03x02 - Mother Knows Best

[bunniefuu]

[ambient street noise]

[menacing music playing]

Hello.

My name is Kenneth Kimes.

You don't really know me.

You may think you know me, but you do not.

You may think you know my mother,
but you don't.

My son and I are innocent.

There is a huge, evil cover-up going on.

The police have made a terrible mistake.

[distressing music playing]

[man] With Sante and Kenny Kimes,

there's something more than
a mother-and-son relationship here.

People who seem to come and go
from the Kimeses' lives disappeared.

I got a call. My friend Irene is missing.

We had an -year-old socialite
who disappeared from her town house.

Every day, without exception,

I'd get a call from
the police commissioner's office

with a simple question.

"Where's Irene?"

[woman] We don't know where she is,
but we pray for her.

I pray with my son
at eleven o'clock every night.

We pray she's all right,
but we don't know where she is.

We're innocent, and if just given
our rights, we will prove it.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Mooney] Our job is to make sure
you can go home and sleep at night.

[Rivera] It's so important for a family
to know who m*rder*d their relative.

[chief] Compassion for the victims,
that's the most important thing.

[Parrino] I've always liked
the peek behind the curtain.

What really happened?

[McNeely] You want to find out the truth.
That's what detectives do.

[officer] Your instinct is to help people.

[Titus] In New York City, the NYPD…

this is it.

[suspenseful music trails off]

[detective] In ,
I had years as a New York City cop

when I got promoted
to third-grade detective.

And I got transferred from
the th Precinct in Washington Heights

to the th Precinct,
which is the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

[bold, ritzy music playing]

It's probably the richest part
of New York City.

We would get homicides,

but certainly not
compared to other precincts.

Within a year of being in that precinct,
there was a burglary on Fifth Avenue.

So we go up there,
and it's Mary Tyler Moore's apartment.

That's the kind of case
that we were working on.

The precinct covers
from th to th Street,

from Fifth Avenue
all the way to the East River.

Like a big square.

And there's all kinds of high-rises,
so it's very densely populated.

When I got transferred,
I had culture shock.

I went from the basement
to the penthouse in one move.

[music halts]

In , Fourth of July weekend,

the city was a ghost town,
especially the Upper East Side.

Everyone goes to their Hamptons house
out in Long Island.

On July th, it was myself
and two other detectives working.

Everyone else took off.

[phone ringing]

A call comes in about a missing person

by a staff member of an -year-old woman
named Irene Silverman.

I'm the junior detective,

so the two other guys were like,
"Kid, this is yours. Here you go."

I was like, "Ah, sh*t."

No one really wants
a missing persons case.

They're usually someone ran away
or went somewhere for the weekend.

They didn't tell anybody.

They usually come back,
and the case winds up being closed.

But we had to check on it.

So we went over to the town house.

It was on a great block on th Street,
right off of Madison Avenue.

[detective] I was a second-grade detective

who grew up
in the housing projects in East Harlem.

And the first thing I thought was,

"This is probably the first time I walked
into a multimillion-dollar building."

It was a beautiful, five-story limestone
with a penthouse deck on the roof.

I had not been in many, many buildings
that took my breath away

as to, "Wow! This is really expensive.
This is really a woman who's well-off."

[Hovagim] When we first
get to the town house,

no one's there
except Irene Silverman's housekeeper

and Jeff, her personal assistant.

The staff started to tell us,

"Last night,
she threw a Fourth of July party."

"She had a lot of guests.
They had a great time."

The next morning at about : a.m.

was the last time
any of her staff saw her.

Irene was gonna go take a nap.

Later on at about :,
five o'clock in the afternoon,

Marta goes and knocks
on Irene's door to her bedroom,

and Irene doesn't answer.

She goes into the room
and realizes that Irene is not there.

[man] I'll never forget.
It's one of the saddest days of my life.

The phone rang, and it was Jeff.

And from the tone of voice,
I can sense that something very serious

and something wrong is going on.

