RedHanded - Episode 90 - Strangers at the Door: The Murder of Kanika Powell

Episode Date: April 18, 2019

In 2008 28 year old Kanika Powell, an army veteran, experienced a series of odd encounters on her doorstep. Mysterious men in different guises were turning up at her home asking for her by name. Kanika, knowing that something about their behaviour was very wrong, never opened the door. Scared by the strangers she started to take precautions to stay safe, but one day when Kanika returned home she found a man waiting for her. He killed Kanika and to this day no one has any idea who he was, or why he killed her. Vote for us in the British Podcast Awards Listeners' Choice here: https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/vote    See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, guys. You probably know what I'm going to say if you listened to last week's episode. We're not going to do this for much longer, but while we've still got you, while the voting is still open,

could you take literally, like, just five seconds and give us a vote for the British Podcast Awards People's Choice Award for 2019. We, you know, we don't want to bribe you because we didn't have to last year because you got us into the top 20, but this year we will and we say if we get into the top 10 we will give you an extra episode. Two seconds, that's all it takes. Link is in the description for this episode. Give us a vote. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. managed to pull this off. For quite a few reasons, there really isn't very much out there on today's case. But as usual, we've soldiered through the shit and the subreddits to tease out a story for

you. But that doesn't mean that this case isn't incredibly frustrating. It absolutely is. I've literally been sitting in the British Library feeling like I've been pushing my brain out through my nose. Honestly, I've never come across anything like it. I don't think I can't think of another case that has made me feel like so much like I'm banging my head against a wall. This is the thing. I feel like it's cases where there's no information. And it's the cases where there's so much information. Yeah, I feel like that. The closest I've probably ever felt to how you felt about this was Dali Routier, because there was so much information. But I've done it. You're welcome. We've had to wade through security clearances and dead ends

to even get a feel for what might have happened here. And it won't take you long to find out why. So let's get going. Kenneka Powell was in her late 20s in 2008. She spent a great deal of her life in Prince George's County, which is in Maryland. As a kid, she lived with her siblings, Jamal, Eric and Trina, her mum Judy Powell Forrest and her stepdad David Forrest. Geography is weirdly quite key this week. And it turns out that Maryland is absolutely nowhere near where I thought it was. I don't know where I thought it was, to be fair. But until I was about 11, I was convinced that Egypt was just floating around by itself.

I didn't compute that it was a part of Africa. Good. I guess you were 11. We'll let you off. Hannah Blankface. But I think that's a bit old to not understand that, considering how much time you spend in primary school studying the ancient Egyptians. That is true. No longer, since the government have now made it that British students will learn British history in chronological order.

So you've literally got like year sixers learning about like the fucking Corn Law repeals. That's hilarious. We were back in the good old days when we were learning about the Tudors and the ancient Egyptians and literally nothing else. I think I learned about Boudicca. I think that's my only really early British Isles history. But the rest of it, yeah, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians. Tudors and Stuarts. I definitely did the Tudors and Stuarts at primary school.

That was it. But we didn't do it all in chronological order. No, no. We just did the interesting bits. Oh, the Mary Rose. I made a shoebox version of the Mary Rose when I was at primary school. Wow. Look how much it stuck with you.

I've still got it. Made some really good seaweed. Anyway. Maryland. Not where I thought it was. Just like Egypt. Maryland shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware and Pennsylvania. Washington, D.C. is right next to it, too.

So please forgive my ignorance, but I did not know that. And I really hope that I'm the only one who did. Did you know that? I never thought about it. I didn't know that. I didn't know it. Still counts as not knowing. I'm not on my own.

Exactly. But Maryland's proximity to Washington, D.C. and all the important buildings and people that reside in the district county, is an important factor in Kanika's case. Kanika graduated in 1998 from Largo High School. Never one to shy away from a challenge, Kanika enrolled in the U.S. Army in 2000, just two years after she finished school. Her mom, Judy, recalled being a bit nervous about this at first,

because Kanika had never engaged much in physical activity at school, so she was worried that basic training may have been a bit too much for her daughter. But Kanika excelled in the armed forces. She did a tour in Korea and worked in security for the army. Kanika was discharged in 2004 and she was keen to stay in the security sector. I'm not sure I know exactly what that means. And I think that that is almost entirely the point. It's their job that we don't know. That means they're doing a good job if we don't fully understand what working in the security sector means. Job done. Exactly. We shouldn't know.

We don't know what kind of work Kanika was doing during her time in the army. And we don't really know the nature of what she did later on either. But what we do know is that after Kanika left the army, she did stay working in security and started off as a contractor for the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, which we will call the APL for short from now on. Kanika was made a member of their permanent staff in 2008.

