Transcript of Mommy and Clyde: The Crimes of Sante and Kenny Kimes

Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash. And I'm Elaina. And this is Morbid.

This is Morbid. We just got finished watching the... Is it a 2009 documentary?

I think it is 2009. Catfish, the movie.

Catfish, the movie. Not the TV show. The It's a horror movie. It all stemmed from.

Oh, 2010. 2010. Wow. For some reason, I thought it was earlier than that. That movie, wow. Henry aged really well.

Henry did age very well. That's actually nuts. But If you haven't watched that movie yet, where are you?

Honestly, everybody aged pretty well.

You got to watch that movie. That movie will give you so many different emotions. It feels like a horror movie.

No. I I stand by the fact that it it turns into a horror movie. I remember the first time I watched it, I was like, oh, is this a found footage thing?

We thought it was a horror movie when we first watched it.

Yeah, I fully get that.

It's a weird comfort movie for me, even though it's not comforting in any way because the time period it came out in, we watched it when we were living with friends and we all watched it together. It has a nice cozy feel to it. I remember very vividly watching it for the first time. It is one of those movies I can put on and it puts me in a weird cozy place. All right.

I get it being from the time period that feels comfy. I understand that. Because there are certain movies that are just like, I love, and this movie is awful. There's one scene that I can't watch.

No, it's true.

Hold on. I'm literally having- What movie is this? I'm having problems. It's the Yaya Sisterhood, I think. Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood. Oh, it was a traveling pants. Oh my God. That's exactly what I was going to say. I kept going to say Sisterhood of the Traveling Bands. I don't know why. That makes sense. I was like, that's not it.

Sisterhood.

Sisterhood. Yeah. No. The divine secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood. I love that movie, but it's the darkest movie of all time.

I've never seen that movie.

You would hate it. Yeah. There's one scene that literally I could never watch again. Really? Yeah. I saw it when way too young. But I love that movie. But I think it just reminds me of a childhood or something.

That's the thing. It's not necessarily... I will say with Catfish, though, every time I feel like I know what is going to happen. Yeah, but you're still shocked. I'm still shocked by it. And I'm still like, just you could knock me over with a goddamn feather. I get it. Every time. I get it. And we were watching it and Deb had not seen it. Watching somebody? And Mikey had not seen it, actually. So we had them watch it for the first time, and they were shocked. And watching their reactions. That's the thing. Made us sit there and go, wait a second. We should- Maybe we should talk about the original Catfish movie on a bonus episode because you know it'll be fun and terrifying and wild.

And Wild. If you've never seen it before, go watch it.

Don't spoil it for yourself.

Go watch it. Don't Google anything.

But maybe we'll do... We have a few bonus episodes planned out ahead of time. We're going to be covering Eclipse. Obviously, we got a fun book club in there, and we have America's Next Top Model. America's Next Top Model. So we have those lined up, but we could do it after those. And just let us know if that sounds like a good idea. I feel like it would be a fun. It'd be fun. A fun one to deep dive into. It feels crimey. Because I would also love to go into this happening, the phenomenon of catfishing on the internet. Because doesn't it feel crimey?

Like, identity theft is a crime. Yeah.

I mean, it does feel very crimey, especially.

You know what I mean?

I don't want to ruin anything. So I feel like it would be a fun episode. Yeah.

There's so much to talk about within that movie.

Yeah. So let us know if that sounds like a good bonus episode for a few out from now. Yeah, yeah. Hit us up. Yeah.

I have a wild case today, and Dave named this one. And I said, What am I getting into? Mommy and Clyde. Mommy and Clyde? Mommy and Clyde. It's the Crimes of Santa and Kenny Kimes. Okay. I hadn't heard of this one when I dived into it. No, I haven't heard of it. I was swimming in a sea of what the fuck.

Oh, I always love that.

And it starts really beautifully, but then it gets so sad so fast. Let's go, girls. And then it gets fucking dark and crazy and murderous. Oh, man. So it also starts on July fourth. Oh. On July fourth, 1998, 82-year-old Irene Silverman threw a small party for her friends at her East 65th Street townhouse. Let's go. She was a former ballet dancer who had studied under the famous Russian instructor, Michael Fouquien. Even once she was retired and got older, she never lost a single bit of her elegance. This woman is gorgeous if you look her up. Get it, girl. Her friend John Gruen said, She was a very exquisite woman, very beautiful. I remember offering her some coffee or tea when she came to our house. She refused, saying she was in constant pain with a bad back. She told us the only way that she could allay the pain was with champagne. And with that, she took a small bottle out of her purse and we got her a glass.

Honestly, she sounds iconic. I love her.

So it seemed like everybody who had even just a casual relationship with Irene had only good things to say about her. Her former dancer, Janice Herbert said, She was so hip, so funny, so awake. She was with it. Another close friend And Zang Toy, echoed those same statements. He said, She's vivacious. She's a lot of fun. Zang Toy and Irene had actually been friends for many, many years. So of course, he had been to her Manhattan townhouse for a ton of the lavish parties that she had thrown throughout the years. And he was always amazed by the lengths that she went to just to make sure everybody was entertained. Like, anybody who was at her party, there was going to be something special for each person. He said, She knew how to throw a great party during her heyday, and she had a heart of gold. Oh, So rewinding a bit now. Irene had been born into a poor family in New Orleans, Louisiana. New Orleans. So you would love her. She was born in 1916. Her father was a fisherman. Her mother was a seamstress. And despite the odds, she did manage to escape that poverty through her incredible talent and commitment to dance.

She was a beautiful dancer. Eventually, she landed a spot studying with some of the most famous ballet instructors in the world. And at her height, she was dancing on some of the most prestigious stages, which included a high-profile position with the Radio City Music Hall's Classical Ballet Company. Oh, shit. That's a huge deal. That's huge. And that was, I believe it was called Cours de Ballet. She used to say, Lots of people think I'm very rich, and I am. But I've always worked. And look at where I and look at where I began. I'm a tough broad, a child of the depression. I had to be self-supporting from the age of 16. Wow. I just love, Lots of people think I'm rich. And I am. She's like, Fuck you. I worked for it. Yeah, good for her. She's got great energy. So in 1941, Irene married Millionaire real estate broker Sam Silverman, and they were happily married until his death in 1980. Obviously, they had been married for so, so long. So Sam's death was incredibly hard for Irene, but she was determined to hold on to her love of life. She didn't want to just lose herself in his death.

