Snapped: Women Who Murder - Karen Sanchez

Episode Date: June 5, 2022

When a missing man's body is found, his wife finds herself under a microscope; police want to solve the case before it goes cold.Season 22, Episode 2Originally aired: November 26, 2017Watch full episodes of Snapped for FREE on the Oxygen app: https://oxygentv.app.link/WsLCJWqmIebSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of Wonder East Podcast American Scandal. Our newest series looks at the story of OxyContin, a popular painkiller that helps spur an epidemic of addiction and drug abuse, in which prompted a broad campaign to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable. Listen to American Scandal on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Karen Thompson was a devoted mother of three. She always tried her best to do special things for each of us. Her husband Paul was just as devoted.

He was very good with children, and the children liked Paul. And by the fall of 2001, they'd been together almost eight years. It was the perfect, happy, all-American family. The type of family that went to PTA meetings, the type of family that went to after school activities. So when Paul suddenly disappeared, it left everyone in shock. She said, you just think, I'm home.

That just really shook me. I remember coming to Desert for hours, looking for any sign of them. He walked out from that truck and simply vanished from the face of the earth. With the search for answers exposed, they're perfect all-American family as a facade. He made the comment. She's trying to get rid of me. Would a gruesome discovery in the desert reveal the horrifying truth? There were 61 separate blows to the head.

And what if families quest for justice come up short? Why is this woman not in prison for murder? It was Wednesday morning, October 24th, when 37-year-old Karen Thompson called the police in Avondale, Arizona, a city of 75,000 on the Western edge of Phoenix. Karen reported that her husband, 31-year-old Paul Thompson, hadn't come home from work the night before. Karen wakes up and Paul's not there, and she's frantic. We were thinking some maybe bad happened to him because he's not the type to just go.

Karen had spent the morning on the phone making worried calls to friends and family. She called me on the phone and told me that he was missing. And it's just a big surprise. I said, well, was he really upset or depressed about something? And she said, no, there wasn't anything wrong with him. He just didn't come home. That just really shook me.

None of Karen and Paul's family had any idea where he could be either. I called a lot of our relations, sisters and brothers, and brothers, and friends, the people that I clean for to keep calling their prayers. And by mid-morning, Karen had called the police. He's pretty upset. She didn't know what to do.

We don't know why he's missing or where he's missing. And a chance discovery on a remote desert roadside would only deepen the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Karen's husband. It looked like he walked out from that truck and simply vanished from the face of the earth. Born in 1964, Karen started life far from the desert Southwest. She is a little town called Can Kiki Illinois, south of Chicago.

Most everybody around there farmed. He is rural and grows that thing, you know, but country things to do. And growing up on a farm, Karen could ride almost as soon as she could walk. She loved horses, she loved being outside and doing take care of animals and stuff. However, the youngest of six children, she was just as comfortable in a crowd. She is always there, you know, very outgoing. She made friends easy. She's pretty outspoken. She'll let you know what she thinks. And she had brains as well as personality.

She was always a very smart and she's a really good man. A lot of the people in her family thought that she would end up going into veterinarian school and working with horses. She might have lived up to those expectations, too, if not for the one thing she loved besides horses. Karen went for bad boys. She was attracted to the type of guys who do not treat her well. And instead of going to college,

Karen moved out to Oklahoma after graduating high school in 1982, hoping to put some distance between herself and a bad breakup. There were jobs out there and some other sisters who moved out there so she went out there too. In Oklahoma, Karen married and had two daughters. But after six years of marriage, Karen and her husband divorced. I don't know a lot about why they separated.

I was way too young to even know. Soon after, she moved to Texas to be near her brother and married a second time, but that didn't last either. She was in the service, so, you know, he was going a little bit, and when he got out of the service, it didn't work out real well. And by 1992, after less than three years of marriage, Karen had separated from her second husband and was working in the floral department of an Arkansas grocery store,

which is how the 27-year-old met Bob Mahala, who'd recently moved to the area. One of the girls at the register, I asked about horseback riding. She said her girlfriend and the floral department had two horses, so I go to the floral department and I meet Karen. Newly single, Karen agreed to go riding with Bob. I just felt for her. She was a very pretty lady and very fun. After writing several times with her,

we started dating. And she became pregnant. Karen divorced her second husband and married Bob in the fall of 1992. But things became troubled almost as soon as Karen and her girls moved in with their new stepfather. And she was a very young woman. She was a very young woman. Karen divorced her second husband and married Bob in the fall of 1992. But things became troubled almost as soon as Karen

and her girls moved in with their new stepfather. I wasn't ready to be a dad. When here I am, I am a dad. Now I've got a family. These little girls look up to me. They call me dad, daddy, Bob. They wouldn't be calling him that for long though. In less than a year, not long after the birth of their son,

