- In the criminal justice system,
detectives and prosecutors face daunting challenges
when money is the motive for murder.
[dramatic sting]
- Irene Silverman,
82 years old,
last seen July 5th, 1998.
- Irene lived on the Upper East Side.
She's worth a lot of money. Now she's missing.
- The disappearance of a wealthy socialite
grips a nation...
- This was the largest search
that I have ever participated in by far.
- And New York detectives stop at nothing to find her.
- The investigation is in full swing.
Everyone is riveted to this case.
- But the city faces a case
that has never been tried and won.
- There was no body. This was an uphill battle.
- No one's prepared for how twisted
the real story truly is.
- She was the devil in sheep's clothing.
- She loved to lie.
- These men and women dedicate their lives
to law and order.
- I had nightmares about her.
She was as dangerous as a cobra.
- These are their true stories.
* *
[dramatic sting]
[dramatic music]
- July 5th, 1998 was a beautiful summer night.
There were three of us working in the detective squad.
- Around 6:00 p.m., the detectives were notified
about a missing person.
[siren wails]
- The patrol officers said that they had
a missing elderly woman.
[camera shutter snaps] Her name was Irene Silverman.
- When the detectives responded to
Irene Silverman's disappearance,
they immediately started conducting interviews.
[camera shutter snaps]
She fit the category of special missing persons
because of her age, and that alarmed everyone.
- In 1998, I was an active detective
in the 19th precinct.
I worked with Joe Reznick.
He was a lieutenant
in the 34th precinct detective squad.
- New York City in 1998 was fairly good.
We had come a long way as far as crime was concerned.
You could literally see good changes
throughout the city,
all the way until July 5th,
when I'm given this case.
I spent 36 years doing investigations.
The ten-foot-tall moments
that I've encountered over the years,
they're rare.
But on July 5th,
that's a ten-foot-tall moment.
- Irene Silverman had a staff
of housekeepers and personal assistants
who were all very concerned with her sudden disappearance.
- One person that was available that evening
to talk to detectives
was a female named Aracelis, the weekend housekeeper.
She says that on July 5th,
approximately 11:45 in the morning,
she was asked by Irene to walk the dog,
clean some garments.
And she went off to do those things.
That, in fact, was the last time
that Irene Silverman was seen by any of the workers.
They were people that Irene had employed over the years.
They were concerned for her.
So they gave us a lot of details,
hoping that that would help us figure out what happened.
[phone rings]
At about 2:20 that afternoon,
Irene Silverman received a phone call.
Aracelis knocked on Irene's door,
but she didn't get a response. [knocking at door]
About 4:40 p.m.,
Aracelis tried once again to wake up Irene Silverman
and then realized she was not in her apartment.
* *
- We see that the bedroom is in disarray.
We asked her if this was typical
of Irene Silverman to keep her bedroom like this.
Aracelis says, "Absolutely not."
Irene's a very meticulous woman,
keeps everything neat and squared away.
- She also said that Irene Silverman
always kept a lump sum of money in her apartment--
approximately $10,000 in nice, crisp bills.
That appeared to be missing.
There was also jewelry missing from the apartment
and Irene Silverman's passport.
[indistinct radio chatter]
- She was adamant
that something was amiss with Irene.
Irene never leaves the house alone.
She would have told somebody where she went.
- Being a millionaire missing from 65th Street
in Manhattan,
Irene Silverman's disappearance became the top news.
- "NBC News In Depth" tonight--
the search for a wealthy and eccentric widow
missing from her fashionable New York town house.
- About 50 detectives are dispatched city-wide.
We go to the airports. We're doing flight checks.
We go to the train station, the bus stations.
We are looking in every nook and cranny.
[camera shutter snaps]
- This is the Irene I knew...
where she's sitting in her living room,
her very ornately decorated living room.
I love this picture of her.
She's a very sophisticated lady, you know,
even though she didn't act that way.
