Mommy and Clyde: The Crimes of Sante and Kenny Kimes
67 min
•Feb 16, 20262 months agoSummary
This episode of Morbid covers the crimes of Sante and Kenny Kimes, a mother-son criminal duo responsible for multiple murders, fraud schemes, and arson. The case centers on the 1998 disappearance and murder of 84-year-old Irene Silverman, a wealthy Manhattan socialite, which led to the unraveling of decades of criminal activity across multiple states and countries.
Insights
- Pathological liars and con artists often escalate their criminal behavior over time, moving from minor fraud to violent crimes when their schemes fail to produce desired results
- Vulnerable targets like elderly wealthy individuals can be systematically exploited through charm, false identities, and social engineering before violence occurs
- Parental influence and childhood manipulation can shape individuals into accomplices, though adult perpetrators remain responsible for their own criminal choices
- Circumstantial evidence and financial records can support murder convictions even without a body, when supported by comprehensive investigative work
- Serial criminals often maintain detailed records and evidence of their crimes, creating their own downfall through documentation of fraud and communications
Trends
Elder fraud and exploitation targeting wealthy seniors through rental schemes and identity deceptionMulti-jurisdictional criminal networks requiring coordination between federal, state, and international law enforcementUse of forged documents and notarized signatures in financial fraud schemes targeting real estate and bank accountsArson as a tool for insurance fraud and evidence destruction in organized crime operationsPredatory targeting of vulnerable populations by individuals with documented histories of violence and exploitation
Topics
Elder abuse and financial exploitationIdentity fraud and impersonation schemesInsurance fraud and arsonForced labor and slavery chargesMurder without a body convictionMulti-state criminal conspiracyNotary fraud and document forgeryBank fraud and offshore accountsDomestic violence and assaultWitness intimidation and media manipulation during trialPlea deals in capital murder casesCriminal psychology and pathological lyingParental influence on criminal behaviorEvidence collection in missing persons casesCircumstantial evidence in homicide prosecution
Companies
First Cayman Bank
Bank where Ken Kimes held $850,000; target of fraud scheme by Sante Kimes to access deceased husband's account
Radio City Music Hall
Prestigious venue where Irene Silverman performed as a classical ballet dancer in her professional career
Columbia University
Institution where Irene Silverman enrolled in courses after her husband's death to remain intellectually engaged
Los Angeles International Airport
Location where Dave Kasdan's body was discovered in a dumpster after being murdered by Sante and Kenny Kimes
People
Sante Kimes
Primary perpetrator; con artist, arsonist, and murderer convicted of killing Irene Silverman and multiple other crimes
Kenny Kimes
Son of Sante; accomplice in murders of Irene Silverman, Dave Kasdan, and Saeed Bilal Ahmed; confessed to crimes
Irene Silverman
84-year-old Manhattan socialite and former ballet dancer murdered by Sante and Kenny Kimes in 1998
Kent Walker
Sante's eldest son who became estranged from his mother and provided testimony about her criminal activities
Ken Kimes
Wealthy motel developer and Sante's husband; died of brain aneurysm in 1994; convicted of slavery charges
Dave Kasdan
Friend of Ken Kimes who was murdered by Sante and Kenny after they fraudulently used his property for loans
Saeed Bilal Ahmed
Bank executive and auditor murdered by Kenny Kimes at Sante's request to access frozen accounts in the Bahamas
Elmer Holmgren
Unemployed lawyer and associate who confessed to arson for hire; murdered by Sante and Kenny before trial
Detective Tom Hovajim
Junior NYPD detective assigned to Irene Silverman missing persons case; discovered blood evidence at crime scene
Detective Ed Murray
NYPD Fugitive Task Force detective who recognized Kenny Kimes from sketch during press conference
Robert Morgenthau
District Attorney who prosecuted Sante and Kenny Kimes for murder without a body in New York
Michael Fokin
Famous Russian ballet instructor under whom Irene Silverman studied in her professional dance career
Daniel Day-Lewis
Actor who rented one of Irene Silverman's townhouse apartments during his early career
Lenny Kravitz
Musician who rented one of Irene Silverman's townhouse apartments
Chaka Khan
Singer who rented one of Irene Silverman's townhouse apartments
Quotes
"Lots of people think I'm very rich and I am, but I've always worked and look at where I am and look at where I began. I'm a tough broad, a child of the depression."
Irene Silverman•Early episode
"I can't tell you what's wrong. I don't want to put you in danger. You'll know more next week."
Irene Silverman•June 27, 1998
"There was something that I just didn't think it was like a mother and a son. Santa seemed to be more like a criminal boss in the way that she talked to her son."
Detective Ed Murray•After arrest
"A sociopath of unremitting malevolence. And her son is a vacuous dupe who had evolved into a remorseless predator under his mother's influence."
Judge (sentencing)•June 2000
"The mere fact you don't have a body doesn't give somebody a walk. All the facts show that the murder was committed."
Robert Morgenthau•During trial
Full Transcript
Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid. This is Morbid. And we just got finished watching the, is it 2009 documentary? I think it is 2009. Hold on. Catfish. The movie. not the tv show the movie it all stemmed from oh 2010 2010 wow for some reason i thought it was earlier than that that movie wow henry aged really well henry did age very well that's actually nuts um but if you haven't watched that movie yet where are you honestly everybody aged pretty well you gotta watch that movie that movie will give you so many different emotions it feels like a horror movie. No, I stand by the fact that it turns into a horror movie. Yeah. I remember the first time I watched it, I was like, oh, is this like a found footage thing? Yeah, we thought it was a horror movie when we first watched it. Yeah, I fully get that. It's a weird comfort movie for me, even though it's not comforting in any way, because the time period it came out in, we watched it when we were like living with friends and we all watched it together. Yeah. And it has like a nice cozy feel to it and i remember very vividly watching it for the first time yeah so it is like one of those movies i can put on and it puts me in like a weird cozy place i don't know it's all right i get i get it being from the time period that like feels comfy i i understand that yeah because there are certain movies that are just like i love and this is this movie's awful there's one scene that i can't watch um no it's true hold on i'm literally having i'm having problems this it's the ya-ya sisterhood i think divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood traveling pants no that oh my god that's exactly what i was gonna say i kept going to say sisterhood of the traveling pants i don't know why i was like that's not it because sisterhood you know sisterhood yeah no the divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood i love that movie but it's like the darkest movie of all time i've never seen that movie you would hate it yeah there's one scene that like literally i could never watch again really yeah i saw it went like way too young but i love that movie but it's like I think it just like reminds me of a child or something that's the thing it's like it's not necessarily I will say with catfish though every time I feel like I know what is gonna happen yeah I've seen it but you're still shocked I'm still shocked by it and I'm still like just you could knock me over with a goddamn feather I get every time I get it and we were watching it and Deb had not seen it watching somebody had not seen it actually so we had them watch it for the first time and they were shocked and watching their reactions that's the thing made us sit there and go wait a second we should maybe we should talk about the original catfish movie on a bonus episode because you know it'll be fun and terrifying and wild and if you've never seen it before go watch it don't spoil it for yourself go watch it yeah don't don't google anything but maybe we'll do we have a few bonus episodes planned out ahead of time like we're going to recovering eclipse obviously we got a fun book club coming there and we have america's next top model sweetie model um so we have those lined up but we could do it after those and just let us know if that sounds like a good idea i feel like it would be a fun yeah be fun a fun one to like deep dive into it feels crimey because i would also love to go into like this happening like the phenomenon of catfishing on because doesn't it feel crimey oh wait like identity theft is a crime yeah i mean if it does feel very crimey especially and i don't want to ruin