Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - "The I-5 Strangler" Roger Reece Kibbe Pt. 1

Episode Date: January 24, 2022

Roger Kibbe spent most of his adolescence filled with rage. And while he had a long list of arrests by his mid-30s, it was never for violent crimes. Until one day in 1977, he finally snapped. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of child abuse, sexual assault, violence, and murder. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. Lou Ellen Burley was old enough to know not to climb into vans with strange men, and under normal circumstances the 21-year-old never would have considered it, but Roger Kibby was offering her something she desperately needed, a job. He swore he just wanted some privacy to interview her properly while his office was under construction. Lou Ellen glanced nervously at the laborers working on a shopping center nearby.

Kibby smiled at her, which didn't exactly make her feel any better. He was missing several teeth. Still, after some hesitation, Lou Ellen climbed in the van. Kibby chatted with her for a bit, trying to put her at ease. But the longer they talked, the more unsettled Lou Ellen became. There was something wrong with the older man's expression. No matter what, his face remained completely blank. Though he said all the right things and the job sounded perfect for her,

she didn't quite trust it was real. But at the end of the day, she couldn't turn down work. Already, Kibby knew he had her in the palm of his hand, and he wasn't going to let her escape. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is Serial Killers, a Spotify original from Parkast. Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today, in the first of a three-part series, we'll take a look at Roger Kibby, California's I-5 Strangler.

I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. In today's episode, we'll discuss Kibi's early life and the first of his gruesome murders in the San Francisco Bay Area. Next time, we'll follow Kibby. to the peak of his killing spree and the frantic criminal investigation that was launched to put a stop to the mayhem. We've got all that and more coming up.

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$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 digestion. digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. Humans are social creatures. Few of us can survive all in our own. And that may be one reason

antisocial behavior can be so unnerving. Social expectations shouldn't be forced on anyone. And just because someone is quiet doesn't mean they're suspicious. But occasionally, when we meet a person who completely shuns others, something just feels off. Perhaps no one encapsulates that indescribable, unsettling feeling, better than Roger Kibby. One short conversation with him and most people could feel something wasn't right, but it was impossible to say why. And by the time they realized he was truly dangerous, it was too late. Roger Kibby's frightening tendencies first bear their fangs during his earliest years.

He was born in Southern California at the dawn of World War II, and the conflict had a powerful impact on his early life, not for the better. His father, Jack, was in the Navy and spent a lot of time away from the family. That left Kibby's mother, Lorraine, to raise him and his two younger brothers all by herself, while also working as a nurse. Whether or not she handled the pressure well depends on who you ask. For example, Kibi's younger brother, Steve reportedly loved his mother dearly, and someone who knew Lorraine from work believed she did the best she did the best she

could when it came to her family. However, the same man recalled that she had to discipline the kids on her own because her husband was away so often. But Kibby couldn't have disagreed more. He hated his mother and believed that the feeling was mutual. He claimed she found fault with nearly everything he did and made him suffer for it from the time he was a child. Once when he was very young, Lorraine found that Kibby had dunked his toys in their wartime ration of flour as punishment, she beat him so badly he could barely move. There was certainly no doubt Kibby was scared of his mother. Whenever she came home after working long shifts as a nurse,

he ran from the room to avoid being in her line of sight. His father, Jack Sr., was sympathetic to his plight. He agreed that Lorraine never liked the boy and complained that his wife beat Kibby at too young an age, but admittedly he wouldn't have been around often to see it. Jack Sr. later expressed regret for being absent for Kibby's formative period. During World War II, he was away for two long years. When he finally returned home in 1945, Kibby was waiting for him on the front step.