It's a very interesting combination
of personality traits.
She had no children.
And I felt, in a way,
like I was her adopted daughter.
She would regale me with stories of her life.
[bold jazz music]
- Irene Silverman was a Rockette
here in New York.
And on October 3rd, 1941,
she met a gentleman named Sam Silverman.
- He was very wealthy.
They got married and moved to
a very up-scale section of the city.
* *
- Because of her husband's wealth,
she knew what to do with finances,
even after her husband passed away.
- After Sam died, she owned property
in France, Hawaii,
obviously in New York.
- A wealthy widow, Irene kept company
with friends, politicians,
and well-to-do New York society.
- Irene liked to throw elaborate parties.
She loved having interesting people come,
affluent people come.
She was a party--I'd love to hang out with Irene Silverman.
I wish I was invited to one of her parties.
- Irene would serve very expensive champagne.
We went to some very posh restaurants.
- At that age, she was living her life to the fullest.
- But Irene's multimillion-dollar townhome
was too big for her to live in alone,
so she converted many of the rooms
into apartments as short-term rentals.
- Irene liked to rent to affluent or notable people.
One was an actor, Daniel Day-Lewis,
a singer, Chaka Khan.
You had to have money to rent a room from Irene.
[dramatic music]
- Interviewing everyone connected to Irene Silverman
was a must in this case.
- One of the staff members who we were unable to locate
was a male by the name of Menji.
We wanted to find Menji, because after she disappeared,
he went right to Atlanta-- what he said was a vacation.
That was suspicious to us at the time.
- A fellow like Menji becomes interesting
because we learn that he had access
to some of Irene Silverman's financial records.
- He was guiding her
on some of her financial business.
Definitely heightened us
to really want to question him.
- We start tracking them down.
The search continued until we find Irene Silverman.
[dramatic sting]
Irene Silverman...
very rarely leaves her residence.
It seems like she disappeared
under suspicious circumstances on 7/5.
We got to figure out what went on
over at 20 East 65th Street.
* *
- We search the neighboring buildings.
We try to recover video
that might have been on the block.
We search the house high and low.
Inside Irene's office, we find a sketch
of what appeared to be a male.
And, of course, we didn't know who he was.
* *
- It depicted just basic characteristics of a person,
but we were told that she had drawn that picture
because she was skeptical
of the tenant in apartment 1B--
a man named Manny Guerrin.
- For Irene Silverman to draw up a sketch
two weeks prior to when she disappeared
definitely heightened us to really want to look at him.
[dramatic sting]
- Manny was a businessman from West Palm Beach.
He was able to rent the apartment from Irene
through her butcher.
Apparently the butcher
told him about the apartments that Irene rents,
so he had a good reference, knew somebody that she knew.
And Manny paid her $6,000 up front
to rent a room.
The staff told us that Irene was suspicious of him
from day one that he rented the apartment.
- There was just something about him
that gave her an ill feeling.
Irene Silverman also had cameras
throughout her building.
She found it strange that he would elude
the cameras that she had.
He'd walk up against the wall, out of sight.
- The staff also told us
that she would see him standing at the door.
She'd see his feet through the bottom of the door.
She'd see him looking
out the peephole of the apartment,
observing her.
[fireworks popping]
The night of Fourth of July,
Irene Silverman had a party,
where she had a discussion with one of her assistants
in regards to evicting Manny Guerrin.
Their plan was, is just to serve him
with an eviction letter
and to get him out of the building.
[train horn blares]
- But the next day, Irene Silverman had vanished.
- The sketch,
the apartment being in disarray,
her leaving without telling anyone...
* *
Now we have ourselves a mystery on our hands.
- It was frightening.
[camera shutter snaps] - There was a stun gun box,
wigs, Mace, and plastic handcuffs.
- This is the anatomy of a frame-up.
- They underestimated the perseverance
of the New York City Police Department.