anything so like i feel i feel like it would be a fun episode yeah there's so much to talk about yeah so let us know if that sounds like a good a good episode a bonus episode for a few out from now yeah yeah hit us up yeah um i have a wild case today and dave named this one and i said what am i getting into mommy and clyde mommy and clyde mommy and clyde it's the crimes of santa and kenny kimes okay and i hadn't heard of this one when i dived into it no i haven't heard of it and i was swimming in a sea of what the fuck oh i always love that and it starts like really beautifully but then it gets so sad so fast let's go girls and then it gets fucking dark and crazy and murderous oh man So it also starts on July 4th. Oh. On July 4th, 1998, 82-year-old Irene Silverman threw a small party for her friends at her East 65th Street townhouse. Let's go. She was a former ballet dancer who had studied under the famous Russian instructor Michael Fokin. And even once she was retired and got older, she never lost a single bit of her elegance. This woman is gorgeous. Get it, girl. her friend john gruen said she was a very exquisite woman very beautiful i remember offering her some coffee or tea when she came to our house she refused saying she was in constant pain with a bad back she told us the only way that she could allay the pain was with champagne and with that she took a small bottle out of her purse and we got her a glass honestly she sounds iconic i love her so it seemed like everybody who had even just a casual relationship with irene had only good things to say about her. Her former dancer Janice Herbert said she was so hip, so funny, so awake. She was with it. Another close friend, Zhang Toy, echoed those same statements. He said she's vivacious. She's a lot of fun. Zhang Toy and Irene had actually been friends for many, many years. So of course he had been to her Manhattan townhouse for a ton of the lavish parties that she'd thrown throughout the years. And he was always amazed by the lengths that she went to just to make sure everybody was entertained like anybody who was at her party there was going to be something special for each person he said she knew how to throw a great party during her heyday and she had a heart of gold so rewinding a bit now irene had been born into a poor family in new orleans louisiana new orleans so you would love her she was born in 1916 her father was a fisherman her mother was a seamstress and despite the odds she did manage to escape that poverty through her incredible talent and commitment to dance. She was a beautiful dancer. Eventually, she landed a spot studying with some of the most famous ballet instructors in the world. And at her height, she was dancing on some of the most prestigious stages, which included a high profile position with the Radio City Music Hall's classical ballet company. Oh, shit. Like, that's a huge deal. That's huge. And that was called, I believe it was called Cours du Ballet. She used to say, lots of people think I'm very rich and I am, but I've always worked and look at where I am and look at where I began. I'm a tough broad, a child of the depression. I had to be self-supporting from the age of 16. Wow. I just love lots of people think I'm rich and I am. She's like, fuck you. I worked for it. Yeah. Good for her. She's got great energy. So in 1941, Irene married millionaire real estate broker, Sam Silverman, and they were happily married until his death in 1980. Obviously they had been married for so so long so sam's death was incredibly hard for irene but she was determined to hold on to her love of life she didn't want to just lose herself in his death and in the years that followed she was just making sure she was constantly surrounded by friends and family now she was a widow so she had a lot of time on her hands and she also had more money than she knew what to do with so 59 year old irene enrolled in courses at columbia university wow started taking classes look at her and then she'd throw these huge parties for her classmates and her instructors, and she would regularly treat them to like small gifts or gestures of her friendship. Her friend George Frango said, these gatherings were a colorful, improvised theater over which Irene presided, reveling in the intrigue and drama of it all. She sounds like a hot fucking ticket. She really does. She really does. It wasn't just that she wanted to fill her time after her husband's death either. It seems like no matter where she was, she just wanted to be surrounded by people. Like she had a love for life. Yeah. In the wake of Sam's passing, she decided to rent out one or two of the rooms. She had very large bedrooms in her Manhattan mansion. And over the years, she shared her home with tenants like actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Oh, okay. She rented out two Lenny Kravitz and Chaka Khan. No big deal. Isn't that nuts? No big deal. And it wasn't that she needed the money. She just didn't like being alone. And she, again, loved being around people. And why not have really awesome people around all the time? Well, and that's the thing. When it came to choosing tenants, she had two requirements. They had to be interesting and they had to be easy to get along with. Honestly, that's so valid. Yeah, that was pretty much it. So those who happily shared their lives with her usually found themselves rewarded too in like just unexpected ways. Yeah. According to journalist Alex Kirsta, they might find Silverman's antique silver service and a bottle of champagne left in their dining room when she knew they were holding a party. One who had embarked on a romance with a new girlfriend came home one day to find his old bed replaced with a much larger one. Wow. She said, get to it. She said, you know what? She said, you're welcome. I'll help. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, I want to be friends with Irene. Yeah. So at the end of the night, just where we started on July 4th, Irene said goodbye and goodnight to her guests and she went to bed. The next morning, her maid, Aricella, came to clean up after the party. And it was a holiday, obviously, so the rest of the staff was off. And Aricella herself was planning to leave around noon. She was working a shorter shift. The last time she saw Irene, she was still dressed in her nightgown and her slippers. And Irene asked if Aricella would take the dog for a walk on the roof garden before she left. And Aricella was planning to leave for a few hours, and then she was going to come back. So she was like, oh, before you go, just walk the dog. So when Aricella returned after being away around 4 p.m. she got back. The house was empty and there was no sign of Irene anywhere, which was very strange. Yeah. And as far as Arichella knew, Irene didn't have any plans to go out that day. The rest of the staff was gone. And Irene, like I just told you, she loves being surrounded by people. She very rarely went anywhere alone. So it seemed highly unlikely that she would have left without saying anything to anybody. Yeah. So obviously concerned that something was wrong, Aricella called Irene's butler, Menji Menjistu, knowing that if anybody knew where Irene had gone, it would be Menji. But Menji hadn't heard from Irene since the day before when he left for the long weekend. So similarly, Irene's close friend and business manager, Jeff Feig, hadn't heard from her in a day or two. And he said she hadn't mentioned having any plans to go anywhere over the holiday weekend. So he agreed it was weird. So Aricella waited in the house for an hour or two she's like you know she could have gone somewhere it would be out of character but let's not panic but after an hour or two there was the panic was starting to set in yeah there was still no sign of irene so arie chella called the police now strangely the day after fourth of july is a quieter day for the manhattan police when the call came in about a missing elderly socialite it didn't seem like a emergency situation which is kind of weird to me but the case was assigned to newly promoted junior detective uh tom havajim hovajim excuse me later he said i'd just gotten promoted in january so the other two guys were pretty senior to me and they said well kid this is yours because nobody really wants a missing persons case it's tedious work damn like that's fake all right cool it's tedious to find someone missing well you do nice and also like you're junior so you do it i'm like but you guys are senior so you might be a little better at it and it's like a whole person missing yeah somebody's loved one you could treat it with a little more than that respect dignity any of the above but luckily detective home regime was a good detective he drove to irene's six-story townhouse on the upper east side and he started collecting information i just like picturing a six-story townhouse all i can think of is sonia morgan that's literally all i could think of from real house wives of new york but like to have to collect evidence from a home like that yeah i can't imagine oh my god and there's all this like expensive i was gonna say in this