The APL is the largest research centre in the States that is affiliated with a university. This lab is serious business. And in 2008, which is when our story gets going, it had 400 active research projects underway, a fair amount of which were being worked on in conjunction with Homeland Security. We have no idea what was going on in there. Entirely possible they are the ones working on the invisibility cloak with the South Koreans. We don't know. It could be. I think yes. If it's anyone, it's going to be them, isn't it? And the APL website doesn't really clear much up either. The only gem of wisdom they offer is, quote,

We solve complex research, engineering and analytical problems that present critical challenges to our nation. That's fuck all help. It doesn't help at all. All I can picture is that quite a few people who work there probably can't answer the question, good day at the office. They just walk out the door and they never speak about it at home. And that was certainly the case for Kanika Powell. She would often travel around with her job. And when her mum asked her where she was off to, Kanika would always answer, Ma, you know I can't tell you that.

Kanika liked her job and she took it incredibly seriously. She had high level security clearance. And like so many other things this week, we just don't know what that actually means. I've seen Kanika's security clearance described as lots of different things. I've seen it was top secret. I've seen it was high level. I've seen top level, whatever that means. But how likely is it? I mean, yes, she's working in security, but how likely is it she would have had top level security clearance? Isn't top level security clearance like people who don't even have names, who are just like star on a wall type situation? I don't doubt that what she was doing was important. Was it that important? I don't know. I feel like if you can pass the sort of rigorous

background checks that they do, and you need that top level security clearance to be able to do your job, I think, yeah, if you work for the government like she does, then and you need it, then yes, maybe she would have had it potentially. Yeah, but not like top level, top levels like the president. I have actually always wondered at what stage after being elected pro minister or president, can you sit down with the heads of the armed forces and be like, guys, are aliens real? I think that's like week one. Hillary Clinton was going to make it a big part of her first hundred days. She was going to release all the stuff on Area 51. No wonder she won the popular

vote. If I were elected prime minister in Maguire, Britain, I'd be pretty high on the agenda, I think, aliens. The people need to know. That's a manifesto the people of Brexit Britain can get behind. Well, when I'm Prime Minister, I'll find out, won't I? And I'll let you know. We can't wait, Hannah. From what we can tell, Kanika's job included dishing out other people's security clearance levels and chaperoning items that the APL needed for their research experiments to and from the lab. But we will never know for sure exactly what her job included. But we do know that she signed off her emails as Kanika Pal,

Special Security. That's cool, isn't it? Hannah Maguire, Special Security. Secret agent. Hannah Maguire, Secret Agent, Ninja Turtle. You will just be immediately shot. So legit. I'll get business cards. Good. Now that we've got Kanika's work situation out of the way, we can start telling you the weird stuff because there's loads of it. Kanika lived alone in an apartment in Laurel near her family, about a 40 minute drive away from DC and close to her work at the APL. Her house was a garden style apartment, which basically means that she was on the ground floor with direct access to the garden.

Some make a big deal over Kanika living alone, but, like, she was in her late 20s and she'd been in the bloody army, so I think that Kanika could probably look after herself and live on her own. She's not some defenceless, lonely woman that, if you read about this case, some do make her out to be, which I find very odd. It's quite boring, honestly. They're just like, oh, like, on her own, like married to her job. She worked for the government in special security.

Like she's pretty badass. I think she's fine. I think her sense of purpose and life is all good. And I think she can probably live on her own. Yeah, right. Without like falling into a puddle of loneliness. Oh, she lived on the ground floor. The horror.

Though ground floor flats do scare me i've always lived in ground floor flats and i'm fine thing is like i'm always gonna i'm just gonna have to make my peace with living in ground floor flats because i'd never want to move out of london and i also want a dog so it's kind of a necessary evil there you go but the thing is what happened to kanika in august 2008 would be enough to fucking scare the shit out of anyone. It scared me. This would scare me. And the thing about this that really scares me is that it could have happened to literally anybody. And parts of everything that happens to Kanika in this story do feel totally random. So on Saturday the 23rd of August at around 7pm Kanika heard a knock at her front door.

So she went to the door but didn't open it she asked who was there but got no response so she looked through the peephole and saw a man that she didn't recognize canika asked the man again who he was and the figure pulled out what appeared to be an fbi badge and then the man asked if she was canika powell canika had no idea how the apparently lone fbi agent knew her name. Something that we learned, well, something I learned, I can't speak for you, maybe you did know this already. Something that I learned while doing the research this week is that FBI agents have a photo ID on the back of their badge. And you can ask them to show it and they have to.