So all Jeff says, "Is Irene with you?"
I said, "No."

So, um, Jeff… The next thing Jeff said,

"We were all hoping
that Irene is with you,"

because usually we spend Sunday together.

He said, "She has been missing
since twelve o'clock."

I said, "What happened?"
He said, "We don't know."

So I said, "I'll come over soon."

When I get to the house,
the whole staff was there.

Suddenly, everybody was at a loss

that the lady of the home is gone.

[tense, mysterious music playing]

The staff said Irene would never leave
the residence by herself.

She always had someone escort her,
to the store or wherever.

Someone always went with her.

But they also said
that this woman is sharp as a tack.

There is no Alzheimer's,
no dementia, nothing like that.

We searched the whole town house.

We started tracking down guests
that were at the party,

getting their names
so we can interview them also.

The staff told us
that her keys were missing.

Not only that, they said
that she always kept money on hand,

and they said
that there was $, missing.

And they showed us
where she kept the money,

and that envelope was gone.

The people who she employed told us
that she treated them just like family.

I remember being impressed
with how much they cared for Irene.

[Toi] That says a lot
about the character of Irene Silverman,

to have your workers that loved you,
devoted to you, and want the best for you.

[Hovagim] They tell us that
she doesn't have any family.

She was a socialite. So if she liked you,
she automatically took you in as a friend,

would invite you to the parties,
to the town house.

That was it. You were part of her family.

The more I got to know who she was,
the more I really liked her,

and the more
I'd like to hang out with her.

When she threw a party,
she is the center of attention.

Just like in the movie,
the
Auntie Mame
movie.

Alan, darling, I'm so glad to see--
Edna, I called you yesterday. Where--

-Hello, Mame.
-Hello. I'll be with you in just a minute.

[Toi] She held court like no one else.

I first met Irene Silverman in .

I was at the peak of my career.

I was the very first Asian designer
that was championed by Anna Wintour.

I went to this very fancy
Christmas Eve party.

My friend ran into the kitchen.

She said, "The grande dame just arrived.
The grande dame just arrived."

"You must meet her.
Everybody wants to meet her."

I was introduced to her.

Even though she's tiny,
she's barely five foot tall,

but she's larger than life.

She's so glamorous looking,
the way she dresses,

the way she holds herself.

She said,
"You must come and have tea with me."

I was there until after midnight.

We had the best time ever.

And she had the best stories to tell.

At the age of , she was one of
the ballerinas at Radio City.

During one of the performances,
Samuel Silverman was in the audience,

was so smitten with Irene.

After a courtship, they got married.

Irene told me he's in finance.

And then Irene started to live
this very, very glamorous life.

After her husband passed away,

she started to get a little lonely
in this huge mansion.

So to entertain herself,

she rented all the beautiful rooms
to very wealthy people,

for people who do not want
to stay at a hotel.

The people who she employed told us
that directly to the back,

as you come into the building,
there's a door.

And that door was for an apartment
on the first floor.

She rented that apartment
to a white male named Manny Guerin.

[Hovagim] The staff told us
that Irene Silverman

usually did background checks
on her tenants.

However, in this case, she didn't.

A butcher who Irene used,
that was a mutual friend,

recommended Irene's town house
to Manny Guerin.

On June th, he paid $,
for one month upfront in cash.

The staff mentioned that
from the moment he came into the building,

Irene felt that he was not a nice person.

He would often listen to Irene
talking to the staff in the foyer.

And they knew that

because they would see his feet
right by the front door.

We were told by staff

that Manny was also sneaking a woman
into the building named Eva.

They described her
as an older woman, well-dressed.

Eva is a person
that Manny claims he worked with,

almost like an assistant.

When we go into Irene's office,
there's papers on her desk,

and there's notes that she wrote
about the tenant in B.

Some of the notes said
he was very suspicious.

She didn't trust him and wanted him out.

