The Fireplace Poker Murder - Spring Grove, Illinois

This week, in Spring Grove, Illinois, detectives suspect an ex-small-town cop when his on-again, off-again girlfriend is found horribly murdered, mostly due to his violent past, but he insists that he, quote, only wants to help people. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Withman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another absolutely wild, crazy, downhill edition of Small Town Murder. We have a wild one, as usual, and something special today that we have to talk about. We have to welcome Netflix viewers. Hello! Thank you, Netflix viewers, for joining us today. Hello. We'll wave right at the camera for that one. Nice to see you guys. Thank you so much. We're very excited. And if you like this show, good news for you, because this is episode 669. So that means there are 668 more episodes to catch up on wherever you listen to podcasts. So thanks for being here. You're going to see a wild show. We can't wait to present this for you. Got a crazy murder. Got to tell everybody, head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. Tickets for live shows are available right now. A whole slate of 2026 live shows starting out February 21st in Nashville. Get them right now. Nashville sells hot, so you got to get them hot like they're chicken. That's right. Then Durham on March 6th, March 7th in Atlanta. Phoenix is sold out, but Your Stupid Opinions is still available, so get your tickets for that. Salt Lake City sold out. Denver, almost, it's getting there. Buffalo sold out. Royal Oak, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Dallas, San Jose, Sacramento, Tarrytown, and Boston. Get your tickets now. Come see us live. It is a blast. Yeah, yeah. You'll be looking at us like you're looking at us now and everything, but we'll have a lot. They're so much fun. They're crazy. We have all the pictures and everything. It's a really good time, so definitely do that. Also, listen to the other two shows we make, Crime and Sports and Your Stupid Opinions. Yeah. Then get yourself Patreon. That's what they should do. Oh, boy. Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all of the bonus material. Anybody, $5 a month or above, you're going to get everything that we put out. We're talking hundreds of back bonus episodes immediately upon subscription. New ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murder. How much of that do they get, Jimmy? I think we're so crazy you can just have it all. We're crazy. We're crazy. The prices are insane. You get it all. And this week, no exception for crime in sports, we're going to do one of our favorites, It's old-timey ads and just weird articles and medical things, and it's a lot of fun. Then for Small Town Murder, Dean Corral Part 2. Let's catch up with Dean. Last time we left off with Dean, he's dead, and there's 27 bodies that we found, and we're going to try to put this all together and connect it to John Wayne Gacy. So there's a lot going on there. Patreon.com slash crime in sports. And in addition to all of that, you also get everything we put out, crime in sports, Small Town Murder, your stupid opinions, ad-free with your Patreon. That's the craziest part. Which is amazing. And on top of that, you know, you get also a shout-out at the end of the show. So we can't beat it. You can't beat it. Do that. Patreon.com slash crime in sports. And we also want to thank, by the way, before we go any further, thank Libson, who is our podcast network, sells our ads for all the audio stuff, who are very supportive of this and are just really nice people and have done well for us so far. So they're our favorite network we've ever been with. We like them a lot. Disclaimer time, everybody. Oh, boy. Got to do it. This is a comedy show. It is. We're comedians. We are. People are going to die, unfortunately. And there's going to be jokes made. You go, how does that work? That sounds awful. No, no, no, no, no. You got to do it tastefully. That's all it is. Yeah. What we do is we never make fun of the victims or the victims' families. Why, James? Because we're assholes. But. But we're not scumbags. Yeah, that works. It's pretty simple if you do that. I mean, there's plenty to make fun of, too. You don't have to make fun of the victims. You can make fun of, you know, a small town. We're all from somewhere that deserves to be made fun of. Some bumbling police force that has let a murderer go free to kill many more people. Or we make fun of murderers because we don't have any other recourse. We're comedians. What are we going to do? Go down to the jail and, you know, make fun of them through the bars? Yeah, we can't really have no recourse. This is all we have. So we're going to do that, and I think it's going to be a good time, and I think you're going to agree. And if you think true crime and comedy should never go together, we might not be for you. We might not. But I think you should give it a chance. Either way, no complaining later. We're going to want to hear it. So that's that. I think it's time, everybody. Let's do this. Let's all clear the lungs here. Arms to the sky. And let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Yeah. Let's go on a trip, shall we? We have to. We have to, and more importantly, we want to. That's the thing here. We're going to Spring Grove, Illinois. All right. This is in northeastern Illinois here. It's like a commutable suburb of Chicago, but it's really rural. It's weird. It's an hour and 15 minutes to Chicago and about an hour to Milwaukee. So you would think in between these two major metropolis. Northeast? It would be. Yeah, northeastern where Chicago is. Oh, it stays on. Okay. It's kind of like up like that. You know what I mean? Geography is not my best. We'll work on it. That's all right. It's about 20 minutes to McHenry, Illinois, which was our last Illinois episode, episode 629, The Killer Cookie Conspiracy. That was the guy just poisoning everybody. He's poisoning donuts. He's poisoning vegetables. He's poisoning everything. Nothing is safe to eat around this guy. This is in McHenry County, so it's pretty, you know, same county as the other one. But this murder takes place, like, right on a county line of, like, Lake County, and that makes for some confusion also. And you get to see some real small-town machinations going on here. It's good stuff. Area code here, 815. A little bit of history of this town. Okay. In the 1700s, the areas were occupied by the Pottawatotomi, as we found out. That's how it's pronounced. Yeah, the Potta the M. After many attempts that went awry, we were corrected. Potawatomi. We tried a lot. We really did. I think it was Potawatatomi, but they're like, it's Tommy, not Tomi. Sorry. We'll work on it. So they named the Nippersink Creek, which goes through Spring Grove. And Never Sink is what they called it, which translates to a place of small waters. Sure. And then people named it Spring Grove when they found natural springs and groves of trees in the area. So Spring Grove. And also the tall prairie grasses reminded the first English settlers of their homeland. So they named the area they settled English Prairie. You know, English Prairie just south of Milwaukee. Because nobody's mowed it yet at all. Amazing. And they have the English Prairie Cemetery and road and subdivision, just to remind you, that you're not the first people here. So it was established as an agricultural community in the 1830s. And we're going to bring back something this week here. We're going to bring back an old school thing that we used to do here. When I find the most boring fact possible, we call it the Sahara Desert Fart Fact of the Week. The driest, most boring piece of information you can have. I think this might be the best one of all time. Okay. The first vertical silo constructed in North America was built in 1873 by Fred Hatch on a small farm located in Spring Grove. Vertical. Sure. Yeah. Before that, they laid them out long ways. Yeah, they just laid them out long ways. Miles-long silos. That's all they have. That's got to be what it was, right? Yeah, I guess. If they didn't build it high, they had to build it wide, right? Then what else can we do? So that is the driest fact that has ever. This is the first one up here, huh? Yeah, first one in all of North America. Wow. Parts of the unincorporated Lake County, which is what it borders, also use Spring Grove's postal addresses as well. This is a commuter village. Everybody that lives here pretty much works in Chicago. It's one of those kind of places. So we don't know anything about this town. We've never been here. So the way we find out about towns is by reviews. So let's check out some people's reviews here. Here is one five stars. Perfect. Lovely. That's what they say. That's what they say. I was born and raised in Spring Grove and have met so many amazing people growing up. It may be a small town. However, it is abundant with love. Right. Oh, boy. What does that mean? I don't know. Watch out. Are most small towns loveless? I feel like people are diddling you as you walk down the street. I don't like that at all. A little cold and hate-filled. They are hateful towns. That's it. We've covered some of those from hateful. That's true. Five stars here. The town is a great place filled with every store, shop, or restaurant you could want to go to. Okay. If they don't have it, it's your fault. If we don't have it, it's because you don't want it. You don't want it. The school districts are some of the best in Illinois, and I enjoy all the festivities we have. Oh, boy. Here's four stars. Small town with a tight-knit community, but hard to get into if you're new and haven't grown up or raised kids with the people who have been here a long time. Some can be a little high maintenance. No. Not small town people. They could never high maintenance. That midnight bloodletting ceremony. It's tough to get. There's a long waiting list. You've got to do it. Three stars. The area is more populated with small businesses rather than corporations. Not a good place to seek a six-figure salary. Oh. I guess. Well, you know what it is? An hour that way. that giant city. I've heard tell of some. Or that other big city that's an hour the other way. Most people don't have the option of working in two major cities an hour from their house. Yeah. You're pretty, you're doing well. The richest women in the planet is from an hour and a half from here. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. You can make it. You can make it. You can do it. People in this town, 5,713. So not a huge town at all for being so close to Chicago. and it's weird too because there's so many more men in this town than women. Usually it's like national average is slightly more women than men and when we get a town over like 1,000 the stats are normal and it evens out. But here it's only 46.8% women, 53.2% men. I mean I get it's Chicago but they're having a sausage fest here. I think that's why. A lot of meat around here. A lot of meat. Median age here, 38.1, just above the national average of about 38.4. Family in this town. This is a wife and kids out in the suburbs, you know, with a lawn and, you know, lawn furniture and all that kind of thing. 71.3% married. Only 5.4% divorced. Oh. They're like these people have money and they're not losing it to each other. They're figuring it out. They're like, we're just going to stay married because it's way too expensive to get a divorce. 44% are married with children. Only 7.3% are single with children. So it's very much everybody seems to stay together here. Race of this town here, 92.8% white, 0.0% black. An hour from Chicago and Milwaukee and no black people. That is interesting. Not a one. Not a one. 0.0. Not even nobody. Not one. Not a family. That's crazy. 0.3% Asian, 5.3% Hispanic. 54.1% of the people here are religious. And no shock here because it is the north, and we've figured this out. Catholic is the highest one here, 35.5% Catholic. As we know, Catholics are the Baptists of the north. We say that because if you do southern towns, every single one of them is, you know, 60% Baptist. And then when you go to northern towns, they're all Catholic. So that's all it is. Then you get west and it starts getting into it. All bets are off. All bets are off. You start stepping into little Mormon ponds and things like that. It's weird. Wild militia country. Oh, then you get up there and it's, yeah, they worship like AR-15. That's the church of the AR they go to. Just the bullet. Yeah. It's just the round. That's just like northern Idaho, though. We know that. So unemployment here. Some guns fire the same round. Yeah. Unemployment here is right at the national average. But the median household income is cooking. They're doing well. Yeah, median household income here, $131,735. So much for that not finding six figures. That's what I'm saying. What are you talking about? Everyone seems to be finding all six figures here. It's usually about $69,000 in the rest of the country. So you're almost double the national average. You're doing great. Quick complaining. Yeah, what are you doing? Now, cost of living, 100 is average, regular across the country. Here, it's 101.9, so pretty close to average. Pretty good. The housing here is actually lower than the national average. Median home cost here, $312,100. Wow. So it's almost to the point where it's just like a little more than double the average income is a home cost, which is an incredible statistic for affordability. That's not bad. Yeah. That said here, if we'd convince you, the only damn place in this God's green earth that you're going to be happy is Spring Grove, Illinois. We have for you the Spring Grove, Illinois Real Estate Report. Your average two-bedroom rental here goes for $1,620, which is... That's steep, right? That seems a little steep. Yeah, it's not cheap there. First house, it is a two-bedroom, one-bath, 613 square foot. Very small. It's just a little box. Nice little yard. It's green. Got a little fence next to you. That's nice. Little tiny box. It's a small lot here. Built a while ago, it looks like. It looks pretty old, but there's no built-on date. $170,000 for this thing. It's just had a $5,000 price cut. It's small, man. It's just really small inside. The outside's kind of dingy. Could use a paint job. Your next house here, four-bedroom, three-bath. Wow. 2,983 square feet. Yeah. It's a good-sized house. It's a decent-sized house there. 1.22-acre lot, too. Nice. It's nice, too. The way it sits, there's, like, woods behind it, so you don't really have a house right on top of you. Right. Which is pretty cool. It looks like the Clark Griswold family. No, the Griswold family house. Oh, Griswold's house. Oh, that's a great-looking house. It's a little too-story with the garages and everything like that. Does it have the little round spot where you can look out from the attic? I believe it does. And he'll ask for help. It has a storage for 25,000 Italian-imported twinkling lights, I believe. It has enough storage for that. You can put it all up there, which is helpful. You're going to need that. $544,900 for that. Oh, my. It's steep. It's a little steep. So the next one is the most ridiculous house I've ever seen on the Real Estate Report in almost 700 episodes. And that is a four-bedroom, five-bath, the way we like to stay. T-Bolt reaching every bee hole, everybody. All of them. One left over. And one to spare. One to spare for the neighbors. 3,712 square feet. It's a castle. Look at this stupid shit. Can you see this thing? Fuck is that? It's a castle. No. No. Dude, it's got... You don't have to live in that. No. It's got a spot to dump hot oil on people as they try to approach. It's really nice. It's a moat. That's crazy. Inside, looks like your standard Midwestern American house. There's no, like, you know, dungeon or anything cool like that. No, like, rounded stone staircases to sword fight on. Nothing. Just a freezer full of talk. That's just a Costco supply in your chest freezer there. $1,200,000 for that. But that's a million dollars worth of brickwork. Yeah, the foot set on the front is silly. It's got a big gate with lions on it and shit. I don't know what kind of fantasy you're living if you want to live there, but it's something. A million bucks is pretty decent. It's not bad, especially that close to Chicago. It's not bad. You're looking in the market for a expensive castle. If you've got a million dollars and you want to live in something that looks like somebody's four-year-old daughter designed it, then, yeah, you should do that. Get after it, bud. Things to do here. Now we're cooking. All right. All right. It is the B4B4 Summer Festival. So when does that take place, you think? Probably after summer. After summer. In October. But it's before next summer. In early June, so just before summer. Right. Yeah. Almost summer, they should call it. Just about summer. We're really parsing. That's barely not summer. They're just on the panty line of summer. All the Midwestern humidity you can handle. It's not technically summer yet. No, no, but you will sweat. Oh, boy, will you? It says, bacon sizzles, bands rock, bourbon flows, beers cheers, the ultimate party for a purpose. Okay, there's a lot of alliteration, huh? All sorts of shit going on there. they say craft beer, fireworks, bourbon tasting, zip lining, pedal carts, jump zones, food trucks. Oh, the privilege of paying an admission fee for buying food from a truck. For normal. You normally don't get that amazing experience. You can't find that in any other parking lot in America. And I like how all of the activities are the most dangerous things you can do after drinking beer and drinking bourbon. while getting trash you want to go ziplining and jump zoning maximum splash ability yeah it's awful you really get a lot of people with your puke you can do it but we do have music oh boy do we have music DJ Mark S's which is asses with an E that's exactly what it is we have the Pino Farina band sure old Pino Farina and I love how here's their description. This is my favorite. This multi-talented band is led by a charismatic singer who gracefully balances their performance with passion and energy. He also writes descriptions of their band. Of himself. They have an eclectic set list and add their own style to many of the songs that they play. They will also add in their fan favorite originals as well. Yeah, that's what everyone wants to hear. The Pino Fulina band. Huge fan favorites. They'll rush the stage if they don't play them. That's the thing. They'll burn it down, Jimmy. Scream and play the hits. Yeah. They call them the Pinos. Those are their fans. Those people are aggressive. They have stormed onto the scene since COVID. Okay. And we'll leave you looking for when they play next. All right. Can't wait for that. Clamor. Yeah. The next up is Rock Brigade. Yeah. ROC, by the way. Or ROK, I'm sorry. R.O.K. Brigade. It is a, quote, super group of Chicagoland's top musicians that have come together. And failed together. Come together to be the middling band on a shitty festival where people are dying while bourbon drunk. The best Chicagoland has to offer collectively coming together to open for Pino whatever the fuck. Pino Farina. I believe Pino Farina is the opener. Yeah. We're going towards the headliner. I think Rock Brigade is middling here. To bring you a tribute band that fires on extra cylinders. Now, you might wonder, what are they tributing? What is this? Extra cylinders. They've got them as a spare. Yeah, based on that, who do you think they're covering? High octane Nickelback. That was the most random fucking Nickelback. Nickelback cover band. playing the biggest and best of Death Leopard. Oh, boy. All the way from Rock of Ages all the way to Rocket. Was that one? That was the name of the song. I had an album here. They're going to pour some sugar on you. No, they don't. Thankfully. But it says their show is inclusive, impressive, high energy, and flat out, all caps, ROCKS. It rocks. Yeah. When they hit the B-Force Fest stage, they will, all caps, Armageddon it. Which, if you're not... No! That is the Death Leopard song. Why did you swing so hard? That is bad. Myths so terrible. I could have said that there will be hysteria. That would have been better. We know that. They will rock it. They will rock it. That's the easy one, isn't it? It will be rock of ages. They will be, yeah. You will want to take a photograph. All right, we've covered all the devil. I met this occasion. And then finally, the modern-day Romeos. Okay. They say the MDR has, I like the. Ah, they got an acronym. MDR, baby, yeah. You're not Queens of the Stone Age. Listen, we're the MDR. Listen, Jimmy, don't tell me that. Don't diss modern-day Romeos. Come on. Ah. They seem like they're trying. MDR has been one of the most successful party bands in Chicagoland for over 20 years. you never know where the set list is going to take you, and no two shows are the same. Oh! We're a mess. We learn a new cover every week. It's all fucked up. If we mess it up in the middle of it, we just stop, play something else. Oh, amazing. I know what they're not going to be playing, Def Leppard. I think the crowd's going to be all leoparded out. They're going to be exhausted with the DL. That's crazy, and here's my favorite. When you see their name headlining a fest, leave your boring pants at home and wear your participants to this party. I give up. I give up. It's too much, man. Your boring pants. Your boring pants. Bring your participants. There's also a tulip festival. Uh-huh. And guess what they have there? Participants? Tulips. To put in your participants. Yeah. Over 350,000 bulbs. That's exciting. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Let's get into what we're interested here. Crime rate in this town. Property crime is low. It's about one-third of the national average, so two-thirds below. And violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime is also about one-third of the national average. That's great. This place is very safe. Incredibly safe. Seems incredibly safe. That said, let's talk about some horrible murder that happened here. Let's do it. Let's do this. Okay. Now, our story, much of it takes place in 1992. So sometimes what we like to do here for new people is we like to set the tone. Do you remember it? You think you remember it. Yeah, where are we as a society? Because that's a lot of things you'll think, oh, that's like that. And you go, no, that was the early 90s, not the late 90s. So we like to just kind of set a tone and really give you a cultural basis of where we are here. So 1992, we'll talk about some really quickly, the top movies of 1992, because that's one of those that really set you in an era. Sure. Number one movie of 1992, Jimmy. Number one movie? Number one movie of 92. You're right. I'm for Red October. No. Batman Returns. The Keaton one. That one's great. Yeah, the second Keaton one. Nicholson. That's Danny DeVito. I think we all know. Oh, Penguin 1. Penguin 1, yeah. Lethal Weapon 3 is number 2. Sister Act. He's still too old for this. Yeah, Sister Act. Home Alone 2. Okay. Wayne's World. Basic Instinct. A League of Their Own. Great time to be alive. This is like the 90s TBS lineup. That's all it says. They just play the top hits of 92 over and over. There's shitloads of commercials of Michael Jordan and Larry Bird shooting a game of horror. over a Big Mac. Big Mac, yeah. With a Big Mac on the line. Aladdin, Hand That Rocks the Cradle. That was a good one. Under Siege, Steven Seagal was in the top 10 in 1992. Can you believe that? We allowed that. This was a disturbing time in our history, folks. I'm going to tell you right now. You think America's a mess right now, but Steven Seagal at least is not in the top 10 movies. No. If he made a movie, he wouldn't even hear about it, which is great. Patriot Games, Dracula, The Bodyguard, White Men Can't Jump, Fried Green Tomatoes. Now, here we go. The top songs. We'll do these real quick. Jimmy, number one song of 1992, Billboard. Billboard. Fucking hell. Number one. It's boys to men. You got it. No. Oh, my God. You did. Oh, my God. How did you? Sometimes you're broken clocks, James. Okay, we've got to stop recording. Everything stops. We've got to go celebrate. This is insane. I'm so happy right now. We've done this like hundreds of times. Yeah. And it's your number one draft pick on Crime and Sports. What do you think? Never going to happen. You got it right. How did you pick that out of your ass? I'm so impressed right now. That's awesome. It's an absolute yes. I have to realize that. Well, twice to men, end of the road. You did it. That's a great song. It's good. Sir Mix-A-Lot, Baby Got Back, number two. He's so wealthy because of that song. He still works because of that song. $30 million he made from that song only. He goes from casino to casino all around this country and just makes good love of money. Playing that all up with Posse on Broadway, and we all love it. And then followed by two people who don't make a lot of money, I don't think, off this phone. Chris Cross, I don't think. Oh. Chris and Cross are both not doing well. They're wearing their clothes the right way now and everything. It's weird. Showing up to job interviews. Vanessa Williams, Save the Best for Last, TLC, Eric Clapton, Tears in Heaven, and Vogue, Never Gonna Get It, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Under the Bridge, Color Me Bad. Oh, that was the worst shit we've ever produced. What? It was so bad. John Decatur. No, this was All for Love. Oh, yeah. They did that dance. That one got real popping. All together. Yeah. A real boy bandy. That was bad. John Cicada, Shanice, Mr. Big. Oh, that shit was awful. Just to be the next to be with you. I'll wait for the guy you're with now to leave, and then I'll jump right in there with you. What do you say? That's the love song version of I'd eat a mile of your shit. Yeah, thanks. See where it came from? Yeah. That's nothing. Man, I'd love to be in a pool of another guy's jizz is what that says. Thanks. Just to be the guy that uses that as lube. That's it. I'll be there for you. Just to be with you. What a, that's the anthem of all the cucks. That's it. 13, right, said Fred. Yes, I'm too fast. We only had one song. Which song is that? See, I wonder. I'm trying. No, that's it. I dunked in my head. What was this other hit? Nope, that's the one. Michael Jackson, black or white. And finally, Billy Ray Cyrus, achy, breaky heart. Jesus Christ, we were in a bad place. So that said, let's get into some people here. Okay. Let's talk about a woman. Okay. Yeah. Let's talk about Kathleen Cathy. She goes by Tworowski. T-W-A-R-O-W-S-K-I. Hey, everybody. just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you about our safest sponsor, Simply Safe. SimplySafe.com. S-I-M-P-L-I-Safe.com. Yes, that's the place to be. That's where you keep your house secure and the people in it and all of your things. 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Not to be confused with Colorado. No. Now, she is born in 1971, Kathy is. she is born to her mother Elizabeth who goes by Betty as half the women in 1955 went by, was ready she's got a father named Bob, got brothers named Richard and Brad, Richard goes by Rick so she's the oldest of the three kids from what I've gathered here Kathy is one she's a real loyal young lady she's real loyal she keeps her friends like from she has a friend, her best friend since grade school, still her best friend when she's 20 you know what I mean Jessica. So, I mean, she's a loyal, kind of a sweet young lady, actually, from everything I've heard here. And a good student. She went to Grant High School, where the assistant superintendent was a math teacher when she was there. She went to Fox Lake School from 84 to 88. And the math teacher said it was really nice, because after she graduated, she left me a picture of her. She gave me a wallet size of her. She just handed out wallets to people. Not just the picture. Take this with you. Yeah, here you go. This is for you. Not bad. And she's a nice young lady. Very pretty, too. And striking. She's blonde. She's 5'10". You know what I mean? Blue eyes. She's a striking young lady, for sure. Everybody notices her. Really nice. One person said, this is the math teacher, said, what keeps coming back to me as I think about this person is that winning smile, That laugh that we wound up every conversation with. She's always laughing, always smiling. She was a really good student. She was also a four-year member of the girls' basketball team. She belonged to the student council, was a member of the Students Against Drunk Driving. Very cool. As well as the school's In Touch team, which sounds gross. I don't like that. I don't like that at all. Sounds like Mr. Big is going to sing about it in his next hit. but it's students promoting alternatives to drug abuse. What's the alternative to drug abuse? Being really bored. I thought alcohol was the alternative. She's against that, too. I guess she's against it all here. But this is that she went to school. This is the just-say-no era, the end of it and all that stuff. So kids were real into that rather than now they're just like, eh, whatever you want to do, mind your own business, I don't care. Knock yourself out. She also participated in interscholastic academic competitions. So she's not just an athlete and just socially into stuff. She also is really smart. And she was a member of the National Honor Society during her junior and senior years. Her teacher said she was a splendid student. She was indeed a wonderful young lady when she was here. Right, yeah. Terrific. Now, let's introduce her to somebody else. Who's that? Somebody is a little older than her. She's going to have a hankering for her, and she's going to get to like here. In September of 1989, when she's 18, she meets a guy named John A. Cumbee. C-U-M-B-E-E. Cumbee. Yikes. Yeah, he was a cop. He was fully hard. Oh, yeah, everybody just called him Jizz Hornet and threw things at him. Yeah. Hey, Spooge Wasp! And they were like, just throwing fucking. Disgusting. Yeah, that is gross shit. But you don't want to get stung by the cumbee. That sounds awful. You get pregnant. That's right. You'll get way more than a little redness and swelling, I think, if you get stung by the cumbee. You might get hepatitis. I got stung by the cumbee. The cumbee. Mom, ow, I got stung by a cumbee. Oh, no. We need to go to the emergency room right now. You will swell up. You will look allergic to that. You certainly will. Now, John A. Cumby is about 11 years older than her. He's born in 1960. He is a divorced father of two. Not quite. He's in the middle of a divorce when they meet. Oh. So he's a 29-year-old guy who has just had his last son in 1988, the year before. And he's married to, this is maybe the weirdest name ever, Connie Cumby. That's his wife's name. Look at cartoon character. Connie Cumby, it absolutely does. From The Incredibles. We have to fight Connie Comby. She turns into a B, and then we know what happens from there. So they're not quite divorced yet. You would think this is sweet. They start dating in September 89. I mean, it would be nice if he was fully divorced and a little closer to her age. No, I mean, 10 years isn't bad, but 18 and 29 is a big difference. It's pretty wild. You know what I'm saying? Like 35 and 45 doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 18 and 29 divorced with two kids. That's crazy. And he's a cop. So it's like a cop, a divorced cop with two kids has way different life experience than an 18-year-old girl who just graduated high school, you know, or a young lady or whatever you want to call her. It's a hot, smart girl. Yeah. A hot, smart girl. Yeah. But he's attracted to her. But you might go, okay, well, maybe they had a lot in common. Maybe he's swashbuckling in his uniform and she's into that or she's into a guy in uniform or whatever it is. And she's living with her parents when they hook up. He was a former police sergeant, or was at this time a police sergeant in Sunnyside. He's even got a promotion. The later train is a paramedic. Here's a story from his cop days to tell you what kind of guy he is here. A lot of people say that knew him around the force say he became a police officer to, quote, live out a power trip. Which is the worst reason to become a police officer for everybody around you. You'll feel better, but no one else will. He was bullied for that dumb fucking last name. Yeah, yeah. And now he wants to be a cop and make everybody party. Pay for it. Yeah. Say my name with respect. Sergeant Cumbie, say it. Say Jizzhorn. Say it again. I dare you to call me Sergeant Jizzhorn. I dare you. I dare you to. So one of the district attorneys in the area said that he disgraced the law enforcement profession. That's a great endorsement from your superior there. One man here, a guy named John Palladino, who was 29 years old, testified against Cumbie later on that John Cumbie threw him up against a car, busted his lip, punched him in the face, and held a gun to his head, threatening to blow his head off. Wow. Now, you would think he must have caught him, like, in a sixth-grade girl's locker room or something, like, you know, with his dick out. Right. Right. He made the, I mean, he did take some liberties, this guy. Yeah, yeah. He made the insane error of driving with a burned-out turn signal that earned him this rebuke. That got you a cumby ass-kicking and a gun in your mouth. That got you cumby'd right there. Wow. Jesus. So how did they meet, you asked? This how? This brutal cop and this nice young lady. Something magical. Mm-hmm. You get the grocery store. They both reach for the same mango. Grab an apple together. Oh, this is yours. You take it. You like Gala? I love Gala. Yeah. They're my cosmic crisp. Not quite how they met. As a matter of fact, wow. They met. They shoplifting. They met when she was in junior high school. What? She was a 12-year-old when they met, and he was a cop. they met because he would make rescue calls to their neighborhood in rural fox lake and he knew all the kids in the area and he was apparently scouting for later sexual dalliances i don't know what's going on here and later she would see him you know when she was in high school she would see him at high school football games oh boy he's the guy who's in his late 20s has no little brother playing or anything and still goes to high school football games. Oh, that's so bad. Outside of Texas, that's considered really aberrant, weird, strange behavior. That's nuts, you guys. That's wild. In the upper Midwest, they do not do that. Once you graduate, you never go back again. Yeah, yeah. I've never. Since the moment that myself and my high school decided to part ways, I can't say since I graduated. The mutual breakup of you and your high school. Since then, I've never. It was a mutual breakup. It was. Yeah, we both thought we were better than each other. You know, the principal called me in. He knew my grandfather used to cut his hair, so he knew me. He sat me down and he went, what are we doing here? You're two months away from the end of this. You don't like me. Oh, he said no. That was the thing. We got along fine. He goes, it doesn't look like you're going to graduate here, but you keep showing up. And I'm like, I do. And he said, I mean, you're not causing any trouble. It's fine. You know, he goes, but what's your plan? And I went, I don't know. I'm going to hang out for a while. And, you know, this is where all the girls are. Yeah, yeah. People that buy weed are all here. Everything's all where I need it to be. Everything I do is here. So, I mean, apart from the homework. No, I'm not doing that at all. All the other shit is here. They want, like, final stuff. Yeah. You know, not doing any of those things. I won't be here for that day. I'll definitely show up until just about the end and wander off. But ever since that day, I've never been back. That's what I'm trying to get at. Yeah, I was so done. I smoked a cigarette after I walked and got my diploma. I sat back down in the chair and lit a cigarette. And obviously, this is over. They can't do anything to me now. No, no. I'm certainly smoking this right here. At least they didn't tell you, why are you coming here? They tried their damnedest to get me the hell out of there. It didn't work. No. It did work. I ended up graduating, but they had to put out with me for four years. Jimmy's like a cumbee. Once he's on you, boy, he's in you. You're going to have to do the paperwork to get me out of here. You've got to do some serious paperwork here. So they started dating in September of 89 when she's 18 years old, and he's a 29-year-old cop, like we said, after meeting her as a child patrolling her neighborhood. This is creepy. January 1990, things aren't going well in John's divorce. that he's trying to get here. They can't be because Connie Cumby gets an order of protection against John. Oh, against him. Yes. Claims are here that he beat her with his gun. Wow. Like pistol-wipped. Pistol-wipped is, I mean, what is that at that point? Separated, white. The defendant now. Yeah. The plaintiff, I would say. Yeah, the plaintiff now. So John says it's such bullshit because at the time my then police chief had all my guns. Oh. Because that means you're doing well when someone else has all your guns. You told your police chief about every one of them? I don't believe you. That's what I'm saying. And, yeah, that's a bad sign, too, because when you do something really bad, what's the first thing in a movie that's the police captain say? What's the one on his desk? Yeah, a badge and gun. badge and gun. Pass him over. And he's got all of them, which means he doesn't want him to have a single one. No, if he's got a squirrel hunting rifle, the chief has it. But he kept the ankle pistol evidently. I couldn't have beat her because I didn't have any guns. That's his excuse. Not I didn't beat her, just all my guns are taken. So, April 1990, Kathy is working here. She switches jobs. She had been working part-time at the St. Therese Hospital in Waukegan before going to a rehabilitation center called Condal in April of 1990. Her whole thing is she wants to do therapy and rehabilitation stuff with people for injured people. Physical therapy, shit like that? Yeah, physical therapy. That's what she's into. Thank you. I couldn't think of the term. August 1990, they've been together for less than a year, and she moves in with him. Yeah. I don't know if this is just a young lady who wants to get out of her parents' house and get into that, get into a relationship. It gets pretty serious pretty quick as well here. May 1991, Kathy and John buy a house together. Damn. That's serious. I mean, you're tying each other like 30 years worth of financial responsibility. You're pooling up together. Kind of genius on her part, right? I guess. You have to take out the house now for surezies. Except now she's like, she has to stay in it with this guy if she doesn't like him, which is... Until she's 54. Kind of weird. I mean, if you don't like him, you make him sell it, get your name off it, and you got half a house. Well, we'll find out what she did pretty quick here, because in May they buy it. By June, she moves back in with her parents. So that didn't last very long. That's a fast time. I don't think there's enough equity yet, lady. It takes longer for the house to close than that. Right. Like, from the time you buy it. So she moves back in. It's only for about three weeks. And then she moves right back in with old Cumbergler there. So her job at this point she is the assistant in the physical therapy department at Condell Medical Center in Libertyville 1991 in November So she lasts through the summer They go see the B4 Festival the Pino Farina band heals all wounds You know how that goes. Put on your participants. Oh, they're on, baby, for MDR. We just got Armageddon'd by rock, whatever the hell that was. November 1991, Kathy moves back in with her parents. Oh, this is called The Cycle. This is not good already. I mean, she's 20 years old, and this is not a relationship she needs right now. You can't do that. No. Hopefully her friends and family are advising her this is probably a bad idea. But if you do that too much, because she is still young, you're just going to drive her toward him anyway. Yeah. It's tough. So you might ask, why does she move back in with her parents? What happened? Let's let Helen Sabisky talk about it here. This is on November 19, 1991. Helen Sabisky worked with her from 90 to 92 and said that she was like a second mother to Kathy. Yeah. Now, November 19, 1991, in the early morning, she gets a crying, the way she puts it, crying hysterically call from Kathy. Okay. Kathy's losing it. Helen tells Kathy to come to her house. Kathy arrives 30 seconds later. So she must have been very close. Self-ass. Yeah. Real close. Out of from a pay phone. Shoot, on the curb. Fuck. Yeah, well, there's no cell phones, really. Oh. She's got a pay phone out front of her house. That's it. She's right out front. She lives in a gas station, this lady, actually. She lives back by the 10W-30. Don't worry about it. Now, Stabiski meets her in the driveway and notices that Kathy's face was extremely red and she had marks on her throat. Oh, boy. On her throat. So that's a lot. She said that Kathy was crying hysterically and saying, Helen, this is fucked up. Quote, this time I thought he was going to kill me. Oh, no. You might get distracted by the kill me part. Right. I'm focusing on, not you, people, this time. Yeah, yeah, you tell me where to be. Scary. No, no, no. I knew you knew where you were. So, scary. So, Kathy shows Helen places on her head where it looks like small portions of her hair have been pulled out. Oh, no. This is horrifying. Kathy also tells Helen that John had thrown her onto a bed and put his hands around her neck. So this is awful. This is not great. December 31st, New Year's Eve, 1991, going into 92. Michelle Gast, who's a close friend of Kathy since high school, said that night that Kathy, Michelle Gast, and a group of friends all went to Chicago to celebrate New Year's Eve. Yeah. They didn't have major plans. They just wanted to be in the city for New Year's. So they go to do that. They go to a hotel room and check in and, you know, figure out what the plans are for the evening because where are we going to go and celebrate? So at the last minute now, this is very important that this was not planned, at the very last minute they're just, you know, let's go here. So they decide to go to the Hard Rock Cafe. How nice in 92 is that? Yeah. Either that or Planet Hollywood, guys. What do you think? Either way, you're eating shitty macaroni and cheese that they dressed up. Yeah, but am I going to look at Stallone's jacket from Judge Dredd? Or am I going to look at the guitar player from Dawkins? Which one is