Jack Sr.'s heart swelled. But instead of the teary-eyed hug he expected, Kibby simply asked if Jack was his father. Troubles like those were only the beginning of Kibby's problems. He may have had it bad at home, but things weren't much better in school. He was a poor student, which infuriated his mother, and he was slow to make friends. He also had a stutter, which became more pronounced when he was nervous or lying. Jack Sr. recalled dropping his son off to see a movie with a group of other kids. Before he even drove away, he heard the children making fun of Kibby, probably for his stutter. It had only

taken seconds for them to start laughing. Before we continue with the psychology for this episode, please note that Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but we've done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. In 2014, Dr. Janet Bealby published a study on the psychosocial impact of living with a stutter, and the results were profound. In children, Dr. Beelby reported that stuttering leads to negative attitudes towards speech, in part because it makes social interactions with their peers more difficult. Because of this, school-age children rely on their parents for support and comfort. Beelby explains that because the disruptive nature of stuttering

may hamper the way young people engage in and practice social discourse. The quality of the parent-child relationship plays an increasingly important role in providing the child with models of social competence, coping strategies, and motivation in life. In other words, children who stutter don't necessarily have the tools to deal with the social isolation they might experience. That means that even more than usual, they need their parents to teach them how to move past these difficult early years. Unfortunately, Kibi's relationship with his mother made that impossible for him. According to his accounts, she was more concerned with disciplining him than helping him deal with his speech disorder. His father was Kibi's only ally.

He stepped in on occasion to stop Lorraine from beating the boy, but he couldn't always be there. The second Jack Sr. was gone, things always got bad again. At least once, Kibby claimed his mother stripped him naked and threw him out of the house as a punishment. He had no choice but to hide in the bushes, humiliated, until his father came back home. In moments like these, the little boy must have felt isolated and angry. Yet thanks to his domineering mother and difficulty speaking, he was powerless to express himself. So over time, he stopped trying. His temperament hardened until he no longer showed any emotion on the outside.

According to one of his few friends, Hector Henderson, it was difficult to tell how Kibby felt about you unless you knew him well. No matter what, his face remained absolutely blank. That may have also been because Kibby knew he had a lot to hide. His quiet nature concealed a troubled mind, which only became more apparent once he was old enough to leave the house on his own. To avoid his mother, he spent as much time as possible outside. At night, with little else to do, he took to creeping up to his neighbor's windows to watch them. This disturbing behavior only escalated with time, in line with another aspect of Kibby's personality. Possibly because of his fraught relationship with his mother, he developed complex feelings towards women.

It seems that even at a young age, he felt a mixture of obsession, lust, and frustration towards them. Those feelings manifested in dark ways. When peeping wasn't enough for him anymore, Kibby started stealing clothes off of his neighbor's clothes lines. Starting some time around summer, 1953, when Kibby was 14 years old, he swiped as many garments as he could get his hands on. He only targeted women's apparel, smuggling the items under his shirt to the local park. Sometimes he'd use a pair of his mother's scissors to destroy his spoils, cutting out random patterns from the cloth and leaving behind tatters. Other times he stashed his ill-gotten gains in a box that he then buried in the park.

Kibby later told his friend Henderson that he cut up the clothes when he was angry, claiming it helped him vent his frustrations. Given his home and school troubles, he could have been mad at anyone, but considering he specifically chose his mother's scissors for the job, it's possible that their relationship was at the root of the issue. Though we said ruining the clothing gave him an outlet for his temper, the relief didn't seem to last very long. For about a year, he continued his eerie ritual once or twice a week.

With that many chances to get caught, it was only a matter of time until he made a mistake. In July of 1954, a local woman alerted police that two swimsuits and her stockings had been stolen from her clothesline. No, she told the cops, she was sure they hadn't blown away. This wasn't the first time someone in the area had reported such an incident, so authorities headed straight for the scene. But on the way to the woman's house, the officers were stopped by a nine-year-old girl. She told him she'd spotted an older boy heading to the park with a box and a shovel. She watched him bury the box near a fence. Intrigued, the police dug the box up and found the missing clothes.

Another witness corroborated the little girl's story. He didn't know the thief, but said he'd seen the boy at the park before with a friend, who the witness did recognize. One of the officers, Leo Kelly followed the lead back to Kibby's house. Jack Sr. answered the door and showed the patrolman to his son's bedroom. The officer and Kibby had a stern talk alone, and it didn't take much to get Kibby to crack. He might have been slightly ashamed of his actions, but to Officer Kelly, the teen seemed almost entirely devoid of emotion. Still, with some prodding, Kibby admitted to the thefts. Though we usually buried the clothing he stole in the park, he kept some of it for himself. Before Kelly left, Kibby pulled a box out of his closet and handed it over.