- They were serial killers.
- Detectives were searching for two people of interest
in the missing-persons case of socialite Irene Silverman--
her tenant Manny Guerrin
and her personal assistant Menji Melis.
[dramatic sting]
- Menji was down in Atlanta,
but we were able to contact him.
So he immediately flew back to New York.
While questioning Menji,
he offered for us to look at his financial records.
He was very forthcoming with all his answers
and everything he told us.
- After speaking to Menji, it was just a matter
of checking out what he had said.
We concluded he has nothing to do
with Irene Silverman's disappearance.
Don't forget-- we were counting hours here.
We're also tracking down this guy Manny Guerrin.
When you look at everything,
like that sketch that Irene prepared
or the strange feelings
that Irene Silverman had about them,
he was a suspect.
- As the investigation is unfolding,
we determine that we have to get into apartment 1B,
which was Manny Guerrin's apartment.
- We needed to know,
was Irene Silverman in that apartment?
- We get into the apartment.
We notice that the bed was stripped,
and one of the quilts was missing.
- In the garbage,
they found some rolled-up used duct tape.
There were some black plastic bags
that were present in a box,
and either five or six bags were missing.
[dramatic music]
Add that to all these other comments
made by the people in the building,
Manny Guerrin
went from being a person of interest
to a suspect in this case.
- Now we know what we need to do.
Let's find him.
- During the search for Manny Guerrin,
investigators discovered that he wasn't
the only resident in apartment 1B.
- Accompanying Manny Guerrin, there was a female,
possibly in her 60s or so.
She used the name Eve or Eva.
Some of the information
we obtained during the investigation
was that this woman was living with Manny
in apartment 1B.
- She was an older woman,
and Manny Guerrin said that that woman was his assistant.
- We don't know exactly what role this woman played,
but we needed to talk to her.
- Detectives knew that with each hour that went by,
the hope of finding Irene alive diminished.
[dramatic sting]
[distant sirens wail]
- You know, there's thousands of people missing
here in New York City.
And press conferences are great because you get the publicity.
So Monday night I conducted a press conference.
And I was able to show the sketch
that was prepared by the witnesses earlier in the day.
Irene Silverman was in good health,
both physically and mentally.
However, she would never leave her residence
without one of her workers.
The disappearance is highly uncharacteristic
of the victim.
- The whereabouts of Irene Silverman
remains a mystery.
- Authorities have also increased the reward money
to $10,000,
and they're asking anyone with information
to call Crime Stoppers.
- After the press conference, the FBI called us
and said, "Listen, you better get down here.
We think we have something that you are looking for."
[dramatic sting]
* *
- While we were searching for Irene Silverman,
the regional joint task force,
which is with different departments,
arrested Sante and Kenny Kimes
based on a warrant that was issued in Utah.
- Sante and Kenneth Kimes were a mother and son.
They were wanted for an arson and insurance-fraud case.
When Kenny Kimes was searched, they found identification
and an American Express credit card...
in the name if Irene Silverman.
* *
When they searched Sante, they find $10,000 cash.
They asked her what that money was.
She said, "That's nothing. That was just travel money."
- Detectives were very alarmed.
Sante and Kenny Kimes had Irene's credit card
and cash in the same amount
that was missing from Irene's townhome.
And they fit a description of the suspicious tenants
from apartment 1B--
Manny Guerrin and his assistant Eva.
- During the interview,
we tried to take a gentle approach.
And we appealed to her sense of humanity,
saying, "Listen, Irene's an older woman,
"a little bit older than you.
"She's very frail. She can still be alive.
"You still might be able to save her.
You still might be able to save yourself."
It didn't go anywhere.
She said, "Well, she could be out walking her dog.
"Maybe she fell.
"Maybe she's laying in an alley somewhere
"down some steps and she's passed out.
Why are you wasting your time with me?"
Kenny denied knowing her. He denied anything about her.