[Vazquez] She actually drew
a little sketch of him

and a description of his height.

She wrote, "He looks like jail."

[Toi] I remember the very first day
Manny moved into the rental space.

I was having lunch with Irene
at the basement.

And then we hear the elevator door open.

Immediately, Irene sent Marta,
who's the maid, to the elevator.

Said, "Please tell Manny, the tenant,
this is a private area."

"No tenants are allowed in this area."

When Marta finally came back
to the dining table,

I'll never forget, Irene told me,

"You know what?
I'm very suspicious of this guy."

I said, "Irene, why are you
taking in someone that you suspected?"

She said, "I trusted my butcher,

so I did not ask for a background check,

and then I agreed to rent them
the apartment for a month."

[uneasy music playing]

When we find out about the guy in B,

that's when I was like,
"Oh, this is not good."

So all these flags are going up,
saying, "Hey, This guy's a shithead."

We do a physical check
of the apartment that Manny rented

to make sure that she was not in there
laying wounded or maybe even dead.

The apartment was dimly lit.

It wasn't a mess, but it wasn't tidy.

The bed was unmade.

There was boxes of food on the counter.

In the garbage can in the apartment,
there was a wad of duct tape.

Also recovered was
a spool of rope or string.

One of the staff members notices
a comforter from the room is missing.

And we find an empty shower curtain box
with just the rings in it.

Why would you need a shower curtain
in an apartment with glass sliding doors?

You don't need a shower curtain.

At that point, we were thinking
we might have an abduction of some kind.

We bring her staff back to the precinct
to do a sketch of Manny Guerin,

the person in B
that was acting suspicious.

I was assigned
to stay in the town house that night.

That was my "oh sh*t" moment.

I'm a junior detective.

This is my ball of wax.

We thought maybe there'd be
a knock at the door of a witness.

Maybe Irene would walk through the door,
a phone call, could've been anything.

The only one who was with me
was George, Irene's dog.

[chief] In July of ,
I had the rank of deputy inspector.

I was also in charge of
Manhattan North detective operations,

which oversaw the precincts
in Manhattan North

from th Street
up to the tip of Manhattan.

We have what we call
"special category missing persons."

Irene fit at least two of them.

One was that she was years old
at the time.

And the second was she seems
to have disappeared involuntarily

and something drastic has happened to her.

Special category missing person prompts

a temporary headquarters
to be established.

[sergeant] I get a phone call
from Inspector Reznick saying,

"Was, you're gonna have to go
to the th Precinct with your team."

Joe wanted to have the best guys

or the guys that were
attention-to-detail guys.

[Hovagim] Joe Reznick is a tough boss
to work for, I'm not gonna lie.

He's a no-nonsense kind of guy,

but if I had a relative
that was missing or m*rder*d,

I'd want him running this investigation.

[Reznick] We immediately had cards made up

with Irene Silverman's picture on it.

[officer over PA]
If you have information
regarding the disappearance

or whereabouts of Mrs. Irene Silverman,

please contact Crime Stoppers.

Detectives would literally
stand out on the corner

and hand out flyers and ask people
if they saw anything strange.

Now the press gets ahold of it,
and that's it. It just explodes.

[reporter ]
The -year-old woman
vanished from her mansion.

[reporter ]
Silverman was last seen alive July th.

[Reznick]
We have a elderly female
who has disappeared very mysteriously.

We have a occupant
of an apartment who she rented to

less than three weeks ago,
who has also disappeared mysteriously.

We also mentioned
that we were looking for the person

in the composite sketch
known as "Manny Guerin."

We're looking for him in connection
with Ms. Silverman's disappearance.

[Vazquez] The day after
this press conference…

[phone ringing]

…the th squad gets a call

from an NYPD detective
who's part of a joint fugitive task force

where FBI agents and NYPD detectives

are assigned to locate fugitives
wanted not only in New York,

but from around the country.