like like years of living in there that you have to like search through you also have to be careful yeah it's a lot so with aricella as a guide hovajim searched the entire house and the entire property but there was truly no sign of irene anywhere after searching the house he spoke with the attendees of the party the previous evening, but didn't really find anything useful or suspicious there. And the same was true of Irene's staff. Everybody was accounted for, and nobody had any information that seemed useful in finding Irene, and none of them seemed suspicious in any way. So other than the missing homeowner, there was really just one thing that seemed out of the ordinary. Irene's current tenant, a man named Manny Guerin, also appeared to be missing. huh so about three weeks earlier on june 14th manny garan showed up at irene's door he said he was a businessman from palm beach and he was looking to rent one of her large vacant apartments upstairs okay he i think earlier i said they were rooms they were actually apartments oh because picture like a townhouse yeah that makes sense so manny was charming he was well spoken two things that irene prized seems like he might be easy to get along with a good tenant but the only weird thing was he didn't have any references or identification what he did have though was six thousand dollars cash for the first month's rent and a promise that he would give her the references the following day so all it's a red flag for sure but especially because we know yeah i was gonna say it's from like you know the rearview mirror exactly a red flag but and i think I mean she was 84 she probably is like I knew I can read people at this point and like I'm getting good vibes yeah he's a businessman he's got the money obviously the vibes run off to her so right so all things considered she said she couldn't see the harm in letting him get settled and giving him a couple days to put together a list of references so she let him move in that very day but the problems began almost immediately oh no once he moved into the large first fuller apartment he became far less charming than he had been on that first day when irene or the staff members interacted with him at all he seemed to avoid eye contact which was obviously very strange yeah and he also would only give one word and often very blunt responses he refused to allow the cleaning staff into his apartment oh which it's like why you don't own it yeah you're just you're renting it and anytime irene would press him for those references he'd come up with one excuse or another about why he didn't have him. Yep. Equally troubling was the number of suspicious-looking people who seemed to show up at his apartment at all hours, including an older woman who he, quote, always seemed to shield from the security camera when letting her in. This would fuck me up. Yeah. Irene wasn't the only person who found him suspicious. Her staff also found him strange and disconcerting. More than once, one of them noticed him staring at Irene's open office door or, like, lurking around the door. The fuck? menji menjustu her butler expressed his concern to many of irene's close friends including james shenton shenton said menji became suspicious when guerin started getting pally and trying to turn him against irene guerin asked why they were all silly enough to go on working there and said she was just a wealthy exploiter who didn't care about their future and that they'd never end up with money or security and he suggested they come work for him instead what the fuck would you have to imagine get the fuck out of here also this woman has well-established relationships with these people they know who she is you think you're gonna turn them on her right now and she treats her staff like family that's the thing like she puts her money where her mouth is exactly so eventually several of the staff members including majestu told irene about their concerns they were trying to have respect for her of course this guy's talking shit behind your back right exactly like in the beginning i think they were like you know what you're doing and like we're not gonna second guess you. But I think as time went on, they were like, Irene, are you sure about this? We're getting weird vibes. And they had actually heard, I think they felt more confident sharing these concerns after they heard her arguing with him for a few days after he moved in. Oh, damn. I thought you were going to say for a few days. For a few days. I almost did. That was like the stamina that takes. Yeah they were arguing for days So Irene friend Bob Yakovic remembered Valerie and Menji both warned her not to trust him Down in the kitchen Menji had drawn an ethiopian cruciform symbol on top of the fridge as if to ward off evil saying these people mean you no good they are bad and you should be afraid of them whoa irene's response was that she was an old lady who had survived many dangers and she still wasn't afraid of anybody she is such a bad bitch she really is but still after just one week wow this all happened in one week this all happened him one week. Irene had had enough of Manny and she told him she wanted him out. He never got her the references. Yeah. He's trying to turn her staff against her. He's bringing all these weird people in. Get out of here. The following day, she instructed her business manager to serve him with eviction papers before the month's lease was even up. Good for her. So the last time that James Shenton, a friend of Irene, saw her was June 27th, just one week before the 4th of July party. Irene might have talked a tough game, and she was definitely a very self-sufficient woman, but that day her friend couldn't help but notice that she seemed particularly spooked by what was going on. Rather than sit inside to have coffee and talk like they always did, Irene insisted they go up to the rooftop garden because she was, quote, nervous of being overheard. She felt like she was being listened to. Imagine having a rooftop garden to go to. I fucking wish. To talk shit. I would never stop talking shit on my rooftop garden. The only reason for my rooftop garden is to go out there and talk shit. I would name it something about talking shit. Yeah. Yeah. Like, that would absolutely be. I would decorate it for optimal shit talking. Yes. Absolutely. Comfy chairs. Oh, hell yeah. Mini fridge. Yep. Snacks. Tea cups. Tea cups. Spilling tea, metaphorically and literally. Those chairs are going to have big, comfy pillows so you can sit cross-legged while you talk shit. Someday let's get a roof garden where we can talk shit. Yeah, I don't like that. shake shaking we're shaking across the room we're doing that so they went up to the roof garden to talk shit and when shet and asked irene what was wrong she said i can't tell you what's wrong i don't want to put you in danger you'll know more next week that would fuck me up i would be like i'm gonna take you away from here like yeah i'd be like we gotta go somewhere yeah i can't but obviously at the same time irene's telling you like i can handle it i'm good so there's nothing he could have done to get involved. No, definitely not. I just wouldn't be able to let that go. I would think about it day and night. Yeah, absolutely. So the disappearance... That happened to us earlier. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, no, you're good. It did happen to us earlier. When somebody gave us a very vague like, oh, don't worry about it. This person said this. And we hung up the phone and we said no. We said, can't let it go. And we immediately texted. We were like, tell me everything that person said. I don't care what it was. I need to know. I need to know. And we convinced them to tell us what they said. Yeah, because I'll obsess over it forever. And we won. Yeah. so the disappearance of manny guerin at the same time as irene silverman went missing was definitely suspicious yeah but at the same time irene had insisted that she wanted him out and her business manager had given him eviction papers so to detective hovajim he thought it was possible that maybe manny had just simply left as he was instructed yeah it's like it's it's suspicious that they are gone at the same time but like if you look at it piecemeal you're like well his disappearance isn't crazy because of what you just said right it's just when you put it together that it gets like a little well and then as he was leaving the house the detective he noticed a spot of blood on the ground by the front entrance and the case was immediately elevated to something far more concerning than just a missing person this is echoing the nancy guthrie case right now okay thank you i can't handle thank you so much yeah it's all i could think of while I was putting this together. That's so weird. Isn't it? And that's not on purpose either. No, it's not on purpose at all. Which also, just a quick little thing, they still don't have updates. They detained someone last night but then let them go. Like, what the fuck is going on in that case? I know, it's very strange. The doorbell footage is haunting. Doorbell footage is