[Lt. Joe Kenda] Louisville, Kentucky is a big city
and home of the famous Kentucky Derby.
It's one o'clock in the morning
and a fire call is reported to 911.
[sirens wailing]
[horns honking]
A small apartment building is ablaze.
The fire department responds...
...and they put the fire out
[radio chatter]
So, arson investigators respond to these major fire
to determine exactly how this began.
As they examine the remains of the fire,
there are multiple ignition points in the house.
Rags and clothing piled together.
It becomes obvious to them
that this fire was intentionally set.
[firefighter] Lieutenant, come check this out.
[Kenda] In this apartment, they discover...
...human remains
Is this an accidental death?
Is this someone who succumbe to smoke inhalation?
Is it the person who started this fire?
The arson investigator takes one step back and says...
[investigator] Call Metro.
Tell 'em to get homicide down here right away.
[Kenda] They're not a suspec
They're a victim.
There is a large knife protruding from their face.
Wow.
I spent my career closing murder cases...
...but I'm not the only one
who answered the call.
It takes a rare breed to solve the unsolvable...
...to catch a ruthless kille
to find justice for the dead
That's what it takes
to be
an American detective.
My name is Leigh Maroni.
I'm a retired detective
from the Louisville Metro Police Department.
I worked there for 20 years.
At least 11 of those were in homicide.
I was always drawn to the process of investigations.
Working with homicide victims,
um, who don't have a voice,
who can't tell you anything about what happened.
[Kenda] Leigh Maroni,
she started late into law enforcement.
She was 29 when she came on the job.
Worked hard,
got assigned to homicide,
was under a strong light because she was a woman.
[Maroni] I was the only female there,
so I always wanted to prove myself as worthy and capable.
Uh, it's just the nature.
At that point, I was in homicide for two years.
Two years sounds like a long time, but you're...
[stammers] You really are just getting started.
[Kenda] I had rookie years, too.
She's learning,
and this case will teach her a lot.
[beep]
[dispatcher over radio] Dispatch requesting homicid
for 100 block of Harlan Avenue.
Copy.
[Maroni] On this particular night,
I was working the four to midnight shift.
I was at the top of the lis for the next homicide,
and I responded to the scene.
[sirens wailing]
[radio chatter]
[detective] Lieutenant.
So, what have we got here?
We were briefed by the arson investigators
that they had located a body within the home
and it did appear that there was foul play involved.
Is it safe to go in?
Air quality isn't great, but we should be all right.
[Kenda] Nothing worse than a fire scene.
Even though the fire's out,
the heat is so intense.
It retains for long periods of time.
[camera shutter clicks]
So, you're perspiring heavily...
[camera shutter clicks]
...and you can barely breath because of the odor.
You never forget the odor of death.
Ever.
And you never forget the odor of burning flesh,
human flesh.
[Maroni] Arson investigator took us to the body,
which appeared to be laying on a bed faceup.
[investigator] Let's take a look.
[Maroni] It's hard to determine what exactly you're looking at,
so, uh, we had to get a little bit closer at this point.
Although we couldn't identify facial features...
...there was an obvious knif
stuck in the face.
You ever seen anything like that?
That was very, very unusual.
Uh, nothing I've ever seen before,
and certainly nothing I've ever seen since.
[Kenda] Maroni's looking at this crime scene,
and it also points out to he something that's important.
This is extremely personal.
The stabbing in the face is somebody wanting to eliminate you.
To destroy your memory.
It's pure hate that drives that.
And then after that, you look at the style of the knife.
[detective] Looks like a kitchen knife.
[camera shutter clicks]
[Kenda] The person there armed himself
with a weapon of opportunity
A kitchen knife is seized.
He looks for it, he finds it in a drawer, whatever,
and he attacks the victim with it.
So, it's not a planned event
and now, we have to unravel this.
How did this person come to be here
in the condition they are in?
All right.
Let's go take a look around and see who this guy is.
[Maroni] In identifying this victim, uh,
we always wanna start with,
"Who lives here?"
[camera shutter clicks]
And in determining that,
you look for mail
and you look for personal items around the house.