[Reznick] He said that on July th,
when Irene Silverman was reported missing,

he had arrested two people,
a mother and a son,

at about th Street and th Avenue

on a warrant that they had from Utah

for buying a car with a stolen check
that they drove to New York City.

The detective from the fugitive task force
told us that

they both had on their possession

identification that belonged
to Irene Silverman.

[Vazquez] They were identified as
Kenny Kimes and his mother, Sante Kimes.

[Wasielewski] In her pocketbook
was $, in cash.

When questioned
about why she had $, cash,

she said, "You need
a lot of cash to visit New York,"

which didn't make any sense.

I don't know who carries $, cash
in their pocketbook.

I have a g*n,
and I wouldn't go to New York

with $, cash in my pocket.

But also there's a ring of keys
with red nail polish, which were Irene's.

[Reznick] I thought
we were looking for Manny Guerin,

but when I heard about that,

I says, "Are you f*cking kidding me?"

With this new information,
we grab a car, and we go down

to Manhattan Central Booking
to interview Kenny.

When I first walked in,
I thought, "Holy sh*t."

Kenny matched the sketch
of Manny Guerin pretty dead-on.

I was convinced
we had Manny Guerin, for sure.

We asked him, "Why do you have Irene's ID?
Do you know Irene?"

"Yes, I… I know her."

"Um, I think my mother
was friends with her."

We said, "Kenny, think of Irene.
She could be alive somewhere."

"Maybe she's missing."

"Maybe you could help us find her.
Why don't you talk to us?"

"What if that was your mother?
How would you feel?"

There was a glimmer of light.

There were tears in his eyes.
I remember it.

And I thought
that he would start talking to us

and he was gonna fall on the sword.

But seconds later,
it's like a switch went off inside of him.

He just became very stoic,

turned to stone,
and asked for an attorney.

When I was leaving, I was % convinced

that he had a big part
of Irene's disappearance.

His mother, Sante Kimes,
was at the FBI building downtown

waiting to be arraigned
for the stolen car case.

And I was hoping that the detectives
who were interviewing her

were having more success than we were.

But she requested an attorney,
and the, uh, interview was shut down.

So we do a background check on them.

See what they were arrested for
in the past.

We saw that Kenny
never had any major run-ins with the law.

Then we looked at Sante, and…

You couldn't believe
the horrific things that they say.

[producer] At one point,
I was assigned the story of

what happened here
to Irene Silverman in New York.

And I found out that Sante Kimes
was orphaned when she was younger,

and she sort of bounced around
from house to house,

whether it was an orphanage
or a friend of a friend.

She was very poor.

She met Kenneth Kimes Sr. in .

He was in the construction business
and owned a chain of motels.

They had houses in the Bahamas,

oceanfront property in Honolulu,

a house in Las Vegas.

They were living the high life.

A couple of years
after they met each other,

she and her husband had Kenneth Kimes Jr.

Sante Kimes definitely considered Kenneth
her little prince,

but Sante would control
everything that Kenneth did,

to the point where she decided
to homeschool him, not send him to school.

Kenny did what Mommy said. He…
If Mommy said to jump, he jumped.

[Reznick] She knew
how to manipulate things to her needs.

Sante was a con artist.

Don't tape me when I can't, like…

She had, I think, different aliases
listed on her arrest histories,

which included insurance fraud,
some larcenies.

[Zone] Sante Kimes, I think, loved danger.

She liked to see
how much she could get away with.

She claimed that her husband
was an ambassador

and somehow got invited to a reception
being thrown for Gerald Ford.

There's a picture of her and Kenneth Kimes
shaking President Ford's hand.

To this day, no one knows
how she got through Secret Service.

She had a way of entering a room,

and everybody would look over and say,
"Look how she's dressed!"

"Oh my God! Look at her jewelry!
She must belong here."

[Reznick] Another one of the things
that stood out

was a sl*very charge back in .

Sante Kimes would hire help from Mexico
to clean her big homes.

She would treat them really badly.