it? Some vague reference in a movie or a vague reference in a song? Either way, I'm eating shitty macaroni and cheese. Or am I going to look at Def Leppard's one-arm drum kit? Yeah. That's what's set up there. There's just one drumstick here. This is crazy. So they decide to go to Hard Rock. When they arrived, guess who's there? It's John. Oh, John's there. John is waiting by the entrance, standing there. There is no possible way he could know where to hell. That's what I mean. They decided this at the last minute. He should be a detective. He's a sergeant. He's a sergeant. He's wasting his time checking people in in the morning. This is ridiculous. So he's out there. Now, this was unusual, the friend said, because they weren't aware he would be there, and no one invited him. And they didn't even know where they were going to go. So they had one drink at the Hard Rock Cafe, and they left. They were like, let's not make a scene. We'll go in, we'll have a drink, and then we'll just leave. So they left. It'll look bizarre if we just walk away. If he, like, run away, yeah. Yeah. He's going to follow us. So the friend, Michelle, said she didn't recall seeing him again that night. He was gone. Okay. So they saw him then. So now, less than two weeks later, January 11, 1992. Yeah. This is at Bogey's Nightclub. Yeah. Is that like a 40s theme, like you're doing Casablanca or some shit? A lot of Humphrey Bogart. Oh, yeah. It's a guy in a white dinner jacket smoking all over you. So Laura Hill, who's another close friend of Kathy's since high school. See, all of her friends are since high school. She came to the same people. She said that night they went to an event at Bogey's Nightclub. and around 10 p.m., that's when they arrive. That's when they go out. Yeah. People are... It's a good idea. Yeah, because it's before... It's when people are feeling good, but before they get handsy and start fighting and punching each other. And it's when all the real fun stuff is happening. You go out 7 p.m. Yeah, you go out 7 p.m. Everybody's hammered by 9. No one's even buzzed yet by 7. You're going to puke before the fun happens. That's no good. Yeah, like we've seen. Go out late. You go out late, but not too late, because then everybody's a mess. Ten is a good sweet spot. So they go out. They arrive at the club. Then after about 30 minutes, here comes John. At Bogies? At Bogies. They're like, what the fuck? How does this guy know where the fuck we're going all the time? What is happening? So that's insane. He ended up, John pulls Kathy onto the dance floor. So her friend Hill here grabs another friend to dance, and they dance the way she said, right beside them to see what's going on and to protect Kathy. this is crazy they watch him bite her on the cheek bite her during the dance I don't know any dance where you bite so that's not part of it he then grabbed her and she's bleeding and he takes her to the bathroom so she's bleeding from the face and in the bathroom now in the bathroom here after this some bouncers from the club escorted him out because the friend went, this guy's biting my friend he's bleeding, so they get him out of there the friend said that she saw that Kathy had been bitten on the cheek, nose, and mouth she's got bite marks the whole face that's his idea, I'm going to go bite her face up a friend of hers since grade school a guy named Brian said that he was surprised to see John at bogeys that night Yeah. And when he saw Kathy and John dancing and then going to the bathroom, he said he saw Kathy, quote, all bit up. And that's when they called the police. Yeah. So come get one of your own here. Yeah. So when they leave the nightclub, this is her friend Hill and Kathy. They leave together. They found Kathy's geo-tracker. She had like a brand new geo-tracker. Oh, yeah. That was some hot shit in 92 for a young lady. Well, that's a specific car. The answer to Suzuki's samurai. I was just going to say, it was between that and the samurai. But samurai, they tip over too many times. The dad would go for it. The geo just didn't go. It just didn't go, yeah. This is safe. It only goes 46 miles an hour. This is perfectly safe. It makes no tracks. It finds no tracks. And it's not going all around the earth by far. So when they get out there, they see the windows are bashed in, the convertible top is slashed open and their leather coats are all missing from the truck. And somebody took the coats? He robbed them. He not only vandalized, but he robbed them too, which is ridiculous. So, now, January 1992, let's go, it's still the same month, forward a little bit. This is when Betty, Caddy's mom, said that she noticed something changed the relationship between John and Kathy. Yeah. Betty said she observed bite marks on her face, nose, and tongue as well. On Kathy. Her tongue. So Bob, who's her father, took her to a medical center to treat the injuries. They take pictures of it, which is put into evidence and all that. So it's all documented anyway, which is good. The Cook County Sheriff's Office also arrested John January 15, 1992, for battery and violating an order of protection. That's not even against her. That's against Connie Cumbie. Oh. So he is just... He's out on, like, a retribution attack. Like, I'm going to bite her face. I'm going to go beat up my ex-wife. Yeah. I'm on this. Cops shouldn't be able to keep their job if they're arrested. Especially for, like, let's say violent crimes. No. Yeah. If you're arrested, you shouldn't be a cop, right? Well, I mean, anybody could be arrested. If you're, you know what I'm saying? I suppose they can be arrested, yeah. Convicted, yeah. Yeah, if you're convicted for sure. You know what? You should keep your nose fucking clean. I'm sorry. Arrested on violent charges. Yes. Let's suspend with pay until adjudication. No, without pay. Anytime you're suspended, you get no pay. That's the other thing I hate about this. If you're doing something that doesn't allow you to be at work, I'm not fucking paying you. And I mean me as the taxpayer. We're not paying you. If you fucked up, we're not going to pay you while we figure out how badly you fucked up. Okay. Not doing it. And then upon certification, you decide whether or not you get your fucking job back. Yeah, exactly. Go back groceries until, or whatever the fuck. We've had jobs. Until we figure this out. If they told you to go home and don't come back for two weeks, think they're going to send you a paycheck? No. No. Absolutely not. No job I ever had would do that. Maybe if you had a good job. I had one good job that did wood and did. Wow. That worked out pretty great. You were lucky. You didn't show up for four years. What are you talking about? Six. Six years. So, yeah, with a cop, though, it's like, it's bad enough we have criminals running around. I'm not paying for you to be a criminal, too. You know, I'm going to pay your salary also. Right, yeah. No, I don't think so. I just think it, I don't think anybody with a record should be a cop. That's just, I think that that should be. Jesus Christ, no. No, absolutely not. Right. That shouldn't be a thing, right? No. No. They do it, right? Yes. I worked at a gas station where you couldn't be a criminal. If I had to pass a background check to do shit like that, you have to have a little clean to be a cop. I think I had to pass a background check to sell a fucking TV at Best Buy. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I did. You know what I'm saying? It's crazy. So, February 1992. Yeah. This is frigates. Frygates. F-R-I-G-A-T-E. Fregate? Fregate? Fregate. Fregate. Fregate. It's a Fregate's a nightclub. Beautiful Red Sox. Oh, it's just so beautiful. You come in, the meatballs are so nice. Fregate. They're so nice. February 1992, Hill here, that's her friend Hill and Kathy, and a group of friends were leaving the club when Hill thought she noticed John's truck in the back of the parking lot. Okay. At this point, run. Yeah. It was scary. Kathy and another friend left the parking lot first, then some other friends followed in their car. The truck left then, and following the truck that John was in is Hill and her friend. So there's like a little parade going out here. Hill wasn't sure, but she thought the license plate on the truck read F-F or F-L-F-D for Fox Lake Fire Department. Oh. Yeah. So later it was revealed that the plate on John's truck read FLFFEMT, Fox Lake Fire Department, Fox Lake Fire Emergency Medical Technician, because by this time he's in EMT school. Okay. So when you go to EMT school, you immediately change your personalized license plate to meet your needs. Make it all your personality. That's right. So the truck continued to follow Kathy's vehicle for at least five miles. Okay. And then finally, when Kathy turned, the truck went straight and followed the other car. And Hill ends up getting close enough to confirm that it was John driving. That's John in the truck. So he's hiding in the back of parking lots while she's in clubs. He's stalking her. He's stalking her. So end of March, early April 1992. Yeah. Jessica Murray, who is, we mentioned her in the beginning, she is Kathy's best friend since grade school. Okay. She said that at the end of March or beginning of April, she and Kathy went to Frigate's Nightclub or Frigate. It's got to be. It's got to be. Around 9 p.m. to meet some friends. Later that evening, John arrived. And Jessica Murray saw him arguing with Kathy for about 30 minutes. Oh. And they said that Kathy was very surprised to see him, wasn't expecting him. Right. She should expect to see him everywhere now. This is scary. Yeah. And that he was very angry. And a 30-minute argument? That's a, yeah. What are you doing? She said he was very angry, so I think he was definitely. He's keeping a go. Perpetuating this argument, for sure. Now, she's trying to use her, she's trying to get a physical therapy degree. She's an honor student at her school. Oh, yeah. She wants to help disabled children. Beautiful. Beautiful. Which in our show means you are screwed. Oh. If you're on Small Town Burger and you're a sweet young lady who wants to help disabled children, just fucking lock your doors, man. It's bad. So, April 15, 1992, Richard Barnes, a firefighter in Kenosha, said that he was John's classmate for paramedic training at Victory Memorial Hospital over a period of seven or eight months in 1991 and 1992. So, following a test on April 15, 1992, John and this Barnes guy spent the evening together at a restaurant and at several bars. John told Barnes that he was having difficulty with his relationship with Kathy. That's an understatement. You're stalking her. That's not the relationship. It's a little more than difficulty. He said it was, quote, going sour and that she was driving him crazy. Oh. I don't know if, you know, he means like the thought of her is driving him crazy or what. He also told this guy that Kathy was having a hard time being in a relationship with him. And you know what the reason is? The most reasonable reason of all. And also why you shouldn't buy a house with someone when you're 19. Yeah, yeah. Because she was young and wanted to experience life and date other people and didn't want to be tied down. You know, like a smart person would say at that young age. So they moved into a house. Yes. Her idea was that we were going to be roommates and perhaps... in the relationship, no. But she wants to date other people, too? Yeah. If it's communicated, whatever, man. Do whatever you want to do. Yeah, that's what I mean. But he can't take that. He can't accept that. No, no way. He owns this woman in his mind. Yeah. That's the thing. He will not listen to Mr. B. No. No, he will not. Yeah, find someone else to be the next to be with. Come be. You can handle it. So, and again here, tied down to one person. you shouldn't be tied down to one person at that age. No. And she might have been saying that to be nice when the real truth is because I'm terrified of you. Right. Yeah. So Kathy gets a protective order against him. Sure. This month in April of 1992 here, but then starts dating him again. Oh. So she gets a protective order, then hides from her parents that she's dating him again because she's embarrassed to be dating him again. Yeah. so she would tell her parents she was going out with friends or going to a study group or something like that and she'd go out with him when she was at John's house which I guess is partially hers which is about a mile from her parents' house they lived very close Kathleen would park her car in the garage so her parents wouldn't see it while taking walks around the neighborhood this is some shit you do when you're 16 and now she's kind of painted herself into this corner with her parents which sucks So May 2, 1992, John talks to a neighbor of his. This is Gordon Keesgen. And he said that he was John's neighbor. And on May 2, 1992, Kathy and he were outside. And that John and this neighbor, or John told this neighbor that they were getting back together. He and Kathy are getting back together. Yeah, and she was over there. Now, although he said, you know, me and her have had some problems in the past. but he said that he'd gotten counseling and that he felt the relationship was going in the right direction. Yeah, I'm healing. I'm a better person. Yeah. And according to this neighbor, it's true, her car would be kept in the garage out of sight of her parents. Okay. So they even, this weekend in early May, host a joint barbecue at their house. With who? Oh, with her and he. Her and he, with the neighbors and with his friends and stuff. They host a barbecue together. So she's putting out potato salad and shit. So that's something. He's a man of the grill. Yeah. He's got it at the apron. Yeah, he's got it at the whole personality apron with the quirky shit on it. Yeah, it says the cook bites. That's what it is. It's different than normal. Bite me, I'm the cook. I'm the cook, yeah. May 5th, 1992, Elizabeth Swarowski, Betty, mom, here, she is hanging out with her daughter. Kathy's still living at home. And she said that her daughter ate a dinner of stuffed green peppers and peas. Okay. Stuffed green peppers and peas. And then about 8.30 p.m., Kathy said she was going to go off to a friend's house. Okay. Okay. Now, 6.30 p.m. that night, before she left in prime pepper-eating time here, John calls Kathy. And Betty answers the phone. John asked to speak with Kathy. Betty puts her on the phone and doesn't hear their conversation. Then Kathy sat down, ate dinner with her mom, her dad, and Brad, the brother. After dinner, Kathy went up to her room, left the house at 830. She was wearing her DePaul jacket. That's college, DePaul. A gray sweatshirt and gray socks pulled over her jeans because it's 1992. Right. She's got those big leg warmer looking socks that are all bunched up and shit. Were they the tapered jeans, or did she taper them? She might have been tight-rolling them. We don't know. Possible tight-roll in 92. We're not positive. Who knows? Who knows? So later that night, 9.15 p.m., this is, another woman here, Patricia, said that she called home to speak with her daughter here. And she informed John that her daughter was ill and sleeping and that that was the extent of their conversation. Cynthia, this is a person that he studies with. Oh. So he had called her. A little later, a friend of John's said she met him. She had met him while working at a hospital together. But after 9 p.m. on May 5th, 92, John had called her and the conversation lasted about 20 minutes. She said she didn't notice anything unusual about him, just a normal conversation. They made plans to meet the next morning so that John could help her move items from a storage facility into her new residence. Oh, what a old guy. Yeah, he's going to see. He only wants to help people. That's what it is. Well, he's got a truck. And when you buy a truck, that's your fucking job. That's your lot in life now. You're screwed. So he met her about 8 a.m. the next morning on the 6th and then helped her until about 11 a.m. Three hours of moving health is... Free labor at 8 a.m.? Are you out of your fucking mind? That better be followed by some pizza after 11 a.m. Pizza. Blowjobs. Blowjobs. They're really welcome. You know, whatever you want to do. Anything other than, thanks, see you around. You can pay my electric bill. Never mind a blowjob. Three hours worth of work. Get me? Yeah, I'll direct you to T-Mofill to pay my bill. Go pay my shit. Then he left for work after 11. Uh-huh. May 5th, now we'll go back the night before, May 5th again, 11.20 p.m. that night. So we knew where Kathy was. She left at 8.30. John talked on the phone a bit after 9 o'clock, so we know where he was, and then the next morning he's helping out. Now, this is 11.20 p.m. on May 5th, about a little less than three hours after Kathy left the house. Now, I guess Kathy and John had talked on the phone twice that night, but now around 11.20 p.m. this is a resident of Spring Grove narrowly missed a head-on collision in a secluded area with a car driven by a man with dark hair who was accompanied by a woman who was quote slumped over I almost got hit head-on and you got to see both the driver and passenger if you're that close and if you're that close and it's dark and your headlights hit it Yeah? You might sleep. I guess, yeah, you would illuminate the cab. Sure. Yeah, in a secluded area like that. It wasn't like they were going 75 miles an hour, probably. Right. Country roads. Probably going 35, 40. Yeah. Yeah. And a woman who slumped over. But it's 11, 20. People could be asleep. You don't know. She got up at 5 a.m. for work or something. Who knows? A passenger is allowed to be slumped as fuck, right? That's the job. We're climbing all the way back. You slept in the trunk while we drive back from Austin, for Christ's sake. I folded down the back seat and put my ass in the trunk. That was adorable. And fucking hilarious. I was like, this is... Snuggled in in the fucking backseat. It was like I had a golden retriever back there. I was like, this is crazy. Half of my body in the car, half of it in the truck. And just trusting me to drive through the night on no sleep for two days. He won't kill us, it's fine. Was that back from L.A. or back from Austin? That was Austin. That was Austin. Yeah, that was a long drive. And then I decided to drive from that rest area. And got pulled over to a 90s. You got pulled over on the on-ramp. You weren't even on the goddamn freeway yet. I was like, I just drove for seven hours. He was the nicest man. The least eventful seven hours of us driving that could happen. You get in the car. We're not even on the off-ramp yet, and we got two cops behind us. What the fuck did you do? What is happening? I got this. Don't worry. I got out of the car. Like, today, that was ten years ago? Today, that was a shot. Yeah. I got out of the car and walked back to him. Oh, my bad, dude. That was ridiculous. That whole thing was ridiculous. I did take care of this. Well, he did hit you, bust your lip, put a gun to your head, and threatened to blow it off. So that was, he responded appropriately, I feel like. He said, good morning, Jizz Ross. Let's talk. What's happening? Oh, man. And so now this near-miss collision here, almost collision, occurred in the wooded area off Rabin Drive, about a mile northwest of U.S. Highway 12 and State Park Road. Now, May 6th, the next morning, this is before John goes to meet his friend to help her move shit. Okay. So he shows up at 8. This is 6.45 a.m. There's people out in a secluded area jogging, doing their normal morning stuff. Yeah, yeah. As they're going, they see a white geo-tracker about 35 to 40 feet from Rabin Drive, which is a private driveway in a secluded area. In this car, they discover Kathy. Oh, no. Yeah. It's really an isolated field near the Nippersink Canoe Basin near the Spring Road area. It's Never Sink, right? Never Sink, that's right. Yeah. The car was found in tall grass in an area surrounded by bushes near railroad tracks. The closest homes are about 100 yards away. They find Kathy, unfortunately, very dead. Yeah. She's in the, now there's conflicting reports of which seat she was in. Oh? There's a newspaper report that says it is a passenger seat she was in, her own passenger seat. And then there's other reports saying that she was in the driver's seat. So I'm not positive which one it is. Who fucked that up? Who's someone fucked that up? Now, she's covered in blood. Her pants are unzipped and open, which is bad. She either just had Thanksgiving dinner or something bad happened. And she's in a reclined position in the seat. So we don't know driver's seat or passenger seat, but she's in a reclined position. there was a, quote, pooling of blood and large blood spattering in the rear seat on the driver's side, but there was no blood spatters on the ceiling of the car. Oh. Which is an interesting little scientific laundry. What is that? I guess that's not a lot of cast-off, so whatever it is that's not being flung up, but even if someone got hit, it could be flung forward? It goes back all directions, so I don't even know how you do that. This doesn't do that, right? If there was enough blood, it would. Yeah, that's a great point. If it's bloody already. So that's crazy. Now, the location, a McHenry County patrol officer here said you had to have lived near here to know about this location. You wouldn't just pass by and know to go down this road over here to the field. It's pretty