[detective] Hey, you got anything back there?
[investigator] Not much.
[detective] Guess that was the point.
Based on the evidence that we saw at the crime scene
with pages of books being torn out
and scattered about the room in general,
it wouldn't happen that way unless it was deliberate.
This is a concealment fire.
Concealment fires are set by perpetrators
to try to destroy evidence and destroy a body,
which is incredibly difficult to do.
You're trying to scratch up the dirt to cover up the evidence of your sins,
and it's not gonna work.
It never does.
[investigator] Hey, Sarge?
-[detective] Yeah? -[investigator] Check this out.
Fortunately, not everything was destroyed.
We located a black book
that waiters typically carry in restaurants.
I waited tables. I recognized it immediately
All right, let's get this bagged for evidence.
[siren wailing]
So, when Maroni is inside examining the scene,
a very concerned citizen shows up outside.
-[officer] Sir. -[man] What's going on?
Sir, I can't let you in here. This is a restricted area.
This is my place.
My name's Daryl Benzel.
My wife and I, we own about three homes.
Four units altogether.
Uh, Harlan Avenue was one of our first.
That night,
my neighbor called to tell u that our house was on fire,
so I rushed over there and it was a devastating sight.
You gotta tell me what's going on.
Is there anyone inside?
[Benzel] And he's, like, "Yes,"
and I said, "Well, is he dead?"
And he's, like, "Yes, he's dead,"
and I'm, like, "Oh, lord."
[radio chatter]
And at about that time, I saw Leigh.
Daryl?
[radio chatter]
I said, "Hey, Daryl. What brings you here?"
And he informed me at that point that he owned the house.
[Benzel] I knew her father and brother, and then I...
I met Leigh and we developed a friendship.
[Maroni] It's rare that you know a person as a witness,
so it was unusual for me to see him,
but once I did, I thought, "Well, great!"
You know, I know him. He'll be comfortable speaking with me.
Um, I could probably get a lot of information from him.
How many people live here?
Just one. The rest of the units are all vacant.
Do you have a name?
Yeah, it's Eddie.
It's Eddie Poynter.
I immediately recognized the name,
and this was a person that I had actually met several months prior to this incident.
[Kenda] She looks back at these charred remains
with a blade through its face...
...and says, "God, Eddie, what happened to you?"
[sirens wailing]
[radio chatter]
[Kenda] It's bad enough to look at a stranger who's been violently killed.
To look at somebody you know and you knew in life,
it's just the worst feeling
[investigator] How'd you know this guy, anyway?
[detective] He's friends with my brother.
I actually met him not that long ago.
[Maroni] He was waiting tables in a restaurant called Cunningham's,
and my brother and I happened to be eating there,
and, uh, Eddie stopped by to say hello to my brother.
I just know that Eddie made a big impact on my brother.
[detective] They were in A.A. together.
[Kenda] Eddie Poynter,
he's had a long history of suffering from substance abuse,
both alcohol and drugs.
He joined Alcoholics Anonymous.
The A.A. program is all about
helping someone get and stay sober,
and so, in this case,
he had been sober quite a while.
Eddie was trying to get himself together,
to be, uh, a lot more responsible.
He tried to help others.
He became a sponsor for dozens of people.
He has done a lot
to come back from the abyss
that he was about to fall into.
Every homicide victim I've encountered, I...
[stammers] I did not know. I knew nothing about them.
So, this was an unusual case for me
knowing that he had an impac
a very positive impact on... On people's lives,
and it really did change my view of victims from then on.
I didn't look at my victims as numbers.
They just became human.
One of the first things we do in a homicide investigation
is what's called a neighborhood canvass...
[knocking on door]
...to see what the neighbors saw,
what they heard, what they know.
-[detective] Morning, ma'am. -[woman] Hi.
-Can I help you? -[detective] Metro PD.
Was hoping you could answer some questions for me.
[woman] Yeah, sure.
I worked for the Louisville Metro Police Department
for 22 years before I retired.
Sometimes you have certain cases that really pique your interest,
and this is one of those cases.
Have a fire that somebody tried to light
and cover up a death.