And in the years that followed, she was just making sure she was constantly surrounded by friends and family. Now, she was a widow, so she had a lot of time on her hands, and she also had more money than she knew what to do with. So 59-year-old Irene enrolled in courses at Columbia University. Wow. Started taking classes. Look at her. And then she'd throw these huge parties for her classmates and her instructors, and she would regularly treat them to small gifts or gestures of her friendship. Her friend George Frango said, These gatherings were colorful, improvised theater, over which Irene presided, reveling in the intrigue and drama of it all.

She sounds like a hot fucking ticket.

She really does.

She really does.

It wasn't just that she wanted to fill her time after her husband's death either. It seemed like no matter where she was, she just wanted to be surrounded by people. Like, she had a love for life. Yeah. In the wake of Sam's passing, she decided to rent out one or two of the rooms. She had very large bedrooms in her Manhattan mansion. And over the years, she shared her home with tenants like actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Oh, okay. She rented out to Lenny Kravitz and Shaka Khan.

No big deal.

Isn't that nuts?

No big deal.

It wasn't that she needed the money. She just didn't like being alone. She, again, loved being around people.

Why not have really awesome people around all the time?

Well, and that's the thing. When it came to choosing tenants, she had two requirements. They had to be interesting and they had to be easy to get along with.

Honestly, that's so valid.

Yeah, that was pretty much it. Those who happily shared their lives with her usually found themselves rewarded, too, in just unexpected ways. Yeah. According to journalist Alex Kirsta, they might find Silverman's antique Silver Service and a bottle of champagne left in their dining room when she knew they were holding a party. One who had embarked on a romance with a new girlfriend came home one day to find his old bed replaced with a much larger one.

Wow.

She said, get to it.

She said, you know what?

She said, you're welcome. I'll help. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, I want to be friends with Irene. Yeah. So at the end of the night, just where we started on July fourth, Irene said goodbye and good night to her guests, and she went to bed. The next morning, her maid, Arichela, came to clean up after the party. And it was a holiday, obviously. So the rest of the staff was off. And Arichela herself was planning to leave around noon. She was working a shorter shift. Okay. The last time she saw Irene, she was still dressed in her nightgown and her slippers. And Irene asked if Arichela would take the dog for a walk on the roof garden before she left. And Arichela was planning to leave for a few hours, and then she was going to come back. Okay. So she was like, Oh, before you go, just walk the dog. So when Arichela returned after being away around 4: 00 PM, she got back. The house was empty, and there was no sign of Irene anywhere, which was very strange. Yeah. And as far as Arichela knew, Irene didn't have any plans to go out that day.

The rest of the staff was gone. Irene, like I just told you, she loves being surrounded by people. She very rarely went anywhere alone. So it seemed highly unlikely that she would have left without saying anything to anybody. Yeah. So obviously concerned that something was wrong, Arichela called Irene's Butler, Mengy Menjistu, knowing that if anybody knew where Irene had gone, it would be Mengy. But Menjee hadn't heard from Irene since the day before when he left for the long weekend. Uh-oh. So similarly, Irene's close friend and business manager, Jeff Fieg, hadn't heard from her in a day or two. And he said she hadn't mentioned having any plans to go anywhere over the holiday weekend, so he agreed it was weird. Yeah. So Arichela waited in the house for an hour or two. She was like, she could have gone somewhere. It would be out of character, but let's not panic. But after an hour or two, the panic was starting to set in. There was still no sign of Irene, so Arichela called the police. Now, strangely, the day after fourth of July is a quieter day for the Manhattan police. When the call came in about a missing elderly socialite, it didn't seem like an emergency situation, which is weird to me.

But the case was assigned to newly promoted junior Detective Tom Hovajim. Hovajim, excuse me. Later, he said, I'd just gotten promoted in January, so the other two guys were pretty senior to me, and they said, Well, kid, this is yours because nobody really wants a missing person's case. It's tedious work.

Damn.

I was like, That's fake as fuck. All right.

Cool. It's tedious to find someone missing.

So you do it. Nice. Also, you're junior, so you do it. I'm like, But you guys are senior, so you might be a little better at it.

It's like a whole person missing.

Yeah. Somebody's loved one.

You could treat it with a little more than that.

Respect, dignity, any of the above. But luckily, Detective Hovajim was a good detective. He drove to Irene's 6-story townhouse on the Upper East Side, and he started collecting information. I just... Like, picturing a 6-story townhouse. All I can think of is Sonia Morgan's house.

That's literally all I could think of.

From Real House Wives of New York. But to have to collect evidence from a home like that? Yeah. I can't imagine. Oh, my God. And there's all this expensive- I was going to say in this like, years of...

Like, antiques. Of living in there that you have to like, search through.

You also have to be careful. It's a lot. So with Arichela as a guide, Hovajim He breached the entire house and the entire property, but there was truly no sign of Irene anywhere. After searching the house, he spoke with the attendees of the party the previous evening, but didn't really find anything useful or suspicious there. And the same was true of Irene's staff. Everybody was accounted for, and nobody had any information that seemed useful in finding Irene, and none of them seemed suspicious in any way. So other than the missing homeowner, there was really just one thing that seemed out of the ordinary. Irene's current tenant, a man named Manny Guirin also appeared to be missing. So about three weeks earlier, on June 14th, Manny Guirin showed up at Irene's door. He said he was a businessman from Palm Beach, and he was looking to rent one of her large vacant apartments upstairs. I think earlier I said they were rooms. They were actually apartments. Because a picture like a townhouse.

Yeah, that makes sense.

So Manny was charming. He was well-spoken. Two things that Irene prized. Seems like he might be easy to get along with.

A good tenant.

But But the only weird thing was he didn't have any references or identification. What he did have, though, was $6,000 cash for the first month's rent and a promise that he would give her the references the following day. It's a red flag for sure. But especially because we know.

But it's also a red flag from... Yeah, I was going to say it's from the rear view mirror. Exactly. A red flag.

I think she was 84. She probably is like, I can read people at this point. I'm getting good vibes. He's a businessman. He's got the money.

Obviously, the vibes run off to her.