isolated. Now, the other thing is John, John Cumby, he's usually nearby this area. Oh. Not only is he a firefighter, former police officer, but he worked part-time for Rabin Construction, which is located right there. Oh, it's right there. He knows about this place very well because this is the drive to his old job. Yeah, he's got a belly full of caffeine at this time. Oh, shit, yeah. So they said the vehicle is nearly hidden. The weeds are so tall. Remember, English Prairie. Tall grass. Tall grass. Why do you think I put that detail in there? Come on. You never forget. You can't forget it. And it was in the bushes straddling the Chicago and Western train tracks, so near there. They said the site is just inside the McHenry County line, less than a mile from the home of John Cumby. And right where he worked, too. And the private road, Rabin Drive, leads to the excavating firm where he used to work. Okay. So he couldn't be more tied to this area. Or more framed. Perfect framing job. I'm going to bring the shit out of this. Let's drop a bloody glove in his yard. Yeah. For him to be framed, that's the level of framing it would have to be. Does he have a house guest that can tap? Yeah. This is very, yeah. Did he eat a Big Mac with a guy earlier in the evening? Yeah, very rare leather shoes. Very rare. Expensive. Yeah. Now, she was about to graduate. She was going to graduate that Thursday. She was set to graduate from Oakton Community College's Physical Therapy Assistant Program. Instead, she had a funeral three days before her graduation, which is pretty goddamn sad. Now, the neighbors here who've lived here for a long time said, many of them said they didn't even know about Rabin Drive. There's people saying, I've lived here 20 years and I didn't even know that was there. How about that? So that's how you have to really know about it. Yeah. Even though some of them were walkers and bicyclists. They said we still never went over there. One guy said, I can't believe this. I saw her drive by my house and stop at the stop sign at US 12 Tuesday evening. Now she's dead. One said she was such a lucky, such a sweet girl, very happy-go-lucky and athletic, but also very sensible. I used to see her playing basketball in her driveway with her two younger brothers. Anything she and her two brothers could do to help you, they would. they all had respect for their elders. Which an old person in the neighborhood, that's the best they could say about anybody. That's their favorite thing to say about you. If you do that, they can't wait to say it. Yeah, anyone under the age of 60, that's the biggest compliment they could give. It's like, they treat me real well. One person here said, quote, she had put her focus in life on physical therapy and had planned to work for a while before enrolling in a more advanced program to become a full-fledged physical therapist. She was caring with people, and she would have been good with adults or children, but she wanted to concentrate on disabled children. Unbelievable, Cal. So let's find out what happened to Kathy. Yeah. Okay. The doctor here doing the autopsy finds that there are 14 lacerations to her scalp area. Okay. 14. That's usually a vassing cut, yeah, right? Well, it could be that, or she could have been getting her head not against something. Someone could be hitting her. I mean, like she could have been slammed against a wall or a floor or anything. Seven lacerations to her face, and her teeth were broken and cracked. Oh, Jesus. She has been brutalized, her fucking head. Food was present in her stomach, and they estimated that she died around four hours after her last meal, which we know was around 6.30, around 10.30, which would make perfect sense for her to be dead in a car, almost getting in a head-on collision with someone at 11.20. Perfect timing. Also, that's got to be terrifying. Now, I've never driven with a dead human in my car, obviously, but if you're driving with a dead body that you just killed, you've got to be terrified to get in any kind of accident. Yeah. To be seen. To be seen, to be pulled over. What if you have a burnt-out turn signal? Right. You know what I mean? You've got to do the whole... The wolf was very concerned about that. You have to do the whole... Everything in operational shape here. Like, you've got to be on top of your game. The wolf is tip-top, as far as I know. Tip-top, as far as I know. So, now, following the examination, the doctor opined that Kathy died of multiple blows to the head, resulting in brain injury. Oh, great job, man. I think I... Really? You think so? Zero medical knowledge. I think I nailed it. Unless you cut her open and all of her organs were missing. Probably that, you think? Or pureed in there somehow. Yeah, who knows? According to him, the facial injuries required a heavy metal rod-like instrument. Oh. That's what he says. He said she had facial damage and teeth missing, and they took Polaroids for later, which are bad. Brilliant. They bring in Dr. John Teggetts, who was qualified as an expert in the field of forensic pathology. he said that her injuries had a pattern of a very linear or line-like nature. Right. So he said, in his opinion, they were caused by an instrument more unusual than a hammer. Not a batting like that. Sounds great. And not a baseball bat or a tire iron even. Okay. Like a tire iron. He said because those instruments have a characteristic look to them that you can identify. So he said it's not that. It's something that's on top. Yeah, a tire iron set, like an octagon shape to the bar. A baseball bat gets tapered. Right, gets bigger. So he's saying if you have a long line, it's a totally different injury than he's used to seeing, and he can't really pick out the instrument at this moment. Okay. So police immediately, you know, because they find her, they tell her parents. Her parents say, oh, my God, it's probably John, the guy who bit her face up two months ago. So they go to see John at the hospital where he works. This is within six hours of finding the body. They're talking to him. So they go there on May 6th here. It's two cops that go to interview him at St. Therese Hospital. When asked, he said that he and Kathy co-owned a GeoTracker, which is true. They were both on the title. Oh, really? They were both on the title. They bought it when they were together. That's the best way to buy a Geo. You only got half the money in it. I'm only half into this geo. So when it loses all of its resale value, I only lose half of that. I'm only down half. It's pretty good. So he said that the car was found, because that's why they talked to him, too, because his name's half on the title. Right. So he said, we found this car with a large amount of blood in it. Yeah. And his response is, quote, where's Kathy? You can check my alibis. Wild. We just said we found blood in your car, bro. What are you talking about? What do you mean alibis? I found your car and blood. That's all I said. You just jumped all the way to alibis. This is scary. So when they informed him that she was, in fact, dead, he didn't say anything. So then he told the officers he last saw her on May 3, 1992, at her parents' house, where he talked with her in her driveway. Three days ago. Three days. According to him, he did not see her on May 4, 5, or 6. Okay. And when they asked, well, what's the nature of your relationship? Yeah. He said, quote, just buddies. Ah. How many cars do we own together, Jimmy? Lots, right? We're buddies. I'm such a pal of yours. We just, whenever we go in on a, where I'm going to buy a car, I'm like, hey, Jimmy, come with me to the lot, and we'll co-own this car. Well, we are geo-tracking tonight. I'll tell you that right now. I'm getting on Facebook Marketplace. I'm going to find this one. Get a sidecar. Lifted or lowered? What do you want? Oh, lifted by far. Let's be ridiculous. So, when asked about the future, he said that he and Kathy had plans to get married, even though they're just buddies. Just buddies. He told the sergeant that... Of the F variety? Is that what he's trying to say? No, he just said just buddies. Fuck buddy wasn't even a term in 1992. Wow. It wasn't even a term. It was not even a thing. It was just buddies. We're just friends. We're buddies. We're planning on getting married, and we buy things together. We're going to be in our buddy cop films. And we like to enter in loans together. Yeah. That helps a lot. We like to owe the bank an equal amount of money. He said also he's studying to be a paramedic. They said, well, when's the last time you talked to her? He said, I called her about 630 to ask her to help me study for my paramedic exam. Yeah. She said yes, but then around 6.50 p.m., she called back to say that she was going to stay home and study herself, so she couldn't do it. Okay. Yeah. So now, according to him, on May 5th, he came home from work around 8.30 p.m. He called Cynthia Beck to help him study. Sure. She didn't come to the phone. She said she didn't feel good. So he did some chores around the house, watched TV, fell asleep around 11 o'clock. Uh-huh. He was paged by the Fox Lake Fire Department to respond to some type of call that evening, and he did not respond because other on-duty firefighters had handled it. They had enough people by the time he called back. So now they observe while they're talking to him a very deep gash on his right middle knuckle that has scabbed over some. So it didn't just happen five minutes ago. Also noticed his two adjacent knuckles had scabs. And also that he had a scratch or an abrasion on the left side of his neck. You know, defensive wound type shit. Yeah, yeah. According to him, his hand was injured when a log fell out of his fireplace the night before. He also said that the abrasion on his neck was caused by a stethoscope that rubbed back and forth. Yeah, it fought back. Every doctor you go to looks like they've just been choked out every time. Yeah. They go, Doc, you okay? They go, this damn stethoscope looks like a... You know that doesn't go there, Doc. Oh, Jesus, yeah. According to him, also, they said they observed the stethoscope that he was wearing, and they said it was four to five inches below the injury on his neck. So it's hanging down here. He's got an injury below his ear, not where you wear a stethoscope. So they end up showing him pictures. They show him pictures of Kathy that were taken after the biting incident. Yeah. Trying to spook him a little bit. Yeah. He said he doesn't remember doing that, and he said, I don't think I'm responsible for that. I didn't do that. Okay. I'm cool. Yeah, that's what he said. They're like, okay, well, everybody said you did it. That's interesting. He said that he, this is the best line ever. He said he, quote, won't hurt Kathy anymore. No. You know. Anymore. Anymore. I've already bashed her skull in, so I think I'm good is what he's saying, allegedly. Really? So he said he would not, that he would not kill her, and that now he's in control. Before, even if he did bite her face off earlier, he was having problems, but he's good now, basically. I got my temper. I got my rage. I got all of it under control now. I got them all in control. He's got some counseling. He's feeling much better. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Therapized. According to him, Kathy had confided to him that she had recently had sex with two other men. Oh. I don't know why he would tell the cops that, but that's to say you should look at them. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is he saying at different occasions? What's he saying? Yeah, not at the same time, I don't think. Yeah, she talked about getting really just teamed by these two guys. I don't think that's what happened. So maybe. Who knows? A really nice night she had. Yeah. Either way, that's his claim. All right. He offered to show the officers his guns if she had been killed. Oh. She said, I'll show you my guns. And they said that at that time they had never told her that she had been killed or how she died. They just said she was dead. They didn't say she was murdered. Right. You shouldn't be talking about guns and alibis. It could have been a car accident. They came and said there's blood in a geo that you own, and she's dead. Car accident. Many different things. Heart attack. Anything. Not that. So May 7, 1992, the next day, they put luminol in areas of John's house. Okay. They luminol, that shit. When they applied luminol to his living room carpet, the test showed a positive indication for the presence of blood. How much? Well, that's what we'll find out. They then tested the same areas of carpet with, oh, boy. Yeah. Phenothalium. Phenothalium, which also showed a positive indication of blood. What is that shit? Does that glow or it doesn't glow? I'm not sure. turns pink or some shit. I guess it's a backup or something. Just a, you know, an accessory to it. For when the black light dies? Yeah, you put that on, I'm not sure. So, in the bathroom, they apply aluminum on the bathtub, to the bathtub, to a towel hanging over the shower curtain in the bathtub, to the sink, a hand towel, a wastebasket, all of which showed a positive indication for presence of blood. There's fucking blood everywhere. Yeah. Now, in a bathroom, there is blood everywhere in a bathroom. Oh, boy. Especially if you're a guy who shaves, there's blood. You've bled. I kind of want a lumen all mine. I'd like to see it. Light up like a fucking Christmas tree. Dexter lives. Yeah. I'm sure it's ugly. But this seems like too much blood. Yeah? A little bit. Yeah. Yeah, everything in the bathroom has a shitload of blood on it. That's wild. It's a lot. So the other test they do also shows an indication, a positive indication for the presence of blood in all these areas. So they said that they thought there was all there was a lot of blood. Both tests were reapplied to the surfaces in the living room and bathroom and they were photographed and admitted into evidence too. May 8th, 1992 they questioned John again. They received second hand information that he was saying that stalkers had killed Kathy. Oh he's He could take the S off of that. Yeah. But he's already found the cult. He's done a lot of investigation already. He did his own investigation. Kind of a cop over here. He told them that he was referring to the two men whom she just had sex with. Oh, they teamed up. Either way, they're either together or it's one of them or whatever it is. They're both stalking, but only one of them killed her probably. But that's what she... You're with her once and you'll stalk her. That's what he's saying. She's a good one. So the sergeant told him that, listen, we're watching your house, and they observed you, we observed you and another individual remove two duffel bags from your home. What's that? Who's in those duffel bags? Yeah. He said those duffel bags contain clothes because he was leaving the house for a few days. Oh. When asked, he stated that he and Kathy had sex on April 30, 1992, in front of the fireplace. That's the last time they've been together. Yeah. He described it very, we were in front of the fireplace, and it was very romantic, and we fell asleep there. You really. You got a bed, and you did it on the floor, huh? Did it on the floor, yeah. Did it like 70s style on like an animal skin rug. You know what I mean? Gross. So Loretta Dixon, the woman who he went and helped move that morning that Kathy was found. Right, right. She said she didn't see any marks or scratches on his hands, knuckles, or neck. She saw nothing. Nothing, she said. She said she also had dated him twice, once before Kathy's death and once after Kathy's death. Okay. I'm a murder suspect. Want to go out? Sure. Sounds good. Where do you want to go? Hard Rock? Sounds great. So the cops are asking for tips here. They're basically standing on a roadside talking to every passing car, showing them pictures. Okay. Saying, did you see this woman at all this night? We're desperate. Yeah. They're putting it out in the newspaper. If anybody saw her or her car after 8.30 p.m., please call us. So, yeah, May 9th is when they set up a roadblock. And, by the way, I have to give credit to a lot of good reporting here from the Northwest Herald newspaper. Yeah? At the time. Yeah, I doubt they're still in existence anymore. The Internet maybe killed them? That's one of those small papers probably died. But they did a great job covering this case. They really did. So they do this. On the long shot, they might trigger someone's memory of her last hours. They set up a roadblock. They show a Polaroid of her and everything else. They said, one of the cops said, I'd like a witness. We're hoping someone can tell us who she was with the night she died and what they did. I'd love a witness. I'd love a witness. So they stop people. They just say, did you see this woman after 8.30 p.m.? June 18, 1992. It's a while, huh? A month and a half after they find her. There's a search warrant executed here for his person. Yeah. This isn't just his house. This is John is taken to a hospital where medical staff obtained samples of blood, saliva, and hair. In 1992, this is the beginning of DNA and physical evidence really coming very handy here. The hair bit is a bit skeptical, but I get it. Back then, if you had a hair with a full root, you could get DNA off of it. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, matching hairs that look similar. I love that. When they, like, overlay them, they're like, it's a match. Okay, put a dog hair on there. And they do that all the time. They find that that's not reliable at all. You could put a monkey hair on there, it's the same thing. They all would know the goddamn difference. So on the 40-minute ride to the hospital, he was calm at times, but also numerous times shouted profanities at the officers on the way to the hospital. Panicking. I'm getting real mad. At one point he said, this is great, quote, I did it, so what? Whoa, what? Pardon? We didn't even pluck hairs out of your head yet. You did it? Wow, thanks. So what? So we turn around and go to the station now? What do we do? I did it, so what? So what? So what? So a lot. You say that to two uniformed police officers. So I did a murder. So what? Who cares? Oh, we do, honestly. I mean, there's going to be a lot of people that care about that. A few, I would think. That's going to come back to haunt him. So what? So one of the cops asked if he wanted to talk about it, but he just smiled and sat back and crossed his arms. Oh, really? Yeah, smiled. when he was advised that the hair and blood samples had been retrieved from his home he said that the samples would not do them any good and that the officers had quote shit on him you guys are shitting on me bullshit actually probably more like you guys are shitting on me man let me tell you you guys are shitting all over me right now and I don't appreciate it okay something like that so they get items from John's home as well they get the bath towels, carpet samples, wastebasket bath mat, fireplace poker oh oh hey that's a long irregular object and in 1992 in every movie that's like the most common thing for a homeowner to defend their house with you picked it up and went they look around and go that'll do, everybody I like when they grab the shovel. Come on. Or the broom. The broom, the push, yeah. Hey, everybody. 