We asked, "Well, why was the ID found on you?"
And he kept saying, "What ID? What are you talking about?"
Denying it.
- Kenny also had a knife, brass knuckles,
and two sets of keys.
One set of those keys were, in fact, Irene Silverman's.
- We asked, "Why was her apartment keys
found on you?"
And he kept saying, "What apartment keys?"
Everything seemed to connect Kenny to Irene's apartment.
It was at that point we believed
Kenny was the person renting apartment 1B
from Irene Silverman
under the name of Manny Guerrin.
- Detectives believed that they had finally located
the primary suspect
in Irene Silverman's disappearance.
Hoping to find Irene alive,
they try to cut a deal for information.
- I said, "It's time for you to fess up.
You can help us find Irene Silverman."
Kenny started to break and well up in tears.
We had him.
I thought he was gonna start talking
and we were gonna have the answers
that we've been looking for.
All of a sudden, he turned to stone...
and the tears went away very quickly,
and he requested an attorney at that time.
* *
- While NYPD patrol units
search the city for Irene Silverman,
detectives continue to learn
more about their primary suspects--
Sante Kimes and her son Kenny.
[dramatic sting]
[train rattling]
[dramatic music]
- As far as the investigation was concerned,
we have two suspects possibly in custody.
It's a matter of figuring out how they're connected.
Our concentration was on Irene Silverman.
Where was she? What did they do with her?
And who is this Kimes family?
- Sante Kimes comes from money.
In the '70s, she married a man named Ken Kimes Sr.
- We learned that he was a hotel developer.
He was a millionaire.
- Sante and Kenneth Kimes had so much money,
they bought property in Hawaii
in one of the most expensive areas,
in addition to homes in Las Vegas.
- In 1975,
they had a son they named Kenny Jr.
- Kenny Kimes, while being brought up,
had the best of everything.
He had private tutors. He lived in elaborate homes.
He had housekeepers. He had nannies.
- They had plenty of money.
This just wasn't enough for Sante.
We had done background checks.
One in particular is called a Triple I check,
where they check other states for criminal histories.
And what we discovered about Sante
was that she had, in fact,
approximately 12 prior arrests.
- In Washington, D.C.,
Sante and Ken Sr. were at some elaborate party,
and she happened to have stolen
a fur coat from the coatroom,
and she was arrested for that.
She also served three years in prison
for kidnapping back in 1986.
She held one of her housekeepers captive
in her house in Hawaii.
- Kenny Kimes Sr. had a distrust for her,
but divorce was never either of their intentions.
In 1994, he does pass away,
and Sante inherits all of his wealth.
- NYPD was confident Sante and Kenny Kimes
were behind Irene's disappearance.
But despite having them in custody,
investigators had a problem.
Both the FBI and the LAPD
wanted the Kimes for their own investigations.
- We found out that they were both wanted
in a homicide from LA for a man named David Kazdin.
David Kazdin was actually a business associate
with Sante and Kenneth Kimes.
They were involved in some real-estate fraud.
He wanted out.
- An approximate $210,000 loan was taken out
on his property without him knowing it.
And then on March 14 of 1998,
his body was discovered in a dumpster at LAX airport.
[train horn blares]
- We knew that we had to move quick
to develop our case
before the Kimeses were extradited back to L.A.
We had to really make friends
so there wouldn't be any jurisdictional problems.
- LAPD agreed to suspend their investigation
while New York detectives searched for Irene.
- We had a lot of work to do.
Inspector Reznick wanted us to find Irene Silverman.
By some remote chance, she might be alive.
So he creates a task force of about 20 detectives.
We are dubbed the Silver Task Force.
[dramatic sting]
[indistinct chatter, telephones ringing]
- We held our very first meeting in the war room.
* *
- There was a picture of Irene Silverman
in the war room.
As a task force and as detectives and humans,
we all felt that we needed to solve this case.
