♪ have you ever been ♪
♪ at the wrong place ♪
♪ at the wrong time? ♪
- Kelly siegler: Welcome home. - Well, it's nice to be back.
Did you ever work anything in beaumont when you were with hpd?
Beaumont's a spot for a dumpy ground
And another missing woman case.
It's so rural. You're so close to the gulf.
If you're gonna get rid of a body,
This is the right area to do it.
This is swampy as hell, right on the way to louisiana.
I've asked abbey to join me in my home state of texas
Because he's familiar with the area
And he knows how to build a murder case
When you don't have a body.
That's exactly the kind of expertise
That we need to investigate a case
That I've been interested in since I first heard about it
Back when I worked at the da's office.
This is the 1999 disappearance
Of young single mom kimberly langwell.
Kimberly langwell was 34 years old.
She lived here in beaumont, had a good job,
Had a good group of friends.
It felt like she was just starting
To get her life together again as a single mom.
Kim was really pretty with a magnetic personality.
She raised her 15-year-old daughter tiffani on her own.
And after recently ending a relationship,
She had a new boyfriend, and she was excited
About the next chapter of her life.
Abbondandolo: It's a horrible story,
What the family went through.
Kimberly's daughter was supposed to go out
To dinner with her on the evening she went missing,
And I can't imagine the fear that she went through
When she couldn't get in touch with her mom.
She paged her 911 and didn't get a response,
And she knew something's gotta be wrong.
Yeah.
Abbondandolo: On July 9, 1999, kim had made plans
To meet her boyfriend and daughter after work,
But she never showed.
Later that night, her car was located
In a drugstore parking lot.
But kim hasn't been seen or heard from since.
The problem with a missing-person case,
Especially for the investigator who believes it's a murder,
Is your main piece of evidence is missing--the body.
The body is going to tell you what happened.
And you're always hoping that where the body gets dumped
Can be your biggest clue, too,
To help you figure out who did it.
I know what it's like to go through that missing-person case
When you know it's not a missing-person case.
It's a murder where the body just hadn't been found.
I've got a lot of those that haunt me still.
I was raised by a single mom, too, just like tiffani was.
And that bond when your mother
Is your whole world to you growing up,
Losing that at such a young age,
That's got to be really devastating.
After 24 years, it's time that we finally bring tiffani
The answers to what happened to her mom.
- Hello, hello, guys. - Good morning.
- Good morning, guys. - Hey, heather. This is abbey.
- Hi. I'm abbey. - Heather wilson.
Nice to meet you, heather. Nice to meet you.
Jesus tamayo.
- Hey, jesus. - Mitch sligar.
- Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.
I remember in '99 when it happened,
'cause we were working in houston then,
As the years went on,
I remember seeing how y'all kept it up there
With their picture in the paper and all that kind of stuff.
So I was aware of the case.
This is one of our oldest missing persons,
And it comes up every few years.
The family's never gotten closure,
So we're very thankful you're here to help.
In 1999, I was a patrolman,
And I remember hearing about the case
Because everybody was concerned about kimberly langwell.
This case has been on my mind for quite some time,
And it is very important to give the family
Some answers and ultimately justice.
So, what do we know about kimberly?
Did she grow up here in beaumont?
Wilson: Yeah, she had lived here most of her adult life.
She had a good job at the chemical plant.
She was a single mom and living with her daughter at the time.
Her daughter's name is tiffani.
And she had just gotten out of a long-term relationship
And was getting back into the dating scene
And getting back on her feet.
I never thought about it
Until I started working all these cases
How being pretty is a risk factor, right?
She was very beautiful.
So on Friday, July 9, 1999,
Kimberly had went to work that day.
Gets off at 5:00 p.M.
She had dinner arrangements at 6:30 p.M.
With her daughter and a new guy that kim was seeing.
His name was ken weatherford.
She makes a phone call to her daughter about 5:15.
She tells tiffani that she's gonna make
A stop on her way home to her ex-boyfriend's house.
His name is terry rose.
He was remodeling his home at the time,
So she was gonna stop by and help him.
They were gonna hang some boards on the wall.
He said that she didn't stay very long,
Maybe 15 or 20 minutes at the most.
However, she never made it home at 6:30,
And she actually never made it home at all.
And when do tiffani and new boyfriend get alarmed?
When she was about an hour late.
They had been trying her cell phone at this time.
So about 11 p.M., ken leaves the house,
And he's started circling around,
Just, like, local bars and shopping area,
Looking for kim or her vehicle.
So sure enough, he actually finds her vehicle
In front of an eckerd's parking lot.