Bob had bailed on the marriage. I went down the street and got my own apartment, and I filed for divorce. Once again, Karen was on her own with three kids to raise. She was very good at making sure we had everything we needed. She always tried her best to do special things for each of us to feel important. So when she was struggling, we didn't know. Karen, who'd quit her florist job soon after becoming pregnant,

started working at the local airport to support her children. She got a job doing baggage, loading bags under the plane. It was a temporary job. But the temporary job inspired the 29-year-old to pursue a new career. Working at the airport for Karen, it opened her world up and she pursued being a travel agent. And it was while at school,

studying to become a travel agent that she met the man she'd finally settled down with, Paul Thompson. Six years younger than Karen, Paul had a similar small town midwestern upbringing. He was born in Blue Earth, Minnesota, and he lived in Northern Iowa for the first, I think, 13 and a half years of his life. Although unlike Karen,

he was a quiet, introverted child. So as I remember, I didn't have his many friends in school growing up, and I remember, majority of his time was spent in you know, in his room reading. The habit served Paul well in school. In school, he was a straight-a student. He was pretty much soaked everything in.

Money was tight, though, so rather than go to college, Paul joined the army. Paul went to England for two years and to Germany for two years. Inspired by his time overseas, Paul took classes after his discharge to become a travel agent, which was how he met Karen. She told me one time that he was sitting at the table, and this was when they were in travel agency school, and she said, looking over at him, I just feared well.

He looked like such a nice quiet guy just sitting there, and I should go over and meet him. The reserved loner didn't know what to make of it at first. He was taken aback a bit that a woman who he saw was attractive was engaging him. It was something very different than he had ever dealt with before. But he certainly appreciated the attention. Paul really did fall hard for her. Soon they were dating.

Opposites attract and that's probably what attracted him to her. And not long after her third divorce was finalized, Karen and her three children moved in with Paul. I was mad. I said, wow, that's quick. We're just divorced. And you're already in with this other guy a month later. But Paul's easygoing nature, even one over Karen's ex-husband.

He was very good with the children. And the children liked Paul. Paul really thought the world of her kids. And he offered Karen a welcome break from her string of failed relationships. He represented someone who maybe could provide the stability that she had sought out her entire life. Karen, Paul and the kids spent the next three years in Missouri. But in 1997, they all moved to Arizona after Paul's brother told him about a job opening. His brother worked for a telephone company, which sounded pretty good to Paul because he was supporting her and the kids. Once in Arizona, they settled in Avondale, a quiet suburban community, a half hour west

of Phoenix. And after more than three years together, Karen and Paul finally married. He'd wanted to marry her pretty bad. The wedding was in August of 1998 at a Phoenix hotel. It was 115 degrees, and it was outside wedding, a courtyard wedding. But no one seemed to mind the heat. It was really very much a storybook wedding

and a very happy day. Everyone saw an optimistic future for this family. Paul was making good money in the telecommunications field, and Karen found her dream job as a travel agent. She had booked several different things for me over the years, and she was a very flirtatious, fun type person, you know. So she was always trying to be the best deal that she could. And by the fall of 2001, it looked as if that bright future

had finally arrived. They became a very traditional type of family, the type of family that went to PTA meetings, the type of family that went to PTA meetings, the type of family that went to after-school activities. It was the perfect, happy, all-American family. But was it too good to last? Because just months after their third wedding anniversary, Hall would suddenly disappear.

Paul would suddenly disappear. MUSIC Coming up, a passing motorist finds Paul's trunk. The headlights were on and the engine was still running. But will the truck lead the police to Paul? I said, what do we got out there? And he said, I've got a message. MUSIC And he said, I've got to mess. MUSIC It was a little after midnight on October 24th, in the desert north of Phoenix,

when a passing motorist first noticed the strange truck. What was so unusual, it was on the side of the road in a remote area. The headlights were on, and the engine was still running in the middle of taking his girlfriend home after a date The passerby didn't initially stop But after dropping off his girlfriend he drove by the truck again and it hadn't moved 45 minutes later he'd gone to his girlfriends and it was still running with light sign Worried that the driver might be having some sort of emergency, the passerby decided to stop.