Inside was a pair of medical scissors and a ball of women's underwear. All of the clothing had been cut to ribbons. The interaction deeply concerned Officer Kelly. He could tell how dire the situation was for a young boy to act out in that way. Though Kibby hadn't done anything violent, he was clearly driven by a dark compulsion, likely one that the teen himself didn't even understand. Kelly advised Jack Sr. and Lorraine to put their son in therapy, but they said it was too expensive. Not content with that answer, the patrolman went out of his way to solicit a donation from a charitable citizen, enough to pay for three counseling sessions for the troubled teen. He thought if Kibby could make some early headway, his parents might do what they could to

continue the therapy. Kippy's parents dutifully sent him to the three appointments, but we don't know anything about the psychologist's findings. Whatever the doctor discovered, however, it must not have been enough to convince Jack Sr. and Lorraine of the need for therapy. He never attended a fourth session. That meant Kibby was once again a drift, left with only those dangerous thoughts to keep him company, and before long, he was on his way to becoming a full-blown monster. Coming up, Roger Kibby continues his downward spiral. The world is full of conmen. fantasists and corrupt authority figures.

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the new parkast, series that explores the biggest, most bizarre lies in history through the eyes of those who risked absolutely everything to expose them. This season in Whistleblowers, join us as we uncover the story of the women who brought down Hollywood's most controversial yoga guru. The doctors who believe one of the world's top surgeons used humans as his guinea pigs, and the woman who revealed Facebook's darkest secrets. Whistleblowers is a Spotify original from Parcast, airing episodes every Tuesday starting January 18th.

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Taking Zep bound 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 1-800-545-99 or visit setbound.lily.com. Now back to the story. In 1954, 15-year-old Roger Kibby was caught stealing women's clothing from backyards all over his San Diego neighborhood. He later admitted that he cut up the most intimate garments with his mother's scissors to vent, his pent-up adolescent rage.

The clothing thefts were disturbing enough, but they were far from the end of Kibi's bizarre illegal activities. He'd already graduated from peeping to stealing clothes. From there, actually breaking into homes was the next logical step. Throughout his teens, Kibi was arrested time and time again, including for multiple incidents of burglary. But none of those frightened the local police force as much as the times Kibby seemingly wanted to get caught.

According to Officer Jack Dowell, Kibby was found in vacant houses twice after his initial run-in with the police. Both times it looked like he'd tied himself up and waited in an empty garage for help to arrive. When the authorities found him on both occasions, Kibi told them the same, strange story. He claimed he'd been kidnapped, bound, and sexually assaulted by a shadowy group of people. Both times he'd been tied up not with rope, but with women's clothing. Howell remembered those interactions for years. Like Officer Leo Kelly before him, he could tell the boy needed help, but he wasn't able to do anything about it.

It was red flag after red flag. Though Kibby served jail time for some of his offenses, he said there was never a sustained effort to get him psychiatric help. Instead, he was shuffled in and out of prison. In between his sentences, Kibi continued to struggle in class. By his junior year of high school, he stopped going altogether. Every morning he left the house like normal, then spent the day doing whatever he wanted. His parents had no idea their son was cutting class until they attended a parent-teacher night.

The school officials were shocked to see them because they'd completely lost track of Kibby. It wasn't just that he hadn't shown up for class. He hadn't done his assignments or seen any of his fellow students either. It had been so long since he'd attended class that the school thought the family must have moved away. Kiby ended up dropping out soon afterward. And while we don't know much about the next few years of his life, we do know that in 1961, when he was 22, he married a woman named Margie.

The two even had a daughter. But Kibby couldn't stay out of his own way. In 1963, he was arrested again for stealing. This time he was sentenced to two years in prison. The whole incident was too much for Margie, who felt Kibby wasn't doing his part to raise their child. So after only a year and a half of marriage, she divorced him and moved to Oregon with their daughter. Kibby was largely uninvolved in their lives after that. That wasn't the only family drama Kibby endured in 1963. That year, while he was behind bars, his mother passed away

from cancer. However, on the outside, neither the divorce nor his mother's death appeared to bother Kibi too much. But it wasn't that he had no feelings at all. For example, Whenever he was confronted about his crimes, he always claimed he knew they were wrong, and that he definitely understood that his actions weren't normal. But he could never explain why he went through with them anyway. He simply didn't know how to express himself. All he felt was impotent rage. He rarely even knew its direct cause.