He said it stood out 'cause it was pretty much the only car
In that area of the parking lot.
So he checked the vehicle.
She wasn't in it. He's thinking clearly
She made other plans.
About 8 a.M.-- This is now on July 10--
He makes his way back to the parking lot,
Thinking her car should be gone by now.
She's gone home. The car is still there.
At that point, it was kind of like something's not right here.
So they started to call the police
And report her missing.
Abbondandolo: When police searched kim's car,
Her purse and car keys were missing, though no one believes
She would have just run off and left her daughter.
We can't rule out the possibility
That kim stopped at the drugstore on her way home
And was abducted by an unknown suspect.
But the investigation always
Centered around the known suspects in her world.
Her boyfriend ken displayed no red flags, and he was cleared.
But police were still interested in two other suspects.
Okay, y'all wanna start with terry rose?
Yes.
Terry knew kimberly because-- what was their relationship?
Wilson: They were exes back in 1999.
Terry owned a wrecker yard.
- And he's a tow truck driver. - Right.
His tow company is no longer operational, though, so...
How long have they been broken up?
About six months. Apparently,
Terry had an affair with one of kim's friends,
Which prompted the breakup.
Siegler: How do we wanna describe their relationship?
He was infatuated with her, according to everybody.
He was obsessed. He was possessive.
Wilson: They did verbally argue a lot.
Terry later admitted to physical abuse.
What's the most he physically abused her?
I think he said a slap. He slapped her in the face.
I think there's a significance
That the phone that's found in the car
Is her cell phone that he pays for.
Wilson: That he pays for.
Abbondandolo: Despite their tumultuous relationship
And breakup, terry was still trying
To keep kim in his life,
Routinely giving her money for bills and expenses,
Including giving her $500 for her trip to mexico
Shortly before she disappeared.
So he clearly wasn't over her.
Okay, so now let's put frank mccormick up on the board.
What's his relationship with kimberly?
He worked with kim. He was one of her supervisors
And admittedly had a crush on her.
Frank was married at the time.
He had what I would even consider
Like an obsessive crush on her.
He would actually write her love letters
And exchange them with her at work.
She hung on to all these letters.
She kind of had this weird vibe about it and thought,
"if I ever get fired one day, I wanna hang on to these.
And so she was actually secretly giving
These love letters to her best friend at the time
Who hung onto 'em for all these years.
And there's a lot of 'em, and they're pretty creepy.
Siegler: When y'all did go talk to him back then,
Remind me of how he acted.
I know in his statement,
He just admitted, "I have a crush on kim."
- She's very attractive." - I think it was minimized.
I think it was a little downplayed.
Always downplayed. "we're friends."
He stands to lose a lot at work and at home.
His reputation.
Siegler: Frank might have been downplaying his feelings
For kim back then,
But these letters sure seem to say otherwise.
Is it possible that frank might have followed kim that night
And then intercepted her after she left terry's house?
We need to figure out
How dangerous frank's obsession really was.
Have y'all ever met tiffani before today?
She's a very pleasant lady.
You can tell that she misses her mom dearly.
Me and tiffani are about the same age,
And so I just can't imagine my mom leaving for work one day
And just never coming back, you know?
I know that just altered her world.
Siegler: Who raised her after that?
Wilson: Her aunt susan, who's kim's sister.
I've met with the family personally, and I love them.
They're just such good people.
- Hello. - Hey, how are you?
- Good. How are you doing? - Good. Thank you.
Hi.
- I'm tiffani. - Nice to meet you, tiffani.
- Nice to meet you. - Hi, detective tamayo.
And you see them and you see kimberly.
I mean, her daughter and her sister look just like her,
And it really puts things into reality.
And it's just unfair. It's unfair to tiffani.
And we just want justice for the family.
Well, I guess we can just kind of start with--
If you wanna just kind of describe
And tell me about your mom.
I'm an only child.
My mom raised me pretty much by herself.
She had a lot of friends
And, you know, she was very fun and fun loving.
- What was she like growing up? - A little monster.
- [laughter] - no, she was a cute kid.
She was my tagalong. She was a good sister.
She was a young mother. Mom had me when she was 18.
Whenever I was real young, she was working, you know,
A daytime job, a nighttime job, and then a weekend job
Just to make sure that we made it.
So she was very strong in that way.
She was my world and I was hers.
The first few years were absolutely the hardest.
You know, those are the years
That you're going through high school,
Your first dances, driving, and proms and trips.
And she wasn't there.
And that hurts to love somebody so much
And her not being here anymore.
So going to the day of,
You had spoke to her at about 5:13 p.M.
She was letting me know that we were going to dinner with ken.
