepound with a sulfonel urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsened kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-9-9 or visit setbound.lily.com.

Transport your senses with Saltijanado's limited edition perfume mist collection. At Sephora, sprit on lush notes of rainforest orchid and crisp sea breeze with hafresco paraizo. Embrace a floral and fruity scent inspired by Rio's nude beach with cheeky bikini or caps her sun-kissed bliss with limonada gelada, where zesty Brazilian lemonade accord meets coconut, milk and golden brown sugar. Don't miss Sol de Janito's limited edition perfume mist collection, only at Sephora. Now back to the story. It was the summer of 1996, and Sante Kimes was in the clear. Allegedly, she and her 21-year-old son, Kenny, had just gotten away with killing a man in the Bahamas and made their way back to the U.S. But now feeling overly confident, 62-year-old

Sante wasn't content to lay low. That was tantamount to giving up, and she still had so much more to do, or rather so much more of her late husband's fortune to steal. With that in mind, she turned her attention to the Las Vegas home she'd shared with Kenneth. She couldn't outright sell the house, but there was still plenty of value in those four walls. But who owned that value was, like so much of this story, complicated. Because although most of his properties were in Kenneth Sr's name, the Vegas home might have technically belonged to a man named David Kazdin.

Now, let's take a quick minute to talk about David, because things get a little murky here. Back in the day, he and Kenneth had been close business acquaintances, so close, in fact, that Kenneth asked David for a huge favor. He wanted to put his Las Vegas house in David's name to separate it from his other assets. For whatever reason, David agreed. But as the years went on, David realized he didn't really want someone else's property in his name for obvious liability reasons. So he asked for the deed to be changed back, and he assumed Kenneth had taken care of it. It's not clear if Kenneth followed through and

then Sante changed it back, or if she just discovered that it was already in David's name and took advantage of that fact. One way or another, by 1997, the house was David's on paper. Using that information, Sante forged a loan application, using the house as collateral and collected $280,000. There was just one small hiccup. When David found out he was on the hook for all that money, he was not happy. And he knew exactly who was behind the shenanigans. He picked up the phone and called Sante to give her an earful. In no uncertain terms, he swore he'd expose her forgery.

And Sante, well, we'd have. all know how she responds to threats. Over the next several weeks, she repeatedly called David, telling him to call off the dogs or else. Exactly what she had in mind, I couldn't say, and maybe she couldn't either. There was plenty on her plate as it was. She didn't have time to come up with specifics for her threats. She was too busy brainstorming other ways to get more money. She wanted to cash in on the full value of the house, and that required a little more creative thinking. So in January of 1998, Sante found a man named Robert McCarran at a local homeless shelter and made him the new owner of the property. It sounds bizarre, I know, but Sante figured she could

have complete control over McCarron. Much like the maids she'd once trapped, Sante kept McCarran captive in her Las Vegas home. She coached him on how to act like the property owner. Then she made him take out a large insurance policy on the house. Days later, the building went up in flames. Obviously, the plan was to collect the insurance money, but it took the arson investigator no time at all to confirm that the blaze was set deliberately. Pared that with the discovery that the insurance had only just been taken out, and it was obvious they had a simple case of insurance fraud on their hands, which meant no money for Sante again. frustrated and probably a little desperate, she and Kenny hit the road, bringing McCarran along with them.

The last thing they needed was for the Vegas authorities to find and question him about the fire. The trio headed toward Los Angeles, where not so coincidentally, David Kasden lived. They still needed to make sure he stopped his forgery investigation. Sante told Kenny that David knew too much. They had to get rid of him. And when she said they, she really meant Kenny. So on the night of March 13th, Kenny asked Sean Little, a drifter they'd picked up in L.A. for help. Sean didn't know what was going on, but he agreed.

On their way out, Sante told Kenny to do a good job and wished him luck. A little later, Kenny pulled up to David's house. He told Sean to wait for him outside while he handled something, then disappeared into the building. Moments later, Sean heard a gunshot. Then the sound of Kenny shouting. Sean raced toward the commotion, wondering if Kenny was hurt. But when he got to the kitchen, he saw a different man face down on the floor, a bullet hole in the back of his head.