He wasn't always angry at someone. He was just angry in general. When he felt that way, he sometimes waited outside a vacant home or business seething. For up to an hour at a time, he stood there, debating whether to rob the place or not. Usually in the end, he gave in. He had to do something, and for whatever reason, stealing and destroying was the one thing that calmed him down. Those compulsions were exactly what kept Kibby in prison until 1965. The years that followed are a bit murky, but we know that for at least some of that time, he lived with his father.

Meanwhile, he continued to burglarize businesses. never with much of an explanation except that he was angry and had to do something about it. When he wasn't on the wrong side of the law, he held a few jobs, usually involving manual labor. He developed a talent for woodworking and also became a certified welder. At some point, before 1970, he worked for the National Steel Company. But like so many of his endeavors, it wasn't to last. Two years into his tenure, he was let go, unsurprisingly, for theft. In his off-time, Kibby searched for other ways to let off steam and quiet the impotent rage that always simmered just beneath the surface.

That might be why he took up skydiving in 1966, and it seemed like the rush was exactly what he'd been looking for. From the outside, it seemed like a bit of an odd choice for him. Most people saw him as timid and non-confrontational. Few would have suspected Roger Kippy to have such an extreme hobby. That may be because there's more than one type of adrenaline junkie. A study on the love and fear of heights by Dr. John Salasa and David Zappala distinguishes between two types of risk takers. The first, the impulsive risk taker, acts without thought or planning.

We tend to think about these personalities when we imagine the quintessential adrenaline junkie, but there's a second category known as the contemplative risk taker. These individuals strive for control. The researchers wrote, Contemplative risk takers contain their emotions and tend to know their personal emotional and physical abilities. They believe themselves in control of most of the risk and therefore experience danger as high arousal or excitement rather than fear.

When they succeed, they have a sensation of self-satisfaction derived from control of a dangerous situation that they perceive as challenging rather than threatening. That definitely sounds like Roger Kibbe. Over the following years, he became an accomplished jumper. Though he grew more experienced with time, he also opened himself up to more danger. More than once, his main parachute failed midair. On only his 26th jump, he pulled the cord 4,000 feet from the ground, and nothing happened.

The next few moments were so intense that even the unflappable Kibby had to panic. He fumbled for his backup shoot, praying it would save his life. Those short seconds must have felt like a lifetime. In the end, he managed to get the backup working and float safely to the ground. The experience was terrifying, but it wasn't enough to deter him from skydiving. In later years, he described the incidents to authorities in a flat, emotionless manner. As a contemplative risk-taker, it's possible he recalled them the same way he might remember solving a difficult puzzle. Though Kibby sincerely loved to skydive, he couldn't keep his darkest impulse

from interfering with the hobby. In 1970, the 31-year-old was caught stealing parachutes from the airport. By then, he'd been arrested more than 20 times, all for nonviolent offenses. In this case, a report survived detailing Kibi's account of the theft. He was also given a polygraph. Usually, Kibi didn't talk to the authorities much, and in later years, he flat out refused to take a polygraph. But this time, for whatever reason, he was uncharacteristic. chatty. He told the attendant A.G. Van Ravistine that he didn't have any friends on the outside, and from other comments he made, his intense hatred for women was quickly apparent. The entire conversation was deeply unsettling. Though Ravistine was a professional polygraph

examiner and interviewed criminals every day, his interactions with Kibby stayed with him for years. Ravistine wrote in his report that Kibby was potentially one of the most disturbing men he'd ever examined. He worried that one day, Kibi would turn to violence to cope with his unresolved feelings. By now, it was a familiar story. An authority realized how dangerous Kibi was, but was unable to take any action to help. For the theft, Kibi served two more years in prison, during which time he also says he didn't receive any psychological care. By 1972, he was back on the streets, just like always.

But this time, Kibi seemed to want to get his life together. Soon after he was released, he moved in with his younger brother, Steve, and Steve's wife. Steve was a powerful stabilizing presence in Kibby's life. He'd always been the golden child, the brother who seemed to do everything right, and their mother's favorite, for any other siblings that might have caused friction, but Kibi wasn't envious of his younger brother. He admired and relied on him. In more ways than one.