We wanted to check it out and see if if someone was around there. But there was no one around. It appeared that the truck's driver had simply abandoned it with the keys and the ignition and the engine running. It was just as if he up and locked away. Puzzled as to why someone would simply leave a truck on the side of the road with the engine running, the passerby called 911.

And when deputies from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office arrived on the scene, they were just as confused as he wants. There's no blood, there's no weapons, there's no signs of foul play. It didn't look like he had been carjacked. There were tools, valuable tools in the truck. However, running the truck's license plate did provide a couple of crucial clues.

The truck's owner, 31-year-old Paul Thompson, lived almost an hour away in Aventail, Arizona. And when the sheriff's deputies contacted Paul's wife, 37-year-old Karen Thompson, she told them that Paul hadn't come home that night. Once this truck was found, even Karen was worried and upset because it was such a bizarre area for this truck to be.

There was no good explanation as to why Paul would have been in such a remote desert area so far away from home. However, since there were no signs of foul play, the authorities turned the truck over to Karen and the family. Paul remained a missing person, and there was no other real evidence. But the truck did provide Paul's family with a place to start searching for the missing man. There are some people in this wife spend all day out in the desert

where the truck was found trying to find that, you know, see if Paul was out there wandering around. I just remember combing the desert for hours, looking for any sign of them, any evidence, you know, hoping for something that would lead us in a direction to find them. Karen and her daughters joined the search, too. They made flyers and stuff and put up and we were trying to work together.

We walked forever while I came to see and if we can see them somewhere, passing out flyers at the houses. But after almost 24 hours of frantic searching, there was no sign of Paul. They were running into a dead end. And the search for answers would soon lead investigators to another remote patch of desert

and a different sort of dead end. It was the morning of October 25th, the day after Karen reported Paul missing, when a group was out ATV riding in the White Tank Mountains. The 30,000-acre park was 30 minutes north of Aventail, and nearly an hour west of where a passerby had found Paul's abandoned truck. It's really rocky desert with cactus, and you've got to be careful when you go in there. Although in this instance, one rider encountered an unexpected obstacle on the trail.

He didn't realize it until he rolled over it that there was a body there. They discovered a male that had been mutilated, shot, beat up, possibly stabbed. It appears that he has been murdered. The ATV writers called the authorities, but by the time the Buckeye police arrived, the crime scene had little to offer in the way of clues. Detective Davo, and he'd been out of the scene, he came back and I said, what do we got out there?

And he said, I've got a mess. There were ATV tracks, there were footprints. This was a heavily used recreational area. And any physical evidence that was left around the body had been largely destroyed. There was no wallet and no ID. He was just a zondo. So it really boils down to having to go to the medical examiner's office, collect the fingerprints, and try to run through a system.

And that's going to take time. And in addition to the fingerprints, the autopsy revealed just how their zando had done. There were 61 separate blows to the head. Blunt forced trauma, which fractured his skull. However, those horrific injuries were only the beginning. They found stab wounds, they found three separate gunshot wounds, one to his back.

Which told the investigators at least one thing about the victim and his killer. Somebody really hated that guy. Who was he, though? The Deadman's fingerprints weren't in the system, but the killer had left behind a potentially important clue. The only thing that could possibly identify him is his wedding ring that he was wearing, which had three diamonds that were in a diagonal pattern. And in hopes of finding someone who could identify

the man's distinctive ring, the investigators searched the database of recent missing persons. in a diagonal pattern. And in hopes of finding someone who could identify the man's distinctive ring, the investigators searched the database of recent missing persons reports. That's where you're gonna be able possibly pull something up. And they soon came across a potential match.

The body seems to line up with a missing person that had gone missing a few days prior named Paul Thompson. By that evening, the Buckeye detective was knocking on Karen's door. They were very anxious to talk to the person who reported him missing. Karen appeared more than willing to talk to him too. Karen seemed very forthright about her husband's disappearance.

She told police that she felt that something went wrong, that something is wrong with her husband, that this was not like him, that he was in danger. The police suspected she was right, that Paul had been in grave danger. Although for the moment, the police didn't reveal why. They didn't tell her that they had found Paul's body. All they told her is that they had spoken with someone

who had information. However, the detective did ask her about any jewelry Paul might have been wearing. She described the very unique design on that wedding ring. It was then that investigators were able to deduce that the body that they had found in the desert covered with ATV tracks and shrouded in dirt, was the missing Paul Thompson. But when he shared that suspicion with Karen, a strange thing happened. She was very weirdly unemotional.