Right. All things considered, she said she couldn't see the harm in letting him get settled and giving him a couple days to put together a list of references. She let him move in that very day. But the problems began almost immediately. Oh, no. Once he moved into the large first floor apartment, he became far less charming than he had been on that first day. When Irene or the staff members interacted with him at all, he seemed to avoid eye contact, which was obviously very strange. Yeah. And he also would only give one word and often very blunt responses. He refused to allow the cleaning staff into his apartment. Oh. Which it's like, why? You don't own it. Yeah. You're just, you're renting it. And anytime Irene would press him for those references, he'd come up with one excuse or another about why he didn't have them. Yep. Equally troubling was the number of suspicious-looking people who seemed to show up at his apartment at all hours, including an older woman who he, quote, always seemed to shield from the security camera when letting her in.

This would fuck me up. Yeah.

Irene wasn't the only person who found him suspicious. Her staff also found him strange and disconcerting. More than once, one of them noticed him staring at Irene's open office door or like, lurking around the door.

The fuck?

Menjie Menjistu, her butler, expressed his concern to many of Irene's close friends, including James Shenton. Shenton said, Menji became suspicious when Gwerin started getting Pally and trying to turn him against Irene. Gwerin asked why they were all silly enough to go on working there and said she was just a wealthy exploiter who didn't care about their future and that they'd never end up with money or security. And he suggested they come work for him instead. What the fuck? Would you have to imagine? Get the fuck out of here. Also, this woman has well-established relationships with these people. They know who she is.

You think you're going to turn them on her right now?

And she treats her staff like family.

That's the thing. She puts her money where her mouth Exactly.

So eventually, several of the staff members, including Magistu, told Irene about their concerns. They were trying to have respect for her, of course.

This guy's talking shit behind your back.

Right. Exactly. In the beginning, I think they were like, You know what you're doing. And like, We're not going to second guess you. But I think as time went on, they were like, Irene, are you sure about this?

We're getting weird vibes. It seems shady.

And they had actually heard. I think they felt more confident sharing these concerns after they heard her arguing with him for a few A few days after he moved in.

Oh, damn. I thought you were going to say for a few days.

For a few days.

I almost did. It was like the stamina that takes.

Yeah, they were arguing for days. So Irene's friend Bob Jacobik remembered, Valerie and Menji both warned her not to trust him. Down in the kitchen, Menji had drawn an Ethiopian cruciform symbol on top of the fridge as if to ward off evil, saying, These people mean you no good. They are bad, and you should be afraid of them. Whoa. Irene's response was that she was an old lady who had survived many dangers, and she still She wasn't afraid of anybody. She's such a bad bitch. She really is. But still, after just one week. Wow. This all happened in one week? This all happened in one week. Holy shit. Irene had had enough of Manny, and she told him she wanted him out. He never got her the references. Yeah. He's trying to turn her staff against her. He's bringing all these weird people in. She's like, Get out of here. The following day, she instructed her business manager to serve him with eviction papers before the month's lease was even up.

Good for her.

So the last time that James Shenton, a friend of Irene, saw her was June 27th, just one week before the fourth of July party. Irene might have talked a tough game, and she was definitely a very self-sufficient woman. But that day, her friend couldn't help but notice that she seemed particularly spooked by what was going on. Rather than sit inside to have coffee and talk like they always did, Irene insisted they go up to the rooftop garden because she was, quote, nervous of being overheard. She felt like she was being listened to.

She was listening. Imagine having a rooftop garden to I would fucking wish. To talk shit.

I would never stop talking shit on my rooftop garden.

That would be the only reason for my rooftop garden is to go up there and talk shit.

I would name it something about... Talking shit. Talking shit. Yeah. Yeah. I would decorate it for optimal shit talking. Yes, absolutely. Comfy chairs. Oh, hell, yeah. Mini fridge. Yep. Snacks.

Tea cups.

Tea cups. Spilling tea, metaphorically and literally.

Those chairs are going to have big comfy pillows so you can sit cross-legged.

Someday, let's get a roof garden where we can talk shit. Yeah, I don't want that. Shaking. Shaking. We're shaking across the room. We're shaking. We're doing that. So they went up to the roof garden to talk shit. And when Chet and asked Irene what was wrong, she said, I can't tell you what's wrong. I don't want to put you in danger. You'll know more next week.

That would fuck me up.

I would be like, I'm going to take you away from here.

I'd be like, We got to go somewhere. I can't.

But obviously, at the same time, Irene's telling you, I can handle it. I'm So there's nothing he could have done to get involved.

No, definitely not. I just wouldn't be able to let that go. I would think about it day and night.

Yeah, day and night. So the disappearance- That happened to us earlier.

Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, no, you're good.

It did happen to us earlier.

When somebody gave us a very vague like, oh, don't worry about it. This person said this. And we hung up the phone and we said, no. And we immediately texted and we were like, tell me everything that person said. I don't care what it was. Tell me now. I need to know.

And we convinced them to tell us what they said.

Yeah, because I'll obsess over it forever.

And we won. Yeah. So the disappearance of Manny Gueren at the same time as Irene Silverman went missing was definitely suspicious. Yeah. But at the same time, Irene had insisted that she wanted him out, and her business manager had given him eviction papers. So to Detective Hovind regime, he thought it was possible that maybe Manny had just simply left as he was instructed.

Yeah, it's suspicious that they are gone at the same time. But if you look at it piecemeal, you're like, well, his disappearance isn't crazy because of what you just said. Right. It's just when you put it together, then it gets a little...

Well, then, as he was leaving the house, the detective, he noticed a spot of blood on the ground by the front entrance, and the case was immediately elevated to something far more concerning than just a missing person.

This is echoing the Nancy Guthrie case right now. Okay. Thank you. In a way I can't handle.

Thank you so much. It's all I could think of while I was putting this together. That's so weird. Isn't it?

And that's not on purpose either.

No, it's not on purpose at all.

Which also, just a quick little thing, they still don't have updates. They detained someone last night, but then let them go. What the fuck is going on in that case? I know.

It's very strange. I'll keep watching. The doorbell footage is haunting.

Doorbell footage is the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. I hate it so much. It ruined everything about me. Yeah.

To the core of my being. I was watching it last night before I went to bed and I was having weird dreams afterwards. I know.

It's such a bad idea.

Truly the worst idea. But back to this. Things only got more alarming when one of the staff members opened Manny's room for the detective. And inside, Hovajim found a small number of personal items. But what stood out most were the garbage bags, the roll of duct tape, and the shower curtain rings on the shower rod with lack of a shower curtain.

Oh.

Yeah.

That points to something. Sure does.