When you have a knife stabbed to the face,
I mean, it's just aggression.
Uncontrolled aggression.
And it's... [stammers] It's scary.
-Morning, ma'am. -[woman] Hello.
Metro PD.
[Det. Jeff Wheeler] We went and did our canvass
Uh, we spoke with several people.
They said that Eddie, you know, he was a nice guy.
He worked.
I mean, I didn't hear a bad thing about him at all
There was nothing out there that would have caused
somebody to come after him and kill him.
[sirens wailing]
[Maroni] Because the injurie were to the face,
I wasn't convinced that the knife wound itself was the cause of death.
You're not gonna die if somebody plants a knife blade under your cheekbone.
The odds are, you're gonna survive that 99 times out of 100.
[Maroni] So, we needed to wait for the autopsy
to give use the understanding of what exactly caused, uh,
the victim's death.
[detective] So, what are we looking at?
[examiner] Well, his lungs are clear,
so it wasn't the smoke inhalation that killed him.
Take a look at this.
[Kenda] Stab wounds are discovered.
Multiple wounds
through the lungs, through the liver,
through the abdominal aorta
all over the place.
A blitz attack with a knife.
Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab
and the final blow is the one in the face.
[Maroni] Homicide 101 is,
you know, any type of overkill situation
or violence to that degree
has an emotional component to it.
Maybe he had a relationship with this person.
Maybe he was a friend.
So, you start from there and you work out.
[sirens wailing]
So, it's now to the point to where Maroni has to notify the family
of Mr. Poynter's untimely demise.
She identifies a person, Faye Brown...
...who is the mother to Mr. Poynter.
His mom lived in, uh, a different city in... In Kentucky.
They were a very close-knit family.
[mother crying] He didn't deserve this!
[Kenda] Brown tells Maroni
Mr. Poynter was born and raised in a small town in Kentucky
and that Eddie is gay.
Initially, when Eddie Poynter was young,
he had a child with a woman
and didn't come out as gay until later in his life.
He grew up in Edmonton, Kentucky.
It's part of the Bible Belt
and probably, at that time when he was growing up,
it's something you didn't come out and say.
[Kenda] Mr. Poynter felt it was important to move into a big city
where there's a possibility of a more favorable environment
for those who are homosexual.
So, he elected to move to Louisville for that reason.
Coming to the city, yes, he found a lot more opportunity
to be happy or find other people that he wanted to be with.
[sirens wailing]
[Maroni] So, at this point, what we want to find out is
who is responsible for Eddie's murder.
Did Eddie have any significant relationships?
What... Is he dating anybody?
Who are his closest friends?
[phones ringing]
Once notification is made to the family,
news spreads quickly.
[barge horn sounds]
I was contacted by Garry Perry.
He was very close friends with Eddie,
and that if there was any information that he could provide,
he wanted to assist in this
because Eddie was so dear to him.
This is where we'd usually see Eddie.
Poynter had a favorite spot where he liked to go.
[Maroni] It was a small, hole-in-the-wall gay bar, uh, downtown.
A little bit more homey than a...
Than a busy dance bar.
Eddie was real quiet.
He didn't drink.
He just came for the company.
Garry said Eddie didn't socialize a lot,
that he wasn't necessarily in a romantic relationship with anybody seriously.
The only person I ever see Eddie with was Blaine.
Garry explains that one of Poynter's best friends
is a 73-year-old man who is also gay
whose name is Blaine Thacker.
Eddie and Blaine were... Were both gay men in the restaurant industry
and worked odd hours,
and I think they just struck up a friendship.
Just very, very good friends.
I think Blaine took care of Eddie.
When he was hard on his luck
Eddie lived with Blaine for a little bit,
or on and off.
Maroni says, "Okay, so Blaine Thacker.
Have you seen him lately?"
Come to think of it, he hasn't been in here lately, either.
[detective] Is that unusual for him?
Yeah, I'd say it is.
When someone is doing something that's beyond their usual activity
and they're associated with a homicide victim,
that's a little worrisome.
Why are you not in here like you always are?
And your friend is dead.
Did you have something to do with it?
[detective] Sueanna Masterson?