Was Karen simply in shock, or was it something more? Everyone grieves differently, but it was an alarm bell for police that Karen seemed so unemotional and detached. Equally alarming, when the detective began probing for details about the couple's marriage, Karen became defensive. Karen says, I know what you're trying to go for, but there weren't any problems in our marriage.

We weren't having affairs. In fact, Karen said she was sure Paul had been faithful to her. In her words, he's so boring. He would never have the energy or the drive to cheat. Her husband's dead and she's picking them apart. That was very jarring for police. Although when asked if she cheated,

Karen quickly changed her tune. Despite the quirks in the relationship, Karen professed a police that they had a very active and very enjoyable sex life. Whether that was true or not, Karen's attitude about Paul struck the detective as odd, and that wasn't the only thing that caught his attention, either. When they asked Karen to pin down her own whereabouts, for the time that Paul went missing, she said that she was with a friend, a friend by the name of Steve. Karen was adamant that he was just a friend. Karen tells police that they were, you know, just socializing that he was going through a divorce and that she was just trying to be there for him as a friend.

And she told the police that Paul had known all about it. Karen tells police that Tuesday's and their relationship were set aside for days that they just did their own thing. They respected each other's boundaries. They had time together and they had time apart. And while Karen said she wasn't sure what Paul had been up to the night before he disappeared, she told the police that she hadn't suspected anything when she got home from dinner with Steve at around 1030 that Tuesday night. Paul hadn't come home yet. She wasn't terribly concerned.

She went to sleep and figured she'd hear him come in or would see him in the morning. Of course, Paul hadn't come home, and the police believed his body had just been found, which left them wondering, was Karen telling the truth, was the mysterious Steve really just a friend, and what if anything did he know about Paul's disappearance? If anything, did he know about Paul's disappearance? Oh.

Oh. Oh. Coming up, the investigators tried to track down Karen's friend. He's left the county. He's left the state. And they uncover a possible motive. The amount added up to over $600,000. Oh.

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had reported her husband Paul missing. Her and the girl they'd been out looking all the places they thought he might go to and they'd be able to find him where he's vehiculated on, and then he hadn't shown up for work. And it had been almost 48 hours since Paul's dead body had been found, a half hour from the family's home in Aventail, Arizona. The number of injuries that Paul sustained and the way that they were inflicted

suggest somebody had a score to settle. But who might have a score to settle with Paul? After questioning Karen, the lead detective had his suspicions. There's something about her. He said, just things aren't adding up. Starting with the man she'd been having dinner with, the night her husband disappeared.

35-year-old Steve Richmond. Police were trying to determine what kind of relationship Karen had with Steve. And when the investigators went looking for Steve, they soon had even more reason to be suspicious of Karen's friend. They can't find him anywhere. He's left the county.

He's left the state. Was Steve on the run? Was there more going on between him and Karen than she'd let on? And might it have something to do with her husband's death? While the investigators were trying to track Steve down, they did a little digging into Karen's financials and found some information that suggested they might be on the right track.

Just prior to Paul's death, Karen had taken out two life insurance policies on him. Police had also determined that amount added up to over $600,000. Was it merely a coincidence that Karen stood to make more than a half a million dollars of her husband's death, or was it a motive for murder? When the investigators checked in with Paul's co-workers, they added another piece to the puzzle. Paul knew his marriage was in trouble. He had compited that to friends, and he believed that his wife was having an affair. However, that wasn't all Paul's co-workers told the police. They start hearing some very strange stories

about what had been happening to Paul leading up until his death. Several weeks earlier, while Paul was at work, he bit into a tuna sandwich that he had for lunch and out of the sandwich oozed mercury that would have been lethal had he swallowed it. But how had the deadly poison gotten into the sandwich? According to his co-workers, Paul had wondered

if someone had tampered with the can of tuna at the factory. Paul did contact a manufacturer, but he didn't leave a message because he thought it would be too much hassle. But was there another explanation, one that hit much closer to home? In the break room at work, Paul had laughed it off. Paul need the comment, Caramade, the sandwich, maybe she's trying to get rid of me. But now that Paul had been murdered, the investigators wondered if it was possible. Armed with information about Paul nearly being poisoned

with mercury and Karen with another man, it was time to sit her down, confront her with some facts, and get some real answers. It was Monday, October 29, and Karen was at home with her brother Vernon, who'd recently arrived from Missouri. She called me and said, well, I think found him and she told me what had happened.