Steve worked as a homicide detective, which greatly interested his older brother. The two bonded over long conversations about criminal procedure and the harrowing cases Steve had to deal with. Kibby would remember these conversations for a long time. He was especially attentive whenever Steve gave him advice about dealing with the police. He nearly always did what his brother suggested. Steve appreciated the relationship with his brother. He and his wife did their best to help Kibby get back on his feet. They even went out of their way to set him up with one of their neighbors, a woman named Harriet.

Harriet was confident, domineering, and confrontational. Kibby's polar opposite in every way, and he definitely wasn't her usual type either. In the past, Harriet had gone for bombastic, masculine men. Though Kibi was so aloof as to be almost entirely silent, he wasn't violent or abusive like her past partners had been. So while the two had practically nothing in common, they fell into a relationship based on their own psychological needs, which would later become. come toxic. Some, however, hoped there was a deeper, more loving connection. Kibby's father,

for example, initially saw the pair as complimentary. When he met Harriet, Jack Sr. thought she was just what his son needed. He believed she was exactly the kind of woman who could make up for Kibby's meek, troubled temperament. The reality wasn't as rosy. The fact was that both Harriet and Kibby were extreme personalities, and together they were a uniquely toxic combination, Given the abuse Harriet had dealt with in the past, Kibi seemed like a breath of fresh air at first. He was usually able to hold down a job, didn't drink or race his voice, and allowed her to take the lead on basically everything. But their relationship was far from paradise. Kibby didn't just let Harriet take the lead.

He practically forced her to, because if she didn't, then nothing would get done. Their opposite dispositions frequently led to fights. Harriet was prone to intense flashes of anger. She had no problem screaming in Kibby's face if she was angry. According to her sister, these temper tantrums never lasted long. It would have been nearly impossible to stay worked up in the face of Kibby's indifference in the first place. Instead of returning her anger, he simply shut down, refusing to say anything at all. His usual reaction was simply to leave the room or the house when Harriet started in on him, no matter how small the issue.

It was an unbreakable stone wall. Kibby would rather pretend his wife didn't exist than argue with her, and he frequently did, absolutely ignoring her no matter what she did or said to him, whether she was sincere or vindictive. For someone like Harriet, it must have been infuriating. At points, she'd tried a softer tactic. She begged Kibi to open up to her, admitting that at times she felt completely invisible to him. Even in the face of such a heartbreaking confession, Kibby's reaction was to retreat inside his himself once again. He simply couldn't bring himself to have an honest conversation. Despite these difficulties, Kibby and Harriet still married in 1975. The decision only worsened their

problems. Nothing could ever get Kibi to change, not even wedded bliss. One day after they got married, he watched someone steal Harriet's Rolex from a table right in front of him. He did nothing at all to stop it. He didn't even mention it to her until the next day, when she asked if he'd seen her watch. He literally preferred to let someone steal from her than instigate a confrontation. And realistically, there were probably good reasons for that, because marriage didn't rain in Kibi's worst impulses at all. On the outside, it looked like he was finally growing up. He hadn't burglarized a business in a while. He was in a committed, serious relationship. He and Harriet moved to the East Bay in Northern California and bought a house together. While she

worked as a bookkeeper, he took a job as a truck driver for Volunteers of America. On the whole, it seemed like they'd both settled down. But inside, Kibby still felt a persistent anger gnawing at him. He couldn't bring himself to process his darkest impulses. There was really only one thing he wanted to do. Give in to them. Coming up, Roger Kibby kills. Every outfit starts with a choice. What am I wearing underneath? Something comfortable? And let's be honest. Something that keeps everything looking smooth. That's where Vanity Fair lingerie comes in. Their new smoothing wireless bra has four-way stretch fabric for all over smoothing,

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criminal past. In fact, he wanted to turn things up a notch. For most of his life, Kibi had struggled with unresolved anger and a sense of powerlessness, but he never seemed to have the will to vent his frustrations onto others. Instead, he'd always targeted inanimate objects, but in September of 1977, everything changed, and it was a big change. That month, Kibby contacted a school that trained administrative assistance outside of San Francisco. He posed as a business owner offering an attractive deal for a candidate with no previous experience. The college put him in contact with 21-year-old Lou Ellen Burley, who met Kibby for a job interview in a parking lot on September 10th.