[Reznick] She would lock maids
in their rooms.

One of them subsequently testified
at that trial

that she was burned by an iron.

They gave her the name "the Dragon Lady."

It's a different crazy, is what it is.

She's a psychopath.

Sante was sentenced
to five years in prison.

However, her husband
was never prosecuted for that case.

[Zone] She served three years
out of a five-year term.

Then Kenneth Kimes Sr.
died in of a brain aneurysm.

And when he died,
this threw Sante's life in a tailspin.

She was like,
"How am I going to continue my lifestyle?"

As long as Sante ended up on top,
that's all she cared about.

[Reznick] After his father's death,
mother and son were hooked hip to hip.

Whatever ventures they got involved with,
they did it together.

Befriending the Kimes
was a very dangerous proposition.

People they knew
seemed to disappear out of the blue.

[Hovagim] One of them was David Kazdin.

David Kazdin was, uh, an associate
of Sante and Kenneth Kimes,

a business partner in some sense.

[Vazquez] She took out a fraudulent loan
against David Kazdin's home.

He gets, I believe it was,
a coupon book for payments

on a $,, $, loan
that he was totally unaware of.

And he went to the authorities.

[Hovagim] Shortly after that,

they found Kazdin's body
in a dumpster by LAX airport.

But at that point,
the LAPD didn't have enough

to arrest Sante and Kenneth Kimes
for the m*rder of David Kazdin.

And at that point, Sante and Kenny

drove all the way across country
in the stolen car

so they could rent
the apartment in Irene's town house.

[Reznick] There were discussions about
whether they should be extradited to LA

to face the David Kazdin m*rder,

or leave 'em here in New York.

Well, I got news for you.

If someone is k*lled
here in New York City,

the case should stay here in New York City
until it's totally resolved.

And, trust me, there was just
a voluminous amount of work

that had to be accomplished yet.

[tense, mysterious music playing]

[reporter]
News Channel took
these exclusive pictures

of the K police dog unit

and the crime scene technicians
going to the basement garage

where the car Kenneth Kimes drove
was being held.

The search warrant was conducted
on the green Lincoln Town Car.

[Hovagim] We open up the trunk.

Nothing, just garbage.

Everything is piled
in the backseat of the car.

And there was a lot of sh*t, man.

It took eight hours
to go through that car.

We recovered a box, uh, from a Taser g*n.

We found a clear liquid

that was later identified
as a knockout drug, like a roofie.

We found Irene Silverman's
Social Security card

with some other papers
that had Irene's name on it.

We recovered all kinds of wigs,
eavesdropping equipment.

Sitting in the car were notebooks

that had notes meticulously detailing
Irene's movements.

When you look at the big picture,
what's going on,

those are pretty telling things.

Also in those notebooks was
how to take possession of Irene's house.

"Get notary, get title, get deed."

Also recovered from the car
was a microcassette

with some cassette tapes.

And we listened to them.

And one of them had Sante posing

as a person calling Irene,

saying that she won a trip to go
to Las Vegas to stay at Circus Circus.

[Sante]
You better sit down.

[Irene]
Okay.

[Sante]
I have
a wonderful surprise for you.

[Irene]
What?

[Sante]
You have won a free trip.

All expenses, airfare, hotel.

The whole gist of the call
was to try to get Irene Silverman

to divulge over the phone
her Social Security number.

[Sante]
So, are you sitting down?

[Irene]
I am. I'm sitting down.
I'm also wondering what the catch is.

[Sante]
There's no catch.

Can I have a Social Security?

[Wasielewski] She was trying to get info

she could use on the deeds,
and the forged papers, and stuff.

[Irene]
Mm-hmm. I don't know my number,
to tell you the truth.

[Sante]
I have to have the number
to send you the information.

She tried every which way
to get that number out of Irene,

and Irene was not f*cking having it, man.

[Irene]
Well, you send me
whatever you have there,

and if I like it, the idea,

then I'll give you
my Social Security number.