This could have been anyone's grandmother or mother.
We were all very invested
in doing whatever we had to do to solve this case.
- It was very obvious to us we had two objectives.
One of them was to find Irene Silverman,
and the second one was to prove
that Sante and Kenny Kimes
were responsible for her disappearance.
- Detectives look back at the evidence
found on Kenny and Sante Kimes
and discover a parking stub for a garage
in Midtown Manhattan.
* *
- They recovered Sante and Kenny's car,
for which a warrant had been issued.
It became instrumental. [camera shutter snaps]
For approximately 30 hours,
a continuous search took place by the Crime Scene Unit.
- The garage was hot.
And there was a lot of things in that car.
It was a grueling day in the basement of that garage.
- Some of the items
that were recovered from the car--
there was a stun gun box.
Stun gun was missing,
but the box was there, and the receipt was there.
- One of the things we found was a caramel-color suitcase.
Inside the suitcase was a 9-millimeter handgun
which had 15 bullets in the magazine.
There was also $22,000 in cash,
unused syringes, and disposable gloves.
- In the trunk, police find an empty duffel bag,
big enough to hide a body.
They also find a mason jar of liquid.
- It was sent to the lab and determined to be "roofilin,"
which is a knockout drug.
* *
- Adding all this now to what we've had so far,
we came to our conclusion
that Irene Silverman was murdered.
* *
- Evidence discovered
in Sante and Kenny Kimes' Lincoln Continental
led New York detectives to believe
they were no longer investigating
a missing-persons case.
[dramatic sting]
Everything now pointed to Irene Silverman
having been killed and disposed of by the Kimes.
The need to find her body created new urgency
for proving a murder case.
- We wanted to establish a timeline
of when Irene was killed.
The parking attendant assured us
that the car was checked in on June 14th at 11:02 a.m.
It was not moved until July 4th.
So we could kind of narrow down,
he took her out of the building on July 5th,
from 11:45 a.m. to 2:20 p.m....
and then he dumped her.
- Given that it was a holiday weekend,
streets were sort of desolate.
This provided Kenny the ideal opportunity
to just walk that body out.
Lifted up the duffel bag, put it into the trunk,
and then ransacked Irene Silverman's apartment.
- We're getting a lot of media attention.
- New York City Police Department has a tips hotline.
And day after day, they'd call us and say,
"Here, we got another one for you."
- Dozens of police officers
combed the perimeter of Central Park.
Their search for clues gained in intensity.
- We searched the Meadowlands in New Jersey based on a tip.
We searched it by ground, and we searched it by air.
Detectives also were sent to go through garbage
at garbage dumps,
because we thought at that point
that Irene Silverman was dumped in a dumpster.
So we had probably about 50 detectives
raking through garbage looking for Irene.
- Despite the massive search effort,
investigators were unable to locate
Irene Silverman's remains.
Meanwhile, Sante Kimes began her own media campaign
from her prison cell
by hiring a production team to push her own narrative.
- It is my great pleasure
to introduce my beloved attorneys,
who are champions of justice--
Mel Sachs. and this is Matthew Weissman.
We will have other attorneys probably helping us.
- Sante was doing press conferences
out of the prison like she was getting ready
to do a stage performance
as opposed to defending for her life.
- Michael Hardy was an associate
of civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton.
And Sante wanted him on her defense team.
- I got involved when I received letters
from Sante.
"I really need you." "We are being prosecuted."
"Our rights are being violated."
She was appealing to my instincts, if you will.
And eventually I decided to say yes.
- After she hired Michael Hardy and Mel Sachs,
her defense attorneys hold press conferences
accusing the NYPD
of setting up Sante and Kenneth Kimes,
framing them for the disappearance
of Irene Silverman.
- They're not being charged
with murder or anything of that nature.
It's solely a warrant from Utah,
and that's it.
- This was a way of detaining them
and holding them.