So I loaded up and went to Phoenix right away. They were in the living room looking over Paul's insurance paperwork when the investigators knocked on the door. Went to the door and opened up the door. There were five or six police officers that detect this. I'll have guns pointing at me.

The investigators ordered Karen and her brother out of the house. They had papers with them and they showed them Karen. And she said, this is a search warrant. And while one team of investigators went inside to look for evidence, another loaded Karen in the back of a patrol car and took her in for questioning. It spoke me, but she kept the cool head. loaded Karen in the back of a patrol car and took her in for questioning. It spoke me, but she kept the cool head and she didn't act like she was too worried when they letter out to the car. Whether or not I'm going to find anything. Had she spoken too soon inside the house, the investigators uncovered more evidence that

pointed to a possible financial motive. Looking through the financial records of Paul and Karen, they determined that she had run up $40,000 or $50,000 worth of credit card debt. Your 50 grand in debt, and you've got this huge policy. And all of a sudden, he comes up dead. In the middle of the dead, no ID. It really makes you start thinking. And then, there was what the investigators found

in the master bedroom. In a vase near the headboard in the master bedroom, they found a vile of mercury. Based on what Paul's friends had told police about mercury, they found it very odd who has mercury in their house. It certainly looked suspicious, but since Paul didn't die of mercury poisoning, was it enough?

They needed more. They needed more details. They still couldn't put her at the scene of Paul's murder. Still, the investigator sat Karen down in the interrogation room and confronted her with what they found. But could they get her to crack? As the heat and the pressure came on to Karen, she changes her story. First, Karen admitted that she hadn't been honest

about her friend, Steve. Karen revealed that, well, Steve, who was with her wasn't just a friend, he was her lover. She said, at one point, they were hot and heavy, but they had since cooled off and they were just friends. Although she hinted that Steve might have had a hard time accepting that it was over between them.

Karen acknowledged that he loved her so much that he would have killed her husband just to be with her. And Karen told the police that she feared that Steve had done just that. Karen revealed that the timeline she feared that Steve had done just that. Karen revealed that the timeline she gave investigators initially, it wasn't quite right. She admitted that Steve wasn't with her the whole night. She says looking back, there was a time that that Steve had actually left and that she could not

be accountable for where he was and that she thought that he might have gone out and actually murdered her husband. Was it the truth? The investigators weren't sure that they believed her, but for the moment, they had little choice, but to let Karen go. Sometimes it's all like a chess game. I make my move, I watch for your move. So while keeping an eye on Karen,

the investigators turned their attention to Steve. The way it sounded, he was involved in it, but they didn't know how much he had done. Hoping for some answers, on November 1st, the investigators served a search warrant on Steve's house. And while the investigators were there, Steve suddenly drove on. Please finally bring him into the interrogation room. In the interrogation room, Steve told the police that he'd met Karen more than a year earlier. At this point in his life, Steve

was in the middle of a divorce. Karen had been through several bad relationships, and that sort of bonded them at this time where he was struggling and reaching out to first some comfort. Comfort that Karen had provided, according to Steve, who confirmed that he'd been having an affair with Karen. Very quickly, the relationship went from friendly to flirtatious to adulterous.

And according to Steve, they had been out to dinner the evening that Paul disappeared. However, Steve told the investigators that wasn't the only time he'd seen Karen that night. In the story that he told, it was very different from what Karen had to say. Steve said he was at home when Karen called at 11.30. He told them that Karen called him frantic and distraught. According to Steve, Karen said she was waiting for him outside.

And when he opened the door, he realized that something was wrong. Steve told police that on the night that Paul went missing, that Karen had Paul's truck. Steve said that Karen told him she needed his help getting rid of the truck. Steve didn't question her at that time. He did what she said. According to Steve, he and Karen had then abandoned Paul's truck along a highway northeast of Phoenix, where a passerby would find it a short time later. They took all of Paul's property, his wallet, his identification.