[Vazquez] With all the information
that we had recovered,

we weren't dealing with a missing person.

We knew we were looking
for a homicide victim.

I have a great reader, or fortune teller,
whatever you call.

So as soon as I sat down, he looked at me.
He said, "I'm so sorry for your loss."

And he said,
"Your great friend is no longer with us."

Immense sadness and emotion
came immediately then.

And also then
I immediately went into denial.

I said, "Maybe he's wrong.
I hope this time he's wrong."

[Hovagim] Knowing this is
gonna be a homicide case,

we still felt we needed
a body to put these people away.

We knew they did it, but without a body,

there was a good chance
that they might get off.

Personally, I was pissed off.

I wanted to go back
and punch Kenny in the face

and get the information out of him.

[Vazquez] There was a tip line
for a person to call

with information as to the sightings
of the green Lincoln Town Car.

[multiple phones ringing]

We were following up
on every lead that we got.

[Hovagim] We searched
the Meadowlands out in Jersey.

Meadowlands is no picnic.

It's a swampy, tall grass area.

It sucks. It sucks.

It's just a smelly, dirty place
to… to search,

but perfect to dump a body.

We find all kinds of garbage,
all kinds of discarded containers,

luggage, and what I call
"Coney Island whitefish,"

meaning used condoms, used tampons.

We were desperate
to find Irene Silverman's body.

Every tip that came in on this case,
or any case, has to be investigated.

As crazy as it may sound,
one particular day,

I recall being in the office.

Someone's come to our office
with a dead chicken.

What brought my attention to it
was the f*cking smell.

It reeked, and it permeated the office.

[Vazquez] We were all told
inside the an*s of the dead chicken

there is a note, and in that note,
it says where Irene Silverman's body is.

I says, "Get the f*ck out of here."

And I made them get her out of the office.

But they took the chicken and her
down to th Street, Amsterdam Avenue,

where there was a chicken poultry farm,
factory, whatever you want to call it,

and they examined the chicken.

As far as that chicken was concerned,

there was no note in the chicken's a*s.

It was one of the lighter moments
that we had during this investigation,

but that's how much pressure
we were under.

Each and every lead that came in
had to be answered.

[Hovagim] The Kimes were
still in jail for the stolen car,

and we were listening to their calls.

And we intercepted a call from Sante Kimes

talking to a private investigator
hired by the defense.

She was advising him to go
to The Plaza Hotel to retrieve a bag.

With that, myself
and another detective got into a car…

[sirens wailing]

…and rode, lights and sirens,
down to The Plaza Hotel.

A retired detective captain
was the head of security there.

He said, "A private investigator
just came in and got the bag."

Gave us his name.

We have another detective looking up
his private investigator's license.

The PI's office was down by City Hall,
so we went over there.

First, he denied picking up the bag,
and then we told him,

"Listen, we know
that you went and picked up the bag."

"How do you think we got to your office,
out of the blue?"

So then he decided to surrender the bag.

That was probably one of the biggest
breaks in the case that we got.

In that bag,
we found a .-caliber handgun,

a power of attorney
with Irene Silverman's signature on it.

And we recovered a copy of the deed

signed by Irene Silverman.

What was noted
on the deed was that, in fact,

the house was being sold
to the Atlantis Group, Incorporated,

which we subsequently learned

was a shell company
created by Sante Kimes.

We had handwriting analysis done on them,

and sure enough, it came back
that those documents were forged.

We can see that it was notarized, signed,
and dated by a specific notary.

Once the notary was located,
she was interviewed.

The notary states that she came
to Irene Silverman's building.

She found herself
in a room where it's dimly lit.

It was dark.

Sante Kimes was dressed up
as Irene in a bed.

You know, with a red wig on
and something covering her face.

The covers pulled up,
just like Little Red Riding Hood.

She had some ID,
which was forged ID or whatever,

and she notarized it, and that was it.