Kanika also knew this. So she asked the man at her door if she could see his photo ID. He flat out refused and he also refused to give her his name. All he said was that he was looking for Kanika Powell in connection to an investigation. But our girl Kanika was having none of it. She told the man that she would not let him in unless he showed her some form of photo ID or presented a warrant for her house. Then the man left. Kanika watched him walk away from her bedroom window and then she heard another voice. She couldn't see where the voice was coming from

but she did hear it telling the man who had come to her door to walk in the opposite direction and then the man and the bodiless voice disappeared. Stuff like this happens all the time. Literally just the other day my doorbell went at about eight o'clock in the evening and there was a man on the doorstep on his own and he asked me what the postcode was for my road. Wasn't like a delivery man? No, no, just a normal guy who was on my friends picking me up and like, I just don't know where I am. And can you just please give me the postcode? And obviously he could see the number of my house. I just gave it to him. Like I didn't like, and then after I did that, I was like, that was really stupid. Anything could have happened, but I just did it. You just trust people. You feel like it's too awkward to say no to things. So we just go along

with stuff. Well, that's the other thing is just having this thought now. He was a fully grown man. I wasn't going to start a fight with him. I was in the house on my own. Like I just didn't fancy my odds really. I just never opened the door. It's never going to start a fight with him. I was in the house on my own. Like, I just didn't fancy my odds, really. I just never open the door. It's never going to be for me. You're so lonely. Nobody comes to see me in Letchworth. I just live here on my own with my dog. If it's a parcel, I know it's coming.

If it's someone coming to see me, I know they're coming. I just don't want to open the door to strangers. So I just don't even get up. And then the other day, the delivery man knocked on my door and he left me two massive parcels for a neighbor that I've never met that's London I just took them and then the neighbor I've never met came around and I didn't even ask who he was I was like just take it take it off my hands I never want to see you again they could have been anything and I just let them sit in my

house I'm too trusting man London's so weird because no one speak like I don't speak to my neighbors I wouldn't speak to someone on the tube but I I'm like, oh, yeah, give me your undisclosed items. I'll just leave them in my hallway. That's no problem at all because it's easier for me to do that than actually have a conversation with another human being. That's why you don't answer the door. Having said that, I'm not sure I would have been as immediately suspicious as Kanika was. If this was a one-off incident, which we know it was not.

Spoilers. But if it was just a one-time thing i would be like oh that's a bit weird like i'm a bit unnerved by that but i don't think i'd be in blind panic i'm not sure i'd call the police i don't know i wouldn't and also not to be like oh that's kind of funny but the bodiless voice that's like go the opposite direction said in one way it can be super creepy said in another way it can seem really fucking slapstick and comical. Yeah.

You're going the wrong way, dick. Just like there's two of them standing out there and one of them goes back to joy. She wouldn't let me go the other way. Don't walk over here. I don't know. I guess so much of it has to be put into context. And also, you know, neither of us are in jobs where our lives are imminently in danger. We don't know what Kanika was doing.

So I guess it just makes more sense given the context of her life that she would be more scared by this scenario than we would have been. But Kanika was scared. She was really shaken. And she did call the police who were at her house in just four minutes after the man and the voice had left. Police searched Kanika's property and found nothing. Kanika also got in touch with the FBI who assured her that they had not sent anyone to her house. She was not associated with any investigation. And there was no way an FBI agent would have shown up to her house and refused to show a photo ID. There was almost no chance that an FBI agent would have shown up on her doorstep alone either. Agents come in pairs as a rule, like Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Also, a legitimate FBI agent would have left a contact card, and there was nothing left behind on Kanika's doorstep. We have this account because on the following Monday, Kanika sent an email to a bunch of her family and friends describing her experience and advising them to watch out for what she thought must have been scammers. She closed the email with, quote, Pass this on, ladies. This is not a fake forward. This happened to me, Kanika. Who knows who these guys are and what they're doing

and in what areas other than mine. That's such a weird message. Don't like it. They, okay, they freaked her out a bit. They turned up at her door. They were being strange. But, like, scammers, who knows what else they're trying to do in what other areas pass

this on ladies like this isn't a fake forward like it's all very weird i just think if you're sending a message do you immediately assume that your friends are going to think it's fake because you know it's not exactly and also it's the me it's me kanika they know it's you it's your email address yeah yeah that that's weird. That's weird. And obviously, we've never met Kanika. We don't know what her intonation or tone would have been. We can only comment on how we might have written an email like that or not written an email like that. But it does feel weird. And that closing phrase has led some internet sleuths to believe that Kanika never sent that email at all and that someone wrote it for her.