This is the anatomy of a frame-up.
- The little woman who has disappeared,
if anything has ever happened to her,
it's on the hands of the police.
- To prove her innocence,
Sante hired private investigators
Larry Frost and Clarissa McNair.
- My name is Clarissa McNair.
I became her private detective.
I got a lot of flak for taking on this case.
But it was my first murder case,
and I think everyone is entitled to a good defense.
If a lawyer were there,
she would tell him a certain story.
Another lawyer might come for 20 minutes,
and they'd talk.
She'd tell him an entirely different version
of the story.
And I'd say, "Sante, what are you doing?
"We're on your side.
You're confusing everybody."
And she'd say, "They believe me.
It's my way of having fun."
She loved to lie.
[dramatic sting]
- On July 23rd,
detectives intercepted a phone conversation
between Sante and one of her private investigators,
Larry Frost.
Sante needed a favor.
- What she didn't realize
was that all of her jailhouse conversations
were being monitored.
- Sante asked her private investigator
to go to the Plaza Hotel
to retrieve a bag that she had checked there.
Unbeknownst to the private investigator,
we had a wiretap on the phone,
and we intercepted this information.
- Once he retrieved the bag,
the authorities were there waiting.
- What became critical about finding that bag
was the contents.
And those contents included a .22-caliber handgun
that was wrapped in a white turban,
forged social security cards,
15 notebooks, wigs, Mace,
and plastic handcuffs.
- There were birth certificates
for Manny Guerrin,
for Kenny Kimes, for Sante--
all sorts of documents that were incriminating.
- Other important items
included these spiral notebooks.
One page had a list of items.
It included a shower curtain, rope, tape,
which was most of the evidence recovered from apartment 1B.
- They also find a folder that said, "Final dynasty,"
which was a key piece of evidence.
Inside was the deed of Irene Silverman's mansion.
* *
The paperwork said that Irene sold
her very, very expensive $10 million town house
for only $300,000 to an offshore account
which had the name The Atlantic Group.
- It was forged. It all looked bad.
- It was the evidence detectives needed
to secure a motive in Irene's murder.
- Knowing Sante's history of obtaining money,
the plot was, kill Irene, take over the town house,
move the money to an offshore account,
and then dump her somewhere in Jersey.
* *
- On December 16th, 1998,
the mother-son duo were indicted
on 84 counts,
which included a second-degree murder,
burglary, robbery, as well as fraud.
But there was no direct evidence--
no DNA, no fingerprints, none of that.
This was a pure circumstantial case,
and prosecutors knew they had an uphill battle.
* *
- Okay, just relax.
And then the pauses are really great.
They're essential.
- [exhales deeply]
- Just relax, Ken.
- Hello, my name is Kenneth Kimes.
You don't really know me.
You may think you know me.
You may think you know my mother, but you don't.
We are innocent.
* *
- There were lots of stories about Sante and Kenny.
The tabloids had a field day.
- She would often call the press,
try to give statements to various newspapers.
- Sante was a celebrity.
I mean, she literally used to have reporters
come up to her cell and be giving interviews.
- We're innocent, and if just given our rights,
we will prove it.
- Sante Kimes was practically Meryl Streep.
Her eyes could fill with tears in a second.
- This case is different, like you said,
in that they don't have any evidence.
This case should have... - We will show that...
- Never even been-- - At trial, Sante.
- If you're gonna defend someone
who's being accused of murder,
I do not want my client doing daily interviews
about the case.
- But Sante continuously neglected to take
the advice of her attorneys.
- The reason why we're doing this before trial is because
of the unfair portrayal that's been given about us.
I mean, I've even heard rumors about
how I don't love my mother, how I hate her.
- The media has portrayed us totally like we are not.
We're just a mother and son.
- Essentially, what Sante was attempting to do
is gain some sort of sympathy.
You are talking about potential jurors
reading newspapers, watching the news.