the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. I hate it so much. It ruins everything about me. To the core of my being. I was watching it last night before I went to bed and I was having bad dreams afterwards i know it's such a bad idea truly the worst idea but back to this things only got more alarming when one of the staff members opened manny's room for the detective and inside hovajim found a small number of personal items but what stood out most were the garbage bags the roll of duct tape and the shower curtain rings on the shower rod with lack of a shower curtain oh yeah that points to something sure does so the next day hovajima and his partner joe resnick held a press conference to ask for the public's help in locating irene silverman and manny guaran they didn't have a photo of manny but they did have a professional quality sketch of him that irene had actually had done a few days before she disappeared wow which is just next level wow so they use that as a reference for the public now detective ed murray of the nypd's Fugitive Task Force happened to be watching that press conference that day. When he saw the sketch, he immediately recognized the man not as Manny Guerin, but as Kenny Kimes. Oh no. A car thief and con artist that he had taken into custody just a day earlier, a few hours after Irene Silverman had disappeared. Oh no. so a few weeks before kenny kimes showed up at irene's door posing as manny guerin he and his mother santa had fled utah after writing a bad check to rent a lincoln town car the fraud was reported to the police and when they were discovered to be in the new york area the fugitive task force set up a sting operation to capture them okay so from the moment that santa and Kenny Kimes were arrested, Murray found the pair to be very odd. He said, there was something that I just didn't think it was like a mother and a son. He said they were clearly related, but Santa seemed to be more like a criminal boss in the way that she talked to her son than she did like a mother. And when they pulled both their criminal records, what came back was a startling trail of crimes and suspicions of things much more serious than check fraud. interesting so santa kimes let's get into who she was santa kimes was born sandra louise singers i believe it is in oklahoma city on july 24th 1934 she was one of three children born to mary and preem singers uh she was born during the peak of the dust bowl in the part of the u.s that was most affected by the dust bowl so they went on to move to la to look for work according to her oldest son kent walker santa's oldest son not long after arriving in la preem abandoned his family and left the children to wander the streets of la day and night while their mother did whatever she could to support their family which sometimes included sex work yeah now it would be several decades before kent learned that most of what he thought he knew about his mother's past was largely untrue she had lied to him for most of his life interesting the father had not abandoned the family He actually died of a heart attack when Santa was about five years old. That's different. Very different. And according to her sister, Reba! Reba! We love that. They had been a solid middle class family and nobody ever relied on sex work to support the family. What the fuck? Yeah. That's the weirdest shit I've ever heard. What? Yeah. Considering her extensive history as a con artist and a consummate liar, it's really hard to determine what part of her life is true and what part is not true and what's a lie and what's not i know people who like do that same all the time like they just make up like entire backstories and it's like why are you doing that like like write a book i think it becomes you can write a whole backstory for a character in a book you can it won't affect anyone i think it becomes like compulsive at a certain point and then i do logical pathological and i do believe that there are people who believe they start to believe the falsehoods that they make up i don't know if she's one of them but i don't know what the difference between like pathological and compulsive would be because like a compulsive liar and a pathological my ex-boyfriend told me once because he said he was one i think a compulsive liar we lies he told me one to get A pathological liar lies because they can't help it. A compulsive liar lies to get out of trouble. One of them is like you lie when you don't have to. And I'm not kidding you. My ex-boyfriend, he was very matter of fact when he would get caught doing things. Because you called him a pathological liar. Because I said you're a fucking pathological liar. And he said I'm not actually because pathological liars lie when they don't have to. And he always lied when he had to, he felt. Well, actually, he was a pathological liar. He just wasn't a convulsive liar. yeah he i think he was lying when he said he wasn't a pathological liar that's a mind fuck so pat this is according to google pathological liars lie manipulatively to gain control which is what he did yep attention or an advantage there you go often with little remorse remorse to serve a selfish agenda so he's a pathological liar yeah he was wrong conversely compulsive liars lie habitually as an automatic uncontrollable urge to cope with anxiety or stress often about small mundane matters without a clear motive. Maybe that maybe I had it wrong then. Maybe it was like flipped around that compulsive liars lie technically when they don't have to. Yeah. Pathological liars. Pathological lying is more calculated. Compulsive lying is more impulse driven. That makes sense. Yeah. It sounds like she could have been a pathological liar. Yeah. She kind of sounds like she was pathological. Yeah. But then I don't know the difference. I don't think there is a difference, but I wonder what kind of liars start to believe their own lies if there's like a word for that yeah because because that's just that just becomes like a mental health disorder but i wonder if that's just in general like if you lie enough yeah which i do believe that that's a thing because like if you lie enough you begin to believe what you're lying about because your brain will just be like well this is real it's like how you tell yourself if you're like you're like oh i'm so ugly your brain starts to believe it's true so it's like if you tell yourself anything yeah long enough yeah your brain will start to go into like survival mode of like well this is life now and like rewrite now so i should live it yeah so that's lies lies uh but it's hard to determine what part of santa's life is true and what's lies most of it's lies even her son kent who's her older son by the way it's a little confusing because there's kent and then there's kenny i was gonna say kenny and then she also marries a man named ken which is very confusing wow yeah it's a lot i i think she also marries a man named kent no she doesn't Holy shit. There's Kent, Ken, and Kenny. That's like Ron Swanson when it's like my first ex-wife Tammy, my second wife Tammy, and then they're like, what? And his mom Tammy. And yes, my mother's name is Tamara. Yeah. And we call her Tammy. I don't understand. It's a lot. So even her son Kent acknowledges that his mother's backstory should be taken with a grain of salt. For sure. According to Santa's. Yeah, exactly. What'd you say? Because lies. Yeah, because lies. Pathological. So according to Santa's version of the story, when she was still very young, she ingratiated herself to a local theater owner who took pity on her and started buying her lunches whenever she came around. And this was Dottie Seligman. Dottie's brother-in-law, Edward Chambers, and his wife, Mary, had always wanted children, but had been unable to have any of their own through natural means. So Dottie arranged for the couple to adopt Santa. and within a few years of living in California, she had a new home and a new name, Sandy Chambers. What? I don't know if that's true. It might be. It might not be. We don't really know. Cool. But according to those who did know Santa during her early years, she was a liar and a thief all while she was still in high school. Whoa. And her inclination to manipulate and con others only got worse the older she got. Oh, no. So by then, she had renamed herself Santa. Santa. She believed the name sounded more French and therefore more sophisticated. I mean, is she correct? Yeah. Actually, we were setting some, this just reminded me, we're tangenting today. Yeah, it's one of those days. We were setting up an account the other day, Drew was, and the guy was like, oh, should I add, I'm so sorry if I say this wrong, Ashley? And Drew was like, oh, it's just Ashley. Ashley. And he goes, it's spelled so fancy. It is. I was like, yeah. I mean, he's right. It is. I was like, you can just say Ash. It's so funny. I love that a lot. So my name is French and more sophisticated. Ashley. Imagine if I just demanded everybody call me that because I thought it sounded more sophisticated. I think you should. Well, Santa did. So in 1956, Santa reconnected with an old boyfriend, Edward Walker. They