So the next day, Hovajim and his partner, Joe Resnick, held a press conference to ask for the public's help in locating Irene Silver German and Manny Gueren. They didn't have a photo of Manny, but they did have a professional quality sketch of him that Irene had actually had done a few days before she disappeared. Wow. Which is just next level. Wow. So they use that as a reference for the public. Now, Detective Ed Murray of the NYPD's Fugitive Task Force happened to be watching that press conference that day. When he saw the sketch, he immediately recognized the man not as Manny Gueren, but as Kenny Kimes. Oh, no. A car thief and con artist that he had taken into custody just a day earlier, a few hours after Irene Silverman had disappeared. Oh, no.

A few weeks before Kenny Kimes showed up at Irene's door posing as Manny Gueren, he and his mother, Santa, had fled Utah after writing a bad check to rent a Lincoln town car.

The fraud was reported to the police, and when they were discovered to be in the New York area, the Fugitive Task Force set up a sting operation to capture them. Okay. So from the moment that Santa and Kenny Kimes were arrested, Murray found the pair to be very odd. He said, There was something that I just didn't think it was like a mother and a son. He said, They were clearly related, but Santa seemed to be more like a criminal boss in the way that she talked to her son than she did like a mother. And when they pulled both their criminal records, what came back was a startling trail of crimes and suspicions of things much more serious than check fraud.

Interesting.

So, Santa Kimes, let's get into who she was. Santa Kimes was born Sandra Louise Singers, I believe it is, in Oklahoma City on July 24, 1934. She was one of three children born to Mary and Prame Singers. She was born during the peak of the dust bowl in the part of the US that was most affected by the dust bowl. So they went on to move to LA to look for work. According to her oldest son, Kent Walker, Santa's oldest son, not long after arriving in LA, Prame abandoned his family and left the children to wander the streets of LA day and night while their mother did whatever she could to support their family, which sometimes included sex work. Yeah. Now, it would be several decades before Kent learned that most of what he thought he knew about his mother's past was largely untrue. She had lied to him for most of his life.

Interesting.

The father had not abandoned the family. He actually died of a heart attack when Santa was about five years old. That's different. Very different. And according to her sister, Reba. Reba. He loved that. They had been a solid middle-class family, and nobody ever relied on sex work to support the family.

What the fuck? Yeah. That's the weirdest shit I've ever heard. What?

Yeah. Considering her extensive history as a con artist and a consummate liar, it's really hard to determine what part of her life is true and what part is not true and what's a lie and what's not.

I know people who do that. Same. All the time. They just make up entire back stories. It's like, why are you doing that?

Like, write a book. I think it becomes- You can write a whole backstory for a character in a book.

You can. It won't affect anyone.

I think it becomes compulsive at a certain point. It does. I think it does.

And then I do- Pathological.

I do believe that there are people who believe, they start to believe the falsehoods that they make up. I don't know if she's one of them, but- I don't know what the difference between pathological and compulsive would be because a compulsive liar and a pathological liar.

My ex-boyfriend told me once because he said he was one.

I think a compulsive liar lies.

He told me one of them- A pathological liar lies because they can't help it.

A compulsive liar lies to get out of trouble.

One of them is like, you lie when you don't have to. I'm not kidding you. My ex-boyfriend, he was very matter of fact when he would get caught doing things.

Because you called him a pathological liar.

Because I said, you're a fucking pathological liar. And he said, I'm not actually because pathological liars lie when they don't have to. And he always lied when he had to, he felt.

Well, actually, he was a pathological liar. He just wasn't a convulsive liar.

Yeah, I think he was lying when he said he wasn't a pathological liar.

That's a mindfuck. So this is, according to Google, pathological liars lie manipulatively to gain control, which is what he did. Yep. That's right. A tension or an advantage. There you go. Often with little remorse to serve a selfish agenda. So he's a pathological liar.

Yeah, he was wrong.

Conversely, compulsive liars lie habitually as an automatic uncontrollable urge to cope with anxiety or stress, often about small mundane matters without a clear motive.

Maybe I had it wrong then. Maybe it was flipped around that compulsive liars lie technically when they don't have to, but pathological liars.

Pathological lying is more calculated. Compulsive lying is more impulse-driven.

That makes sense. Yeah.

It sounds like she could have been pathological liar, I would say.

She sounds like she was pathological.

Yeah. But then I don't know the difference. I don't think there is a difference, but I wonder what liars start to believe their own lies if there's a word for that. Yeah. Because that is the thing. That just becomes a mental health disorder.

But I wonder if that's just in general, if you lie enough. Yeah. Which I do believe that that's a thing, because if you lie enough, you begin to believe what you're saying about because your brain will just be like, Well, this is real.

It's like how you tell yourself if you're like, Oh, I'm so ugly, your brain starts to believe it.

It's true. It's like if you tell yourself anything for long enough, your brain will start to go into survival mode of like, Well, this is life now. This is reality now, so I should live it.

This is reality now, so I should live it. That's lies. Lies. But it's hard to determine what part of Santa's life is true and what's lies. Most of it's lies. It's lies. Even her son, Kent, who's her older son, by the way. It's a little confusing because there's Kent and then there's Kenny.

I was going to say Kenny.

And then she also marries a man named Ken, which Which is very confusing. Wow. Yeah, it's a lot. I think she also marries a man named Kent. No, she doesn't. Holy shit. There's Kent, Ken, and Kenny.

That's like Ron Swanson when it's like my first ex-wife, Tammy, my second wife, Tammy. And his mom, Tammy. Yes, My mother's name is Tamara. Yeah. We call her Tammy. I don't understand.

It's a lot. So even her son, Kent, acknowledges that his mother's backstory should be taken with a grain of salt. For sure. According to Santa's- Because lies. Yeah, exactly. What'd you say? Because lies. Yeah, because lies. Pathological. So according to Santa's version of the story, when she was still very young, she ingratiated herself to a local theater owner who took pity on her and started buying her lunches whenever she came around. And this was Dottie Seligman men. Dottie's brother-in-law, Edward Chambers, and his wife Mary, had always wanted children, but had been unable to have any of their own through natural means. So Dottie arranged for the couple to adopt Santa, and within a few years of living in California, Virginia, she had a new home and a new name, Sandy Chambers.

What?

I don't know if that's true. What? It might be. It might not be. We don't really know. Cool. But according to those who did know Santa during her early years, she was a liar and a thief all while she was still in high school. Her inclination to manipulate and con others only got worse the older she got. Oh, no. By then, she had renamed herself Santa. Santa. She believed the name sounded more French and therefore more More sophisticated.