Steve also took Paul's work computer, which was in his truck. Then Steve said that once he'd driven Karen back to her car, he'd helped her dispose of what they'd taken, starting with the wallet and IDs. Steve admitted that it Karen's request, he burned it along with Karen's clothing. Steve told police that he took the laptop,

and he threw it off and overpassed into the desert. And there was one more piece of evidence that Steve admitted to getting rid of. And it was the piece that would interest the investigators, the most. The evidence that Steve was told to dispose of included a 380 handgun. Steve admitted to throwing it into a local lake.

Was it the murder weapon? Steve said to throwing it into a local lake. Was it the murder weapon? Steve said it was the gun that killed Paul, but that it wasn't murder. He said that she and Paul were out in the desert and that Paul attacked her. There was a struggle over a gun and that she killed himself defense. That's what Karen claimed according to Steve. And the investigators were willing to believe him up self-defense. That's what Karen claimed, according to Steve,

and the investigators were willing to believe him up to a point. Although it was clear he was cobbled in covering up the crime after the fact, enough of Steve's story added up that police were convinced that he was telling the truth. But that didn't mean they believed Karen's claim that she'd killed Paul in self-defense.

Because of the numerous conflicting stories, because of the physical evidence, because of Paul being shot in the back, because of the credit cards, because of the insurance policy, because of the mercury. Prosecutors were ready to go forward against Karen with a charge of first-degree murder.

And on November 4, the Buckeye police took Karen into custody, much to the dismay of her three children, including her then 17-year-old daughter, Janet. They didn't say anything to us. They wouldn't tell us because we're kids. My uncle tried to tell us. Tell me, and we didn't know how to handle the situation that we were in. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married.

I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married.

I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married.

I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna get married. Do the prosecutors have enough for a conviction? This was a classic, he said, she said case. Or will they have to make a hard decision? Why is this woman not in prison for murder? By November 4, 2001, it had been more than a week since Karen Thompson's husband Paul had been found dead an hour from the couple's Aventail Arizona home.

He was shot, he was stabbed, he was clubbed about the head. Paul's family was convinced that Karen was behind the murder. She'd been having this affair for a year. There was no one else that I could see that we'd want to come in. And the authorities agreed. They'd arrested the 37-year-old for murder after questioning her lover, Steve Richmond. Steve's story to police was that on the night

that Paul went missing, Karen had called him and asked him to come and help dispose of some evidence. Evidence that included Paul's wallet, his laptop, and a handgun. He'd admitted to throwing it into a local lake where it was never recovered. The investigators had been able to recover Paul's computer, though. Steve was able to tell the detectives exactly where he dropped a laptop over the overpass.

But did that mean he'd merely helped Karen dispose of the evidence as he'd claimed? Not according to Karen. Questioned after her arrest, she told the police that Steve was framing her for the murder. She pointed the finger at Steve saying that she had nothing to do with it, and that Steve was Paul's killer. This was a classic, he said she said case.

Although police had a body and they knew how Paul was killed, there was no way to determine who had killed him. There was no forensics linking anyone to the crime. The remote desert site where Paul's body had been dumped yielded no clues. Because ATVs had passed through, the crime scene had been contaminated. And the same was true of Paul's abandoned truck. The police actually returned it to Karen. Without any evidence being extracted from it

with any processing or analysis by the police. After the truck was turned back over to Karen, essentially rendered the truck useless as evidence. And that put the prosecutors in a serious bond. Prosecutors couldn't make a case against Karen without some evidence that put her on the crime scene. Prosecutors were forced to let her go. Paul's family was horrified. It gave us kind of a ure-feeling.

If she had done that to Paul, was she going to come after us? Although once out of jail, Karen left the Phoenix area and returned to Missouri. She moved in with my sister, which is just about a mile up the road here. And she did her best to put Paul's death behind her. She really didn't want to talk about it.

After she'd moved here, I think she didn't want to talk about it. You know, after she'd moved here, I think she didn't want to be bothered with it anymore. And in January, just three months after her husband's murder, Karen married yet again. That seemed pretty strange to me. She married this Mr. Sanchez. He had done a little prison time. Had a record.

Wasn't the nicest guy in town, but she fell for him. How she met a model, no. But I was appalled after she killed her husband. She married him. That's, that sends a red flag to every and anybody. And Karen's behavior would soon be even more alarming. It all started shortly after Karen's arrest when her third husband had received temporary custody

of their eight-year-old son, Karen's youngest. There was a shock to get that phone call that the girl that you were married to murdered somebody. And while the charges had been dropped and Karen was out of jail, Bob was preparing to sue for full custody of their son anyway. But Karen had other plans. She called me to meet him at McDonald's and said she wanted to see her son. She could drive down here.