-Hi. -[detective] Hey, Detective Leigh Maroni.
They go to the restaurant where Blaine Thacker works
and find out some very interesting information.
I was looking for one of your cooks, Blaine Thacker.
[Masterson] I'm co-owner of Masterson's Catering,
third generation family business.
Blaine worked for us for around 30 years,
and we were very concerned, uh, when he didn't show up.
Blaine was always there,
always on time.
He was early.
Uh, we called his house. No one answered.
We just kinda gave it benefit of the doubt,
maybe he'll show up later,
but the second day he didn't show up,
we knew there was something wrong.
So, your best friend is dead
and you're suddenly in the wind.
Well, we're getting warmer.
[knocking at door]
[detective 1] Mr. Thacker, are you in there?
It's Metro PD. Open up!
[Wheeler] It was concerning to us,
and so we went over to the apartment
and had the manager open up the door for us.
[radio chatter]
We went into the apartment.
[detective 2] Mr. Thacker?
We went into the back room...
[camera shutter clicks]
[Wheeler] ...and there was a bunch of blankets.
So, you could see he was already...
He was dead.
Once we removed all the blankets...
...it was obvious that he had been stabbed numerous times.
[camera shutter clicks]
[Kenda] It's this very similar method
as to what is seen in Mr. Poynter.
It is a blitz attack.
Mr. Thacker has inordinate stab wounds in the chest,
more than sufficient to kill him.
My jaw just kinda dropped and it hit the floor.
The last thing I expected to hear was that we have another victim.
It's not a coincidence.
There's no such thing as coincidence.
[Kenda] Louisville Metro homicide detective Leigh Maroni
has two homicide victims in the same night.
Both have been brutally stabbed in the same manner.
[camera shutter clicks]
Could they be related?
[Maroni] It's not uncommon to have two murders in the same night,
but it is uncommon to have them in such close proximity
and the victims to be very good friends
and to have a similar lifestyle.
Both Eddie and Blaine were gay men
in the restaurant industry.
[Kenda] So, we have a multip victim homicide case
and two separate events.
Now, we're talking about a very dangerous killer
who is not in custody and not even identified.
I mean, if he'd killed two...
[stammers] Were there other bodies elsewhere?
It really made us very concerned
for the safety of other people in the city,
and so it really kinda kicked up our case to a different level.
We had to get this guy.
[phone ringing]
Maroni.
[Kenda] Detective Maroni gets a call from her partne
who's still at the first crime scene
who says he's found a witness there
that he would like Maroni to speak to.
-Hey, you got this? -Yeah.
So, she immediately goes back to the scene.
[sirens wailing]
-Hey, Sarge? -[detective] Mmm-hmm?
This guy says he's looking for a friend of his.
[Maroni] The subject's name was Charles Mullins,
and Mr. Mullins stated that he had a friend
that had been staying in the apartment with Eddie Poynter.
[Kenda] This is a shock to Maroni.
'Cause as far as she knows,
Eddie Poynter was the only person living in this place.
Who's your friend?
He identified his friend as someone he grew up with in Ashland, Kentucky.
And his name was Dale Moneypenny.
He stated that Dale had a friend or a girlfriend,
um, that was also there named Jennifer Smith.
-His girlfriend was staying here too? -Yeah. As far as I know.
He says he just met that girl, Jennifer.
"I don't know her very well. She goes to college, I think."
I heard about the fire.
Are they okay?
Well, they weren't in there.
-Hey, sarge, you got a second? -Yeah. Hey, do you mind finishing up?
The arson investigator came out
and said, "Hey, we were goin through some of the debris in the house,
and we did find this notebook.
And, uh, I don't know if you guys want it or not, but it has a name in it.
Um, Jennifer Smith."
The same name that our witness says he believes is Moneypenny's girlfriend.
So now we have some evidence that Jennifer Smit
at least had some of her possessions in this apartment.
-Thank you. -You're welcome.
So now, Maroni is faced with a dilemma.
Who are these people?
How well do they know Mr. Poynter?
Are they involved in this?
Or are they just not home when the fire occurs?
It could be either one.
But we need to find them.