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And they said that possible reasons that the stain could not be identified as, they said at one point, they could not identify it as human blood positively. They did a confirmatory test which came out negative. Oh. So they said either the stain wasn't big enough or the stain was degraded. That's how a human sample could come out, maybe not human sample. After conforming the confirmatory test, it was, the stain was consumed. It could not be tested further either. They already put all the shit on it. So they then performed a presumptive test using the phenylphotatoline. Wow, that's not right at all. It's the alternative luminol. Not even close. All right. I'm going to call it non-luminol there from now on. On the second towel, there were several small stains that reacted positively. They then cut some of the stains out of the towel and performed a confirmatory test, which came out negative. Oh, negative for blood. They don't know, yeah. It could have been degraded, so negative for human blood. So they performed tests on three pieces of carpeting, which all produced negative results once they got them in the lab. So as a result, no confirmatory tests were performed on those items. Another piece of carpet tested positive with the presumption when the presumption test was applied, although the confirmatory test came out negative as well. in addition they're saying that no blood was found on the wastebasket or bath mat and all the presumptive tests applied to the fireplace poker came out negative as well now this is later on the people that he gets to examine this they also viewed hairs from the push broom under a microscope and observed a few hairs with tiny red crusts that would be blood after they removed the crust from the hairs she performed a confirmatory test identifying them as human blood So now we got something. So they stipulated also later on, they'll agree, that no seminal material was found in any of her cavities. Right, okay. So there are no recent facts. The fireplace poker, when looked over, was very consistent with the type of weapon that could have been used to cause her injuries. It fits. They said they can't say definitively that it's the murder weapon, but they said it could be any number of instruments, but that it's consistent with her injuries and that she was near death at the time she was placed in the car as well. So they get a qualified hair fiber expert here. They received some of the hairs and fibers for examination and comparison. Head hair standards and pubic hair standards were taken from Kathy and her clothes. hair standards were taken from John. When they examined the hairs and fibers found on John's broom, they observed approximately 100 head hairs and hair fragments that were consistent with Kathy's head hair. Dissimilar to his. And that's just a push broom that's in his house, though, yeah? Yeah, that's just to sweep up the tile. You got a gal in your house for 20 minutes. You got 100 head hairs in your broom. Hopefully not covered and encrusted in blood, though. That's a problem. That's a problem. I would hope not. Jesus, that would be terrible. Can you imagine? So those 100 hairs had broken roots, meaning they were removed with some force. Ripped, yeah. And blood. So in addition, they observed approximately 10 head hairs and hair fragments that were consistent with John's head hair standards and dissimilar to Kathy's. Yeah. They also recovered fibers from the wastebasket and compared them to other fibers. The examination showed that several gray rayon fibers from the wastebasket were consistent with fibers from Kathy's socks. Ocean around socks. In addition, they tested that the purple-blue-green acrylic fibers from the wastebasket were consistent with purple-blue-green acrylic fibers found on Kathy's right sock, her shirt, and the sheet she was wrapped in. Oh. Now, according to this, they also seized seven weapons, ammunition, in addition to the towels, fibers, his police badges, brooms, a mop, his address book, all that kind of shit. They collect everything from here and take samples of his hair and blood, obviously. So DNA comes in here, as we'll talk about later on. DNA will improve quickly as this goes on. DNA is making huge leaps and bounds. Throughout his investigation. Every day that goes by. Wow. So later on, it will be found that two bath towels from his bathroom were examined. One of the towels, the extracted DNA, matched his DNA profile. The other identified three areas of DNA. One area matched his. The other two were a mixture of DNA from both him and Kathy. Hmm. Okay. July 14, 1992 their detectives are trying to match a mystery the way they put it, a mystery palm print left near left on her car it doesn't belong to him, it doesn't belong to her where's that? so they, I'm not sure, but they said they're trying to compare it maybe to her friends it was inside the vehicle is where they found it so they don't know where it came from They said that the palm print's the only one they have yet to identify. All right. They said that they didn't think that finding the origin of the palm print would bring new suspects, nor will it make or break the investigation. Yeah. Could have been anyone who traveled in the car and left behind one palm print. So it could have been one of her girlfriends, one of anybody. They said, we're just trying to tie up loose ends. It sounds like this evidence. And then his attorney, because John's got an attorney now, even though he's not under arrest or anything like that. And his attorney said, it sounds like this evidence will exculpate my client. So great. Sounds like it, yeah. Pick it up. That same day, John's sister offers a cash reward for clues. Oh. John's sister to get him out from under the suspicion. She's got money for clues. Okay. Yeah. She said that she will pay offered $500 in reward in hopes that someone will disprove police suspicions that John is the suspect here. sure she announced it in ads in mchenry and lake counties and the ads call for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer yeah that's interesting um she said we just wanted to help not only john but to help find the correct person that did this awful thing the correct person yeah just to keep my brother from getting in trouble we want to find the real killer that's what's important we'll find the real killers yeah um she said we're hoping money can motivate people. We did it because my family thought a lot of Kathy. We want the right person to pay the punishment. We firmly believe in John's innocence. Right. Yeah. That's fucking amazing. And John said that I don't know anything about it. That's not me. She's doing this all on her own. Oh. Independent. Yeah. Independent of me. Just a good sister. September 1992, they're talking about the test results they got that were underwhelming. Yeah. and his lawyer said they got their results back and the results obviously show nothing, so they're going to continue with their witch hunt with Cumby rather than looking for other possible suspects. Wow. He said the real shame of this whole thing is that we've got one woman dead with no real suspects. We've got another man who's been everything but legally accused of the murder, who has effectively been fired from several jobs because he's under suspicion. Oh. He cannot afford to support himself and his two children. They've destroyed his life in addition to not solving the murder. That is a tragedy. That's a tragedy. Yeah, it's a real tragedy, this guy. So the prosecution says the lack of leads is frustrating. Yeah. They said this is the only case I've worked in the last 25 years where we didn't get all kinds of calls. Got nothing. They said it's just a case where we think we know what happened, but we have no witnesses, no nothing. We're still hanging. We're going to get him, though. We'll make an arrest. It's just a matter of time. Okay. That time is November 4, 1992. Here we go. When John is arrested. Shit. They go ahead and arrest him. That sister money backfired, huh? At least a little bit. A little bit, yeah. It just brought more attention to him. Yeah. That's silly. So within the last two weeks before he was arrested, he's laid off from his job as an EMT at Lake County Hospital. He did earn his certification as a paramedic, and he put his house up for sale. It's been a busy two weeks. That is a tough two, yeah. So while a grand jury was considering the murder case, a detective was keeping track of John's whereabouts. They were getting ready to arrest him. If they came back with the indictment, they were going to get him ready at the spot. They've been watching him since 6 a.m. He spotted the detective outside of his home, and he tossed a duffel bag into his truck and told the officer he's going to be in Lake County all day. Okay. So the detective followed him until about 11.45 a.m. Yeah. And then stopped him on Route 83 near Route 120, and they arrest him. So literally they got a call over the radio, take him now, and he goes and gets him. So what went down during the arrest is fun. What is that? That's fun. He gets arrested, and he said that John threatened him, the cop. He threatened the cop. Yeah? The sheriff's detective, Gene Lowry. He said, John Comby stated to me I wouldn't get away with this one, and that when he got out, my family and me wouldn't sleep very well. Oh, yeah, you can't say that to cops, right? That's a threat. Well, as soon as he got to the station, he filed a complaint against him for that. For telling him to have sleepless nights. And then Comby filed a complaint against him for allegedly attacking him during the arrest. Okay. And also ensuring that I'm not going to sleep tonight on this fucking concrete slab. Yeah. I was jail caught with no pillow. So, yeah, there he is. Now, the prosecutor here says, we have hard evidence now. All the parts fit together. It's just like a puzzle. We don't have a confession, but we have enough evidence to convict him. Oh. They won't reveal what that incriminating evidence is yet. They said, though, we can't tell you yet, but they said this man was acting alone. He knows all the tricks of the trade, but he forgot one thing. We're smarter than he was. That's fun. Kathy's mom said, I'm very emotional right now. I'm very happy that he's caught, but I'm also very sad because it doesn't bring my daughter back. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of a, oh, you know. Great, but that doesn't help me anymore. Yeah. Yeah. So her friend Kim, a high school classmate, said that, I'm relieved that what we've known the whole time is happening, that he's finally arrested. I think everyone knew it would happen. We just had to wait. Yeah. One neighbor said, I certainly hope that this is final. I think that we have all had the suspicion that that's who it was, and we feel very bad for that family living close by. Wow. a man who lives nearby said the arrest didn't surprise him. He said Cumbie had been friendly to him, but also said that Cumbie had a new girlfriend and that the two of them had been sprucing up the home. I don't know who that is. So it's not surprising to me that he murdered somebody because he's doing decoration and shit. Well, when I do interior decoration, it's because I murdered someone. And also, that's the only reason a home is sold. that's how you know that a lot of men weren't doing a lot of home improvement in the 90's because if you saw your neighbor doing it you'd be like he is covering up a murder over there he's going to put that shit for sale some bad things happen in that house he's painting for Christ's sake that was what Karen Reed said that was her reason why she thought the people in the house did it because they fixed their house up and sold it because they flipped the house yeah they flipped the house so it must be that Why? I'm not saying that either way. I don't know. I'm just saying. I don't know. Either way, I'm just saying that was one of the main things they were using. He said that he put the house up for sale. He said he was going to leave town and move somewhere else. He said he couldn't get a job here and that the police department was wrecking his life. There we go. So they said that we sent the physical evidence to the state labs in Rockford and Joliet and also used the FBI laboratory and a private lab in Boston to get the test results. They said we had sophisticated blood tests to distinguish between old blood that might have been on an object from a legitimate cut and fresh blood that would have occurred at the time of the murder. Oh. Yeah, they had to go to the FBI for this, but we could do it. And probably in Boston, they're probably talking at some university somewhere or something. Right, yeah, Yale or Harvard or some shit. Some shit. Well, Yale's in Connecticut, right? Is it? Yeah. Again, like a geography. Whatever. I think so. I'm not sure. That's in the Northeast. I didn't graduate high school. The hell do I know about where Ivy League colleges are? I smoked a cigarette when I was partying that my education was over. They told me, why are you here? Yeah. I smoked a cigarette going, not learning another fucking thing. I'm done. And you haven't. Congratulations. I'm fucking dedicated. You have really stuck. Most people, when they leave high school, they're like, you know, I'm going to do this, that. They don't stick to it. You stuck to it. I stick to it. Yeah. No learning. Fuck it. I love it. I slammed the door on it. You locked in. Boys to men, number one. Moving on. Good night. Good night. So he pleads innocent to murder charges here. He's jailed on a $5 million bond. That's the, they're pretty sure, huh? Jesus Christ. That's a lot. So they don't want it lowered either. They're fighting in court about lowering it, and they said, no, not at all. They said researching the law, they're researching the law. They believe that the 20 to 60 year term would apply unless the court finds that her death resulted from exceptionally brutal or heinous behavior. If so, it could be 60 to 100 years or a life sentence. Oh, but that has to be like very special things. So he has a bond hearing and he gets he gets some people to to talk for on his behalf, including a fire chief. but Kathy's parents write their own thing about it and say, Oh, Zion fire chief. Dave McAdams has described Cumbie as a compassionate paramedic. This is the side of Cumbie that our daughter preferred to see. Regrettably, Kathy was in our opinion too late in seeing that along with this Dr. Jekyll came a Mr. Hyde for this mistake. We believe she paid with her life. Yeesh. That's a concise take down right there. It's a left and a right. That is a fucking huge combination dropping to the floor. January 93, John says, there's an obvious suspect that police missed. John says this. You guys are such idiots. Do I have to do everything in this fucking town? He said two, but okay, who's the obvious one? Do I have to police, put out fires, save people's lives, flip houses, drive geotrackers? Do I have to do it all? Do I have to do it? John says, obvious suspect that you've all missed because you're just dummies and concentrating on me. He says, no, no, no. He says that, first of all, you're letting the real killer get away with this because you didn't do your homework. He said, so the prosecutor said, what else is the guy going to say? You know what I mean? He said, this is the cop, quote, it's always bang the copper. No. That's a different game you're playing, sir. It is, yeah. Yeah. Does it always bang him? I've worked a lot of homicides and it's like they all go to the same school. When you've got a good case, they have nothing else to do but gripe. Okay. So he claims they didn't pursue other suspects. One of the leads came from search dogs who followed a scent from the murder scene straight to a nearby condominium complex. Oh. But the trail ended between units 30 and 35. All right. They said they never looked at who lived in the apartments. They only questioned them about Comby. He said that. That's his quote about himself. They only questioned about Cumby. So he, in the third person, says Cumby. Cumby. Not even John. He prefers Cumby to call himself. That's his favorite. The police quickly dismissed the dog's trail because it passed through an area clearly untouched by a human. They said, though, that the detectives did interview and check the residence at Vacation Village. They said, we checked it all out. Besides, no one could get past the guardhouse there without being seen. You have to check in through the guard. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. A check with the security guard at the complex confirmed detectives spent several days searching the area and talking to residents. All right. But the visit also confirmed the possibility that a killer could have eluded the guard. You know, they said the guard shack includes an enclosed bathroom. So even though there's two guards on duty at night, one guard's out on patrol. The other one could have been peeing. We don't know. Okay. One's walking around. One's pissing and he snuck by. And he's perfect timing. Yeah. They said Vacation Village would not permit reporters to interview their residents. They wouldn't let him in for that. That's good. Cumby will not reveal the name of the man he says is the likely killer. I know who he is, but I can't tell you. You have to figure it out yourself. Yeah. He's just like, he's just setting up like a murder mystery weekend for his friends like Knives Out. He's just doing that shit. He said that he told police of a man who had harassed Kathy in the last weeks of her life. And they said, well, who is he? And he goes, I can't tell you his name, but I can give you a description of him. Oh. And I quote, he was a Mexican guy who danced real fancy. That's the second. Last week's episode. Yeah. Never heard fancy and dancing together. And last week's episode, somebody brought up fancy dancing. And they were like, what's fancy dancing? Because people got thrown out of a club for fancy dancing. And this guy says, fancy dancing Mexican. Real fancy. Sorry. All right. He danced real fancy. Yeah. He said his girlfriend had dumped him cold. Kathy felt bad for him. He took it the wrong way, started calling her up. About a week before she died, she called me at eight minutes before 11 p.m. and said he was out looking for her and wouldn't leave her alone. I told police about him, but they never checked on him. Uh-huh. And the cops said they checked out several people named by Cumbie. and they said the fancy dancing Mexican, quote, nobody else in the country knows about this guy. He doesn't exist. There's not a Mexican on this planet that fancy dances. No, no fancy dancing Mexicans in rural Illinois in 1992. That doesn't exist. January 1993, John writes a letter to the newspaper. Really? Yes. By the way, he's going to also ask for a change of venue because of too much publicity after he's writing letters to newspapers and doing interviews with them. Giving the publicity. Yeah. He's causing the publicity then saying, we've got to change venues. These newspapers won't stop writing about me. It's not fair. Not fair. So he professes innocence and questions the motives of his accusers in a 10-page letter delivered to the Northwest Herald. He knew they were doing good reporting on it, too. He goes, these are the people to talk to. He said, nowhere in any of the reports are there any facts or relation to physical evidence. The sheriff has based his entire investigation on the assumption and a hunch with no evidence to back it up. When they found her in her vehicle, tracking dog tracked a scent from the victim's vehicle north and then east to a housing complex, which is over a mile from my home. The dogs narrowed down the scent to one specific area, and nobody at those residence were questioned, which we know they were. He said guards at the security complex were questioned, but of course none of them had any contact with me on the night of question, and of course they weren't questioned about anyone else because the police zeroed in on me and only me. He reiterated he spoke to her on the phone the night before she died, or the night she died at about 6.30 p.m. between 6.30 and 7. They both planned to stay home and study for their tests, respectively. Mutual tests. He said Kathleen eventually lied to five people that evening to conceal her true destination. Oh. If she hadn't lied to all of us, we might know where she had gone and her killer might have been located. Oh, how victim-blaming she is. That's gross. She lied to you because she didn't want to see you. That's what she did. That's the only person she lied to. That's not fair. She shouldn't have done that. He said she practically deserved it. She's asking for it, clearly. You lie about where you're going. You should be murdered. Duh. She hasn't lied to me. I might know exactly where she is. Jesus. He also said that his years in law enforcement could not have helped him avoid arrests, like the police are saying. He said, quote, my only felony cases, meaning on the cop side of them, not on the perpetrator side of them, people he arrested, were a burglary and a young man selling marijuana to grade school children. What 11-year-olds are buying weed? Yeah. I didn't even look at weed when I was 8, 9, 10, 11. Leave that poor bastard alone. He's got it rough. That kid must be getting some shit at home, right? Jesus Christ. So he said both arrests made by traffic stops. So my years in traffic enforcement may have taught me how to disobey a stop sign or fail to yield, but not how to cover up a murder scene. Okay. He said, yeah, he saw her as often as twice a week after she had moved out of their home and back in with her parents, and the neighbors said they saw her coming and going throughout the spring of 92. She said her parents knew of these dates and yelled at her for going, but she disagreed with them. In the last two months of her life, her parents had turned into dictators, which prompted her to, on May 3, 92, call me and request to move back into our home in the second bedroom. He referred to the relationship between he and Kathy at the end as, quote, best buddies. Just real close pals. Best buddy. Best buds, man. I've never called a girl my best buddy. Best buddy. Even if she's your best friend, you wouldn't say my best buddy. No. No, that's just weird. He said he wrote that he believed the police should have focused on another man whom he said was bothering her. As he questioned the timing of the arrest just one day after the new state's attorney won an election, too. He said, so that's what it is. Now it's, yeah. He said, the saddest and biggest lie told yet was the one told to the Twarowskis by the sheriff when they said they had caught the murderer. They haven't. He's still out there. Her best buddy's in jail. Ah. Yeah. You fucking asshole. God, this guy's a dick. Her best buddy. She'd be furious with all of you. Yep. I'll say a legend all you want on other shit, but he's a fucking asshole. That I know for a fact. That shit is written in stone. he also does jail interviews here's one from the Northwest Herald where they say quote he blinks rapidly but tears still nearly spill from the former police officer's eyes now he's an accused killer spending his son's fifth birthday behind bars and those eyes of John Cumbie's deaden when he says he did not kill Kathy Tawarowski 21 the girl he calls his quote best buddy. He said, no ma'am, I did not. Okay. Which I don't like that at all. We know about the didn't and did not. We know about not using contractions. People do that a lot on their line. Not always. Contractions