I mean, is she correct? Yeah.

Actually, we were setting something. This just reminded me. We're tangenting today.

Yeah, it's one of those days.

We were setting up an account the other day, Drew was, and the guy was like, Oh, should I add, I'm so sorry if I say this wrong, Ashley? And Drew was like, Oh, it's just Ashley.

Ashley.

And he goes, It's spelled so fancy. It is. I was like, Yeah. I mean, he's right. I was like, You can just say Ashley. It was so funny. I love that a lot. So my name is French and more sophisticated. Ashley? Ashley. Imagine if I just demanded everybody call me that because I thought it sounded more sophisticated. I think you should. Well, Santa did. In 1956, Santa reconnected with an old boyfriend, Edward Walker. They got married not long after. And one year later, her first son, Kent, with a hard T. Kent. Okay. Was born. But his arrival did not do a lot to strengthen the couple's already failing marriage. At the time, Edward was a contractor who built houses in and around Sacramento, and it was a stable job with a pretty decent income. But it was far from the riches that Santa believed she deserved. She wanted more. In 1960, she set fire to one of her husband's properties. Holy shit. That escalated fast. I said, So you know what she did about it? She collected an insurance payout.

I deserve more than commit arson. Yeah.

She committed lots of arson. Damn. In the years that followed, several more of Edward's construction projects would, quote, burn down mysteriously.

I just feel bad for Edward.

I do, too. That's his hard work. Yeah, he's doing like... And all the people that had to build all of that and put in hours and hours and days of work.

She's just burning them down.

Yeah, she sucks. So in 1961, she was arrested and convicted, not for arson, but for shoplifting in Sacramento. Oh, that's new. Yes. And after that, it seems like her marriage disintegrated. She and Edward were living apart by then. They got back together every now and again and talked of reconciling permanently. But by 1969, they finally gave up and officially divorced. Now single, Santa left Sacramento Kento. Ready to mingle. Ready to mingle. And she wanted to mingle in the decidedly more glamorous Palm Springs. Oh, my. And she took her son, Kent, with her. It was there that she met Ken. Oh, okay. So not Ken. She met Ken Kimes. That's a lot. Yeah. Ken was a wealthy motel developer who was nearly 20 years, Jacina. Oh. He didn't know it at the time, but their meeting had not, in fact, been by chance at all. Oh. Sanda had read about him in his recent divorce in a magazine article, which also referenced his networth.

Oh.

So seeing him in the life of luxury that she believed she was entitled to, she orchestrated their meeting, and they were dating in no time.

That's confidence, though. It's called manifesting. I will give her that.

Look it up.

She's like, I love that she was just like, I can snag him.

And she did.

Good for you on that front.

On that. Yeah. Period.

Just that.

A few years later, in 1975, their son, Kenny, was born.

Jesus.

What's Ken? Kenny's. So first came Kent Then came Ken. Then came Kenny.

Okay.

So Kenny is Ken Jr.

Yeah, that's the Kenny that was Manny.

Exactly. You're following. We're following. You're following. Get your red string out, everybody. Look at that. So Kenny was born in 1975, and six years After that, Santa and Ken officially got married in Nevada. Okay. And I said it right. You did say it right. I know. And I don't even say it like that. I did that for you guys.

Oh, I say it wrong. I was just about to. I was like, maybe I say it right. And then I said, no, I don't.

We say it wrong. Sorry. But I said it right for the listener.

That's really nice of you. You're welcome.

So by all accounts, there never seemed to be a moment in Santa's life where she wasn't scheming, conning, ripping somebody off.

Aren't you tired?

No. I think people like that thrive. They have to. Because it's exhilarating to them, I think.

Yeah, I think they're those people that live for drama.

Yeah, they live on the edge.

It's their lifeblood. It drains me.

I was just going to say it drains the shit out of me. Even while she was living well off of Ken's Millions, it seems like she just couldn't help but commit crime if, like I just said, only for the thrill.

She just loved to crimes.

She loves criming. She loves criming. She loves criming. Her last name is literally Kimes, but it should be Crimes. Crimes. She's not to crimes. In the winter of 1980, just a few months before she got married to Ken, Santa was at the town and country Lounge in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC. Just like a little lounge area where she was drinking, drinking and eating, maybe. Probably not. When it looks like she was getting ready to leave, though, one of the patrons, Rina Beachi. Rina Beachy? Rina Beachy. Sounds like a nice lady.

And you know what? She is in a lounge.

Yeah, absolutely. Rina in a lounge. Rina Beachy. Yes, absolutely. Well, Rina Beachy watched with astonishment as Santa threw her own mink coat over the coat of another woman who wasn't paying attention. And then Santa casually stood up, put both coats on, and walked out of the restaurant. So her first son, Kent, confirmed later. That's who she That is who she was.

I love that Kent is just like, yeah, I don't know. She just did that. It reminds me of, again, a quick little tangent. We're tangente today, but it's okay. I know. I am. Go watch on Netflix Man on the Inside. It's Ted Danson. Yeah. Real funny. Two seasons, I think. Mincoats? Very funny. They also have a con woman in the second season that is reminding me very much of this. Would pull something off. Really?

I got to watch that. You've been telling me that.

It's one of those shows that is delightful. I'm telling you, if you need a little, we could all use a little pick me up right now. A little fluffiness, a little whimsy, Man on the Inside with Ted Danson. I fucking love Ted Danson. I love Ted Danson. Don't tell me anything about Ted Danson. I just love him. Oh, my God. Don't. Just don't. Don't. I don't want to know anything. To me, he's awesome. It's a great show. I highly recommend it if you need a little thing. It's just reminded me of it because it's very Connery.

I'm going to watch that. Back to this. It didn't take long for the DC police to catch up with Santa, and she was charged with grand larceny because mint coats are very expensive. Yeah, that's a big deal. But when the trial day came, she was just nowhere to be found.

Yeah, she said, That's not for me. She said, No. No. That wasn't part of it.

She's a lounge girl. She's not a trial girl. So the prosecutor She did with the case anyway, trying her in absentia, and she was found guilty. It doesn't happen that often that they try you in absentia, which is a fun thing to say. That is really fun. Say it. Ready?

Absentia. Fun.