[Maroni] At that point, we know Jennifer Smith.
That's it. Very common name
It's like a needle in a haystack.
Jennifer Smith isn't gonna be simple to find.
But Mr. Moneypenny might be.
How many Moneypennys are there?
Probably not many.
So Detective Maroni runs the name through the system
and all the lights brighten up.
We were able to pull a picture of Mr. Moneypenny.
He was young, he was attractive.
Piercing blue eyes.
But he had a criminal histor
He liked to steal things.
He liked to run from the police.
He liked to resist arrest. He liked to assault people.
Also, they discover that he has a car registered to him.
All that we know is that he drives a black Honda Accord.
And he's originally from Ashland.
So we made notifications to the police department in Ashland, Kentucky.
We did put a flag to our NCIC system that if this license plate
or this vehicle is seen, we are looking for this individual.
A few days later, the car was located
by the Louisville Metro Police Department.
It was brought in for processing.
That was found abandoned on a city street in Louisville
and was towed away as an abandoned motor vehicle.
They still can't find Moneypenny, but they have found his car.
And that car could lead them somewhere, so let's go see what's in it.
Jesus, what a mess.
[Kenda] They look inside and they see drug paraphernalia,
crack pipes that have been used,
burned spoons, all that sort of thing.
Now we have a whole new ballgame.
Drug people will do anything to get their hands on drugs.
Will they kill? Yeah, they will.
Will they set fire to a place? Of course.
It's playing Russian roulette with five cylinders loaded instead of one.
[Maroni] The fact that the c was located empty, uh, told me that Dale
either took a Greyhound bus he's stolen a vehicle,
or he's, uh, hooked up with a ride out of town.
[Kenda] Dale is in the wind so where is Jennifer?
What does she know about this or have to do with it?
We don't know. We don't know.
That common name is a complication.
Did you see this?
[Kenda] So this notebook ha the name Jennifer Smith on i
But it also has the name of the school.
So Maroni's detectives contact the school.
[woman on phone] Office of admissions.
Yeah, Metro PD. I was hoping I could ask you a few questions.
"Do you have a student named Jennifer Smith?"
"Yes we do."
"Does she live in Louisville, Kentucky?"
"No, she does not."
[Maroni] We were ultimately able to determine that Jennifer Smith
was staying with her mother over in Jeffersonville, Indiana.
[Kenda] So they send the local authorities in Indiana to her home
to see if they can make contact.
They don't find her there.
So we are on the lookout in Indiana for Jennifer Smith.
The elusive girlfriend of the even more elusive Mr. Moneypenny.
She is at a minimum an important witness in this case.
[cell phone ringing]
Maroni.
A few days later, I got a call that Jennifer Smith had reached out
to another police department in Indiana, saying that she
knew that the Louisville Metro Police Department was looking for her.
She goes, "I wanna clear my conscience.
I wanna make this right."
Okay. I'll be right there.
[Wheeler] Once you get a cal like that, you drop what you're doing.
[Kenda] Jennifer Smith is a roommate to someone
who has been murdered and then set on fire.
She has a boyfriend who abandoned a car filled with drug paraphernalia
that she undoubtedly has been riding in.
And she has now crossed a state line into Indiana to get away from all of this
Well, that amounts to something she has to explain.
Let's see if she can.
Jennifer Smith has an explanation of some size
that she has to come up with.
[Wheeler] We weren't sure if she was there at the homicide.
But we knew that she had some type of involvement in the case.
Why don't you start by telli me about your relationship with Dale Moneypenny?
Well, he sort of just came out of nowhere.
Jennifer explains that she initially is overwhelmed by his beauty.
That Moneypenny is so pretty
And she never had a boyfriend like this before
She'd only known him about 10 days, uh, prior to this.
They kinda met, like, on the street.
Brought together by drugs and alcohol.
And were both kind of living this same lifestyle and they bonded.
He told her that they're gonna go on a crime spree.
He's gonna con people out of their money.
He explains to her he has this method by which he use his appearance and his yout
to make himself attractive to homosexual men.
Because he knows he is.
What he wants is their money
And they're just gonna buy drugs, and have a good time and party on.