But I'm not sure I can go along with that because Kanika also gave the same version of events to her mother on a phone call. According to Judy, Kanika's mum, Kanika was more angry than scared about what had happened. She thought that these men had tried to pull one over on her and wanted to make sure that no other women in the area were unprepared for the same situation. That makes sense because she is in this world, she's in the security world, she knows that if a person turns up at your door with a fake FBI badge to ask to see the photo ID on the back, she probably knows that a lot of people, a lot of women wouldn't know to ask to see that and you might let them in. I think you're right. I think maybe that it's me, Kanika, but she's like, this could happen to me. It could happen to anyone. I'm so

prepared for situations like this. And I was still caught off guard. It could also be like, I mean, it doesn't fit perfectly in the sentence, but it's like, and this is me, Kanika, saying that this is scary. I could buy that. But the thing is, like her mum saying, she seemed more angry than she was scared. So I think that we have to begrudgingly accept that Kanika probably did write that email. It's weird, but not even close to being the weirdest thing that we'll deal with today. So the email is actually really long and she does give, you can find it online. I just didn't think there was any point in reading out the whole thing. And she does sort of give a blow by blow account of what happened the guys at the door watching him walk away blah blah blah all of that

and she also tells her mum the exact same thing so unless her mum is lying which I don't see why she would be I kind of think we have Kanika wrote the email I think it is strange though and it just gets more strange because four days later, on the 27th of August, there was another knock on Kanika's door. It was a different man this time. But he asked the same question. Are you Kanika Powell? Kanika once more refused to answer the door.

The man explained that he had a package for her, but he didn't look like he was holding one. Kanika asked him where the package was, and the mystery man said that he would go and get it. And then he disappeared and never returned. He didn't leave a delivery note or a sorry we missed you. Despite me giving it large earlier and saying I wouldn't be scared, I would be scared now. At this point, I would fully be scared. And then things got worse.

The next day, Kanika's doorstep was once again darkened by a delivery man with no package at about half past seven in the morning. Kanika, true to form, refused to open the door. I feel like pretending to be a delivery man. Can't you just get a fucking cardboard box? Yeah, why is that hard? Duh. You've gone and got a delivery man costume, but you don't get a fucking cardboard box. Looking through the people and you're like, I'm here to deliver a package where I'm not even sure they tried hard enough to get the outfit even they might have done I'm just not sure I think maybe they were just like oh who goes to people's doors FBI agents and UPS that was their thought process as we've discussed

before at the live show delivery men are not that persistent in trying to deliver your package to you that they refuse to go away if you were not open the door. And they're never like, oh, it's in the van. Oh, my God. That's the most scary thing you've ever said. Get in the van. That's my chat up line. This time, Kanika didn't call the police. She doesn't call the police on either of these fake delivery men.

But she does ring her mum and tell her what happened which is why we know about these instances and i have a genuine question which doesn't happen very often but i do today is someone delivering a package at 7 30 a.m weird no i don't think it's weird either but kanika and her mum are like who delivers a package at 7 30 in the morning like it's a thing that uh immediately offset them about the situation being weird but aren't postmen up at the crack of christ like i just feel like that's not weird i think it's weirder that he didn't have a package to deliver right yeah yeah yeah that's the not that he's there at 7.30 i don't think that's weird and also i don't know we do have to remember that all these incidents we only know about because kanika tells her mum not because she

calls the police. Yeah, we can't really corroborate these accounts, which is worth saying, I think. 100%. So after this happened, Kanika no longer felt like the victim of a potential scam. Instead, she felt targeted, like someone was trying to hurt her. And tragically, she was right. Kanika was scheduled to go out of town the next day and she had some stuff she wanted to get sorted before she went. Kanika told her mum that she didn't want to be running around in the dark running errands in case the men showed up again or worse they were watching her. So Kanika told her boss at the APL that she wouldn't be coming in that day and went out to do her errand shopping you know going out of town work. Then she left her apartment in broad daylight to do her errand shopping, you know, going out of town work. Then she left her apartment in broad

daylight to get her stuff done. Kanika returned to her apartment at about 10 to noon and there was a man waiting for her in her hallway. He shot Kanika multiple times with a handgun. Then he left her bleeding on the ground. Someone called the police and we don't know who that was, but when they arrived Kanika was taken off to hospital and no trace of the gunman was found in her building on friday the 29th of august kanika pal died of her injuries that's terrifying that's what i'm like it feels so random then you couple it with all the stuff that's been happening it's like what the fuck was going on it's so weird like just imagine coming back in the middle of literally in the middle of the day

and there is a man standing outside your door with a gun and he just shoots you yeah and that's the thing like she did like i know this is sort of dan's fascination with this is she did everything right she took extra steps to protect herself and she still got shot and died exactly we're never into victim blaming and being like oh well she went out at night and she came back late and then there's this guy there and shot her we'd never say that anyway but yeah she went above and beyond to protect herself if this stuff had happened to me obviously i don't know because it hasn't so i don't know how i would react and after reading this story probably different but three things have happened i would feel unnerved i would feel nervous to leave the house but i wouldn't feel