It was David Kasden. As Sean swallowed his sick, Kenny told him to help carry the body to the car. Scared of what might happen to him if he didn't comply, Sean did as he was told. They put him in the trunk and drove away. Kenny found a back-alley dumpster near Los Angeles International Airport. He and Sean tossed David's body in, then sped off into the night. Meanwhile, Sante waited at home. Only once they returned did she exhale.

It was all over now. They were finally safe again. Except the very next morning, a man sifting through the dumpsters found David's body. Police raced to the scene. Within 24 hours, they IDed David and spoke. to his family. They, in turn, told police about the debacle with Sante Kimes and the bogus home loan. That piqued the cop's interest for sure. But by the time authorities started looking for Sante and Kenny, the mother-son duo had already left L.A., still criming like it was their job.

Somewhere along the way, Sante convinced Jim Blackner, a Utah car dealer, to sell her a car over the phone. She and her late husband had bought several vehicles from his car. over the years, so he wasn't worried about the transaction. She wrote a check for nearly $15,000 and sent it to Utah. In return, she received a barely used green Lincoln town car. By the time the check bounced and Jim realized what had happened, Sante and Kenny were in the wind on their way to Florida. They'd managed to escape once again,

but they were leaving more and more enemies in their wake. Jim filed a complaint, and Utah authorities put out a authorities put out a warrant for the pair's arrest. Then Sean Little, who'd been there when Kenny murdered David Kasden, told investigators what he knew. He confessed to being privy to the crime, and his statement sent the LAPD on a wild hunt for Sante and Kenny. When it became clear they'd left the state, the cops called in the feds. Soon the web of warrants started to intersect. The Los Angeles detectives cross-checked their notes with the Utah authorities. To get, they started putting together a decent picture of their quarry's crimes.

Of course, that didn't mean much if they couldn't find Sante and Kenny, and as far as they knew, they could be anywhere. If the two of them laid low, who knows if they'd ever find them. But Sante Kimes lay low? Yeah, right. She and Kenny hid out in Palm Beach, Florida for a couple of months, but eventually Sante started planning her next scheme. It's like she couldn't help herself.

Her experience with David in the Las Vegas house taught Sante plenty about running real estate schemes, and she wasn't about to waste that education. This time around, she wanted a piece of real estate she could own outright. So, Sante started house hunting, and a really convoluted trail led her to New York City. That's where 82-year-old Irene Silverman owned a $7 million brownstone apartment building in Manhattan. That's when Sante formed a. plan, do away with Irene, take over her estate, sell it, then pocket the money, and disappear. Simple enough, in Sante's mind, at least. For anyone else, that probably sounds like a bonkers plan.

How on earth did she think she'd ever get away with something so blatant? Well, she might not have been thinking about whether or not she'd get caught. According to researchers Frank Perry and Terence Lichtenwald, white-collar criminals who've crossed over into violent crimes generally have delusions of grandeur that, quote, hinder their ability to foresee the consequences of their behavior. Sante might have once been acting out of self-preservation, but now that she and Kenny had fully crossed over into the land of violent crime, the idea of doing it again wasn't so far-fetched.

In her mind, if she and Kenny played their cards right, they could be millionaires again by the end of summer. There was nothing to it. Coming up, Sante and Kenny's most complex scheme yet. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want.

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Now, back to the story. Sometime in 1998, 64-year-old Santee Kimes shed one identity and adopted another. As part of her latest plan, she played the role of Ava Guerrero, assistant to a gentleman named Manny Garin. Using her new alias, Sante called 82-year-old Irene Silverman, the owner of the New York Brownstone apartment building, Sante had her eye on. arranged for Irene to meet with Manny, who needed an apartment to rent. Of course, Manny Garon didn't exist. He was just Sante's son, 23-year-old Kenny Kimes, playing a part, just like his mom. In every interaction going forward, Irene only ever knew Sante and Kenny as Ava and Manny.

But to keep things from getting even more confusing, we'll refer to our mother-son team by their real names. In June of 1998, Kenny met Irene in her browns. Normally, she required references from any potential tenants before they moved in, but Sante had armed Kenny with $6,000 in cash to cover the first month's rent. He gave that to Irene and promised he'd get her his references the next day. Figuring he had to be the real deal with money like that lying around, Irene showed him to apartment 1B. As soon as Kenny was in, he holed up in the flat.