I agreed. I felt for her. Every child misses their mom. My son missed his mom. He cried at night, so I said, let's have lunch with your mom at McDonald's. They met on the afternoon of February 24, 2002. He came in the door with a little boy and Karen had heard her 16-year-old daughter

at the time, and two guys were in there. And the guy's maced Bob. I was trying to do a good thing because my son missed his mother. And then the backfiring where my son got kidnapped. Karen grabbed the boy and ran out the other door, and he started getting up, and they maised him again. And I had to call the cops, but I couldn't see the phone,

because I was maised. Eventually, Bob did manage to call the police. There was all points bullet to not pour, and they got as far up as 20 or 30 miles to the town north of Springfield. And they might have gone farther if the police hadn't caught up with Karen. They arrested her, but then they didn't know for sure who had custody of the little boy. And they released her and they never brought any charges.

Bob did eventually get his son back, but the entire experience left him rattled to say the least. I'm living. Why is this woman not in prison for murder? She already killed one guy. We couldn't figure it out, but the detective was telling me they're waiting for forensics. That's all he kept saying. We just got away.

We've got to not enough to evidence yet Although as it turned out Karen's ex wouldn't have too long to wait in May of 2002 Six months after her initial arrest for murder and less than three months after she attempted to abduct her son The authorities in Arizona were finally ready to act They cut a deal with Steve. Apparently, her ex-lover Steve hadn't appreciated the fact that she had involved him in a murder, painted him as the killer, and then run off and married another man.

Police are able to convince him to testify against Karen. And in May, the police were once again at Karen's door. They busted her door down and arrested her for Paul's murder. It was a relief when I knew she was behind bars. She couldn't do anymore to hurt any of our family anymore. But did they have enough to make murder charges stick? A Coming up, the prosecution appears confident.

Prosecutors sought the death penalty against Karen. But is their confidence misplaced? Run your shadow of the doubt and she locks. On December 21, 2004, three years after her husband, Paul Thompson, had been found dead in the Arizona desert, 40-year-old Karen Sanchez was finally in court to face murder charges. I remember frustration that it seemed like it took forever to charge her to get along with the process. The breakthrough came when Karen's former lover, Steve Richmond,

had agreed to cooperate with the prosecutors. Steve, in exchange for a very favorable outcome, would testify against Karen, and he would tell a jury about what she confessed to him. Although once he agreed to testify, his account of Karen's confession had changed, dropping her claim that she had killed Paul in self-defense. Steve, in his deposition, said that she had wanted to get rid of him.

She didn't want to go through another divorce. She'd been through too much. She had too much to lose. Look at what Karen stood to gain. Money from a life insurance policy, a home autonomy. And unlike Karen's earlier arrest, the prosecutors had witnesses who could back up Steve's claims. People are pointing the finger at Karen, saying that she had tried to hire them to kill her husband. But none of them would take her up on it.

They said they weren't into doing something like that. But their testimony combined with Steve's could make all the difference. That she had offered the money to try and kill her husband. Those facts together supported the prosecution's case. And the fact that she'd tried to hire a hitman might have ended up costing Karen dearly. Prosecutors sought the death penalty.

But that didn't mean they would get it. This definitely wasn't a slam dunk case. It wasn't a sure thing for prosecutors. They realized that they had to compromise if they were certain of getting any conviction at all. So with her trial date approaching, the prosecutors had contacted Karen's defense attorney and offered her a deal. Plead guilty for second degree murder for a 20-year flat sentence.

It was a bitter disappointment for Paul's family, but they felt there was little choice. They said, do you want to take the chance to go to a trial? And takes one, your shadow of a doubt, and she locks. That made it pretty much an easy decision at that point. On December 21st, Karen took the deal. She played guilty to second-degree murder with a stipulated sentence of 20 calendar years in prison with no early release. She'll be 57 when she gets out.

But is that enough? Especially considering how Paul died. Paul Thompson endured a horrific and violent death. And then there was a senseless nature of the crime. After three divorces, why did Karen decide that Paul had to die? It's what I've been trying to ask myself. I mean, for 15 years now, you know, why not just walk away?

Karen Stanschez is scheduled to be released on May 12, 2022. Steve Richman pleaded guilty to hindering prosecution and received 18 months of probation. you