like someone was gonna shoot me no and i especially be scared, but I would be actually okay to go out in the middle of the day. Yeah. But here's my question. I want to know what she said to work. If she had such high security clearance, if the stuff she was working on was a matter of national importance, why didn't the APL send people to watch her house? They must have that at their disposal, surely. Thing is, if she didn't tell them what was actually wrong, what if she just said, I'm not going to come into work today because I'm going out of town tomorrow and I need to get some stuff sorted. But then why would she tell the police and the FBI and not her work

and all of her friends and her mum? We don't know exactly what she was telling her mum because we only have her mum's account for that. That's true true and the stuff with the fbi she calls them to check about the first guy but then she doesn't call the police about the other two delivery men quote-unquote delivery men who turn up and i wonder do you think maybe she didn't tell the apl and her work because if she starts to seem paranoid that's surely you're losing your security clearance if you look like you're losing it maybe yeah it's completely possible and like that's the thing like we don't know i have seen someone who's sort of like quoted as being a close source to her and some people say it's a co-worker but i don't know if i can confirm that being like oh yeah she was really messed up about it she was really scared that's

the thing about this week like we just can't confirm those things and maybe she just rang in sick but like she took her work super seriously. So I'm just not sure if she would have just pulled a sickie. I don't know. But I also, I don't know what it's like if you work in security. Like, is it maybe you would want to seem not paranoid or maybe you'd want to seem as transparent as possible? Who knows? Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration

with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app,

Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today, I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy,

sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. But I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real.

From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the rise and fall of Diddy. Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts.

Kanika had no known enemies. No angry ex-lover, nothing like that at all. There seemed to be no motive for her murder, but clearly someone was after her. They wanted her dead enough to show up at her house four times before eventually killing her. Nothing was taken from Kanika's house, and her wallet was found next to her body, as were her house keys, so robbery wasn't the motive either. She wasn't sexually assaulted. They just shot her and left her to die. And understandably, law enforcement were baffled. Michael Buckley, a spokesperson from the APL, gave a statement after Kanika died.

He said that it was, quote, premature to speculate whether Kanika's death had any connection to her work. But then he also refused to specify what her work actually was. So how could we possibly know either way? I also wondered, could it be like a case of mistaken identity? But then if these things are all connected, the first guy that turns up at the house knows her name. Yeah, he knows her name. He knows where she lives.

If it was a mistaken identity thing, that maybe I could buy getting the wrong address or maybe someone with the same name living somewhere else, but they show up. I think they're pretty sure. Also, Kanika Powell isn't the most common. It's not like Sue Smith or something. It's an unusual name. And also, they were casing the place.

No, it's not mistaken identity. Let's take that off the table. You've got to be a special kind of stupid to mistake someone's identity four times. So as frustrating as this is for us, I expect it was just as frustrating for the local police department, who I'm assuming wouldn't have had the clearance either. So how could they feasibly investigate anything? Equally, if there was a higher level law enforcement investigation into kanika's death we would never know about it if kanika had an enemy at work or if she had stepped out of line or found out someone was doing something that they shouldn't have been we have absolutely no way of

knowing perhaps kanika's initial response of fear and calling the police calling the fbi could that be proof that she was already on the edge about something could there have been something else going on that she was already had her backup about already felt like she was being watched that's a good point because i feel like what happens originally isn't if you take that out of every other type of context that isn't enough in my opinion to call the police and call the fbi and ask about it it could have been so many things i guess maybe it freaked her out because the guy knew her name, but I don't know. I'd be scared,

but I wouldn't call the police. No. And if she works in security, doesn't she get like the super police? Who knows? Unless it was an inside job. Well, I've been watching a lot of Line of Duty.

It's also worth saying, while we've got our tinfoil hats on, that while researching this case, we came across more 404 error messages than we ever have before. There are so very, very few articles on the murder of Kanika Powell and most of the ones that are out there

have been archived and you just can't get to them anymore. We did think like, could it be to do with that whole GDPR thing? But like, I don't know, is it data protection? Like, I don't know is it data protection like i don't know i've definitely come across maybe when gdpr first came in for our international

listeners gdpr is a very boring piece of legislation that's come into the uk which is about uh yeah protecting your data basically i think it's the whole of europe now oh is it i've definitely had gdpr error messages for american newspapers that says this is not allowed in your region. So I've had it before, but never as many times as this. Oh, wow. I thought being talking about very boring legislation that it was just that we weren't allowed to hold people's data if they didn't want us to or something. I don't know. I think, yeah, I think it's a bit more. But the thing is, it is weird because this case is only 11 years old. And we've done cases from