The notary was asked to view a lineup

of Sante and Kenny Kimes
at the district attorney's office.

And I remember sitting with Sante Kimes,
guarding her before the lineup.

She and I were the only ones in the room.

Knowing that she's a con artist,
I just decided to not drop my guard

and not allow her
to get me into any type of conversation.

Two minutes later, I'm telling her,

"Yeah, I'm separated. I live in Yonkers.
My kids are ten and years old."

I should have known better
than to let her engage with me.

But she had the ability
to just make you relax,

make you relax to a point

where you can just answer any
and all questions that she asked.

That's how she got
information from people…

…have to be-- Stop it! [Sante laughs]

…to go forward with some sort of scam
or fraud that she was planning to do.

[Hovagim] The notary picked Sante
right out of the lineup.

No problem at all.

Those forged documents
became critical to the case

because it was the motive.

It painted a very persuasive picture

that the Kimeses were creating
a fraudulent transaction

to make it look like Irene Silverman
was turning over the town house to them.

[Hovagim] Though we didn't have a body,

we were convinced we could go forward
with charging them with homicide.

Five months after Irene went missing,
in December ,

Sante and Kenneth Kimes were finally
indicted for m*rder in the second degree.

They were indicted for burglary,
for robbery, for eavesdropping.

There were counts
of charges against them.

That's a hell of a lot of counts.

[reporter]
From her jail cell,
Kimes claims she's innocent.

[Sante]
Please help.

I am pleading
for our constitutional rights

to a fair judge, trial, and venue,

so that my wonderful young son's innocence
can be proven to everyone.

What was strange is how many times
Sante and Kenny Kimes

got to the media
while waiting for their trial.

[Sante] My son and I are innocent.

There is a huge, evil cover-up going on.

The police have made a terrible mistake.

You have been led to think
certain things about the both of us

which are completely untrue.

We are innocent.

[Hovagim] It was really some act.

Um, they were portrayed
as being prosecuted for no good reason.

"Look at my son.
Does he look like a k*ller to you?"

Minutes
invited the Kimes
to talk about what had happened.

It certainly didn't appear to be
a mother-son relationship.

[Vazquez] They're holding hands,
and Kenny, you know…

complimenting his mother's looks.

I think she's a beautiful person,
spiritually and intellectually.

-And physically.
-[both laughing]

[Vazquez] It was just
the strangest thing to see

of a mother and son who are adults.

There was speculation that there was
an incestuous relationship going on.

I personally don't believe that.

My belief is that

she was in control
of every aspect of his life.

[Sante]
Turn around, Kenny.

She groomed Kenny to be a k*ller.

The case goes to trial in January ,

about a year and a half
after Irene's disappearance.

The main defense strategy was,

"How can you possibly convict
if there's no body?"

I'm not sure there is another defense.

But we were able
to put on a four-month trial,

and, uh, it went in quite smoothly.

[Vazquez] Both Sante and Kenny Kimes
were found guilty

on every single charge.

Each one of them were gonna get
a minimum of years to life.

[Hovagim] Sante honestly thought
she was smarter than everyone else.

These schemes were feeding her,

and she needed it
like Dracula needs blood.

[Reznick] And I'll say this.

In their possession was
a list of other New Yorkers

targeted by the Kimes.

We checked with all them
to make sure that they were okay.

[Zone] In October ,
when Sante and Kenny

were awaiting extradition
to the State of California

where they faced
the m*rder trial of David Kazdin,

I was assigned
to produce a documentary for Court TV.

Kenny agreed, ultimately,
to do an interview with me on camera.

He walked in, and he looked scary.

He had the darkest, blackest eyes

that just seared right through me.

Cameraman, audio person start rolling.

Within minutes,
he had asked me for three breaks.

If I may ask, uh, could we take a break
in maybe five or ten minutes?

The last break, he asked, "Would you mind
getting me something to eat?"

So I went to the vending machines.

I reach out to give him these items.