got married not long after. And one year later, her first son, Kent, with a hard T, Kent, was born. But his arrival did not do a lot to strengthen the couple's already failing marriage. At the time, Edward was a contractor who built houses in and around Sacramento. And it was a stable job with a pretty decent income. But it was far from the riches that Santa believed she deserved. She wanted more. So in 1960, she set fire to one of her husband's properties. Holy shit. That escalated fast. I said, so you know what she did about it? She collected an insurance payout. I deserve more than commits arson. Yeah. She committed lots of arson. Damn. So in the years that followed, several more of Edward's construction projects would, quote, burn down mysteriously. I just feel bad for Edward. I do, too. That's his hard work. Yeah, he's doing, like... And all the people that had to build all of that. Yeah. And put in hours and hours and days of work. And she's just burning them down. Ew. Yeah, she sucks. So in 1961, she was arrested and convicted, not for arson, but for shoplifting in Sacramento. Yes. And after that, it kind of seems like her marriage disintegrated. She and Edward were living apart by then. they got back together every now and again and talked of reconciling permanently but by 1969 they finally gave up and officially divorced now single santa left sacramento ready to mingle ready to mingle and she wanted to mingle in the decidedly more glamorous palm springs oh my and she took our son kent with her it was there that she met ken oh okay so not ken she met ken times it's a lot Yeah. Ken was a wealthy motel developer who was nearly 20 years her senior. Oh. He didn't know it at the time, but their meeting had not, in fact, been by chance at all. Oh. Sanda had read about him in his recent divorce in a magazine article, which also referenced his net worth. Oh. So, seeing him in the life of luxury that she believed she was entitled to, she orchestrated their meeting. And they were dating in no time. That's confidence, though. It's called manifesting. I will give her that. look it up she's like i love that she was just like i can snag him and she did good for you on that front on that yeah period just that a few years later in 1975 their son kenny was born and he's just ken kenny's ken so first came kent then came ken then came kenny okay so kenny is ken jr yeah that's the kenny that was manny exactly you're following following you're following Get your red string out, everybody. So Kenny was born in 1975. And six years after that, Santa and Ken officially got married in Nevada. Okay. And I said it right. You did say it right. I know. And I don't even say it like that. I did that for you guys. Oh, I say it wrong. I was just about to. I was like, maybe I say it right. And then I said, no, no, I don't. I say Nevada. We say it wrong. Sorry. But I said it right for the listener. That's really nice of you. You're welcome. So by all accounts, there never seemed to be a moment in Santa's life where she wasn't scheming, conning, ripping somebody off. Aren't you tired? No. I think people like that thrive. They have to. Because it's exhilarating to them, I think. Yeah, I think they're those kind of people that live for drama. Yeah, they live on the edge. It's their life blood. It drains me. I was just going to say it drains the shit out of me. So even while she was living well off of Ken's millions, it seems like she just couldn't help but commit crime if, like I just said, only for the thrill. She loves crime. She loves She loves criming. She loves criming. Her last name is literally Kimes, but it should be Crimes. He's not Crimes. So in the winter of 1980, just a few months before she got married to Ken, Santa was at the Town and Country Lounge in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. Just like a little lounge area where she was drinking. Drinking. And eating, maybe. Probably not When it looks like she was getting ready to leave though one of the patrons Rina Beachy Rina Beachy Rina Beachy Sounds like a nice lady And you know what She is in a lounge Yeah absolutely Rina in a lounge. Rina Beachy. Yes, absolutely. Well, Rina Beachy watched with astonishment as Santa threw her own mink coat over the coat of another woman who wasn't paying attention. And then Santa casually stood up, put both coats on, and walked out of the restaurant. so her first son kent confirmed later that's who she was that is who she i love that kent is just like yeah i don't know she just did that it reminds me of again a quick little tangent but weird tangenty today but i know i am go watch on netflix man on the inside it's ted dancing yeah real funny two seasons i think main coast very funny they also have like a con woman in the second season that is reminding me very much of this like would pull something off really yeah i I got to watch that. You've been telling me that. It's one of those shows that is delightful. Yeah. Like I'm telling you, if you need a little, we could all use a little pick me up right now, a little fluffiness, a little whimsy man on the inside with Ted Danson. I fucking love Ted Danson. Don't tell me anything about Ted Danson. I just love him. Oh my God. Don't just don't. Don't. I don't want to know anything. To me, he's awesome. And it's a great show. So I highly recommend it if you need like a little thing. It's just reminded me of it because it's very culinary. I'm going to watch that. Yeah. So back to this. It didn't take long for the D.C. police to catch up with Santa. And she was charged with grand larceny because mink coats are very expensive. Yeah, that's a big deal. But when the trial day came, she was just nowhere to be found. Yeah, she said that's not for me. She said no. That wasn't part of it. No, she's a lounge girl. She's not a trial girl. So the prosecutor proceeded with the case anyway, trying her in absentia. And she was found guilty. Oops. which also it doesn't happen that often that they try you in absentia yeah which is a fun thing to say that is really ready absentia fun i do like that so she later appealed the conviction arguing that her constitutional rights were violated when they tried her in absentia but the lower court's conviction was upheld they said you know they said they said you larcenied you did grandly you larcenied a lot so this was the first of many times that she would be caught committing crimes but she always seemed to have a way of getting out of taking responsibility until the slavery charge came in 1985. What? Yeah, she was charged with slavery. What? In 1985. I? The year of Big Red. There's no, that is the year of me, but my goodness. I haven't, I don't know what the fuck is happening in this case. I've never heard of it in my entire life. It goes crazy. I did not look at this beforehand. Ken, that just took me. Yeah. That just took me out. I figured I would kind of just deliver it to you in a normal tone. You just casually laid down that charge. And just really get your reaction. What the fuck? Yeah. Oh, let's tell me about this. Okay. Jesus. I will. So in the mid-1980s, Santa and Ken, they were living a good life in a large house in La Jolla, California. They had a staff of housekeepers to handle most of the responsibilities around the home. At first, Santa treated the housekeeping staff very well. Almost like family. Almost like what we were saying with Irene earlier. But the difference was, as soon as they challenged Santa in any way, they found themselves on her bad side. Ew. Kent said, it is just like everything else in her life. Elevated, elevated, elevated. And so the maids then became the enemy in the house. Oh, she's such an asshole. She sucks. That's so gross. So now, no longer interested in treating them well, Santa became abusive towards the housekeepers. so singling out one housekeeper who often traveled with them from california to their house in hawaii according to the criminal complaint santa was physically and verbally abusive towards this woman who alleged that santa and ken locked her in her room and she alleged quote she was not allowed to use a telephone or write to anyone and was never paid for her services they literally forced her to work for them locked her up when she wasn't working and let her out to work that's it and treated her horribly and physically abused her as well what a fucking pair of monsters yes so as a result santa and her husband were charged with violating federal peonage which is forced labor and slavery laws wow and they were indicted she's a real piece of shit she's a big old piece of shit so the indictments were the first charges of slavery to be pursued in the united states for many many many many many years yeah i bet and the evidence was damning holy shit ken accepted a plea deal and he was given a short uh short prison sentence and a large fine dick but santa on the other hand flatly rejected the accusation and actually tried to make herself the victim in all of it oh shut the fuck up she said she took the case to trial which is just insane like i don't know why you would ever do that you're literally accused of slavery yeah and