I do like that. She later appealed the conviction, arguing that her constitutional rights were violated when they tried her in absentia. But the lower court's conviction was upheld. They said, no. They said, You l'arcenied. You did. Grandly. You l'arcenied a lot. This was the first of many times that she would be caught committing crimes, but always seem to have a way of getting out of taking responsibility. Until the slavery charge came in 1985.

What?

Yeah. What? She was charged with slavery. What? In 1985. I Okay. The year of Big Red.

That is the year of me. But my goodness. I don't know what the fuck is happening in this case. I've never heard of it in my entire life. It goes crazy. I did not look at this beforehand. That just took Yeah. That just took me out.

I figured I would just deliver it to you in a normal tone.

You just laid down that charge.

And just really got your reaction. What the fuck? Yeah.

Oh, let's tell me about this.

Okay. I will. So in the mid-1980s, Santa and Ken, they were living a good life in a large house in La Hoya, California. They had a staff of housekeepers to handle most of the responsibilities around the home. At first, Santa treated the housekeeping staff very well, almost like family, almost like what we were saying with Irene earlier. Yeah. But the difference was, as soon as they challenged Santa in any way, they found themselves on her bad side. Eew. Kent said, It is just like everything else in her life, elevated, elevated, elevated. And so the maids then became the enemy in the house.

She's such an asshole. She sucks. That's so gross.

So now, no longer interested in treating them well, Santa became abusive towards the housekeepers. So singling out one housekeeper who often traveled with them from California to their house in Hawaii. According to the criminal complaint, Santa was physically and verbally abusive towards this woman who alleged that Santa and Ken locked her in her room, and she alleged, She was not allowed to use a telephone or write to anyone was never paid for her services.

They literally forced her to work for them, locked her up when she wasn't working, and let her out to work.

That's it. And treated her horribly and physically abused her as well.

What a fucking pair of monsters.

Yes. So as a result, Santa and her husband were charged with violating federal peonage, which is forced labor and slavery laws. Wow. And they were indicted.

She's a A real piece of shit.

She's a big old piece of shit. So the indictments were the first charges of slavery to be pursued in the United States for many, many, many, many, many deal, and he was given a short prison sentence and a large fine. Dick. But Santa, on the other hand, flatly rejected the accusation and actually tried to make herself the victim in all of it. Oh, shut the fuck up. She said she took the case to trial, which is just insane. I don't know why you would ever do that. You're literally accused of slavery. Yeah. And she insisted that she was being framed. The jury did not buy that, and she was ultimately found guilty, but only spent three years in federal prison.

Three years for a slavery charge?

Yes. Wow. Next level.

We're killing it.

We're a broken system. We're really killing it here. We're a broken system.

We remain killing it. Yeah. Holy shit.

The conviction and the jail sentence you would think would be a wake-up call for Santa. Probably not. Maybe setting her on a path toward a more responsible, maybe law-abiding life. No, she's a total bitch. Yeah. As anybody could have guessed, it didn't seem like that was the life she wanted, and she was a bitch. Actually, after being released from jail in the late 1980s, it seemed that not only did she not have any intention to stop committing crimes, but she actually had bigger and more elaborate schemes in mind. She was like, I only got three years for slavery, so I feel like I could fuck around some more.

Yeah, I mean, that'll make you think you're invincible, I guess. Yeah.

After returning to their house in my birthplace, Honolulu, In 1989, things went back to normal for a little bit, but it wasn't long before Santa got back to her old ways. The Keims family, including Kent, were all living in Las Vegas when they got a call from John, who was the caretaker of the house in Hawaii. According to John, the house had caught fire and was reduced to ashes in a surprisingly short amount of time. Oh, no. Kent said, her oldest son said, I knew what happened. I didn't know the specifics, but there was no doubt in my mind. Damn. In fact, when he heard about the news at the house, he started thinking back to his own father and all of those times that Edward Walker's construction projects had burned in, quote, unquote, mysterious circumstances. He's like, huh? He's like, That's weird. Fire seems to follow my mom wherever she goes. So a few weeks after the house burned down, Santa obviously filed an insurance claim, and she waited for her money to come in. Of course. But by that time, the Bureau of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, ATF, had taken an interest in the case, and they started investigating what they believed to be arson.

A short time later, Elmer Holmgren, who was an unemployed lawyer and associate of Santa and Ken's, confessed to setting the fire. Oh, wow. He never mentioned Santa or Ken in his confession, but many, many people suspected that Santa had somehow convinced him to set the fire. A month later, another fire occurred, this time in Elmer Holmgren's office, where he had papers stored that could implicate Santa in the arson. Uh-oh. Elmer still hadn't identified Santa as the one who paid him to burn the house, but she assumed that it was only a matter of time before he did, and that type of accusation obviously would have landed her back in jail. Yeah, of course, where she belongs. Where she belongs. But she's not going to have that.

No, of course not.

Just as she expected he would, Elmer Holmgren did make a drunken confession to a friend in early '91, that it was he who had burned the house in Hawaii, but that he had done it for $3,000 given to him by Santa Kimes. But what he probably didn't expect was for his friend to immediately relay that information to ATF agents working on case. And in exchange for a reduced sentence, he agreed to wear a wire and try to get Santa to confess to their arrangement. But the most federal agents ever got was a short message from Elmer, who told them that the plan would have to be put on hold. He couldn't handle it. Several months later, in August, Elmer told his family he was going on vacation to Costa Rica with Santa and Ken Kimes. Don't do that. That was the last time anybody ever saw him alive again. Oh, no. Yeah. According to Kent Walker, during a drunken fight with Kenny, his younger brother, Santa, and himself. His brother admitted that their mother had murdered Elmer Holmgren. Holy shit. Kenny allegedly shouted, She killed that guy. She was sitting in the back seat and she hit him with a hammer.

Oh, my God. Yeah. Several years later, in 2000, Kenny would repeat that confession, this time to federal authorities, but no charges were ever brought against Santa or Kenny, and Elmer's body has never been found. Holy shit. Yeah. That's diabolical. Yeah.

In the years that followed, Santa and Ken, her Ken senior, the husband, seemed to be laying low in avoiding the attention of law enforcement somehow.

But then, out of the blue, in 1994, poor Kent got a call from his mother who was in hysterics.

I know I'm feeling bad about Ken.

I do, too. But there's good news that comes.

Can I feel bad about Kent? Yes.

Okay.

You could totally feel bad. I've been wanting to say that, but I was like, what if he's terrible, too?