She let me know that she was going to stop by terry's house
On the way home. I remember her saying
That she needed to help him with something.
So, how often did your mom go around terry?
I don't know how often, because honestly, she wouldn't tell me
All the time 'cause she didn't want to hear it from me.
- You would have told her... - I didn't want him around.
I had a huge problem with terry, and she knew that.
He would be forceful with her
To let her know that he could be in control.
So I was uncomfortable with him.
I would say maybe three weeks, maybe after,
I went by terry's house and he said,
"how do you think I felt when I found out that I gave her $500
And she went with another man to mexico?"
Who did terry think your mom went on the trip with?
Women from work going.
But definitely not like a couple's trip?
No. No, not at all.
Siegler: It seems like kim told terry
That she was gonna go to mexico with some girlfriends,
But it was with her new boyfriend,
Not with a bunch of girlfriends.
And terry gave her some money for that trip.
So he's not very happy
When he finds out about kim going on that trip.
- Thank you so much. - It was very nice to meet you.
One of the questions that we have
Is whether or not terry knew all this
The day that kim last stopped by his house.
If we could get the answer to that,
That would go a long way in determining if terry played
Any part in what happened to kim when she disappeared that day.
Everybody seems to have good things to say about ken,
So I'm excited to meet him,
And hopefully he can have some good insight as well.
Abbondandolo: At the time
Of kimberly langwell's disappearance back in 1999,
Her boss, frank mccormick,
And her ex-boyfriend, terry rose,
Were both romantically interested in her.
- Are you ken weatherford? - I'm ken.
Abbondandolo: She also had a new relationship
With ken weatherford that was getting serious
To the point that they took a trip to mexico together.
We wanna see if ken knows anything else
About the other man in kim's life at that time.
We worked together. She was up front in the offices.
I worked in maintenance down in the field.
Wilson: So how long were y'all dating
Up until the time that she disappeared?
I would say three months of dating.
We took a trip to cancun together.
As a matter of fact, we just got back from cancun
When all this happened.
She wore a t-shirt with "cancun" on it and all that for Friday.
She was something else.
Can you take us back to July 9th of '99?
So when I got there, she never showed.
Tiffani was there. So it was just tiffani and I.
And then getting a little worried.
We started calling around. Really wasn't unlike her
To at least check in with tiffani.
When I got home at night, I sat out on the porch here.
Just worried sick. And so with me running around
Or going by places,
I saw her car in that shopping center.
Abbondandolo: And what did you think at that point?
I was worried.
The reason being, it was somebody that she'd
Been involved with that always worried me.
- Yeah. - And so...
- Was that... - Yeah.
- Terry? - Terry.
I did not know that she was going
By his place that afternoon.
I found that out later.
Abbondandolo: What did she tell you directly about him?
That he was a--
- A jealous type person. - Okay.
She didn't wanna be around him anymore.
- She had told me that. - Did you find out later
If she was dating anyone else romantically?
No.
I know that her boss, frank mccormick, he liked her,
You know, but he was married.
Wilson: What do you remember about frank?
- He didn't like me seeing her. - Probably not. Yeah.
Yeah. And I come out of her house one night,
And he was actually on the street, parked over there.
- Yeah. - 'cause he saw my truck there.
Abbondandolo: Well, thanks for your time, sir.
- You bet. - Have a good rest of your day.
Y'all take care.
Abbondandolo: Ken had some concerns about terry
And the stalker-like behavior for frank.
I really felt for ken. He was a believable guy.
He really cared a great deal about kim.
In fact, he remembers
That she was wearing a shirt from mexico
On the day that she disappeared.
It was clear to me that ken wanted
To develop a life with kim, and unfortunately,
It was abruptly and sadly taken away from him.
[line ringing]
Woman: Hello.
I'm one of the detectives investigating
The kimberly langwell's disappearance back in 1999.
Do you remember that?
If we're gonna figure out what happened to kim,
We need to learn everything we can about the intimate
Details of her relationships with all the men in her life.
And who better is there to talk to about that
Than kim's closest girlfriends?
And tell me about what she confided in you
About the people that she went out with.
Siegler: Okay.
Tamayo: Right.
Siegler: That's good.
Her office was right across the hall with mine,
And we go out sometimes, go out for lunch.
Did she have a lot of boyfriends?
Were people coming in and out of her--
- No. - No.
Men liked her. You've seen her pictures.
- I have, yes. - Okay.
She's very friendly. She was fun to be around.
At the time, she was dating ken weatherford.
There was even something going around
That she was engaged to ken.
She wore some kind of ring.
Wilson: Did she wear it on her left hand?