He claimed his office was under construction and asked to have the interview in his van. Llewellyn was unnerved, but since there were construction workers standing nearby, she agreed and climbed into the van. Talking to Kibby Moore didn't do much to put her at ease, but he didn't do anything out of the ordinary during the conversation. At the end of the interview, he asked her to come back the following day for a second meeting. Llewellyn wasn't looking forward to meeting the strange older man in his van again, but it was hard to say no since he was offering such a high-paying job. That night, Lou Ellen told her boyfriend she was nervous about seeing Kibby again and asked him to accompany her to the second interview. Unfortunately, he couldn't make it, so after some deliberation, she decided to go back on her own.

This time, it was a Sunday, so there were no construction workers in the parking lot when she arrived, nor was there anyone else. Once she stepped into Kibby's van, she didn't come out again. Sometime after Llewellyn slid into the front seat, Kibi overpowered her and tied her up. Then when he was sure she couldn't escape, he drove from the parking lot in Pleasant Hill, California, to a secluded spot about an hour and a half north. Eventually, he pulled over near Lake Beriesa. There he raped Llewellyn, then dragged her up a hill and strangled her to death.

He left her body abandoned in the dry riverbed near the lake, then drove away. That night, Lou Ellen's boyfriend reported her missing and told the police all about the job offer from Kibby. He stressed to detectives that she was apprehensive about going to the second interview. Sure enough, when officers went to the parking lot, they found Lou Ellen's car there waiting. Right from the jump, things didn't look good, but detectives likely felt optimistic about the impending investigation. The small police department in Llewellyn's hometown of Walnut Creek took the lead in what was officially a missing person's case. case. Officers quickly tracked down some construction workers who actually remembered Lou Ellen's first interview the day before. One of them gave a description of the man she'd met,

who he described as middle-aged with gray hair and some missing teeth. From there, the trail went cold. But about a month after Lou Ellen was reported missing, authorities caught exactly the break they were hoping for. A woman who will call Stephanie contacted police to describe a terrifying nighttime run-in with a man named Roger Kibby. Just weeks after killing his first victim, Kibi had answered a personal ad, Stephanie, a sex worker, put in the paper with the headline, Playboy Bunny seeks supportive relationship. The two spoke on the phone and Kibi picked her up in a restaurant parking lot in his van on October 7th. He offered her $200 for sex.

But there was a catch. He insisted on driving her out to a secluded spot in the countryside first. Stephanie refused unless Kibby agreed to show her his driver's license and double his offer to $400. He agreed. It was a long drive and not very pleasant. Kibby wasn't very talkative at the best of times, and he likely had no interest in putting Stephanie at ease that night. After what seemed like an eternity on the road, he stopped the car near a tiny airport, and the two had sex in the van. On the drive back, Kibby nagged Stephanie to have sex a second time. She said no at first, but he refused to stop asking until she agreed. By the time they were done, it was past 3 a.m.

Stephanie asked to be driven back home, and Kibby pretended to comply. Along the way, however, he stopped in an empty field, claiming his sisters lived nearby. He wanted to take a short walk and see if they'd left their lights on. It was a ridiculous story, and Stephanie did. didn't buy it for a second, so she refused to get out of the van when he asked. That's when she saw a different side of Kibby. Anger flashed in his eyes. He went around the side of the vehicle, yanked open the passenger door, and grabbed a knife from the glove box. He held it to Stephanie's throat. She froze. When he ordered her out of the van again, she did as he asked

and kept her cool. She promised he could have whatever he wanted if he put the knife away. Her reaction confused Kibby. He asked her again and again why she wasn't afraid. By that stage, Stephanie had decided that remaining calm was her only chance to stay alive. So she told Kibby that she believed he was a nice guy and that she didn't think he would hurt her. Kibby told her that he wasn't a nice guy,

but for whatever reason, he did put the knife away and took her back to the van. Maybe he was hoping for a terrified reaction from her, and when she didn't react the way he expected, he balked. Or maybe there was another reason altogether. Either way, he drove her safely home. He mentioned on the drive that he'd done this with women three times before, whether he meant picking up sex workers or something else was unclear. Whatever the reason, Kibby let Stephanie go that night. She wrote down his license plate number

as he drove away. A few days later, when she was arrested for prostitution, she told police about her scrape with death and everything she knew about her attacker. She couldn't remember everything, but she remembered the man's name began with an R and that he was born in 1939. Authorities were quick to link her story with Lou Ellen's disappearance. Stephanie's description of her John matched that of the mysterious job interviewer, as did the coloring on his van. Police practically had the culprit on a silver platter, but there were a few issues with the case. The first was that Stephanie refused to press charges against Kibby, so they couldn't hold him for that. The second was that the witnesses who saw Llewellyn enter Kibby's fan couldn't positively or negatively identify him in a photo lineup.