And before I know it, he's around my back
with his right arm across my… my neck.

And he said to me,
"This is a hostage situation."

Sirens are going off.

Kenny notices that the cameraman
has the camera still rolling.

And he said, "Stop the f*cking camera!"

Cameraman, back!

Being that close to him was disgusting.

I could feel his heart
pounding against my back.

-Um…
-[rhythmic thumping]

I, uh, could feel his sweat.

I remember him flicking this pen.

And right away, I'm thinking,
"He's gonna stab me with this pen."

The prison officials
that had come into the room were saying,

"Kenneth, calm down."

"You're not gonna accomplish anything
by doing this."

I said to him, "Why are you doing this?"

And right away, he said,

"My mother is old.
She cannot handle another trial."

"I want my mother and I
to be extradited to Canada."

It was really terrifying.

Five long hours had gone by.

And I said to him, "Kenneth,
you know… do you know how to pray?"

"Let's pray together."

And he said, "Yes, I do."

And, like, this calmness
came across his face.

After we prayed together,
a hostage negotiator said to Kenny,

"Kenny, it's been long enough."

He said, "This is my business card.
Let me help you."

Kenny went to grab it,
which means he let me go.

And that was my opportunity
to just storm out of that room.

There was at least
a half dozen guys in there.

They jumped him.

And I didn't look back.
I just kept on going.

But I was just, um,
so grateful to be alive.

[reporter]
Kenneth Kimes helped his mother
k*ll a wealthy widow.

Now he's admitting to another m*rder.

He surprised a courtroom in Los Angeles

by pleading guilty
to k*lling a businessman, David Kazdin.

He made a cooperation agreement

with the LA County
district attorney's office

in which he testified against his mother.

He confessed
to the m*rder of David Kazdin…

and the m*rder of Irene Silverman

in exchange for a sentence
that did not include the death penalty

for himself and his mother.

Kenny said that Irene Silverman
knocked on his door.

He pulled her into the apartment.

He stun-gunned her.
She dropped to the floor.

He choked her to death.

Then took a shower curtain,
wrapped her up,

taped her up with the duct tape.

Put her in a duffel bag.

Put her in the trunk of his car.

Drove downtown through the Lincoln Tunnel.

He goes, "I saw a dumpster."

"I put her body in the dumpster,
and that was it."

Justice was served.

But we didn't have Irene's body.

You know, it'll haunt me to my death.

That a… a great woman like that,

who actually contributed
something to society,

doesn't even have closure in her life
where her body was never laid to rest.

[somber music playing]

It's still an open case in my mind.

I'm hoping one day
her remains are found, and there's DNA,

and I get a phone call saying,
"Hey, we found Irene."

Do I think that's gonna happen?
No, I don't.

But do I hope it happens? %.

I'd love to get that phone call.
I really would.

[Toi] It took at least ten years
for me to come to terms

that someone really, really k*lled her.

I had that fantasy that
they were keeping Irene somewhere,

put her away somewhere,
a little town somewhere.

Maybe she'll reappear.

But, sadly, the last few years,
I came to terms.

I came to terms that…
I know she's no longer with us,

but she's smiling down at me every day.

Every time I cross th Street,
I always look up to the beautiful home.

I say a quiet hello to her.

And tell her quietly that I miss her.

[music trailing off]

[phone ringing]

[man] I get a call
that a guest is experiencing

a heavy leak of water into their room.

[Panuccio] Soho House is
a very exclusive, high-end club,

and we have a young woman
dead in the bathtub.

The identity of the victim
was Sylvie Cachay, female, years old.

She was a fashion designer,
swimsuit designer.

She was just the perfect member
to be a part of Soho House.

[Moller] She checked in
with her boyfriend,

and he's no longer there.

So, yeah, it is suspicious.

And then we find the "f*ck you" email.

A picture's starting to emerge.

There are situations
you hope to never be in.

What happened in that room,
it's not something you can forget about.

[dramatic outro music pulsing]