No, he's great. Okay. As far as I... Well, I don't actually know anything about him. From what you've seen. But from what I've seen, he's great. Okay. And there's a nice little sprinkle in here that I'm glad he will get there. But before that, in 1994, he gets this call from his mom. She's hysterical, and she keeps repeating over and over, They won't fix him. And then she just hung up. That's it. Which it's like, maybe relay information.

Yeah.

Ken had no idea what she was talking about, but eventually he learned that his mother was referring to Ken senior, who had just died from a brain aneurysm.

Oh, man.

Yeah. I would feel a little bit worse if he wasn't guilty of slavery.

If he wasn't charged with slavery.

Yeah, exactly. Charged and convicted.

Yeah, that's the thing.

So Ken's death sent Santa into a downward spiral if she wasn't already in one. And that caused her to become more erratic than ever. Not only because her husband and literal partner in crime was gone, but also because when he died, he left her with nothing. Wow. He left her with nothing.

I mean, if you're both like that, how are you expecting that you have an actual partner? Well, and the thing- That person's whole life is lying and conning, just like yours. Exactly. They're going to lie and con you, too.

Well, and the thing was, it wasn't even necessarily a lie and con situation. They'd been together for 20 years, and by that point, they'd blown through almost everything he had. Damn. Aside from a few non-liquid assets that weren't easy to access. Wow. She didn't have any accounts of her own at that time, so she really had nothing. So her frantic desperation started to scare the shit out of Kent, her oldest son, and he eventually made the decision to step away from his family and build a healthier life for himself. Kent. Yeah. Kent. Yeah. Kent. Yeah. I'm proud of you, Kent. Yeah. I am, too.

You know what? I know nothing about you.

But I'm proud of you for that.

But I'm very proud of you for that. And I hope you built a very healthy life for yourself and you're happy and thriving.

And it's not easy to walk away from people. No. It's really not. But it's necessary sometimes. That is healthy.

That's healthy and health. That's healthness and wellness. It is.

It's healthy and wealthy. I thought that was what you were going to say.

I was going to say that.

It is healthy and wealthy.

Good job, Kent. I'm very proud of him. What a boundary.

Yeah, we love a Boundary King. And in the '90s, establishing a boundary? Tough.

Yeah, I'd never heard of it.

Tough. Or even in the early alt.

No.

So, of course, with Ken Kyme's dead and Ken having become estranged from his mother and his brother, that left Kenny alone to deal with his dangerous and increasingly desperate mother, who proved that she would stop at nothing to get what she wanted. Over the next two years, over the course of the next two years, Santa combed all of Ken's accounts, looking for whatever money was left after his death. In September of 1996, Santa and Kenny, so that her son, were in the Bahamas staying at the house that they owned in Nassau. And they had dinner with 48-year-old Saeed Balal Ahmed. I looked up that pronunciation. I so hope I'm saying it correctly. That's what the Internet told me to say. What's right to me. That's what the Internet told me to say. Saeed was an executive at the first Cayman Bank, where Ken had stashed some of his money. Santa invited Ahmed to dinner in the hopes that she could convince him to release $850,000 that was in Ken's account to her, despite the fact that she was not a signatory on the account. Damn. Yeah. In the weeks leading up to that night, she had sent several faxes and other documents over to the bank with Ken's Forge signature, demanding that the money be sent to various American addresses.

But all of the requests were obviously unsuccessful because they were like, That man is dead.

He didn't sign this.

We can't do that. Now, in addition to his executive role at the bank, Ahmed was also the bank's auditor, so he would have been made aware of any potential fraud or attempts at fraud. So obviously, he suspected Santa Ken Kimes of trying to fraudulently access the money in the account. He's like, This is my thing. And he's like, Yeah, I guess I'll have dinner with you, but I know what you're up to.

I know you're a fraudster.

Yeah. And those suspicions of fraud would have been confirmed quickly once the bank learned that Ken Kimes, like I just said, was in fact dead. Yeah. On the night of September fourth, Santa and Kenny met with Ahmed for dinner at the Androja, which is a restaurant in Nassau. Whatever happened during that dinner is unknown. But the staff at the restaurant recalled seeing Santa and Kenny leave with their dinner guest, a a little after 10: 00 PM. And Saeed Balal Ahmed was never seen again.

What the fuck? This is crazy.

It's diabolical. I had no idea how laird this was. No. A few days later, police in the Bahamas opened an investigation into Ahmed's disappearance. So not only were the mother and son the last people to be seen with the missing man, but a hotel employee at the Radisson where Ahmed had been staying reported two people matching the Khaims' description, attempting to get access to Ahmed's room a few days before he disappeared.

They were planning this well ahead of time.

Malice of forethought, my darling.

Yeah, very much.

Despite their strong suspicions that they were responsible for Ahmed's disappearance, they weren't ever able to come up with anything strong enough to make an arrest. It was only after Santa and Kenny were arrested on those several other crimes and facing the death penalty that Kenny Kimes confessed that he had drugged Ahmed that night, drowned him in the bathtub, and dumped his body in the ocean all at Santa's request.

Holy shit.

It's like, that's not going to get you the money either. So what's the fucking point? What the fuck? You're just diabolical.

You're just evil.

After the murder of Saeed Balal Balal Ahmed. Santa spent months trying to fraudulently access her husband's accounts, demanding that the money be sent to some random address in the US. But obviously, she was unsuccessful because people are smarter than that. According to Kent Walker, after Ahmed disappeared, the first came bank was being liquidated. He said in part because of Ahmed's disappearance. Because he was such a big part of the bank. Yeah, he was an auditor. Yeah. That meant that by killing Saeed Balal Ahmed, Santa had made the goal of getting Ken's money impossible. She fucked herself.

And honestly, I hope that that's his final, Fuck you. Yeah.

And I'm glad. Truly. And I hope she thought about it every day for the rest of her life. So by the fall of 1997, Santa and Kenny were basically broke, living in a rundown one bedroom apartment in Fort Lauderd Lauderdale. And that's when she came up with her latest scheme. Several years earlier, before Ken's death, Santa and Ken had transferred one of their properties to their friend Dave Casdon in order to hide it from federal authorities. Ken and Casdon had been friends since the '70s, and he had always been willing to help whenever they found themselves in a jam. He was a nice enough guy. In '98, Santa remembered that house, which imagine just having a home that you forgot about. She's like, We're really in a pinch. What do we What do we... Oh, I have that house. I've got that house. So she came up with a scheme to get some quick cash. After convincing a notary to forge Casdon's signature on a loan document, which like, who are you, brother? Seriously. She took out a loan for $280,000 in Dave Casdon's name using the house that they'd transferred as collateral. Holy shit.