They're gonna be the new Bonnie and Clyde.
That sounds like one hell of an idea to her.
[Maroni] I don't think this was her nature.
She doesn't have a criminal history.
But I think she just got roped into something by a gu
who had some control over her.
So how did the two of you end up hooking up with Eddie
We met Eddie at a gay bar.
We needed a place to crash, so he let us stay with him for a few nights.
How long are you gonna be in town?
[Maroni] They met Eddie. A very nice man.
Welcomed them into his home.
-You got any money? -Yeah. Get a drink there, buddy.
Their plan was to stay there for a couple of days, taking advantage of that situation.
So then, how did Eddie end up getting killed?
[crying]
So she says, blurts out, "I didn't do anything to hurt that guy.
I just gave him the lighter to start the fire."
Really, Jennifer? Well, that makes a big difference then, doesn't it?
When she says that she has their attention.
So Dale was the one who killed Eddie?
She wasn't aware that he was gonna do that.
Though once everything got outta hand, she went along with it.
There's something else.
But what she says next really gets their attention.
She goes, "Oh, yeah." She goes, "Uh...
There's another person that we did the same thing to."
I didn't know he'd kill that old guy, I swear.
[Kenda] What old guy would that be?
Well, his name is Blaine Thacker.
Jennifer Smith told us that they knew Blaine Thacker
'cause he was a friend of Eddie's, one of his closer friends.
She said, you know, we met him, went up to his apartment, he bought us some food.
I think her thoughts were we're gonna go over here, get something to eat,
figure out what the heck just went on, and where we're gonna go from here.
Dale and Blaine went into the back room.
And Dale comes out...
And he had blood on him.
-What happened? -We have to go!
-What did you-- -We have to go now!
[crying] I swear, I never thought he'd take things that far!
[crying]
[Wheeler] Jennifer gave a lot of details.
You know, it's not like somebody was lying.
She's just being straightforward about everything that happened.
I think she knew she was in way over her head, and I gotta get out of this.
She says, "I didn't wanna go out like Bonnie and Clyde
in a hail of police gunfire, so I went back to Indiana."
"And where did he go?"
"Well, he said he was gonna go to Miami. but he says a lot of things."
You have your suspect and you also have Jennifer,
so you gotta figure out what you can do with Jennifer.
We arrested Jennifer Smith for complicity to commit murder and arson.
[Kenda] Jennifer Smith has given them what they want.
The killer of two different people.
And his name is Dale Moneypenny.
Like the wolf who circles the herd,
he looks for the young and the inattentive and the sick
and the ones who present as a victim, and they become those.
[Wheeler] Once we heard he was going to Florida,
Leigh did whatever she needed to do to get him indicted.
[phone ringing]
[Maroni] We did notify Miami-Dade County
that he could be in their general area
and that there were warrants for him through NCIC for the double murders.
And as personal as it was for Dale to kill Eddie and Blaine,
it became as personal for me to find him,
and make sure that justice was served.
Several weeks pass, there are two detectives in this town in Florida
that are looking for someone in some other matter,
when they see this car driving erratically and they stop it.
Dale Moneypenny is in the front seat.
They run the name, he's wanted for murder.
Well, hello, Dale. We've been looking for you and now we've found you.
Step out of the car please, sir.
[Kenda] Criminals, when the have success committing their crime,
begin to believe they're geniuses.
They are all Professor Moriarty, by heaven.
And there is no policeman in the world that's gonna
find them because they're so clever.
And the next thing you know he's over the hood of a car and he's in handcuffs.
Shocked that he has wound up there.
My understanding is that when Dale was down in Florida,
uh, he encountered an older, gay male in a bar.
And they subsequently went back to a hotel room,
at what point Dale Moneypenny tied him up, stole his credit cards and stole his car.
Well, there's a big surprise.
That's what he does.
Mr. Moneypenny is arrested for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution,
and he will be extradited to the state of Kentucky to answer for his crime.
Fugitive detectives went down and flew home with him.
You always feel better when you have somebody
in custody, especially someone like that.
It's a sense of relief and accomplishment
that you're able to catch him and get him locked up and off the streets.