He never got Irene those references. and he refused to let the cleaners in when they called. The only person he led into the place was Sante. Together, they scoped out the building from inside Kenny's apartment. Through the people in his door, they watched the other tenants in the hallways. They clocked people's schedules, learning when the building was busy and when it was quiet. There definitely seemed to be far fewer staff around on the weekends. That made it the best time to strike.

Sante and Kenny wrote all of this down in their journals, taking detailed notes that they could refer back to. Sante also practiced forging Irene's signature. As one judge later said, it was incredibly stupid of Sante to keep a running log of her murderous plans, but as we've established, she was overconfident in her ability to pull this off. The next step was to get all the paperwork ready.

Sante prepared a deed transfer that put the brownstone in her name, instead of Irene's. They just had to get it notarized. Of course, for a document bearing Irene's name, they needed her to sign it. But even that was little more than a speed bump. Sante simply impersonated the elderly woman and signed the documents in front of the notary. After that, everything was in place, and it was time to move in for the kill. On July 5, 1998, Sante and Kenny either went to Irene's apartment and pushed their way in inside, or they lured her into Kenny's apartment. Either way, Kenny used a stun gun on the 82-year-old.

Irene fell to the ground completely vulnerable. That's when Sante told her son to strangle the elderly woman. Kenny never was able to resist his mother's orders. After Irene was dead, her killers managed to get her body out of the apartment building and into their car without any security cameras catching them. Then, as had become a pattern by now, Sante sent her son off to deal with the body. He drove all the way out to New Jersey and dumped it in a random spot. Meanwhile, Sante created alibis for herself, making sure she was seen in various places around the city. Then she headed back to the Hilton where she'd been staying. She and Kenny planned to regroup there before completing the transfer of Irene's property. They eventually met up outside the hotel.

But before they could make their way inside together, the FBI and NYPD swarmed, placing them both under arrest. Sante immediately went into denial mode. Even as the police cuffed her, she insisted they'd done nothing wrong. It was all just a terrible mix-up, she said. In contrast, Kenny was a mess. Multiple sources said he was so scared that he wet himself. Now, perhaps in need of a change of clothes, mother and son were brought down to the station

and led into separate interrogation rooms. Sante didn't like that at all. She shouted instructions to Kenny through the walls in an attempt to coach him through the ordeal. But when the detectives interviewed them, the murderous pair were surprised to learn they weren't there for Irene Silverman's murder. The cops had picked them up on an entirely different matter,

the stolen Lincoln town car from Utah. You could have heard Sante and Kenny's audible exhales from blocks away. That was all? They could clear that up in no time. And maybe Sante could have talked her way out of that one, like she had so many times before. The only problem was while she was stuck in an interrogation room, detectives were searching through that stolen car, and they didn't quite know what to make of what they found. Let's do a quick rundown of just some of the items recovered from the Kimeses. Irene Silverman's ID, $10,000 in cash, a Glock 9mm gun, an empty stun gun box, plastic handcuffs, and a vial of sedative. Oh, and they also located a bag that Santee had

checked into the hotel. In that one, there was a notarized deed bearing Irene's forged signature, transferring ownership of the brownstone to Sante's Shell Corporation. You'd think, with all of that suspicious loot, the police might have dug into things a little more. A few calls, and they would have learned that across town, another team of NYPD detectives had just responded to a missing person report for Irene Silverman. But for whatever reason, they didn't get there right away. It took two whole days for them to make the connection. However, during that time, the detectives working on Irene's missing person case learned about a mysterious tenant named Manny Garon. He'd vanished the same time Irene did.

So the cops had a profile sketched, and then they sent it to local news stations to see if anyone recognized him. It just so happened that one of the cops in the other camp caught the news that night. He realized that it looked a lot like Kenny Kimes, the guy they'd just arrested. That's when it finally all came together. Not only had they nabbed a pair of criminals who were wanted in two separate states, It seemed like they'd caught a killer, too. Sante and Kenny were held in New York without bail,

and their troubles were only just getting started. LAPD detectives flew out to the Big Apple to interrogate the mother-son duo about David Kasdin's murder. Sante and Kenny adamantly denied all of the accusations. While they weren't allowed to speak to each other and were kept separated, they maintained a united front. Neither of them broke. so it seems likely Sante had coached her son on what to say if they were ever in this exact situation.