are just your normal way of speaking. When you don't do those, use those. Sometimes though, people who have been in like, if they're cops or if they're, for some reason they need to like extend their speech with bullshit or paramedics or anybody like that. They think saying, Not, and like breaking the words up, makes the statement harder. And more, I did not do that, and I did do that. Which, I mean, on paper, yeah, maybe it is. I didn't do that. You think that if you didn't do it, saying, I didn't do that, it's much more convincing. I didn't do that. I did not do that. But when you add, no, ma'am, I did not. Yeah. That sounds, come on. It should be followed by, chop down that cherry tree. Like, we know it happened, motherfucker. What are you talking about? don't give me that shit so he said that he's being held on first degree murder he said that they say finally the drill light gaze shift and he says I have an idea who did it he says he told police but investigators ignored all the leads and other evidence and they're just trying to link me to the slang so he's thumbing through the police reports and medical data and he says he's fighting for his life against liars Yeah. He said, they're lying, and I hate liars. I knew Kathy was lying to me a lot. Did you just think about that? You just said you hate her. You hate Kathy. Yeah. She lied to you a lot, which would have made you mad enough to kill her, you stupid idiot. Why would you say that? That was a full accident, right? I would think so. He said this wasn't even an investigation. This was a quest. The cops said if they couldn't get me legally, they would get me socially and professionally. Well, they have. I'm out of a job. I'm out of a life. I'll never beat this. The truth has to come out. People have to know I'm innocent. Yeah. They have to know. Yeah. He said that he sent letters to newspapers and to the state's attorney, and no one will listen to him. No. He said she was just a friend, not a girlfriend. He said, sure, we were friends. We also had sex the Thursday before she died. Right. We called each other several times each day, and there's enough letters exchanged between them. that the police found that fills several grocery bags, they said. Grocery bags? Grocery bags full of letters. That's a lot of letters. Wow. He said in a recent interview, he said not all of those letters were asking for forgiveness. So let's find out some letters. Here's one that was asking for forgiveness. This is one from John to Kathy. Kathy, I saw pictures of your face today, and if I did that to you, I'm sincerely sorry. If I did that to you. Unless someone else came up and bit you about the head and face. That would be. Yeah. If you've just been getting nibbled on all day. You just got bad luck and tasty skin. I don't know what to tell you. It's that lotion. Yeah. Yeah. He included a check for $100. Clean yourself up? That is so disrespectful. To quote, cover your lost days of work, fuel, times, and expenses. He did like Sonny Corleone. Yeah. There you go. Take that. Clean yourself up, you pig. Yep. He promised to send more, too. And then he wrote, I'm sorry, princess. Be careful out there. I call all my buddies princess. That's my nickname for Jimmy. Everybody should know that. When I see him, I'm like, hey, princess. And then, you know. He said, sorry, princess. Be careful out there. This letter came five days after police say that he bit her face. Yeah. So that's the face five days after the face bite incident. He says wasn't him. No. Not me. His whole defense is I'm shaggy and I didn't do this shit. You didn't do it. Don't trust your lying eyes. Wasn't me. Not me. Yeah. That's it. He said I wasn't even there. You're talking about a girl here who was too intoxicated to identify her attackers in two bars. it was you she identified you and so did all her friends that's the other thing it wasn't just her it was plenty of other people they said but someone did identify Cumby although she does not want to discuss the case before the trial the witness here, Laura, her friend testified she witnessed the attack he said it's all a lie they're all lying Kathy was a liar the cops are liars all of her friends are liars yeah that's what it is man It's like the old Will Ferrell SNL character. Like, she's a lying bitch, and this one's a fucking bitch. And that's what he's saying. They're all just lying. Fabricating. Concerted fabrication. Lying on my boys. Yeah, to frame me. To frame me. He said that it's just a lie. And then questioned if Kathy's injuries were all that bad anyway. He's like, they weren't even that bad. How would you know that? You weren't there. Yeah. He said the pictures I saw didn't look really that bad. Okay. I don't know what the hell you're talking about. So he said one of her friends described it as a love bite. What? What is a love bite? It's not a nipple on a fucking nipple. It's a goddamn earlobe. Wasn't there like a thing about love marks? That's like a fucking hickey, isn't it? I don't know. That's not a bite. That's more of a broken blood vessels. Yeah, if you break skin, there's no love involved. Right? That's not... I think so. If you spill Gatorade all over your cup, you can't do it either. I broke the... I forgot how to drink while we've been talking here. But if you get... If you have... Yeah, if you've broken skin, that's not affection. Right? No. Unless they're in the ass for it. That's not... That's crazy. There's people that are into some bloodletting. Oh, shit. That's a thing. But it's not usually bite my face. No. No, right, right. Because that... Yeah, I mean... Facial scars. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of slap my ass. It's not bite my face. This is a totally different thing. I want nine tails, but I can put pants on, whatever. This is great. Yeah, you can have whatever you want. People ask to be, you know, choked sometimes and stuff like that. But, again, it's not bite my face while you do it. That's absurd. He said that the love bite quote actually came from a psychic that she saw, that Kathy saw occasionally. He's reading from the police report. He goes, look, look, this one says it's a love bite. A psychic said that, which is not a reliable source of anything. And they said that it came from a psychic that she saw occasionally and appears to refer to a different incident completely as well. Okay. When the discrepancy showed to him, he said, no, no, John, your story doesn't match because this and that. That's not what the psychic was talking about. They say Cumby shifts to his offer to give bite impressions and saliva samples to police. He notes many media reports have referred to the bite marks on the victim's body at the time of the death. He said the police reports say there were no bite marks. He said she had facial damage, teeth missing, according to the police reports. They showed me a Polaroid of her. It was pretty nasty. Pretty nasty stuff. So he said he last talked to her at 7 o'clock the night she died, and she probably had met a man who had been harassing her for the last two weeks. Is that who you go meet up with? Probably, yeah. He said the stalker is the man that the police have ignored. asked if he loved her he appears rattled they say his eyes flick up and down and the table at the table several times his hands shake he says we were not head over heels in love and then for a long time he's quiet asked again did you love Kathy he says I can't answer that he says I have a girl I have a girlfriend I'm head over heels in love with she's the greatest thing that ever happened to me yeah Did you kill her? No? Are you accused of killing her? No, we don't care. She will be so jealous if she hears that I loved anybody ever before. It's going to be in the newspaper. It's terrible. Did you ever feel that way about Kathy? That's a good question. Yeah. And he hesitates and says, yes. At one point, I really thought for a while we were going to make it, but she still had things to conquer. You can't force someone to love you. True. he then talks again about making love in front of the fireplace the Thursday before she died he said it's the same place I slept the night of the murder that's where I fell asleep I went to sleep with a book in my lap at 11pm in front of the fire he said he thought that she was home studying so he never even gave her a thought but he said Kathy lied to me a lot both nights she went out with those men she didn't want me to know She told me she was going to the North Shore with her girlfriends another time when she was staying home to study. I drove by her house and knew she lied to me. Why would you do that? You stalker motherfucker. Yeah. She lied to me. So what? Shut up. She doesn't want to see you, asshole. That's what it means. She didn't tell you where she's going. Move on. Move on. I will say this, and I've said it a million times, and I'll say it again for our new Netflix viewers. The world does not owe you pussy. No. You've got to work for that shit. You've got to work and you've got to earn that shit. The world does not owe you pussy. You can't just go out and go, I want to put it in her so she should love me. That's not how it works in the world. It's the most arrogant thing that people do. If they lied to you, why would you want to be treated like that further? And women will believe a lot of your shit too. That's the other thing. They'll give you way more credit than you fucking deserve. You put together a half-decent rap, they'll fuck you anyway. They're listening. You have to at least try to woo them. You can't just be like, give it up, woman. Women are desperate for a guy that'll be nice to them. Try that. That would be nice. Yeah, they like that. They like that sometimes. They seem to be real happy when people are nice to them. Yeah, a lot of women like that. Some of the younger women don't like it so much. No, no, no, no, no, no. They look for that later, after their first divorce when they have two kids. Like, where's the one who will just be nice to me? Stop being so fucking exciting. Just not nice to her. Stop being so goddamn exciting, guys, please. So he said she lied the night she died, and she lied about the night she went to meet those other guys. They say the light goes out in his eyes again. Quote, she didn't want any of us to know what she was doing. She lied for her own personal gain. The detectives lied. My ex-wife lied to hurt me. Everyone's a liar but him. That's his biggest problem with society is untruths. You were a cop, man. He said, please say my first marriage ended because of violence. And he said, lying is what ended my first marriage. I'd like to say this. If he wasn't saying all of this crazy shit, I'd be 50-50 on whether he did it or not. Because they don't have a ton of good proof. I mean, a lot of that physical evidence can kind of be explained away by the fact that she was there a lot. Sure. She could have bled. She could have blah, blah, blah, blah, hair. Who knows what's going on? That's all fine and dandy. And if he sat there just going, I'm an innocent man. I'm an innocent man. I'd go, maybe he's innocent. But he's sitting in jail calling, she's a liar, and this one's a liar, and my ex-wife's a liar. It's funny. I didn't beat her. Lying beat her. Yeah. Lying bit her face. What are you talking about? It was the teeth of a lie that bit her face. He said he could prove he did not beat his ex-wife with his gun because the police chief had possession of his guns. Uh-huh. That's right. but the police chief from back then said because he also said that the police chief went to court to testify for him oh but the thing about newspapers is they check up on shit you say right so they went and talked to the police chief and he said I never testified for him he said he gave me his weapons later to hold them to hold until the court proceedings were over but that was after he was charged already right and that's because that's a law You're not allowed to have a gun if you've physically abused somebody. Which came after. Right, your spouse. Right. Yeah. And so after that, he was like, oh, well, I'm going to be, was it Brady laws? I don't know what the law includes. Maybe around there. Something like that. The waiting period was a Brady law. It might be. I think it has to do something with that. Might all be lumped in to some big gun bill. It's stalker shit. Talker shit. And DV shit. If you're accused of that shit, you can't have guns. You can't have it. That's probably a good law. Not probably. a good fucking law. That's a great fucking law. One of the better ones. So, the night of the murder here, he said a close friend and fellow paramedic had scheduled a study date. He says he could prove he was home that evening in part because of his call to that Cynthia woman we talked about. But this Cynthia woman's mother who took the call said the study date was, quote, for some time, not necessarily that night, and said to call the friendship between them close would be really stretching it. Yeah. This is just some guy he was calling, and they're looking at that as an attempt to establish an alibi, essentially. Yeah. And it was that Cynthia was ill that night, and so he said he spent the day doing chores and shit. So his final thoughts are, quote, there's no way in hell I could do this to my friend. No? All my life I've been a public servant. Right. You can hear. All my life. Start the violin music or the Sarah McLaughlin with the injured puppies in the background. I'm a public servant. In the eyes of the ring. All my life, I've been a public servant. A wave of someone. Yeah, he's doing all that. He's finishing it for you. Yeah, I think he does. He's finishing it. It's probably 92 also. It's probably close, right? It's in the ballpark, man. He said, I serve the people. Oh. I love watching a person in a jail uniform say, I serve the people. That's hilarious. It's in his orange, whatever it is. I'm not violent. I'm not a crazy person. No? Clearly not. He said, my problem is the sheriff has painted a dark picture of me. It's all these liars. Yeah. All these people just painting me in a corner. She's lying on me. Yeah. He said he's ready to go, and then as he gets ready to go back to his cell, the composure cracks, and he said, my son will be five next week and I'm in here. Tears fill his eyes and he said, and I shouldn't be. Okay. Get that fancy dancing Mexican motherfucker. Get him. I got a feeling he's going to be six and you're still going to be in there. Still, the county sheriff disagrees. They say, quote, we did our homework on this case. We didn't pull his name out of the telephone book. Right. If I wanted to just get John Cumby, I would have had him in jail on the first day. It took us six months to put the whole case together. Right. Sufficient evidence will be presented at trial to convict. And just take time. Cumby's attorney said, I'm absolutely convinced the guy's not guilty. I've never seen a murder case with so little evidence. Have you seen one where a guy acts so guilty? Yeah. As though obviously, clearly, making me think he's guilty. How many murder cases have you seen? Yeah, tons, apparently. Chicago Tribune here talks about him wanting a change of venue. and the judge said there's no clear evidence that you won't get a fair trial because of publicity. So you're staying. They keep arguing that Lake County would be a more appropriate place for the trial because they're saying they're alleging that the beating occurred there, but the body was found in McHenry County, so they're going to do all of that. They also said a jury in Lake County, which is like a quarter mile that way, will be more impartial. They haven't heard it. The county line stops all news. Right. It's a big brick wall. It has a nice filter buffer. TV fucking rays don't go over that. Signals don't go. Newtpapers can't get through. It's vertical, like a silo. Yeah. It stops shit. It's like East Berlin. You've got to airdrop info to these people. They just don't know what's happening in the outside world. They said because they haven't been subjected to all the negative publicity, those people from a quarter mile that way. People right there. read the same newspapers and watch the same TV shows. He says there's just too much press. This is after he did extensive interviews and mailed letters to the goddamn people. Put the press out. He said the potential jurors may not admit they read the articles, which could sway them to believe Cumbie's guilty. Right. He said people, and then his defense attorney said, people want to be on murder juries. They're going to say anything to get on a murder jury. Aren't they? Okay. This is the first person in the history of the world that says, people are scamming to get jury duty, man. They want it. They're really looking for jury duty. Yeah, most people are trying to get out of it, to be honest. Yes. People go in there and say they hate minorities or whatever the fuck they can do to get out of this shit. People say crazy shit to get out of these things. There's literally zero cases of people going up to the courthouse going, I haven't gotten a summons in six, eight years. Hey, guys, can I get in there? Is there a murder case going on? volunteer me, me, me, me. I'll do it. I'll do it. It's been so long, you guys. Every time they eliminate me, it's bullshit. Yeah, I've gotten one jury summons in my entire life. Really? I took it and threw it right in the garden. I was 22. I'd go now, but at the time I was 22 and I was like, I'm not doing that. I lied my ass off and said I knew the cops so that I could get the fuck out of there. There you go. That's what people do. That guy looks like my age. We're friends. You either show up and lie or you go, don't need that. Because I look at it and I go, it's mailed. It's not certified. There's no way they know I got it. Got lost in the mail. See you later. They'll send another one if they want me that bad. I'll show up. I'm going to work my balls off to get the fuck out of here. Man, that is a crazy statement, though. I'd show up now, yeah, to say that people will do anything to get on a jury. No way. Especially a murder case sounds like it's going to take a while. Right. I don't want shit to do. Yeah, I don't fucking do this. My kid's got volleyball. No shit. The prosecutor says also about the change of venue, he said, the defendant's self-serving interviews neutralize any arguably negative pretrial publicity and eliminate any reasonable apprehension that the accused cannot receive a fair and impartial trial. He did it to himself. Yeah. Fuck off. So there's a lot of argument about where it happened and the jurisdiction and that's on this line and this is over here. If you're ever going to murder somebody, do it right on a county line. It'll delay shit for a long time. It'll fuck everything up. They have no idea. There's also an argument here. A detective testified that Kathy apparently was savagely beaten on the head with a fireplace poker and said certain evidence in the car, an apparent reference to Kathy's blood and hair samples, as well as chips of her teeth, showed the brutal killing could have been a continuous attack carried over to the tracker. Oh. Someone might have thought she was dead in the middle. She wasn't. Danged beating all the way in and out. Wow. He said, I believe the death occurred during a three-hour time frame from when she left her house at 8.30 to later on. They also talk about the large quantities of her hair recovered from a yellow-handled broom. They said that the defense, though, says the police have failed to turn up any more witnesses to the killing and that the lead attorney said outside the court the fireplace poker contained no blood, skin, or bone fragments when it was analyzed by the laboratory. He said the fragments found in her skull were from a black object, not the brass color of the poker. You know, it's black, though, soot from a fireplace poker. I have a fireplace inside. You can see it. It's got soot all over it from the poker, and especially if he had fires going, which he said he did. Right. They made love in front of him. He fucked in front of him. Yeah. Yeah. The prosecutor said, our theory is that the acts that caused Kathleen's death took place at the defendant's home, but we do not know which county she was at at the exact moment of her death. But we're going to call it McHenry. So the defense attorneys say that the fingerprints were not, his fingerprints aren't on the vehicle. He would know enough from being a cop to not make fingerprints. they said that you know Cumbie's law enforcement background he's cagey enough to know the county line would severely impede a murder investigation they say also which it does here now pre he wants a bunch of things Letters written by him to his former wife concerning their marital problems he wants suppressed Evidence that he allegedly beat Kathleen on four occasions from December 1990 to January 92. Yeah. Police testimony that showed no remorse when informed of his death. and that he had several guns in the house and that he refused to give a blood sample until ordered by the court. He wants all that suppressed. Oh. All the bad stuff that makes me look guilty. Please don't say it. All this shit evidence. Yeah. Can we suppress that I knew her? Is that possible? We'll just call it good. Can we suppress that I'm a suspect? Right? Is that possible? So, yeah, this is a lot. They said that they talk about witnesses that knew about her getting beat and shit like that. 1993 