Immediately after getting off the plane, they brought him to the homicide office
and we were ready, and, uh, we began an interview with him.
I remember looking at him and just thinking, you know he's just a kid.
He did not ask for an attorney.
He agreed to sit down and talk.
He appeared, to me, to be tired of running.
All right, Dale. We aren't here to judge you.
We just wanna know the truth.
You know, as a female detective a lot of times you appear to younger suspects
as a motherly-type figure and you're easier to talk to for them,
especially about horrible things that they've done.
It worked in this case.
I... I can tell you what I know.
-How about you start with Eddie Poynter? -[chuckling] Eddie?
Dale said he needed a place to stay.
Eddie opened his home to Mr. Moneypenny,
and allowed him and Jennifer to stay there.
Moneypenny used his good looks and his charm to manipulate Eddie
into giving him what he needed... Or wanted.
Hey, man.
Eddie, you got any money for me?
Look, Dale, I can't have you guys freeloading here anymore.
And all of the sudden, out of nowhere, he said he was kicking us out.
Eddie had told him that he and Jennifer were
no longer gonna be able to stay in his house,
and that they were gonna have to find another place to live.
And that sent him into a rag
Do you understand me?
No. I don't think so!
[screaming]
He was so outraged that he turned around and...
Killed him.
[screaming]
His rubber band breaks.
Something in his head that comes unplugged.
What is that?
I have no idea.
But it does.
And when it does, he is a raving banshee
with a knife in his hand.
[screaming]
Dale now comes back out of the ether of his rage
and realizes this mess he's created.
How are you gonna stop the police from finding this
And he comes up with the genius idea of burning it down.
That fire will fix it all.
He gathers up clothing around the room...
And paper.
Give me a lighter!
[Kenda] Starts a series of small fires assuming it will ignite the place.
He's right, it does.
Pretty soon it's fully involved and they run.
So now we needed some place to stay.
And then they said, "What are we gonna do now?"
[Kenda] So they wander off to another place where they've been,
which is Blaine Thacker's house.
Blaine takes them in because he's a nice man.
Dale snaps again.
Dale just took matters into his own hands.
Knew that he needed financial resources...
Uh, to either get out of town or get to where he needed to go.
And killed Mr. Thacker and then, uh, stole from him as well.
-Was that you and Jennifer's plan all along? -No.
She didn't know any of that was gonna happen.
Dale knew Jennifer had been arrested and confirmed her statements
that her responsibility was not as great as his.
Jennifer Smith decided to plead guilty to avoid trial,
and her sentence was a 10-year sentence to serve.
[Kenda] Dale pleads guilty.
And he's sentenced to life in prison.
And what does he do with that?
Well, he engages in pen pals for criminals.
I'm sure he tells them he lives in a gated communit
You know, like a prison.
Good Lord.
[Wheeler] He may have plead guilty just to avoid the death penalty,
but he's shown no remorse or nothing for his victims.
He could care less.
[Masterson] I'm happy he's in jail.
I don't know that there's ever really justice.
I mean, it's not gonna bring Blaine back, it's not gonna bring Eddie back.
And their lives were cut short for what?
These guys couldn't have been more innocent a victim as they get.
I just think they were victims of opportunity.
Victims of opening their home to the wrong person.
I think Dale was a con man
and he knew the power of his charm,
and what that could do for him.
[Kenda] Moneypenny inserts himself into people's lives
He's like a tick.
He crawls on the surface of your skin and buries himself in it.
He endears himself to you.
He uses every ploy within his power to gain your trust
your attention, and your affection.
And eventually he determines what you have that he might want.
And if you resist that happening,
then I'm sorry, you're gonna have to die.
[Benzel] It's mindboggling that a human being could
do something like that to another human being.
Thank goodness for law enforcement
and people that are able to find these people
and put them where they need to be.
[Kenda] Detective Maroni used her instincts
and her training to resolve the death of two people.
To put someone responsible for that in a can where he belongs.
That's the effort shown by a homicide detectives.
To stand in the shoes of the victim because they can't anymore.
And to give punishment to those that took that victim away.