In those moments when they were together, like during their hearing, Sante hugged Kenny and held his hand, assuring him everything would be all right, but of course it wouldn't be. Adding to the growing circus, the pair even went on 60 minutes to try to sway public opinion in their favor, but that backfired on them. The episode just gave the audience a chance to see that Sante and Kenny seemed a little too close. They were, well, let's just say, overly affectionate toward each other, in a pretty unsettling way. That's when the rumors of incest started, and they were pretty believable if you kept a close eye

on the pair. In court, they often caressed each other. Then there were acquaintances who alleged that Sante and Kenny often slept in the same bed together. that with the fact that Sante had bragged to a few friends that she always slept in the nude? Well, it certainly didn't look good. But to be clear, Sante and Kenny adamantly denied these accusations. Of course, they denied everything else as well. But there's another possible explanation for what might have been going on here, and it's called covert incest. According to the American Psychological Association, covert incest is a form of emotional abuse

in which a parent turns to their child as a surrogate partner, seeking emotional support that would more appropriately be provided by the person's spouse or another adult. In these types of relationships, the parent depends on the child for support, so much that the child prioritizes the needs of the adult. In some cases, the adult needs a romantic partner, so they end up treating their own child as such, except there's no sexual contact involved. That's not to say that's definitely what was at play here,

but given what we know about Sante's controlling behavior and Kenny's utter devotion to her, it's a possibility. And it seemed like Sante and Kenny's closeness would decide their fate. Prosecutors had anticipated, or at least hoped, that Sante might confess in order to spare her son, but she didn't. Instead, they stood side by side at their first murder trial in 2000,

Despite the police never producing a body or any forensic proof that tied them to it, they did find a mountain of circumstantial evidence tying them to Irene's disappearance, including Sante's detailed notebooks planning out the crime. As a result, both mother and son were found guilty. Sante received a 120-year sentence while Kenny got 125 years. But things changed when they were extradited to L.A. to stand. trial for David Kasden's murder. In California, they faced the death penalty, and the thought of that was too much for Kenny to bear. In 2003, the 28-year-old proposed a deal. If the prosecutors took

the death penalty off the table for them both, he'd confess. They agreed, and he told them everything. Irene's murder, David Kasdins, he even admitted to killing the Bahamian banker, Syed Bilal Ahmed. As a result, Sante and Kenny avoided the death chamber, but they also received additional life sentences for David's murder. And that wasn't their only punishment, because the courtroom was the last time mother and son ever saw each other. From there, they were escorted to separate prisons where they'd remain for the rest of their lives.

We can only imagine how Sante took the news of her son's betrayal, because there's no doubt she'd see it that way. If only Kenny had stuck to the story, they might have been able to overturn their convictions on appeal. Given all that we know about Sante, I'm confident she never would have stopped fighting. But his emotions got the best of him, and by extension, the best of her. In the end, it was her son's love for her. The love she'd cultivated to use to her own advantage, that was her downfall. Thanks again for tuning into serial killers.

next week with a new episode. For more information on Sante Kimes, amongst the many sources we used, we found Dead End, the crime story of the decade, murder, incest, and high-tech thievery by Gene King, extremely helpful to our research. We'll see you next time. Stay safe out there. Cereal Killers is a Spotify podcast. This episode was written by Alex Burns, edited by Jane O., Abigail Cannon, and Joel Callan. Fact-checked by Bennett Logan.

by Mickey Taylor and Chelsea Wood, and produced by Aaron Larson. With sound design by Scott Strannick, I'm your host, Vanessa Richardson. I want to hear something spooky. Some monster, it reminded me of Bigfoot. Monsters Among Us is a weekly podcast featuring true stories of the paranormal. One of the boys started to exhibit demonic possession. Stories straight from the witnesses' mouths themselves. Something very snakelight lifted its head out of the water.

Hosted by Me, Your Guide. Derek Hayes. Somehow I had lost eight whole hours. Listen now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again. I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Hicks. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat.

Search for and follow the award-winning podcast Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.