is a trial. Oh, boy. Seven men, five women, obviously, on the jury here. And the trials are going to detail everything. We'll get into it. Mom, Betty, testifies, obviously, and says that she was against the relationship because of several alleged beatings that she took at the hands of John. So any mother would be not cool with that. Not cool. She told the jury that this is a mother's worst fear for how her daughter's life could end. She said her daughter left the house to see friends, and they said, did you ever see your daughter again? She said, yes, I did, in the morgue. Oh, Jesus. That's crazy. That's dark. That's dark, man. That's fucking, that's grim. I mean, that's what you want to tell a jury, yeah. Yeah, rather than grim Karen. We might go with grim Betty from now on. That's true, but that's grim. She's not kidding. I feel bad for her. So her brother Rick testifies as well and says, I feel so guilty that I did not try and get John out of her life earlier before he murdered her. And, yeah, he said he trusts no one now. Then they bring up the detective that he told, I did it, so what? Oh, that's not good. Detective Eugene Lowry said, yeah, I did it, so what? I mean, you're arrested. What are you going to do? Yeah. Through cross-examination, defense attorneys questioned if maybe he was speaking with sarcasm. Yeah. But he said that the cops said, they said, was it sarcastic? And he said, quote, it was nothing but the truth coming out, which is hilarious. He said, I believe John Cumby is the murderer of Kathleen Tawarowski. Mr. Cumby's facial expressions were calm, and at no time did he show any remorse. At no time did I observe any tears or crying. He never expressed his sorrow in any way. All right. And I heard him say, yeah, I did it. You did it. So what? So what? So what? John's girlfriend here, or on and off, Loretta Dixon, the woman he dated once before and once after the murder, said she called John at 9.15 the night of the murder and talked to him for about 18 minutes. He said that we discussed where we would meet the following morning. He's going to help me move some of my belongings out of storage. All right. He sounded relaxed. It was a normal conversation. That's not frightening. That's frightening. That's right. Because that is frightening. Now, to me, Betty didn't hear, and I'm just going to venture a theory. Sure. Betty didn't hear the conversation between her daughter and John on the phone. Right. She said that. Yeah. So that conversation might have been, hey, tell your friends you're going out and come over to my house. And she might have been, oh, yeah, yeah, and then told her mother she was going to her friend's house and then went to John's because that's what she had been doing. All right. So that's what the theory is here, is that he talked her into coming over, she came over. And then by the, yeah, after this conversation with his friend sometime after that or before, he killed her in the house, drug her into the tracker and drove off. Got it. So there's defense attorneys here, one named Donald Ostermeyer. He's an Ostermeyer wiener. Ostermeyer? Ostermeyer. Oh, you poor bastard. And it is Ostermeyer except with a T. With a T. That's rough. With a D? With a T. Thomas. Yeah. A crime scene expert from Florida, this guy is. He's seen plenty of those down there. Who challenged the evidence that blood was found in his home. He said Cumbie's home was not a crime scene because there's no blood spattered on the fireplace walls or ceiling. He emphasized that although blood detection tests at his house were positive, the test could not be confirmed. So they also got another person to talk about the amount of black material found in her head wounds, saying it was not soot from the fireplace poker, as the police believe. It could have been paint, vinyl, or rubber, this guy said. Now, the Boston area schools and the FBI and everybody else said it could have been soot. The defense sought a mistrial four times in the last few days of the trial, accusing prosecutors and the judge of improperly making comments or eliciting testimony that should have been withheld from jurors. Oh. So the judge denied all four of those motions, by the way. Yeah. In closing, defense lawyers questioned how jurors could possibly find him guilty when none of his hair or blood was found on her body. Okay. Why would he bleed? Yeah. He had a little scratch on his neck. It's not enough to bleed all over him. But no hairs? That's wild. So they said that a preliminary test showed blood on the living room carpet, and in the bathroom they couldn't be confirmed. So he's not guilty. He should be. Yeah. So the verdict comes in. They deliberate for six hours. Wow. Here. Six hours on Friday, six hours on Sunday. Uh-huh. So 12 hours, and they come out, tense courtroom, and they find him guilty of first-degree murder. First degree. They find him guilty. is, I believe it is. The county prosecutor said, we had such a tough case. It was such a violent murder and she was such a sweet girl. He sat stone-faced while they announced it. As they escort him from the courtroom, he didn't look back at his family or anything like that. His girlfriend had her head in her hands and she was the only person who did not stand when the judge and jury left the courtroom. And these are sore from doing all that tile alone. Yeah. The retiling of the place. He said, we're all positively devastated, the sister said. We can't imagine how they could find beyond a reasonable doubt. I think they've got the wrong person. This is the sister that put up the reward. Really? She said, I'm sure they got the wrong person. There's no way John could have done all that cleanup. He's so lazy. He's such a filthy, lazy animal. I can't see him doing it. Your freedom requires it. You'll do it. You're going to do it. Now, his attorney before sentencing said, what the judge sentences him to is meaningless because this case will be back on appeal as soon as the appellate court sees the errors. They will reverse this case. The prosecutor said when the case was indicted, it was an extremely weak case. It was the state's attorney's office and the sheriff's department who put it together after the indictment. As my predecessor said, good lawyers could win it. so the sentencing comes around and they are going to let in evidence that he was a brutal cop they let in the guy who put the gun to his head for a burnt down turn signal so that's fair game there's victim impact statements brother Richard says I think that John should spend the rest of his life in jail without parole because a small room with steel bars caging him is a great place for John to live and die unforgiven fuck that guy is what he said Yeah. John speaks. And what are you going to do here if you're John? How are you going to handle this? I mean, you're going to cry, right, and apologize? It's a 20-minute prepared statement. Really? Faulting the police for arresting the wrong guy. Not only that, not only putting him in jail, but defaming his character. I'm going to sue you all. He said in his statement, he criticized the judge, the police, the press, the victim's family. This defamation will not stand. Will not stand. People with a dead daughter should watch what they fucking say. Watch your tongue. Grieving family. Holy shit. In his, this is his, please don't sentence me to, the judge could sentence him to anywhere from 20 years to life without. Without. Without. out. And he said, you know that victim's family? Fuck them. Fuck them. That's what you say in front of a judge. What an idiot. And her friends as well. He spoke of his plans to appeal his case to court. Oh, judge, by the way, you did a shitty job, Tim, at your job. You're poor at it. I'm going to make them reverse all your bullshit. And he says he plans to appeal his case to court and he's not swayed to a court that's not swayed by politics and gossip. This is bad, right? This is bad. This is the worst thing you get through. He would have been better off saying, I've got nothing to say. Nothing to say. Way better off than this, than insulting everybody in the courtroom except for him and his lawyer. He said, quote, this is me. Here I am. I help everybody. I never hurt anyone. I think of myself as calm and serene. Yeah. He took a bite of girl's face off. What are you talking about? Bumble jib. It gets even better, old bubble jazz. I don't even watch violence on television. Oh, really? I'm incapable of it to the point I don't even like cop shows. I can't even absorb it in media. Wow. He, that is, wow. During his proclamation of innocence, a large group of people representing Kathy were laughing at him. He was crushing. He was having a great set. Great set. They're laughing, and he keeps going. Let's see who has the last laugh here. The judge here, after being told that the victim's family is a bunch of shitty liars, the cops suck. He's the worst judge ever. He's a bought, paid for, politically minded hack. Huge. The judge says, you suck. Yeah. May fuck off life without parole. He taught himself from 20 years to life without parole. from 20 years and will consider parole in that time. Could have been 10 years ago. Now we'll never talk about it. Fuck you. Forever's that way, dickhead. That's what they narrowed that down to. It's dark down that hallway. Keep walking. Keep on. You know, when you see that light, just keep walking. It'll get there eventually. No, it won't. Face it. The prosecutor said, quote, he deserved it. What kind of person is it to take a fireplace poker and ram it into her face? That's how he treated somebody who tried to help him. He savagely beat her. He said also that he convicted himself. Yeah. He said he was the state's best witness during the trial, and he was the state's best witness during sentencing. He told unbelievable stories, lashed out at everyone else, and called everybody else liars. Right. He lost his credibility on the stand. He said this guy was out in left field. It seems like he's the only guy who tells the truth. In his telling, literally everyone but him. He said, I think the sentence was great. I guess the only thing better could have been, would have been if we had the death penalty. God, it was great. It was great if he got the death penalty. The death penalty was only for certain types of murders. Multiple murders, I think, or police officers or whatever. Dismemberment or some shit. Some shit. Kathy's mom said, quote, what goes around comes around. Not bad. He never even came to us and said he was sorry for what happened to Kathy. So even if he didn't kill her, you go over and go, wow, I'm really sorry. I can't believe this happened. I know you and I know her. I should say you're sorry. He should never be able to celebrate another birthday or holiday with his family just like Kathy can't. And she said, I've always wanted to just go up to him and shake him and say that to him. How could you do this to her? John's family, not the same. What's this guy? Kathleen Cumbie God damn it Kathy Cumbie Kathy Cumbie is his sister said I believe John my mother believes John Bill believes John I'm not saying he's an angel but he's not a murderer he did not murder Kathleen and they said no matter how long it takes I'll stick with him until the end okay well I mean forever again that way forever's that way asshole enjoy no parole lady None. His lawyer said if there was ever a good appeal, this is it. The local court made 22 errors during the trial, he said, by allowing hearsay testimony about his prior violence against her. Now, what do the jurors say? What do they say? They said that one juror said it was obvious that he lied about many things. He lied about having followed his girlfriend to a bar where he bit her face. despite eyewitness testimony he told jurors he never followed or bit her face he told jurors he went to the bar at her invitation and told reporters he never set foot in the place so he told three different stories to three different people you can't do that no he said the jurors said that jurors said they questioned why blood was not spattered on his ceiling but they noticed it was a cathedral ceiling really high so they said way less likely to catch blood because it would have gone up and it would have came back down again. Oh, he's got super high ceilings? Super high ceilings, which makes all the difference. Yeah. They said on the night of the murder, he watched TV, did dishes, made laundry. The jurors said, or did laundry, the jurors said the numbers didn't add up when they calculated how long it would take to complete these chores. So they went through it. How long does it take you to do laundry? How long does it take you to wash dishes? After closing arguments, they said that, you know, it became pretty clear what was going on. 1995 he appeals oh okay his attorney says this case should be reversed it didn't happen in McHenry County oh he wants to do that there's not one bit of physical evidence connecting Mr. Cumby to the crime now none of that really matters because because the former trial judge failed to provide jurors with an instruction on venue This is literally a jury instruction about venue. They reverse it. Wow. They reverse the conviction. New trial or new sentence? They have to retry. Oh, my God. Now, 1996, there's a new inmate. He's new in town, as we always say. He was incarcerated in the jail at the same time as John, and he was convicted of forgery and theft. Okay. In July 1996, he was arrested twice in one week for driving under the influence of alcohol. Nice. That's a good one. Twice in a week. That guy's a party. He's a party. Yeah, he is. He is fun. Two DUIs in a week. Let's get him a Nerf car and everybody get the fuck out of the way. That's the guy that does not learn. No, he does not. He just got out and he's like, I'm pissed off. I need some drinks. God damn it. He served two weeks in jail where he met John. Yeah. In the middle of July 96, he asked John why he was wearing a yellow band on his wrist. Uh-huh. And at first, John said, Can I get into the club? What is that? Is that a free commissary or what? What do we got? Is that the drink ticket? Is it an unlimited amount with a wristband or do I need tickets? So he told John told him for an assault and then said he was in jail for attempted murder. Lies, lies. He's already convicted of murder. According to this guy, John told him that he and a girl were drinking when John became angry and hit her with a fireplace poker. And so he says, he said, John said he got carried away and he didn't mean to kill her, but shit happens. Why did he say that? he then further told this guy Rogers that he quote dropped the body off in McHenry County because you can't get tried in two different counties oh because he's a cop and he knows these things he knows that shit yeah so as we were saying he knew about the jurisdictional lines would fuck things up why did he say both of those things that's what a dumb joke now Rogers the guy who's going to testify against him has not promised anything in exchange for his testimony and he apparently, no, just a couple of drinks, he said he went straight to the state's attorney's office to relay the information when he was released from jail. Okay. 2001 comes around. He's still in there. He wants to change a venue for a new trial. That's what he wants. They say, the alleged murder and death occurred in John Cumbie's home. That's what they say, which is in Lake County. So going by the prosecution's logic, he should be in Lake County. Sure. So they presented several motions for this, and they said our short-term method is to get out of McHenry County and get some prosecutor who doesn't have a political agenda to make a legitimate decision as to whether or not this case should proceed. Again, those people half a mile that way, totally different people. No clue. So that's what they're doing here. He also wants his murder charge dropped. To what? To nothing? To nothing. because he said they didn't preserve the geotracker. But you have to know, a geotracker after, like, what, four years, it just deteriorates. It's a dust, doesn't it? It's like a dandelion spore. You go, and it blows away, and then it grows a bunch of more little tiny geotrackers all over the yard. Got to watch out for that. And they all fall over, too. They all do it eventually, too. He says that, yeah, he wants the tracker preserved, and we can't test it. But meanwhile, all the tests were done, photographed. It's essentially preserved. Preserity, yeah. They can't just keep a geotracker in storage for the rest of their lives. Yeah. Murder was 10 years ago, for Christ's sake. It's devaluing the property by now. Yeah, like any geotracker does. A new geotracker would devalue your property. I'll get your H-O-A pistol. Yeah. The prosecutor said, In the geotracker, there was blood spatter and pools of blood. The defense is entitled to have its expert examine the interior of the car in order to trace the blood spatter patterns and determine thereby the nature of the wounds and the manner in which they may have been inflicted. John Cumby is unable to prepare for trial without having an expert examine this critical piece of evidence, the defense says. So the prosecutors say there was photographs and evidence collected. You got it. Don't worry about it. The prosecutor said it was not used as evidence by the state or the defense. It was of no value during the trial. Okay. So why does he need it now? So not all of a sudden. So July 2003, trial number two. Two, yeah. Let's do it. Michelle Gask testifies about New Year's Eve stalking the Hard Rock Cafe. Laura Hill testifies about the biting incident. Now the trial court gives a limiting instruction to the jury explaining that the evidence was being received on the issues of the defendant's identity, intent, and motive, You can't say because he bit or he killed her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you can add it to his character overall, basically. And over objection, she testified also that she was very afraid of John. Right. They also have huge fights over the luminol testing. Jesus Christ. Gary Reney, who performed the luminol testing here, he became a police officer in 1975, and over a period of 28 years had taken all the requisite courses for updated information and continuing education for that shit. He has a master's degree in forensic science from George Washington University, belonged to several forensic organizations, taught courses in crime scene investigation, bloodstain pattern analysis, and luminol testing. He and a colleague developed a technique to photograph luminol, and their article was published in scientific journals in 1988. This guy knows his shit. He knows luminol. That's for goddamn sure. This guy pisses luminol. Yeah. It comes right out of his dick hole, this guy. He testified over 100 times, been qualified as an expert in luminol processing, blood spattern pattern analysis, death investigation, crime scene investigation, and forensic investigation. Yeah. They object vociferously to him being qualified as an expert. Right. Which it seems like there is a who would be a better expert than this guy. you could possibly bring in. Sounds like the godfather of it. So they when they're qualifying him as an expert, they're asking him like Mona Lisa Vito questions like, well, what's the what's the timing on his 57 Bel Air? All that shit. They ask him like, you know, tell us about the history. And he said, well, Luminol was first synthesized in 1902 and has been used as a forensic tool since the mid to late 1930s to determine whether blood is present. And then he crossed his legs and winked at Vinnie LaGuardia again. And the guy goes, I regret asking anything about this boring-ass shit. He goes, she'll do. He seems to know it. All right. Seems to know it. So he explains luminol to these fucking people. The other one, the phenol, non-luminol, he said, is generally accepted within the scientific community as a presumptive test for the presence of blood. Now, on cross-exam, he said that luminol and non-luminol are both screening tests that are not conclusive. The pheno test is not a confirmatory test, and luminol reacts positively to a number of common items. Oh? Yeah, because it's certain elements in the blood that it reacts to. What else? Jizz and urine and blood? It's probably just all bodily fluids, right? Well, certain things are for blood, but I'm not sure exactly what are for. Because, like, jizz, you could just go in with a blacklight and see it. You don't even need to see it. Yeah, that's a good point. Urine, do it. Maybe you do it. Yeah, I think it's bodily fluids, I would think. Right? I mean, who's looking for anything but that? Yeah. But I guess the difference between spit and blood would be huge. Yeah. So you need something that would. Well, I mean. I don't know. If you're missing a giant pool of spit or a giant pool of blood, you're probably dead. I mean, like, drops. Yeah. There could be drops. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what they look for on walls, on the floor, things like that. Spit or blood, because that much spit isn't that big of a deal. But that much blood, that's a problem. That's a problem. I think that luminol or one of those attaches to some element in the blood. I don't know what it is. A protein or something? A metallic element, something. But don't quote me on that because I don't fucking know. I don't know. I don't know. I should remember. They said, why are you in high school? Yeah. I just watched forensic files, and I was like, dang, that's a lot. That's a problem. Somebody's thick. That's an issue. Yeah. So on cross-examination, he stated he could not be sure that the fibers from the wastebasket came from Kathy's sock, but they could have. You can't tell exactly with fibers. You can tell they're similar, but they're not exact. And rayons, rayon. Yeah, exactly, but the purple, blue, green acrylic fibers are very specific apparently. Then they get the cellmate testimony. He says, yeah, I said he got mad and bashed her with a fireplace poker, but he didn't mean to kill her. And he was, by the way, hadn't been back to jail after he'd been released in 96 and has no looming charges or anything like that. So he figured out how to not drink and drive. Yep. And the prosecutors are like, thank fuck, because now we don't have to offer you anything for this testimony. Near the end of the state's case, the jury took a bus tour of the home, of his home, Cumbie's home, Cumbie Central, and Kathy's home. Oh, that's the same house. Okay. The jury, the judge, the prosecutors, court reporter, and a defense attorney all traveled on the bus while he, John, traveled in a separate vehicle with one of his lawyers and sheriff's deputies. Why didn't you ride with everybody? Not allowed to. Oh, is that right? They might overhear him saying something. Plus, I assume security. You don't have a convicted murderer around a bus full of strangers. Well, he's not convicted right now, is he? We're going through trial. He's still convicted. I mean, it's overturned, but he was convicted, and he's in jail for murder. Yeah. The defense case, a police sergeant of the McHenry Sheriff's Department here testified on behalf of John. Oh. According to Sergeant Lutz, who interviewed Rogers, that's the cellmate, regarding the alleged statement, Rogers did not tell him that the defendant and Kathy were drinking on the night of their death. In addition, he wrote in his report that Rogers said, they're going to get me for hitting her with the fireplace poker. So pretty much the same thing, just in different words. Fireplace poker expert. Here we go. Really? They got an expert. For everything. He's an expert in firearms and tool mark identification. Testified he received Kathy's bone skull fragments and the fireplace poker for testing. Based on his examination of the fragments, he could not determine a specific type of tool or object that could have produced those tool marks. In his opinion, the fireplace poker could not be identified or eliminated as having made the impressions on the bone skull fragments. A medical doctor and expert in forensic pathology, Nancy Jones, testified that after reviewing reports from everybody and photographs, she concluded the instrument that caused the injuries were not the fireplace poker, but a long cylindrical object, she says. Okay. She says that the instrument that was used left evidence of itself in the skull. What's a fireplace poker? Not a long cylindrical object. I guess the end is different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's got to be a little. The lot part. Yeah. So there's that. Then there's a babysitter. All right. His final witness is a babysitter who used to babysit his children. And she said on May 5, 1992, at approximately 11.30 p.m., she was leaving her mother's home in Spring Grove when she saw a car coming at her in the middle of the road. According to her, the driver had a dark hair and a fuller face, and the passenger in the car was not moving, and she didn't know whether the driver was him or not. So they have someone who positively identifies him as the driver with an unconscious passenger that night and someone who goes, looks like him, but not sure. Okay, now, closing arguments. These are going to be big because, well, a state's attorney stressed the witness testimony that he was frustrated with his relationship and it had gone sour. He said, John Cumby's jealousy, his passion, and his rage built up to the murder of Kathleen. For whatever reason, John's rage exploded. His rage turned into fury. That fury turned into homicidal frenzy. Oh. Yeah, that's a lot. Dirty. Now, the defense said there's no physical evidence linking him to the geotracker. None of his hair, blood, or fingerprints are in there. They also cautioned jurors not to make too much out of the evidence that witnesses say that he bit her in the face in January. Don't make too much of that. Don't make too much of the fact that he stalked and abused her for months before she was killed. And bit her fucking faith in public. He then said, you don't have a duty to like John. You don't have a duty to like his relationship with Kathy. But you do have a duty to acquit. There's a lot of duty. A lot of duty in this case. I know who's got some duty that they're full of. He said, there's a crime scene here, just as there is a killer, but the state never found it. Oh. The prosecution says, remember the defendant had two days from the time the body was found before the police executed the search warrant. So he could have cleaned up pretty well. And they also said that he missed a spot in his cleanup, the bathroom wastebasket, where forensic experts found fibers that matched shit from all over her body. Ah, the old you missed the spot. Real nice. That's right. You've got to be careful when you're doing that shit. But then they instruct the jurors that if evidence does not show where she died, they may satisfy the venue issue by agreeing that her body was found in McHenry County. Okay. So that's what the last judge didn't do was that instruction. Just telling them that, look, you can all agree where it was found. Totally. That's fine. So, yeah, the verdict comes in here, and the defendant here objects to the state's venue instruction, by the way, and all that shit. But here it goes. They go in and they find him. What do you think, Jimmy? Guilty again, right? Guilty of first-degree murder. Yeah. First-degree. I'm shocked. They also found the murder, well, would have to be seriously planned and executed. This isn't an accident. So the jury also found the murder was accompanied by exceptionally brutal and heinous behavior indicative of wanton cruelty, which gives you use there. May fuck off. Life without. Life without again. All that for this bullshit. God damn it. Stop spending taxpayer money. Unbelievable. This is what he said before they sentenced him, by the way. I feel sorry for the Twerowski family. I adored Kathy. She was a great person, a friend. I did not do this crime. Any sentence you give me would be unjust. Okay. He said, keep on keeping on, Chief. The defense attorney said he will appeal this verdict. Oh, God, stop it. he believes were several errors made. He said, I think it's fair to say that when you look at the record, there's no evidence that John Cumby murdered Kathy Tawarowski. I told John Cumby moments ago that he's in the middle of a 15-round heavyweight fight. Oof. The jury foreman said it was accumulation of everything. There was no one thing that made us feel the way we did. Betty, Kathy's mom, said he's a liar. He'll never admit what he did. Yeah. She nailed him. She knows what he is. Yeah. The brother said same thing. It's the second time. It's the truth again. They described him as a manipulative, pathological liar, and they will expect him to appeal forever. Yeah. He said as long as he has that chance, we're always going to be nervous when the decision is in someone else's hands. Maybe our family will have a little bit of peace for a few holidays, though. And if he ever gets out, society's in danger. That's a bad person. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Brother Brad has a way succinct or a more succinct way of putting it. Quote, the judge can't send him to hell, so we have to be satisfied with life in prison. Jesus Christ. It's as close as we can get. It's as close as we got. Yeah. John's mom said, we know John is innocent. The whole thing is bogus. All right. Take it easy. She's stuck in 92 when she saw Wayne. She's got a number six movie. there's a letter to the editor in 2003 in August in this newspaper Northwest Herald and it says I'm disturbed by the vitriol of your August 7th editorial let come be rotten prison the state withheld exculpatory evidence from John's lawyers in his first trial a note from the same crime lab demonstrates beyond a doubt that the fireplace poker from John's house could not have been the weapon that killed her notes from the internal investigation in 1992 two were not disclosed to the lawyers at the first trial. Those notes reveal that a polymer substance was embedded in the wound and skull fracture. He goes on to say, John's fireplace poker had no polymer coating. The fireplace poker could not have been the instrument that killed him. And I don't like the way you're talking shit. Your editorial power should place under a microscope the sheriffs, police, and prosecutors who abuse their powers and seek to convict the innocent. Jed Stone, lead attorney, John Cumby's defense team. Oh, no, that's right. Not John Q. Public. 2006, he appeals again. God damn it. Pretty much the same shit. And they say, fuck you. Yeah. Confirmed. We're going to hang on to it. Yeah. We made the right instruction this time. February 2009, they're going to pay his lawyer bill. No. He's got a $24,344 lawyer bill here. And they said they're going to pay it. No problem. They said there's a fine of the lawyer, all this crap. 2011, he files a complaint against the warden claiming a claim under the Eighth Amendment for deliberate indifference to medical need. He files tons of shit. Is that cruel and unusual? Is that what that one is? This is with the prison warden. Right. Warden. Okay. Isn't that what the Eighth is? I don't know. Something like that. Is that cruel? Prisoners can't live in your house? I'm trying to think. Eighth Amendment. I don't remember. The Army can't occupy your house. It's got to be cruel and unusual. You don't have to give up your living room for the Army squatters. So apparently he worked with his attorneys to prepare his defense. Cumby injured himself. He cut his lip while working in the inmate kitchen when he was assigned for his job. How you do that, I have no fucking idea. I mean, there's a lot of ways. He says he slipped and struck himself in the mouth with a roasting pan that he was carrying. Oh. Didn't report that injury to anyone at the prison. Someone punched him. Somebody hit him. Yeah. But the Internal Affairs Office received an anonymous tip that he was involved in a fight, so they opened an investigation. Under prison policy, he was placed on investigative status and moved into a segregation housing unit, which is distinct from being on segregated status, which is a disciplinary measure. Oh. He was never placed in segregated status in connection with this incident. And he's basically suing, saying they didn't treat him nice enough in jail. Right. Based on they made him, him being in this segregated thing, made him not be able to participate in his defense the way he wanted to, his appeals. And then hitting himself in the mouth, he didn't get a doctor. All right. He didn't get shit. Yeah, they don't care. So there is a lot. Also, there's stuff about dietary things that he wrote. Yeah. Is it forcing him to eat eggs, James? There's a lot. Yeah, he's shitting all over the place, Jimmy. He's just like you. He's got a problem. He's got a little issue. 2013, he appeals again. Oh, God damn. This time, he's got no lawyer pro se this time, baby. It's all him. Uh-oh. If you're from another country or don't know legal shit, that means he's representing himself. Mm-hmm. He contains the trial court erred in granting his motions, erred in granting defendant's motion to dismiss because there was no proper certification that the grand jury was impaneled and sworn, and thus it lacked just a jurisdiction. He contends that his conviction and sentence must be vacated. Is that right? He said the grand jury has no right to say shit about me, goddammit. They don't have jurisdiction over me. Wow. 2016, he sues the warden again for his refusal to allow Cumby to return to his work assignment in the inmate kitchen after he was the subject of an untimely, unsubstantiated allegation of fighting. Right. It's still that same shit from back then. It's denied. Okay. Eat dicks, John. 2023, he wants new DNA testing. Really? Yep. He says there's new testing methods that should set me free. All right. Let me at it. All right. But as of right now, he is still in prison. Illinois Department of Corrections as of January 19, 2026 is when I looked it up. He's at the Sheridan Correctional Center. Let's see here. That's very similar to Sheridan. Terrible. Six foot, 198 he is. He's got some scars and shit like that. Last parole date, or projected discharge date, quote, ineligible. Zero. None of them. Zero. Fucked in the ass. And there, everybody, is the story. It's about time. Yeah, there is John. About time they finally dismissed everything. Stop. Yeah. Don't let him talk anymore. You just lied. Don't let him do it. It's over. So there's Spring Grove, and there is one wild hell of a goddamn weird. case and i don't know what happened still what happened if he just shut the fuck up i'd go jesus they got nothing against this guy this is it seems like he might have done it based on the past he's not a good guy i don't like him but i don't know if you can convict him of murder but then he got up in front of a judge and said they're all liars and the family's a liar this one's a liar and everybody conspired he convinced me that he did it he talked me into it trying to do yeah i did it God damn it is what he's trying to say, I think. So there you go, everybody. That is Spring Grove. Hope you enjoyed that. Thank you so much. If you like this show, lots of ways to tell everybody you like it. First of all, you're on Netflix. Tell everybody. Get your participants on. And give us five stars on whatever app you're listening to this on as well. You can do that. Do that. Listen to our other two shows, Crime and Sports and Your Stupid Opinions. Head over to Shut Up and GiveMeMurder.com. Get your tickets for live shows, everybody. starting out February 21st in Nashville. Durham on March 6th. Atlanta on March 7th. Phoenix is sold out, but your stupid opinion still has some tickets to Phoenix. Get that. Salt Lake City, sold out. Denver, selling wells. Buffalo, sold out. Sold out. Royal Oak, Michigan, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Dallas, San Jose, Sacramento, Tarrytown, Boston. Shut up and givememurder.com has the whole calendar. Links to everything. Get your tickets there. Definitely do that. Follow us on social media. We are at SmallTownMurder on Instagram, at SmallTownPod on Facebook. Get yourself Patreon. Do yourself a favor. I'm telling you. Patreon.com slash Crime in Sports. 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Jimmy, hit me with the names of the most wonderful goddamn people on the face of the earth who would never, ever, ever smash our faces in with fireplace pokers and then call our families liars. Hit me with them right fucking now. This week's executive producer of Nathan Nolte. I imagine that's Nick's kid. Sharon Jones. Ash Kalb. Kalb. Kalb. Ben Cartlidge. Benny Boy. Alina? Alinea? Alinea. Montroy. Happy birthday, Alinea. Happy birthday. Alinea? What is that? A-L-I? Alinea? Alinea? N-E-A? Alinea? Sounds like Alinea. I don't know. Melissa Warburton. Gary Howard checking in in Winter Haven, Florida. Martin Marufo. Thank you, Martin. And Mew Hayes. She signed up for Patreon also. Thank you so much, Mew. Thank you so much. I guess that's your real name. Mew is the sound a cat makes, right? What's that? Mew. Yeah, mew. Mew, mew. That's our executives. Thank you guys so much for everything. Thank you, guys. You guys fucking rule. I appreciate it. Other producers this week, Samantha McCormick, Peyton Meadows, Happy Hour, checking in. Chandler, Arizona. Look at you, buddy. Oh, boy. Dealing with the best weather in the country at the moment. Ryan Bender, Nathan Rose, Janice Hill, Gary Howard. I said that. Cody and Delaney Leversey checking in because of the new Netflix. Congrats on your baby, guys. Deal, you guys are fantastic people Been here from the beginning Thank you so much Nice to drink beers with you every time we're in Detroit, Cody You're a good kid Liam Gatton, Gattone Corey Adair, Adair Peggy Auguste Adam with no last name Heather Kelly Celia Gates Sabix with no last name Megan Sullivan Handsomest Sansomest Samsonest Did I say Samsonest? Why would you put that word in front of it? It's not the same Kate Patton David Horning Horning Maya Teka Alienus Alienus Alienus Den Menace Brandy Bradley Nomos Alan Berry Laura Siam Audra Hanson Megan McGee Christy with no last name Hunter Simpson Rachel McCarthy Tyler with no last name Esme Esme Kornmeyer Sandy Wattenbarger John Anderson Olivia Carter Jeanette Corona. That's right. Nick Dean. Aaron Marsh. Kathleen Campos Patlan. Nicole Lanier. Becky would know last name. Daniel Miller. Deanna Foster. Anthony Osicki. Brian Cunningham. Brandon Miller. John White. Sherry would know last name. With a C-H. Victoria Lazarella. Brandon Lou. Leo Lou. Robert Anderson. James Cole. Bub Bub Sean Labor. All right. That's the only one. Amber G. Paper Cowboy. Jeff Crossan. Simone Gibson. Brian Meek. Anna Herbert. Morgan McNamara. Josh Cecil. Grace Odinger. Victoria Wood. Kelly B. Amber Cox. Eliza. Keegan. Drake Nance. Kristen with no last name. Charlotte Nicole. Becca Conley. Steve Cost. Coast, perhaps. Brittany Leopold. Vinny Bailey. Kelly Graves. Melissa M. Yuppe River. Yuppe, I don't know. Paco, Herte. Jennifer with no last name. I've got to figure this out. I'll sit down next week. Claudia Kay. Magnus, Noden, J.J. Smith, Exeter with no last name. Maddie Kay, my turban is dirty. I know what you tried to say, and you're an asshole. Terry Blaschko. Tell us. You know what you did. Cynthia with no last name. Carly, Carly Burley. Josh Teague, Dylan Carrico. Melissa Aguirre. Paula with no last name. Joshua Rosenthal. Stephanie Culver. Alex Welch. Nick Ibotzen. Moises with no last name. Maybe Moses. I don't know. Erica Vincent. Alu. Is it Moises usually? It is. Alu is, right? Alu, yeah. It's usually Moises. All right. Brent Holtz. Rickster Semino. Dominic Wilson. Pat. No, it's Dan. Prok. Prokupitz. Prokupitz. Prokupitz. Prokupitz. Denny with no last name. Georgia Mavridu, Bradley Fritz, Justin Greenhaugh. All right. Julianne Trishida. What? Trishida. It's probably Trishida, right? It's not Trishida. You hit the shit hard on that one, though. Trishida. Kelly. Shelly with no last name. Stephanie Lawson. Kelly Parsons. That's why I said Kelly. Monica at Texas. I don't know if she's just at it or in it. Julie Giles. Giles, maybe. Jessica Soldberg. Hey, Jess, thank you. John Rousseau. Dale Warren. John, nope, that's Joe Throckmorton. Sparrow the Hero. Lisa Mazajewski. Josh Barr. Bake Marker. Danny Cummings. Susan with no last name. Brent Gamont. Guimont. Sharon Harvey. Denise Arguello. Arguello. Jesse. Hesse Hulsapple. That's Jamie, I'm sure. Heather Dryden-Balue. Eric Rauch. Erica Rauch. TLC 22. Angie with no last name. Sandy Saltzman. Mew. Hey, see. Told you she did it twice. Kiwi with no last name. Alan Lick. Dina Aspen. Isaac Larson. Marissa Mesiewicci. Mesiewish. Joe Watkins. Rose Rock. You bailed on that one. Missiewish Joe Watkins. Roizen Rock. Dougie Fresh. Probably not, but good for you. Jordan Ann. Michalski, Quentin Baker, Matt from Woodstock, Christine, and every person that's ever patroned this show donated a goddamn dollar on PayPal, bought a fucking ticket to our live shows, sent a Tillamook coupon. You guys are the fucking best, and I can't wait to see all of you in every place we go, specifically the very first one, Nashville. Get fucking tickets now. Thank you so much, everybody, for all that you do for us. God damn it, we appreciate it. Keep hanging out with us. If you want to follow us on social media, shutupandgivememurder.com is the place to find drop-down menus, take you to everywhere you need to go. Thank you, Netflix viewers. Unbelievable. Thank you for joining us this week. Thank you to Libsyn for making it possible for us to do this as well. Thank you mainly to all of you who made this possible out there because nobody gave a shit. They wouldn't have wanted to put us on here. So you've done this, and we just can't thank you enough. This is it. So thank you so much, everybody. Enjoy. And until next week, it's been our pleasure. Bye. Hey, everybody, listening to Small Town Murder out there. Hi. Good to see you out there. I'm here with Jimmy, too. And this is an ad, but not an ad for a product. This is an ad for tour dates. Yeah. Come see a live show, the 2026 tour. All the tickets are for sale right now, starting out with February 21st in Nashville, March 6th in Durham, March 7th in Atlanta. Phoenix is sold out. We do have tickets, though, to Your Stupid Opinions on the 21st of March. Salt Lake City sold out. Denver has tickets. Be there on May 2nd, May 29th. Buffalo sold out. Royal Oak, Michigan, May 30th. We have September 18th, Milwaukee. September 19th, Minneapolis. October the 3rd in Dallas. October 16th in San Jose. October 17th in Sacramento. November 13th in Tarrytown. November 14th in Boston. Come see us. The live shows are spectacular. Come join all of the other STM people. You're going to meet so many people. 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