- Yeah. - Okay.
Okay. You remember if she was wearing it
On July 9th, by any chance?
- No, I don't remember that. - Okay.
Abbondandolo: We heard that kim was wearing her mexico shirt
On the day she went missing,
And now we're thinking she may have been wearing
A faux engagement ring.
Is it possible she went to terry's
And inadvertently flaunted her new relationship?
My only other concern
That we did have an engineer that she worked for.
Kind of on the strange side.
Frank mccormick?
What was strange about him? What do you remember about him?
He was kind of obsessed with her.
Mm-hmm.
But he was supposed to be a happily married man.
Abbondandolo: Did frank ever write her letters or send
Her letters or anything like that?
You ever seen any of them, or how did you know about 'em?
Mm-hmm. He showed me.
As far as I was concerned, it was creepy.
Was this after she disappeared or before?
- Yes. - Everything was after?
No. I didn't know any of this before it happened
Until he pulled me in the office
And wanted to talk to me about this
Because he felt like he was protecting his back, I guess.
I don't know. You know? "come on, you're my boss.
Do you really wanna talk to me about this?"
Abbondandolo: It's odd
That frank would show off these letters.
Maybe it was that he was trying
To get ahead of this investigation,
Or maybe he simply felt bad about his crush.
Whatever the reason, we're gonna need to analyze them.
Women that have gotten that personality
And just that way about them
That attract a lot of attention, it does make it tougher,
Because then you have all these complications.
Wilson: Yeah.
In anticipation of y'all's interview
With frank mccormick, let's talk about his letters,
Because we haven't done that yet.
Kimberly langwell disappeared in 1999.
But before that happened, she gave a stack of love letters
That she had received from our suspect,
Frank mccormick, to one of her girlfriends for safekeeping.
These are the letters from the stalker.
It's time that we hear about frank's obsession
With kim in his own words.
What's your favorite part?
The european vacation bribe,
Where he said, "I can set aside $3,500
For you and tiffani to take a trip to europe this summer."
He says there's "no requirements to see me.
No hugs, no kisses. I just want to see your smile."
"I have a file on my desk that must have over 100 pages
I've written to you about how I feel."
"I made the mistake of telling you that I loved you.
Your response will be forever burned into my brain.
You don't love me. You don't want to love me."
"when I said I loved you, I was sincere.
You stirred some feelings inside me
That I have never felt with such power before.
I need you to save me from the state I am in.
Allow me to regain my sanity in my life.
I would quit driving by your house
20 to 30 times a week."
That's a hardcore stalker.
Does he know you have these letters?
- I don't--I don't know. - I think if he did,
He wouldn't be showing up today.
Abbondandolo: I'm very interested in seeing
What kim's boss, frank, has to say about these letters.
Frank had somewhat of an alibi that night.
He gave the police a receipt
That showed him at a grocery store at 6:56 p.M.
And then later, he hosted a poker game.
But he was clearly obsessed with kim.
Based on my experience,
Feelings like that can often lead to violence.
- Frank? - Yes, I'm frank.
- Detective wilson. - How do you do?
Nice to meet you. I appreciate you coming in today.
- You just got off work? - Yeah.
You can just kind of go into how you knew kimberly,
Kind of y'all's relationship and stuff like that.
She was my administrative assistant.
And how was your relationship with her?
Did y'all chat a lot or...
Mccormick: I'd say a fair amount.
I did the floor in her house.
I know kind of in your original statement,
You had said that you had, like,
A little crush on kimberly and stuff.
Ah, maybe a little.
She was a sweet girl.
You know. She was very attractive.
Did she ever flirt with you at work and stuff like that or...
Yeah.
Did you think she was interested?
I'd have been, but it would have...
Upset too much of my life.
Wilson: It was just kind of a crush from afar, I guess.
Maybe just a physical attraction type thing or...
- Yeah. - What about some
Of the letters that you had written kim
And stuff over the years?
[exhales]
I think there was one about the french ticket thing.
Um, that's pretty stupid of me, probably,
But I flew to France all the time.
Mm-hmm.
And I told her if she wanted to take tiffani,
If I had enough frequent flyer miles, I'd get her a ticket.
Wilson: Look, and we know there was a lot of letters.
We have some of 'em. We've read through some of 'em.
And so we know kind of
The feelings you were expressing towards her and stuff like that.
So we know there's more than just the one
About the european vacation.
So, I mean, it's kind of out in the open.
I'll be honest with you. I don't remember any more than that.
Wilson: You don't recall?
Siegler: Frank is noticeably uncomfortable.