So she was hoping to get to and through them.
- If you believe in justice or family,
I beg for your help.
My son and I are innocent.
- Her playing with the media
and attempting to generate some sympathy
makes me want to laugh,
because people who commit these crimes are sociopaths.
- Over the next year,
detectives work closely with the DA
to prepare for trial.
But despite all the circumstantial evidence
in their favor,
a conviction was a long shot.
- The Silver Task Force, along with the DAs,
really were up against something
that New York City has never seen before.
We were going for a murder conviction
without having a body.
We didn't have any forensic evidence--
no blood, no hair fibers, no fabric fibers, nothing.
- In a case where there's no body,
the likelihood of it ending in a conviction
was slim to none.
[dramatic sting]
[indistinct chatter]
- Going into the trial,
Judge Rena Uviller was the judge.
And Judge Uviller had a great reputation.
And so you really felt like you were walking into
a level playing field.
- To limit any influence on the jurors
and the outcome of the trial,
Judge Uviller barred all cameras
inside the courtroom.
[dramatic music]
* *
- First drawing I did of Sante and Kenneth,
the son was exceptionally handsome
and put together,
although he had kind of a vacantness about his eyes.
His mother, she just looked, like, dangerous.
Her eyes were like coals.
And there was something kind of strange
about the relationship between Sante and Kenny.
There was a physical intimacy that is unusual
between a mother and her son.
She would actually grasp her son's hand
and hold on to it like he was a child
or like he was her man.
The judge had the feeling Sante was in fact manipulating
everyone in the courtroom by this display of affection.
Oh, who could think such horrible things about
such a caring mother?
And she just said, "Cut it out."
And after that, they were put several seats apart.
[dramatic sting]
[indistinct chatter]
- On February 14th of 2000, the trial eventually commenced.
- In their opening statements,
the prosecution painted Sante Kimes
as a woman addicted to crime.
- Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
this is a case about arrogance and greed.
- The prosecution did bring up
that Sante had a very nice life
as the wife of a multimillionaire.
But she still was driven to steal.
This was a compulsion.
And I think there was something in her
that was constantly thirsting for thrills.
Sante Kimes was dangerous.
I never stopped feeling
she was as dangerous as a cobra.
- This mother-son duo,
they had long planned to steal
Irene's $7 million town house.
The mother posed as Irene in this case,
duped a notary into approving a fraudulent deed
that transferred the ownership of the mansion
to a Kimes-owned shell company
after stealing Irene's identity.
She had to be gotten out of their way.
Now, I'm confident that at the end of this trial,
you will be left with no choice
but to come back with a verdict,
guilty as to all counts.
- This is a picture of Michael Hardy
doing his opening argument with Sante.
- Ladies and gentlemen,
there's gonna be a mountain of evidence
that the prosecution puts before you.
They are going to show you
date-rape drugs, rope, tape, guns.
They're gonna show you all of these things.
But let me ask you,
where is the evidence of foul play
against Irene Silverman?
Was Irene Silverman strangled?
There's nothing here to say that.
[camera shutter snapping] What about the guns?
Was Irene Silverman shot?
There's not even any blood.
If she was shot,
there would have to be blood somewhere.
Was Irene Silverman choked?
There would be DNA evidence.
There is none, not a shred.
And if there is no evidence,
there can be no guilt.
- Their biggest defense was, "There's no body.
"So how could there be a crime?
"We don't know where Mrs. Silverman is.
"She could be on a round-the-world cruise.
She could be anywhere."
- At the end of the day,
you knew no matter what they said,
they could not present a body,
so there was reasonable doubt.
- But the jury was still in store for
the most dramatic testimony yet to come.
* *
- While the defense argued reasonable doubt,
the prosecution painted Sante Kimes
as the mastermind behind Irene Silverman's murder.
[dramatic sting]
- One of the pieces of evidence in the case
was a tape recording.