And since Llewellyn's case was a missing persons and not a homicide, there wasn't much more they could do. That effectively ruled Kibby out for them, but it may have been a mistake to rely so heavily on eyewitness statements in the first place. Study after study has shown that outside factors can dramatically skew the results of such lineups. The details police choose to share with a witness, their body language during the interview, and even the witness's emotional state can all influence their memory. So much so that in 1999, the U.S. Department of Justice collaborated with law enforcement agencies to create a guide designed to improve police interview tactics. The department wrote,

research has shown that a witness's memory of an event can be fragile and that the amount and accuracy of information obtained from a witness depends in part on the method of questioning. Unfortunately, in the late 1970s, it seems the authorities weren't willing or able to come up with other ideas beyond the unreliable photo lineup. With nothing to fall back on, they called Kibby in for questioning anyway, hoping he would simply slip up under pressure. Clearly, they hadn't actually met Roger Kibby when they formed their plan. He was unshakable, confident to the point of cockiness. After officers stopped by his house, Kibby warned his wife that the police wanted to speak to him, but didn't tell her exactly why. Not having much experience with the law herself, Harriet was terrified for her husband.

Kibby, however, seemed completely unconcerned. Judging by his nonchalant attitude, Harriet assumed the police wanted to ask him about something or someone from his past. But a neighbor told her the truth. Police had been by asking questions about Kibby in regards to the missing woman everyone had been talking about. Harriet was terrified for her husband, but never actually believed he was guilty.

She was positive he would never willingly harm anyone. He was so meek that it bordered on infuriating. He just didn't seem to have the courage or the fire to hurt another person. Sure, he'd spent time in prison before, but never for anything violent. So she saw his past crimes as nothing more than foolish mistakes. The Walnut Creek Police Department didn't see things the same way. Thanks to Stephanie, they thought there was a good chance they'd found their killer,

but without much actual evidence, they didn't have a leg to stand on, and Kibby seemed to know it. After all, his brother was a homicide detective himself. For years, Kibby had learned about the inner workings of a police department by asking Steve well-timed casual questions. From those, Kibby had gathered a few tricks of the trade. When these were combined with his flawless poker face, he was unflappable. Kibby knew all he had to do was deny everything in the interrogation room.

When confronted with the highly specific details of his night with Stephanie, he still claimed he'd never met her. It was the same story with Llewellyn Burley. Detectives tried everything they knew, but they quickly ran into the same problem Harriet had experienced time and time again. When Roger Kibby decided to keep his mouth shut, there was nothing anyone could do to change his mind. He wouldn't be baited, tricked, or confused.

If all else failed, he would simply act like the person in front of him didn't exist at all. His stonewalling worked wonders in the interrogation room. Without any witnesses who could place Kibi at the scene, the authorities couldn't threaten him with any charges. Even a search of his van came up with nothing. In time, Kibby fell off the suspect list, while Lou Ellen Burley's case cooled and finally went cold. Just like that, Roger Kibby had gotten away with murder,

and it wouldn't be the last time. Thanks again for tuning into serial killers. We'll be back soon with part two of the I-5 Strangler, where we'll follow Roger Kibby as his killing rampage reaches a fever pit. For more information on Roger Kibby, among the many sources we used, we found Trace Evidence, The Hunt for the I-5 Serial Killer by Bruce Henderson. Extremely helpful to our research. You can find all episodes of Serial Killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify.

We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound design. by Brendan Hawkins, with production assistants by Ron Shapiro, Trent Williamson, Carly Madden, and Joshua Kern. This episode of Serial Killers was written by Terrell Wells, with writing assistants by Joel Callan,

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