It's hard to know if he's uncomfortable
Because he's been confronted
With these very inappropriate letters
Or if there's something more sinister at play here.
You can even tell from the letters that she's not
Really receptive of, I guess, what you're feeling towards her.
Did you think that y'all were gonna maybe be together one day?
No, it was just an emotion.
Yeah. I mean, you admit to driving in front of her house
30 times a week.
You don't remember going by her house?
I went over there several times to do stuff.
But you don't remember just driving by
Just unannounced or uninvited or...
I'll be honest. I don't.
What we're trying to determine, are you the type of person
That when the advances and the desires that you had
Were not met, did you walk away?
Or do you do something else out of anger, rage, jealousy?
All the things that we know in murder cases lead people
To make mistakes when they experience those emotions.
Would you ever harm kim?
No.
- Did you harm kim? - No.
Do you know where kim is at today?
No.
- Did you kill kim? - No.
I have to ask you these questions.
- No. - And do you remember
Where you went that day after work
Or what you did that evening of July 9th?
I believe my wife had called me and asked me to stop off
At the grocery store on the way home.
And I found the receipt at the grocery store,
Which was timestamped.
You remember anything about a poker game?
Maybe. Is that what I said last time?
Yeah. That's why you had stopped at the store,
To get some chips and stuff.
- Ah. Okay, that makes sense. - All right, sir.
Well, we'll walk you out to your vehicle and get you home.
Abbondandolo: He had a documented crush on our victim.
We gave him the opportunity to talk about it.
I think his emotional response was odd,
But there was nothing that came from the interview
That led me to believe that he had
Any part in her disappearance.
But we still have a lot more work to do.
And next up is examining how kim's car
Ended up abandoned in that parking lot.
Let's go to terry's house first,
And then that way we can get a pretty good read
On how far it would have taken
To get to that eckerd's parking lot.
Go check it out.
Siegler: The details of kimberly's disappearance
Are still unclear, but we do know that her car
Ended up in that eckerd's parking lot.
If we can connect her abductor to the location of her car,
That could maybe help us solve the case.
So what we need to do is retrace kim's steps that night,
Starting with the place we know that she was last seen alive,
At terry rose's house.
This is the house right here.
Yes. Terry rose's house.
This was where terry's wrecker yard was.
So when those guys left that day,
The other wrecker drivers,
It's real easy to see what's going on with the car situation.
They would have probably been pulling out and saw kim's car.
Abbondandolo: An employee of terry's wrecker service
Told police he saw kim's car parked
At the property at about 5:50 p.M.
And by 6:20 p.M., the car was gone.
And all of this lines up with terry's story.
If he did something, he would have to do it
Without them seeing,
Which, even though it's very close, it's certainly doable.
If terry killed kim in his home, he would need to get rid
Of that car quickly to avoid suspicion.
As an experienced wrecker driver,
Terry would have access to a tow truck,
The skills to hook up a car quickly
And transport it inconspicuously the short distance
To the eckerd's shopping center parking lot.
So she's in this spot right here.
Right.
So, what are the reasons
Why kim's car could have been here legitimately?
If she were shopping at eckerd.
But we know that she had spoken to her daughter,
And she never indicated that she needed to make
Any other stops before coming home,
Except for terry's house.
And all the cameras around her were checked,
And nothing turned up.
Right. The eckerd's video system was checked,
And they never recognized kim coming in and out of the store.
So we know she never made it into eckerd's.
Kim had no reason to be here.
If we're considering the possibility
That kim was abducted by a stranger,
There are some things that don't add up.
We don't have any evidence
That she ever actually went inside the eckerd's.
She did not tell anybody she was making a stop.
And when you look at the map closely,
This is not even on her normal ride home.
Putting all that together,
We can eliminate the theory that kim drove herself here
And was abducted by an unknown stranger.
Which leads us back to the theory
That terry transported her car here with his wrecker.
If you're a wrecker driver and you're pulling kim's car,
Does he get out, or is it that you don't even have to get out?
I think it's a kind you don't have to get out,
That he just drops it.
Your one witness is deceased now
Says you saw terry here.
- Right. - Right.
Back in 1999,
There was a witness who came forward who claimed
That she saw terry's wrecker in the parking lot
Around 6:45 p.M.
Unfortunately, that witness has now passed away,
Which makes that statement inadmissible.
But this witness puts terry in the parking lot
Around the time we believe kim went missing.
He had several hours, anytime between 6 p.M. And 9:30 p.M.
Of him at the pool hall.
Abbondandolo: Terry really didn't have an alibi
That the police could verify.
He said he was home alone until about 9:30 p.M.