she insisted that she was being framed the jury did not buy that and she was ultimately found guilty but only spent three years in federal prison three years for a slavery charge yes wow next level we're killing it we're a broken we're really killing it we're a broken system we remain killing it yeah holy shit so the conviction and the jail sentence you would think would be a wake-up call for santa probably not setting her on a path toward a more responsible maybe law-abiding life nah she's a total bitch yeah as anybody could have guessed it didn't seem like that was the life she wanted and she was a bitch actually after being released from jail in the late 1980s it seemed that not only did she not have any intent intention to stop committing crimes but she actually had bigger and more elaborate schemes in mind huh she was like man i only got three years for slavery so i feel like i could fuck around some more yeah i mean that'll make you think you're invincible, I guess. Yeah. So after returning to their house in my birthplace, Honolulu, in 1989, things went back to normal for a little bit, but it wasn't long before Santa got back to her old ways. The Kimes family, including Kent, were all living in Las Vegas when they got a call from John, who was the caretaker of the house in Hawaii. According to John, the house had caught fire and was reduced to ashes in a surprisingly short amount of time. Oh no. Kent said, her oldest son said, I knew what happened. I didn't know the specifics, but there was no doubt in my mind. Damn. In fact, when he heard about the news at the house, he started thinking back to his own father and all of those times that Edward Walker's construction projects had burned in quote unquote mysterious circumstances. He's like, huh? He's like, that's weird. Fire seems to follow my mom wherever she goes. So a few weeks after the house burned down, Santa obviously filed an insurance claim and she waited for her money to come in. Of course. But by that time, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, ATF, had taken an interest in the case, and they started investigating what they believed to be arson. A short time later, Elmer Holmgren, who was an unemployed lawyer and associate of Santa and Ken's, confessed to setting the fire. Oh, wow. He never mentioned Santa or Ken in his confession, but many, many people suspected that Santa had somehow convinced him to set the fire. A month later, another fire occurred, this time in Elmer Holmgren's office where he had paper stored that could implicate santa in the arson uh-oh elmer still hadn't identified santa as the one who paid him to burn the house but she assumed that it was only a matter of time before he did and that type of accusation obviously would have landed her back in jail of course where she belongs where she belongs but she's not gonna have that no of course not and just as she expected he would elmer holmgren did make a drunken confession to a friend in early 91 that it was he who had burned the house in hawaii but that he had done it for three thousand dollars given to him by santa kimes but what he probably didn't expect was for his friend to immediately relay that information to atf agents working on the case and in exchange for a reduced sentence he agreed to wear a wire and try to get santa to confess to their arrangement but the most federal agents ever got was a short message from elmer who told them that the plan would have to be put on hold he couldn't handle it several months later in august elmer told his family he was going on vacation to costa rica with santa and ken kimes and that would do that that was the last time anybody ever saw him alive again oh yeah according to kent walker during a drunken fight with kenny his younger brother santa and himself his brother admitted that their mother had murdered elmer holmgren holy shit kenny allowed allegedly shouted she killed that guy She was sitting in the back seat and she hit him with a hammer. Oh my god. Yeah. Several years later, in 2000, Kenny would repeat that confession, this time to federal authorities. But no charges were ever brought against Santa or Kenny, and Elmer's body has never been found. Holy shit. Yeah. That's diabolical. Yeah. so in the years that followed santa and ken her ken senior the husband seemed to be laying low and avoiding the attention of law enforcement somehow but then out of the blue in 1994 poor kent got a call from his mother who was in hysterics about kent i do too but there's good news can i feel bad about kent yes okay you could totally feel bad i've been wanting to say that but I was like, what if he's terrible? No, he's great. Okay. As far as I, well, I don't actually know anything about him, but from what I've seen, he's great. Okay. And there's like a nice little sprinkle in here that I'm glad he, okay, we'll get there. So, but before that in 1994, he gets this call from his mom. She's hysterical and she keeps repeating over and over. They won't fix him. And then she just hung up. That's it. Which is like maybe relay information. Yeah. Ken had no idea what she was talking about, but eventually he learned that his mother was referring to Ken senior who had just died from a brain aneurysm oh man yeah i would feel a little bit worse if he wasn't guilty of slavery charged with slavery yeah exactly so charged and convicted yeah yeah that's the thing so ken's death sent santa into a downward spiral if she wasn't already in one and that caused her to become more erratic than ever not only because her husband and literal partner in crime was gone, but also because when he died, he left her with nothing. Wow. He left her with nothing. I mean, if you're both like that, how are you expecting that you have an actual partner? Well, and that person's whole life is lying and conning, just like yours. They're going to lie and con you too. Well, and the thing was, it wasn't even necessarily a lie and con situation they'd been together for 20 years and by that point they'd blown through almost everything he had damn aside from a few non-liquid assets that weren't easy to access wow so she didn't have any accounts of her own at that time so she really had nothing so her frantic desperation started to scare the shit out of kent her oldest son and he eventually made the decision to step away from his family and build a healthier life for himself. Kent. Yeah. Kent. Yeah. Kent. Yeah. I'm proud of you, Kent. Yeah. I am too. You know what? I know nothing about you. But I'm proud of you for that. But I'm very proud of you for that. And I hope you built a very healthy life for yourself and you're happy and thriving. And it's not easy to walk away from people. No. Like, it's really not. But it's necessary sometimes. It's healthy and well. That's healthness and wellness. It is. You know, it's healthy and wealthy. I thought I was going to say that. It is healthy and wealthy. Good job, Kent. I'm very proud of him. What a boundary. Yeah, we love a boundary king. And in the 90s, establishing a boundary? Tough. Yeah, I'd never heard of it. Tough. Or even in the early aughts. No. So, of course, with Ken Kimes dead and Kent having become estranged from his mother and his brother, that left Kenny alone to deal with his dangerous and increasingly desperate mother, who proved that she would stop at nothing to get what she wanted. over the next two years over the course of the next two years santa combed all of ken's accounts looking for whatever money was left after his death in september of 1996 santa and kenny so her son were in the bahamas staying at the house that they owned in nassau um and they had dinner with 48 year old saeed balal ahmed i looked up that pronunciation i so hope i'm saying it correctly that's what the internet told me to say saeed was an executive at the first cayman bank where ken had stashed some of his money. Santa invited Ahmed to dinner in the hopes that she could convince him to release $850,000 that was in Ken's account to her, despite the fact that she was not a signatory on the account. Damn. Yeah. So in the weeks leading up to that night, she had sent several faxes and other documents over to the bank with Ken's forged signature, demanding that the money be sent to various American addresses. But all of the requests were obviously unsuccessful because they were like that man is dead he didn't sign we can't do that now in addition to his executive role at the bank ahmed was also the bank's auditor so he would have been made aware of any potential fraud or attempts at fraud so obviously he suspected santa kimes of trying to fraudulent fraudulently access the money in the account he's like this is kind of my thing and he's like yeah i guess i'll have dinner with you but like i know what you're up to i know you're a fraudster yeah and those suspicions of fraud would have been confirmed quickly once the bank learned that ken kimes like i just said was in fact dead yeah on the night of september 4th santa and kenny met with ahmed for dinner at the androsia which is a restaurant in nassau whatever happened during that dinner is unknown but the staff at the