way further back than that. And we research a case every single week, and if GDPR affected this, then it's weird that it hasn't affected any other case, because I certainly haven't seen this level of problem in trying to access articles about a case before. And in some ways, where we've got to so far is where our story ends, with a big fat brick wall. No one ever went to trial for Kanika's death

and the police never even named a suspect and that's why all we have to go on is a group email and the word of Kanika's mum, Judy. Usually when we get into a case there are court documents, interview transcripts and depositions to read through but for Kanika there is absolutely nothing and I think these things are really obvious in their absence. The absence of these things is as alarming as sometimes what you read in those depositions for other cases. Yeah, right. What we can do with this case is draw connections to other crimes in the area that occurred at a similar time. Three months after Kanika's death, in the very same Prince George's County, just 20 minutes

from Kanika's apartment, 31-year-old Sean Green was driving from his house to the gym. At 5.31pm, Sean stopped at a red light. He was the second of about six cars in the queue. Sean was shot nine times in the head by a masked gunman, through his car window. The assailant fled the scene and was never apprehended. Witnesses confirmed that the masked man didn't utter a word to Sean before killing him. So other than the location, what's the connection to Kanika? Well, they were both young, they were both black, neither had a criminal record, they both lived alone in the same area, and most importantly, Sean also had a high security clearance job. He worked at the

National Counterterrorism Center in McLean Virginia. Sean was a self-described square and according to some sources he didn't even like hip-hop for god's sake for god's sake liking hip-hop is not a prerequisite for being black like whoever wrote that I cancel you by the power vested in me by the internet fuck you poor Sean he dies and then they just fucking drag him for being not enough into hip-hop like shut the fuck yeah he's not one of those black guys he's got a government job he doesn't even listen to hip-hop he doesn't even know who Snoop Dogg is yeah fuck sake it's like they're saying it's not a drive-by shooting or a gangbang shooting or something that's exactly what they're saying it's a very thinly veiled like oh no it's not one of

those black crimes it's a real one exactly is they're saying is when he pulled up at that red light he didn't have his windows down blaring hip-hop music that's what they're saying sean's death certainly doesn't seem like a random attack either. They picked his car out from six other cars at the traffic lights. It feels like a hit. And just like Kanika Powell, the police never managed to come up with a suspect and his case never went to trial. He was just shot in his car one day and then suddenly everyone forgot about it. So was there someone picking off government employees in Maryland in 2008. A lot of people say that this is impossible because Kanika's attackers getting it wrong so many times.

Why would professional hitmen have tried to get into her house? And why would they have shot her multiple times instead of a single execution-style shot? If it was a government-sanctioned hit, then surely the first man at the door would have been given a legitimate FBI badge. And here's what I think. People give hitmen too much credit. They get it wrong. They're not perfect. For want of a better phrase, everyone has to start somewhere. We found one of my favourite stories of hitmen getting it wrong, and it wasn't really that long ago either.

In October 2000, 48-year-old Mary Morris of Houston, Texas didn't show up for work. No one had seen her since she left the house that morning, and her husband filed a missing persons report. Later that same day, Mary's body was discovered by a person riding an ATV on a remote road three miles away from her home. Similar to Kanika, she had not been sexually assaulted, she had no enemies, and none of her possessions had been stolen. The police had no leads and none of her possessions had been stolen. The police had no

leads and zero potential suspects. Then, three days later in Houston, which has a population of two million people, another Mary Morris met a similar end. She was found dead in a remote area quite near her house. She had made a 911 call before she died and she was beaten and then shot. But unlike the first Mary Morris, the police had two potential suspects. Obviously, the first one was her husband. They had been having significant marital problems. And Mary Morris, too, had also been having trouble with a recently fired co-worker. He left a note on her desk that said, death to her.

Charming, isn't it? Also, what fucking shit threat note? Yeah. Write something better than that. Death to her if you're gonna threaten me you better do it snappily damn right i want a good death threat but long story short it was the husband he had hired a hitman to get rid of his wife and the hitman didn't do his research properly and killed the wrong mary morris then killed the one that he

had been contracted to kill three days later that's's a bad day at the office. Oh, yeah. It's a bad day. And that's not a misspelt email. No. That is murder. It's pretty bad. Accidental double murder. So the point is, hitmen can fully get it wrong. They don't have, like, Yelp review pages.