And then he went to a local pool hall,
The corner pocket.
That corner pocket was where back then?
It's around the corner.
What are the odds, right?
Terry decides to play pool on the night
Of kim's disappearance, and of all places,
He ends up in the same shopping center parking lot
As where kim's abandoned car is found.
I just don't believe it.
If terry did move her car there,
It gives him a perfect opportunity
To keep an eye on the car for when the police find it.
If terry's not the one responsible for this,
That's one hell of a coincidence.
So, what are the chances that his former girlfriend's car
Ends up here that night he ends up here?
- All in the same night? No way. - Wow.
Siegler: While we're connecting the dots pretty well
That terry did have the opportunity to kill kim,
We still wanna learn more about a potential motive.
- Ingrid? - Yes, sir.
Good morning. How you doing?
Kim was close to her childhood friend ingrid dunn
And to her mom, esther.
She actually lived with them for a time
When she was in high school.
We're hoping that she opened up to them
About how terry acted after they broke up.
The terry situation. Yeah, I knew about that.
He seemed to be a very nice guy. But then as time went on,
He just started getting kind of crazy, possessive.
It was just kind of a toxic relationship.
You know, she finally had enough.
She knew it was time to go,
So she kind of started moving forward with her life.
She seemed happy, but she was dating someone else,
And it got serious.
But terry was still kind of, you know,
Calling her all the time, badgering her,
Wanting to get her back.
"baby, I love you.
Will you see me? Can I come talk to you?"
She'd just say, "he's still following me around.
He's still threatening me."
Siegler: What do you think kim was thinking
As far as her relationship with terry
In those last couple of months?
Keep it calm and friendly.
Things will calm down, and he will go away.
She was running from somebody that wouldn't leave her alone.
I just can't even imagine the fear
That was going on in her mind when all that was going on.
I've seen this so many times where you have
A woman is with an obsessive, possessive, jealous man
And tries to keep him happy by going along,
By pacifying him, by agreeing to whatever he wants,
Thinking that it'll all just go away.
It never happens. They don't go away. It keeps on.
It gets worse, and it ends terribly.
Kimberly, in a sense,
Would have been like a daughter to you.
Absolutely. She was a wonderful person.
She was funny. She was happy. She was crazy and stupid.
She was just my girl. I loved her.
She ended up meeting terry.
And as time went along, he was controlling.
He was just constantly possessive.
When she would try to leave,
And she tried to leave several times,
It was like, against the door. Can't go. Here we go.
He told her all the time, "if you ever leave me
For anybody else, I'll kill you."
- Who did you hear that from? - I heard that from kim.
One day she told me--she said
The night before he had tried to strangle her.
And she said, "I thought I was gonna die."
And she couldn't have fought her way out of it.
He just decided to let go.
She said, "I blacked out and I came back."
She was scared to death.
Siegler: Esther is recounting a story
Right out of the mouth of kim,
Where kim is in fear for her life
As terry is strangling her.
Pushed her down on the bed, and he continued to strangle her.
Siegler: If terry killed kim, this might be our best clue
As to how he did it and possibly explain
Why there was no blood found in terry's house
When the police department searched it
After kim disappeared.
She called me and she said, "I'm going to terry's."
I said, "kimberly, do not go to terry's."
- Is this that last time? - Mm-hmm.
And she said, "he called me and told me
There was jewelry there and that come by and pick it up."
I said, "please don't go.
Whatever it is, I'll buy it for you. I'll replace it."
"no, it's okay. He hadn't done anything in a few months."
I said, "kim, he's gonna hurt you. He's gonna hurt you."
As far as she knows, terry doesn't know yet about ken?
I think he knew.
- You do? Okay. - Mm-hmm.
They'd just gone to cancun and come back.
Siegler: What do you think terry would do
If he found out about a new man that's this serious?
He's not gonna let her go.
Esther is shedding a whole new light
On kim's final visit to terry's house.
We've already learned that terry found out
About her mexico trip with ken.
She's wearing the t-shirt, possibly an engagement ring,
And now we're hearing that she's collecting her belongings.
It sounds like the perfect storm signaling to terry
That kim might have moved on,
And that may have pushed him over the edge.
It's okay.
So, if I'm gonna talk to a crook,
Like a real crook, I always wear a white shirt.
I'm a believer in it. I have anecdotal evidence
That proves if I wear a white shirt,
I do better than a colored shirt.
- A colored shirt? - Yep.
Never heard of that, but I like it.
Think terry rose is gonna talk?
I think he will.
Because he's got one of those
"I wanna have the last say on everything."
I hope so.