restaurant recalled seeing santa and kenny leave with their dinner guest a little after 10 p.m and saeed bilal ahmed was never seen again what the fuck this is crazy it's diabolical i had no idea how lared this was a few days later police in the Bahamas opened an investigation into Ahmed's disappearance. So not only were the mother and son the last people to be seen with the missing man, but a hotel employee at the Radisson where Ahmed had been staying reported two people matching the Kimes' description, attempting to get access to Ahmed's room a few days before he disappeared. They were planning this like well ahead of time. Malice aforethought, my darling. Yeah, very much despite their strong suspicions that they were responsible for Ahmed's disappearance they weren't ever able to come up with anything strong enough to make an arrest and it was only after Santa and Kenny were arrested on those several other crimes and facing the death penalty that Kenny Kimes confessed that he had drugged Ahmed that night drowned him in the bathtub and dumped his body in the ocean all at Santa's request holy shit and it's like that's not gonna to get you the money either so what's the fucking point you're just diabolical you're just evil so after the murder of saeed bilal ahmed santa spent months trying to fraudulently access her husband's accounts demanding that the money be sent to some random address in the u.s but obviously she was unsuccessful because people are smarter than that according to kent walker after ahmed disappeared the first caiman bank was being liquidated he said in part because of ahmed's disappearance because he was such a big part of the bank. Yeah, that meant that by killing Saeed Bilal Ahmed, Santa had made the goal of getting Ken's money impossible. She fucked herself. And honestly, I hope that that's his final fuck you. Yeah. And I'm glad. Truly, and I hope she thought about it every day for the rest of her life. So by the fall of 1997, Santa and Kenny were basically broke, living in a run-down one-bedroom apartment in Fort Lauderdale. Oops. And that's when she came up with her latest scheme. Several years earlier, before Ken's death, Santa and Ken had transferred one of their properties to their friend Dave Kasdan in order to hide it from federal authorities. Ken and Kasdan had been friends since the 70s, and he had always been willing to help whenever they found themselves in a jam. He was a nice enough guy. In 98, Santa remembered that house, which imagine just having a home that you forgot about. She's like, we're really in a pinch. What do we do? Oh, I have that house. So she came up with a scheme to get some quick cash. After convincing a notary to forge Kasdan signature on a loan document which like who are you brother Seriously She took out a loan for in Dave Kasdan name using the house that they transferred as collateral Holy shit. The loan went through and Santa got the money, but in late January, Dave Kasdan also learned of the scheme when he got a notice in the mail informing him that he'd taken out a second mortgage on a home he didn't even think he still owned. Wow. Yeah. This is some rich people shit. Yeah. So when Kasdan called the bank to report the fraud, it was already too late. Santa had already cashed the check and moved the funds into an offshore bank account. I'm exhausted just listening to this. I don't know how people live like this. I don't either. I really don't. I also don't know how people keep track of all this shit. Because I also, I'm allergic to admin. It's true. So I can't imagine this. I don't even like the admin that I have to do. Yeah, this is so much admin. Yeah, it's a lot. And it's just a lot of, it's a lot of talking to people. It's a lot of convincing people. It's a lot of like, oh, I'm tired. It's pretty terrible. Pretty fucking terrible. so it turned out that the loan scheme was just the first step in santa's process lord a few weeks later dave kasdan got a call informing him that his home in las vegas had burned down my goodness the arson the arson is everywhere in the days that followed it was discovered that santa had taken out an insurance claim on that house and by the time kasdan learned all the details she'd already made off with the money she's she's diabolical lava so when dave kasdan started making reports to the authorities about who he thought was responsible for all the fraud, he started getting letters and faxes from Santa. In a fax from late February 1998, she wrote, I'll give you five days to stop all these lies. You know you endorsed the loan. Why are you doing this? Wow. So she's literally like gaslighting him. She thought that establishing a paper trail would help support her claim that she had nothing to do with the fraud and she was being framed. Yeah. But at some point, she obviously realized that wasn't going to work. And she came up with another plan. Two weeks after her last fax to Dave Kasdan, his body was discovered in a dumpster at the Los Angeles International Airport. He'd been shot in the back of the head. this lady needs to be stopped she sure does the coroner quickly identified him and made a homicide investigation was opened and that was led by lapd detective bill cox it didn't take long for cox and his partner to learn that kasdan had recently been the victim of financial fraud and according to his daughter somebody had been harassing him in the weeks leading up to his death the daughter told them that her father was being harassed by santa kimes and she suspected that Kimes had something to do with the death. So the detectives went to speak with Santa, but they missed her by just a few hours. Of course. By that time, she and Kenny had fled to Los Angeles in that Lincoln town car that they picked up in Utah several weeks earlier. Remember, paying with a bad check. Wow. So for months, detectives in LA dug into Santa Kimes' criminal history and reached out to any of her known contacts in the hope that somebody might know where she had gone, but they just kept coming up empty. Then in July, when Irene disappeared, Detective Bill Cox got a call from a detective in New York informing him that Santa had been arrested there, and she and her son were suspected of murdering Irene Silverman. So we went on a big old roundabout, and we're all the way back. So when Santa and Kenny were arrested outside the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan. It had been on suspicion of check fraud in Utah, but what investigators found in their hotel room implied that something much larger was going on. In a bag, detectives found Irene Silverman's house keys, her passport, her checkbook, her social security card, and countless other personal documents. When detectives found the Lincoln Town car two days earlier, they also found more damning evidence. They found several automatic pistols and ammunition, 10 different wigs the sedative uh flunitrazepam and boxes of documents related to their business associates including elmer holmgren dave kasdan and saeed bilal ahmed they also wild that's not even it they also discovered eight micro cassettes of recordings of telephone conversations between irene and a woman who would eventually be identified as santa khan's holy shit so they literally just had like like the smoking gun basically everything and one of the conversations santa posed as a manager of a las vegas casino and was trying to persuade irene to share her social security number in order for the casino to finalize details of a free trip that she had won i the gen shah of it all i just can't i can't imagine living life like this i don't understand and targeting an elderly woman an elderly socialite yeah what the fuck is wrong with you fuck i mean she's already been convicted of slavery so we know that there's nothing inside of her so in the months that followed their arrest investigators worked tirelessly to rebuild santa's extensive criminal history which must have been exhausting yeah because that included at that point arson fraud slavery at least three suspected murders and the murder stretched across the u.s and into the caribbean my god they also started digging into kenny's history and in doing that they found that he was a young man who from a very early age had been shaped and molded into exactly what his mom wanted him to be so disgusting an accomplice not a son in addition to the crimes that he was believed to have committed with his mom he'd also been arrested for domestic violence and assault he had beat up one of his former girlfriends and another student when he was briefly in college disgusting yeah he's gross disgusting literally so the case of irene Silverman and Santa and Kenny Kimes quickly became a national sensation, of course. The press dug up Santa's old nickname, which was the Dragon Lady, because of her association with arson, of course. But most were more fond of the new moniker that they'd given the pair, Mommy and Clyde. Mommy and Clyde is the perfect way to describe this. It's also diabolical. It is very diabolical. When I first read that, though, I was in. That makes you just want to know everything. Yeah, I love a