You can't be like, oh, so what's your success rate? Give me your percentage. Like, it doesn't work like that. So if the two men bothering kanika powell were hit men it is entirely possible they just weren't very good ones and some think this rules out kanika's death being a government job the shit hit men bit but i just don't think it does same with sean green it worked they're dead and we don't know who did it the prince george county police department have asserted that there is absolutely no connection between the two murders and maybe there isn't. There is

another theory about Kanika's murder and like the Sean Green connection, it's time and geography based. Between June 2008 and March 2009, Prince George County had a pretty active serial killer of its own. 25-year-old Jason Scott was named the mother-daughter killer by the press. He was a part-time employee of UPS and he used their database to select his victims. Like most criminals, Scott started out small with petty theft, but by 2008 he had graduated to full-blown home invasions, selecting the best targets using his UPS intelligence. We put so much faith in delivery people.

They know everything. I don't put any faith in delivery people. You tell them your name and where you live. I also sit by the window for when I think they're going to turn up so they don't run off with my package. The other interesting thing about Scott is that he didn't always work alone. He had an accomplice for some of his crimes called Marcus Hunter. Could they have been the two men that knocked on Kanika's door?

We have no idea what those men looked like. We don't know what description, if any, Kanika gave to the police, so it's possible. Scott would disable the alarms to the houses that he wanted to break into and climb in through the windows or any unlocked doors that he could find. Scott also used fake identities to aid in his break-ins, but never posed as an FBI agent, as far as we know. The homicides that earned him his moniker, however, he carried out alone. Mother and daughter Dolores and Ebony Jewett were found dead on the 16th of March 2009 in a burnt-out stolen car in a driveway near their home. Scott also killed Karen Lofton and her 16-year-old daughter Carissa in January 2009.

He shot them after breaking into their house. Wilma Butler was also found dead after a fire in her home in 2008. This was also the work of Jason Scott. He flew under the police radar for so long because he was constantly changing his MO. Sometimes he would break into homes and sexually abuse the women and girls that he found inside. Sometimes he would rob them and sometimes he would kill them. Scott was apprehended on the 1st of July 2009 after the ATF raided his home as part of a gun trafficking investigation. During that raid was when they found items that he had stolen from his victims' homes, as well as machine guns and silencers. Eventually, Jason Scott was sentenced to 182 years in prison for the murders of Vilma Butler, Karen Lofton, Carissa

Lofton, Dolores and Ebony Jewett, in exchange for a plea deal. Before his trial began in 2013, Scott entered an Alford plea, which much to my shame, our shame, we hadn't come across before. An Alford plea means that the defendant doesn't admit their guilt, but accepts that the prosecutors have enough evidence against them to go for a conviction. And this differs from a no contest plea, which we've talked about before, in which the defendant accepts punishment but not guilt. An Alford plea can sometimes lead to a less severe conviction, for example second degree instead of first degree murder, or possibly a manslaughter conviction here in the UK, where we know from our Ruth Ellis episode,

our law system doesn't indulge different degrees of murder. Scott's sometime accomplice, Marcus Hunter, was convicted of two federal firearm charges and home invasions. He received a much lighter sentence. Jason Scott was not given the death penalty because of a bill that had been signed by the governor of Maryland, Martin O'Malley, in 2009, which restricted the death penalty to cases in which dna evidence or a videotaped confession had been submitted as

proof of guilt i found that really interesting that those were the two things that they were like those are the things that are the most irrefutable those are the ones you can be killed for dna and a videotape videotaped confession I was shocked by that I think. DNA evidence in the right circumstance okay I could be like that's pretty irrefutable. But never blanket though that's the thing that I mean that's my problem with the death penalty full stop but like I find that hard difficult. That's the problem with the death penalty in any sense but a videotaped confession what the fuck. If you're interested in learning about false confessions, listen to probably about seven of our past episodes. I can't even, like, we've come across it so many times.

Also, should say that the death penalty was totally repealed in Maryland in 2013. And when we were looking into this case, because it's just felt so, so inexplicable in quite a lot of ways, I thought that perhaps the murder rate might be higher in Maryland than in other parts of the country. So I had a look and according to the disaster center in 2008, when Kenneka and Sean were killed, the population of Maryland was 5,658,655. Was that right? Well done. Fuck yeah. During that year, 493 murders were reported. So that makes 8.7 murders per 100,000 people, which is above the national average of the time,

which is 5.4 per 100,000 people nationally. So it is above the national average, but not like enormously. I suppose it is quite a significant jump, but like... Yeah, I was going to say quite considerably. And I also read that Maryland had 238 police officers per 100,000 people in 2008, which considering the average should be 2.7 officers per 1,000 people seems a little bit low, but entirely possible that I have not done that maths correctly. Let me hand over to Carol Vorderman. Wait, what? So if the average is 2.7 officers per 1,000 people, is's 238 officers per 100,000 people more or less than it should be.