We're gonna go talk our suspect,
Kim's ex-boyfriend, terry rose.
He hasn't really talked to law enforcement in over 20 years.
I don't hold out a lot of hope
That he's gonna talk a whole lot today.
But we are hoping that maybe we can get
Some little inconsistencies in him
That might help us strengthen the case.
[knocking]
Wilson: Hello. Anybody home?
We know you're in there. We just wanna talk for a minute.
We're not going away, so you might come to the door.
Wanna walk just around to the side?
- Yeah. - I bet that's him.
Hey, terry. Can we talk to you for a minute?
Abbondandolo: Terry's trying to leave through a gate
On the other end of the property.
Maybe he's trying to dodge us, but we're gonna cut him off.
Check him out in that old piece of ... Truck.
- Hi. Are you terry? - I'm terry.
Any chance we could talk to you for a minute?
I'm gonna back up. Y'all can go in.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I'm heather wilson. I work for beaumont pd.
My name's abbey. I'm a retired homicide detective from houston.
And I gotta be honest with you.
I feel like you're trying to dodge us, sir.
Nope.
You didn't hear us knock on the door before?
I just walked down there and walked back.
I saw you in the yard. I called to you.
I feel like you didn't wanna hear what I had to say.
And then you were driving away.
- I didn't know who you are. - I just told you my name.
- You just did. - Yes, sir.
What do you need?
You had an ex-girlfriend who went missing.
What's your theory on what happened to her?
What do you think?
- I don't really know. - No?
She came to your house, and then she left on that day.
- And... - Yeah, I guess so.
When she left your house, was she upset?
- Was she happy? - No.
Did y'all get in any kind of argument?
No, she wasn't angry or nothing like that.
- Were you all still together? - We broke up.
I think she was dating somebody from work or something.
- Do you know that guy's name? - No.
Once we broke it off, I figured, just leave her alone.
Yeah.
Do you remember why she even stopped by that day
If you all weren't still together?
I think there was some stuff that she still had here...
- Yeah. - ..And had in storage.
- Called me that day. - Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. What happened to the boards?
Terry initially told the police department
That kim came over that day to help him attach some boards.
And now he's saying that kim came over that day
To get some things, which is what kim told esther.
Did he forget his original story?
- You helped her out a lot. - Yeah, I did.
Did you give her 500 bucks so she could go
On a trip to cozumel or wherever she went?
- No. - All of that's bs.
- I've never heard of that. - You've never heard of that?
Cozumel? When did she go to cozumel?
Right before she went missing.
Wilson: About two weeks. Either cancun or cozumel.
No ...
But even now, 24 years later, you've never heard that?
That she had went on vacation with another guy?
- No. - Huh.
Terry's saying today that he knew nothing
About kim taking some trip to mexico.
But according to kim's sister,
Terry not only knew about that trip,
He was upset about that trip
Because he's the one who gave kim money to go to mexico
He thought with some girlfriends
When she really went with another man.
So, what is this?
Just another memory lapse, I guess.
Was there ever anything between you and her?
You physical with her?
No, no, no. I don't do that.
Did you ever lay a hand on her?
No.
- Ever threaten her? - No.
You don't strike me as the kind of guy
That would threaten a woman.
No. Because that's pussy.
- Did you ever choke kim? - No.
Never put your hands around her neck?
- No. - Okay.
- Never put hands on her. - Nope.
Any man that would do that's a pussy.
Siegler: From terry's own statement,
We know that he admitted slapping kim.
The more he talks today,
The more he makes the case stronger.
On that night that she went missing,
You played pool in the same parking lot
Where her car was found.
That was over by the bank.
That's about way on the other side.
You swear to god everything you told us is the truth?
Everything that I told you is true as far as I can remember.
You can listen to him talk,
And it doesn't take you very long to realize
That what we've been hearing all week about him
Sounds pretty accurate.
He's not stupid. He's kind of a smart-ass.
He's definitely defensive and cynical.
And the way he portrays his relationship,
He never laid a finger on kim.
He never threatened kim.
Their relationship was over in a normal way.
It contradicts everything we've been hearing.
It went better than I thought.
It was the white shirt.
- It's the white shirt. - It's the white shirt.
How y'all doing today?
- Morning. - Good morning. We're good.
Siegler: While we considered the possibility
That an unknown suspect was responsible
For the 1999 disappearance of kimberly langwell,
We found no evidence to support that.
So now it's time to determine the involvement
Of our two remaining suspects.
Siegler: Okay. Frank.
As suspicious as his actions were back then,
Driving by her house and the creepy love letters,
I just don't see the motive there
To ever wanna harm or do anything to kim.