moniker. Yeah. So the first big break in the case came in late July when investigators found a notarized deed in Santa's possession, which seemed to indicate that Irene transferred ownership of her townhouse to Santa and Kenny at a value of three hundred and ninety thousand dollars. Oh, yeah, I bet. That was less than 10 percent of its value. Wow. No. Good try. And despite the compelling evidence, though, Santa and Kenny both maintained they had nothing to do with Irene's disappearance. You lie. We just have her checkbook, her passport, her social security card, recordings of us. And me trying to fraud her. Yeah. It's just we were doing that, but we didn't kill her. Yeah, I don't even know her. Oh, okay. For the prosecutors, the biggest problem wasn't that they maintained their innocence. It was the fact that they still hadn't found Irene Silverwood. They didn't have a body. And at that time, she obviously was assumed to be dead. Despite the lack of a body, though, District Attorney Robert Morgenthau decided to move forward with the case. And in December of 1998, Santa and Kenny Kimes were indicted for murder on purely circumstantial evidence. Morgan Thau said, the mere fact you don't have a body doesn't give somebody a walk. All the facts show that the murder was committed. Yeah. Which is very true. Where is she? So when the trial finally arrived in the spring of 2000, it was exactly as sensational and chaotic as everybody expected. before both sides had even selected the jury santa had to be ordered by the judge to stop speaking to the media after she continuously reached out to members of the press to give interviews that checks she was also caught passing a note to new york times journalist david rodencourt and the note said the deed is real the notary is liable and lying they know where she is girl you're doing the most yeah and then that that wasn't even her doing the most that was just the beginning of her crazy ass behavior already doing the most in late april after the judge repeatedly told her lawyer to stop a certain line of questioning santa became irate and started yelling at the judge your honor how can we have fairness and then she went on to compare the trial to the salem witch trials and then told the judge that she was quote murdering the constitution shut the fuck up this bitch went nuts i hope someone just said shut the fuck up can you imagine being accused of murdering the constitution you know what get a life get a life so throughout the trial the prosecutor called over a hundred witnesses all of whom spoke to the criminality of santa and kenny mommy and clad mommy and clad and presented a ton of evidence that established a direct connection to Irene Silverman. The only thing that they couldn't get around was the fact that there still was no body and technically no conclusive proof of murder. But in his closing statement, defense attorney Michael Hardy reminded the jury of that very thing. He said there's no body, no witnesses, there's no proof of any murder at all. Oh, yeah. So on May 16th, the jury retired for deliberation. And when they returned two days later, they found both defendants guilty. Good. I was going to say, if they get off, I'm going to riot in the streets. Yeah, no. They were both found guilty, not just of the murder of Irene Silverman, but on over a hundred other charges related to fraud, larceny, and kidnapping, among others. Yeah. That next month, they went before a judge to be sentenced, and the judge referred to Santa as a sociopath of unremitting malevolence. Yes. And her son is a vacuous dupe who had evolved into a remorseless predator under his mother's influence. I have never heard a better description of two people in my entire life. Vacuous dupe goes crazy. No notes. Obsessed. No notes. You are a sociopath of unremitting malevolence. And a vacuous dupe and a remorseless predator. Obsessed. Just chef's kiss. Yeah. When asked if they had anything to say on their own behalf, Santa spoke up for the both of them. and she said, all of our precious civil and constitutional rights were trampled, much like the witch hunts of old Salem. Shut your mouth. The police planted and planted and planted evidence to fool the jury. No one has been told the truth in this case. That's not even a good, like, you know, correlation. What are you talking about? Police, like, what are you talking about? You have nothing to do with the Salem witch trial. Shut up. So basically the judge felt the same way, and they were like, okay, are you done speaking? And she was like, I'm all done. And he said, okay, cool. Or she said, I sentenced you to 120 years in prison. And Kenny was sentenced to 126 years in prison. That's awesome. Yeah. I just love how it was like six more years. He was like, you done here? You done here? Yeah. Okay. So in the wake of their sentencing, Santa and Kenny, of course, did not just fade into obscurity. Of course not. Still facing potential murder charges in California, Nevada, and Nassau, Kenny felt that it was his duty to make sure his mommy was spared from the worst of the consequences. Damn, dude. So in October, during an interview with court TV reporter Maria Zone, Kenny took her hostage by holding a ballpoint pen to her throat. While holding her hostage, he demanded his mother not be extradited to Los Angeles, where they both faced the death penalty for the murder of Dave Kasdan. Fortunately, officers were able to create a distraction that allowed them to safely remove Maria Zone from the room, and Kenny's attempts to save his mommy failed. He is so pathetic. It's really pathetic. Like, ew. Yucky. A few months later, both Santa and Kenny were extradited to Los Angeles and charged with Dave Kazdin's murder. Now facing the death penalty, Kenny accepted a plea deal from the prosecutor where he would confess to the murders in exchange for taking both death penalty sentences off the table. Wow. After pleading guilty, he confessed to the murders of Saeed Bilal Ahmed, David Kazdin, and Irene Silverman. and as part of the deal he was required to detail all of the crimes for investigators so according to kenny after they failed to get irene's money through deception they resorted to violence on the afternoon of july 5th they went to the townhouse where he and santa tased irene an 84 year old woman and then kenny strangled her oh poor irene once she was dead they put her body in several garbage bags and put her in a dumpster in Hoboken, New Jersey. To this day, her remains have never been found. Wow. And I just want everybody to remember how I described Irene for you, like the lengths that she went to to make other people feel special and all of the connections that that woman had. How generous she was. How talented. And they wrapped her body up and threw it in a dumpster in Hoboken. Like, what the fuck is wrong with you? All for money. That's it. Which, meanwhile, if he had been nice to her and actually ingratiated himself, he probably would have got money or something. Anything. So in 2004, they were both found guilty of Dave Kasdan's murder, but no charges have ever been brought up in the other two cases. After their convictions, Senta returned to New York to continue serving her life sentence for the murder of Irene Silverman. And on May 19th, 2014, she died of natural causes at Bedford Hills Correction Facility for Women. She was 79. That's pretty old. I feel like that's kind of young to die of natural causes. 79. In prison, though? Yeah, in prison. That's true. Kenny Kimes remains incarcerated at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, California. And that is the case of mommy and Clyde wow jam packed that was a non-stop thrill ride wasn't it that was i'm shook it was insane and what kills me is like the amount of people that they just disposed of like they were nothing when they didn't need them anymore or when they didn't give them what they wanted exactly like that's so disgusting it's such like predatory inhuman behavior and obviously Kenny is a piece of shit but it's really sad that he was just like he was molded to be what that's the thing that he was just like he didn't have a choice you feel bad for the child version of him and then he became an adult when you become an adult you make your own choices exactly you don't choose as a child but as an adult you make a choice very much and he made a bad choice I think we need a fun fact yeah we do do you want to hear the fun fact I found I really do The world's oldest dog lived to be 29 and a half years old. I want to have that dog. And their name was Bluey. Bluey? Bluey. Oh. Yep. Yeah, that is a fun dog. Bluey, the Australian cattle dog, survived to the ripe old age of 29 and a half. I want my dogs to live to 29 and a half. Sydney, Blanche, and Dolores will live to be 100. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I will take no further questions. With that, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you. Keep. it weird and definitely so weird that you spend the rest of your life with your dog yeah because they're gonna live forever do it bye that's the weirdest santa though no Thank you. Thank you. Amen.