If one train leaves King's Cross at 3pm, I don't know. I haven't got, my brain's not working. Let's leave it. So I think the average number of police officers was lower in Maryland than it should have been in 2008. So perhaps that might have something to do with the unexplained and seemingly uninvestigated deaths for Kanika and Sean. But then when we're talking about Jason Scott, for me, I can see how the timings and the location fit, like the Sean Green case.

But my problem is with people who suspect that Jason Scott killed Kanika, is his MO just doesn't fit at all. Yes, he was in the right place. He was doing crime at the same time period. But every time Jason Scott broke into a house, he gained something from it. He stole or he sexually assaulted his victims. Even when he didn't kill his victims,

he never left empty-handed. He also forced entry into his victims' homes. He never just rang the front door. This is the thing. I think there are some similarities with maybe Kanika. He like cases the place. We know that he does that kind of background intelligent on his other victims. But I don't know. I just think killers like this, they go, maybe they go into that kind of like rapid devolution where they're just rapid deterioration where they're just running around shooting people and they turn from like a serial into a spree but he worked hard for it though

yeah this is the thing and also he kills a guy suddenly he only killed women as far as we know before that i don't know i don't buy that it was the same person no and i don't even buy that he killed kinika and not sean like i just think no no i can completely understand why because there's so little information on this i can completely understand why, because there's so little information on this, I can completely understand why people are drawing parallels between the two things because he was killing people at the same height. He was killing women at the same time in the same area. So I get it. I just don't think it's true. No, for me, it doesn't really fit that he would attempt to get into Kanika's house three separate times before shooting her in the

hallway and taking nothing. And so where are we now? In the 11 years since Kanika's death, no new statements or new evidence has been released. So even now, we don't have much to go on. Could this have been a totally random attack? Potentially. And that's what makes it so scary. How totally out of the blue it was. But then again, without knowing more about Kanika's work situation, how can we possibly know anything? The fact that they've repeatedly called her by her name, showed up four times, points towards the attack being a targeted one. But who wanted Kanika dead and why? We can't possibly begin to imagine without some seriously hefty US government security clearance. Please join us in banging our heads against a brick wall

because we don't know. And it is. It's a terrifying case. All this weird stuff's happening. She has no idea she does all the right things, like you said. And still, she comes home one day in the middle of the day and she gets shot and nothing is ever done about it. No. Which to me makes it feel like a like a hit. The lack of information on it is more terrifying than a detailed account of a transcript of an interview with at least one suspect they don't there's none there's nothing and that's what's scary and maybe they were chronically understaffed at the police department anything but for all they know now they have some sort of like fucking spree killer on the loose some if they never found a stalker they never found a disgruntled ex-lover they couldn't connect it to

anybody else she knew which let's face it in most cases when you're killed it's by someone you know, then you have to look at the fact that it was somebody else and nobody looked into anything. And the question is, why not? It's very weird. If you know anything about this case, definitely tell us. We'd love to know. And you can do that by following us on all the social medias. That's Instagram. We've got Twitter.

We've got Facebook at red handed the pod you can also um help support the show at patreon.com um slash red handed and here are some people who have done so this week so we have tessa kai holmshlaw holmshlaw i've fucked up already first name i believe in you amber green lenora meakin cla moss harmer lucy jenner chelsea amy hayne simon westwood amy crane oh hello i'm not feeling very well so this is just feeling very overwhelming lee moss hannah nowling sarah sarah i always feel like we just don't know angie alexandra boney uh chelsea Alexandra Boney, Chelsea Elizabeth Faith St John what a fucking name love Sumesh Thakkar, Culture Queen Gemma, Angela Eves Lewis, Lorne Salisbury, Erica Thompson, Catherine and Daniel Knott oh Daniel Knott I went to university with you Dan stop it did you really I did you remember I

I think I showed you where the guy was like somebody had been to him like on facebook oh you go to you are connected to saruti oh yeah this podcast i like and then dan was like i went to uni with her like what podcast are you talking about oh so hi dan ada hijerto and cora ken thank you guys so much thank you so much before we go give us a vote for the listeners choice awards in the british for the british podcast awards this year this year we're nominated motherfuckers best true crime podcast 2019 after we got snubbed last year snubbed violently you guys wrote what is it not rose us up you lifted us up to 20th you raised us up so we could stand on mountains top 20 people's choice. You are the

wind beneath our wings. I can't speak. I'm so ill. But yes, that is the case of Kanika Powell. We'll drop the link in the episode description so you can vote. They don't like take email or any of your bullshit. They're not going to bother you. You don't have to be British. You can be anywhere in the world. Please vote for us. If we get in the top 10, we'll give you an extra episode in May. See you next week. Bye. Bye. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside

some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored,

and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing.

From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.