I think he was just looking for somebody to pay him attention.
But during the interview, I didn't see any deception
As to he was a killer or anything like that.
Do you know where kim is at today?
No.
- Did you kill kim? - No.
And look how cooperative he was with y'all,
Today and back then, at all the risk he faced
Of being pretty embarrassed professionally
And with his wife.
We didn't find any evidence
That connects frank to kim or to her car.
And the receipts that he provided
Show us that he was buying snacks
Around the time that kim was abducted
For a poker party that he later hosted.
And those witnesses also corroborate
What frank was doing that night.
While he might have been downplaying
His obsession with kim,
That's probably because he was a married man,
And he's embarrassed about that way more than it has anything
To do with his involvement in a murder.
So, is everybody good
With clearing frank mccormick off the suspect board?
- Yes. - Unanimous. All right.
We can eliminate frank once and for all.
Okay, so all the terry points,
Laying it out to your prosecutor.
Start with your story.
Kim and the relationship between her and terry's.
- And what are you gonna say? - Terry's just not trusting her
Or wanting to know who she was with.
Driving by her house, checking in on her,
Wanting to know what time she left work.
"he keeps trying to call me. He's still following me around.
He's still threatening me."
So then you're getting into the abuse, how volatile it was.
When we talked to esther, she described to me
How he would choke her and that he choked her one time
To the point that she passed out.
He tried to strangle her,
And she said, "I thought I was gonna die."
Now he's saying, "I've never laid a finger on kim."
Did you ever lay a hand on her?
- No. - You never put your hands
- Around her neck? - No.
So, he has the greatest motive of anybody that exists,
But he also has something that, to me, is really important.
He has the trigger. She just got back from mexico.
- Yep. - Wilson: And for him to deny
That he even knew she went on a trip,
It's like, come on, guy.
Did you give her 500 bucks so she could go
On a trip to cozumel or wherever she went?
- No. - You've never heard that?
That she had went on vacation with another guy?
No.
Susan says that terry told her,
"now you know what it feels like the way I do."
And he said, "but how do you think I felt
When I found out that I gave her $500
And she went with another man to mexico
Instead of girls from work?
Imagine the anger
Of when she's trying to break up with him,
He's finding out about the trip,
She's wearing a ring that another man gave her.
She even told people that he had said,
"if she ever leaves me, I'm killing her."
He told her all the time, "if you ever leave me
For anybody else, I'll kill you."
Her car that's last seen at his house
Goes from his home to the parking lot
Where the vehicle is found,
And he's there at the same time.
- Mm-hmm. - You can't get past that.
So then all this at the end of your meeting
With your prosecutor or prosecutors today,
Your hope is to ask them to do what, lieutenant?
I would ask that they present the case to the grand jury
For an indictment on terry rose.
I believe we have a strong case. I believe it's a winnable case.
- I feel very optimistic. - I feel pretty good about it.
- That's good. - Yeah, it is good.
You know, my husband, when I talk to him and my girls,
Whenever I'm working, they'll go, "how's the case going??
And I'm always really good about staying realistic.
But this week I said, "it's going really great."
Siegler: The team here presented everything that we've learned
To the jefferson county district attorney's office.
- How are y'all? - Good to see you again.
And we wanna update kimberly's daughter and sister on her case.
We've talked to a lot of people this week,
And from everybody that we've talked to,
It painted a real clear picture that terry's the person
With the means and the motive to do it.
And that's kind of ultimately
What it all keeps coming back to.
So we met with the da's office yesterday.
They gave us the impression
That they were going to push for the case
To move forward.
- That's great news. - That's great news.
It feels good to hear y'all say that.
This is the first time in 24 years
That somebody's looked at me and said,
"hey, we think that terry's responsible,"
So that alone is a big step.
For somebody else from the outside to look at the case
And say, "hey, all the evidence leads to him,"
It makes you feel good.
This doesn't change what's happened over the last 24 years.
It doesn't bring her back. It doesn't--
It doesn't give us any more time with her.
But I'm happy.
- Thank you all very much. - You're welcome.
I'm glad that some people stepped up
And wanted to be there for my mom.
And the case got stronger and better.
And these guys have your back. They're great.
Thank you.
Siegler: Give us a hug.
You have some good people on your side.
Thank you.
Siegler: Tiffani has dealt
With so much heartache and uncertainty
For the last 24 years.
Today we can finally give her some answers
And tell her what we all think happened
And maybe finally get her closer to getting justice for her mom.
It's good.
♪ this moment may be the only truth I need ♪
♪ put away my childhood dreams ♪
♪ oh-oh, oh ♪