[cassette player clicks] - We recovered the cassette
from that green Lincoln Continental.
- There's no way to describe it
except as damning evidence.
It was Irene Silverman's voice and Sante's voice
on a recording.
- She posed as a representative
from the Circus Circus Hotel in Las Vegas.
- She was telling Irene Silverman
that she had won a trip to Las Vegas.
All she needed to claim it
was her social security number.
- This tape was proof
that Sante was actually eavesdropping.
- I was horrified.
I mean, Sante had made the recording herself.
I think it had a great impact on the jury
to know that Sante Kimes was on a mission
to dupe Mrs. Silverman.
- After 43 days of testimony, the prosecution rested,
and the defense presented their case.
- The defense argued to the jury that officers
and the law enforcement officials in this case
did not truly rule out other individuals
that could have become suspects.
- Irene Silverman was a very interesting victim
because she did have employees,
some of whom had a self-interest.
And she regularly invited people into her home.
And there was a not-for-profit that would inherit her house
whenever she may have passed.
So you had people in her life,
all of whom could have motivation
for her disappearance and death.
[dramatic sting]
- It's always a very tense atmosphere
when the verdict comes in.
You're really literally
practically holding your breath.
- As to Sante Kimes,
guilty.
Three counts of murder in the second degree,
one count of robbery and conspiracy,
16 counts of forgery,
29 counts of eavesdropping,
totaling 58 counts.
[dramatic music]
Kenny was convicted of those exact counts
in addition to two counts
of possession of a forged instrument,
for a total of 60 counts.
- "Guilty, guilty, guilty,"
rang out dozens and dozens of times.
I was shocked.
- The jury unanimously voted the two of them were guilty
without the evidence of Irene's body.
That was the first time in New York City history
that it ever happened.
- Before the judge delivered the sentence,
she calls Sante Kimes
"the most degenerate person
who'd ever been in her courtroom."
- She knew what we knew.
Sante Kimes was the devil in sheep's clothing.
- Following her remarks,
Judge Uviller sentenced Sante Kimes to
120 years in prison
and her son Kenny to 125 years.
[dramatic sting]
Now Los Angeles authorities wanted their turn
for the murder of David Kazdin,
the Kimes' former business partner.
This time Kenny Kimes took a deal.
- The deal was that if he told everything about
the Irene Silverman murder
and to confess to the David Kazdin murder,
California would take the death penalty
off the table for him and his mother.
I will never forget Kenny getting on the stand,
and he began to recount
how he murdered Irene Silverman
on July 5th, 1998.
- He said that his mother stun-gunned Irene.
She fell to the floor. He choked her.
He put her in the bathtub,
wrapped her in that missing caramel-colored quilt,
duct-taped her,
put her in the trunk of his car,
drove through the Lincoln Tunnel,
and dumped her somewhere in Jersey.
Unfortunately, to this day,
Irene Silverman's body was never found.
- Frankly, I was surprised
when I heard that he confessed.
But Sante never confessed
to having killed anyone, for that matter.
* *
- Best of all articles relating to the Kimes
is probably this one here.
We knew he did it all along.
* *
Sad.
- In 2004, Kenny Kimes was sentenced to life
without the possibility of parole.
That same year, his mother, 79-year-old Sante Kimes,
died in prison while serving her sentence.
- The lesson that was learned in this case to me was
you can't judge a book by its cover.
Sante and Kenneth Kimes presented themselves
like the elite, like the affluent,
and they were really the worst people that
anyone could ever come in contact with.
They were serial killers.
- The Kimes underestimated a couple of things here.
They underestimated the capabilities
of Irene Silverman.
And they underestimated the professionalism
and the perseverance
of the New York City Police Department.
They met their match.
* *
- For the first ten years after she disappeared,
I had this fantasy that she was gonna reappear.
But I gave it up.
I would have been wonderful if it had happened.
She was a special lady.
Here's to Irene.
* *