The loan went through and Santa got the money. But in late January, Dave Casdon also learned of the scheme. When he got a notice in the mail informing him that he'd taken out a second mortgage on a home, he didn't even think he still owned. Wow. Yeah. This is some rich people shit. Yeah. So when Casdon called the bank to report the fraud, it was already too late. Santa had already cashed the check and moved the funds into an offshore bank account.

I'm exhausted just listening to this. I don't know how people live like this.

I don't either. I really don't. I also don't know how people keep track of all this shit.

Because I also... I'm allergic to admin. It's true. So I can't imagine this.

I don't even like the admin that I have to do.

Yeah, this is so much admin. Yeah, it's a lot. It's just a lot of it's a lot of talking to people. It's a lot of convincing people. It's a lot of like, oh, I'm tired.

It's pretty terrible. It's pretty fucking terrible. So it turned out that the loan scheme was just the first step in Santa's process. Lord. A few weeks later, Dave Casdane got a call informing him that his home in Las Vegas had burned down.

My goodness, the arson.

The arson is everywhere. In the days that followed, it was discovered that Santa had taken out an insurance claim on that house, and by the time Casdon learned all the details, she'd already made off with the money. She's diabolical.

She's lava.

So when Dave Casdon started making reports to the authorities about who he thought was responsible for all the fraud, he started getting letters and faxes from Santa. In a fax from late February 1998, she wrote, I'll give you five days to stop all these lies. You know you endorse the loan. Why are you doing this? Wow. So she's literally gaslighting him. Gaslighting him. She thought that establishing a paper trail would help support her claim that she had nothing to do with the fraud and she was being framed. Yeah. But at some point, she obviously realized that wasn't going to work, and she came up with another plan. Two weeks after her last fax to Dave Casden, his body was discovered in a dumpster at the Los Angeles International Airport. He'd been shot in the back of the head.

This lady needs to be stopped.

She sure does. The coroner quickly identified him and made a homicide investigation was opened, and that was led by LAPD Detective Bill Cox. It didn't take long for Cox and his partner to learn that Casdon had recently been the victim of financial fraud, and according to his daughter, somebody had been harassing him in the weeks leading up to his death. The daughter told them that her father was being harassed by Santa Kimes, and she suspected that Kimes had something to do with the death. So the detectives went to speak with Santa, but they missed her by just a few hours. Oh, of course. By that time, she and Kenny had fled to Los Angeles in that Lincoln town car that they picked up in Utah several weeks earlier, remember, paying with a bad check. Wow. So for months, detectives in LA dug into Santa Kimes criminal history and reached out to any of her known contacts in the hope that somebody might know where she had gone, but they just kept coming up empty. Then in July, when Irene disappeared, Detective Bill Cox got a call from a detective in New York, informing him that Santa had been arrested there, and she and her son were suspected of murdering Irene Silverman.

Oh. So we went on a big old roundabout. Roundabout, and we're all the way back. So when Santa and Kenny were arrested outside the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan, it had been on suspicion of check fraud in Utah. But what investigators found in their hotel room implied that something much larger was going on. In a bag, detectives found Irene Silverman's house keys, her passport, her checkbook, her social security card, and countless other documents. When detectives found the Lincoln town car two days earlier, they also found more damning evidence. They found several automatic pistols and ammunition, 10 different wigs, the sedative flunotrazapam, and boxes of documents related to their business associates, including Elmer Holmgren, Dave Casdon, and Saeed Balal Ahmed. They also- This is wild. That's not even it. They also discovered eight microcassettes of recordings of telephone conversations between Irene and a woman who would eventually be identified as Santa comes. Holy shit. They literally just had the smoking gun, basically. Yeah, they had everything. In one of the conversations, Santa posed as a manager of a Las Vegas Casino and was trying to persuade Irene to share her social security number in order for the casino to finalize details of a free trip that she had won.

The Jen Shah, if at all.

I can't imagine living life like this. I don't understand.

And targeting an elderly woman, an elderly socialite. What the fuck is wrong with you? What the fuck? I mean, she's already been convicted of slavery, so we know that there's a lot wrong with her.

She has nothing inside of her.

In the months that followed their arrest, investigators worked tirelessly to rebuild Santa's extensive criminal history, which must have been exhausting. Because that included at that point, arson, fraud, slavery, at least three suspected murders. And the murder stretched across the US and into the Caribbean.

My God.

They also started digging into Kenny's history. And in doing that, they found that he was a young man who from a very early age, had been shaped and molded into exactly what his mom wanted him to be. That's so disgusting. An accomplice, not a son. In addition to the crimes that he was believed to have committed with his mom, he'd also been arrested for domestic violence and assault. He had beat up one of his former girlfriends and another student when he was briefly in college. Eew, disgusting. Yeah, he's gross.

Disgusting. Egg. Literally.

So the case of Irene Silverman and Santa and Kenny Kimes quickly became a national sensation, of course. The press dug up Santa's old nickname, which was the Dragon Lady, because of her association with arson, of course. But most were more bond of the new moniker that they'd given the pair, mommy and Clyde.

Mommy and Clyde is the perfect way to describe this.

It's also diabolical. It is very diabolical. When I first read that, though, I was in. Yeah. That makes you just want to know everything. You're like, what? Yeah. I love a moniker. Yeah. So the first big break in the case came in late July when investigators found a notarized deed in Santa's possession, which seemed to indicate that Irene transferred ownership of her townhouse to Santa and Kenny at a value of $390,000. Oh, yeah, I bet. That was less than 10% of its value. Wow. No. Good try. Despite the compelling evidence, though, Santa and Kenny both maintained they had nothing to do with Irene's disappearance. You lie. We just have her checkbook, her passport, her social security card. In recordings. Recordings of us.

Me trying to fraud her. Yeah.

It's just we were doing that, but we didn't kill her.

Yeah, I don't even know her.

Oh, okay. For the prosecutors, the biggest problem wasn't that they maintained their innocence. It was the fact that they still hadn't found Irene Silverman. They didn't have a body. At that time, she obviously was assumed to be dead. Despite the lack of a body, though, district Attorney Robert Morgenthau decided to move forward with the case. In December of 1998, Santa and Kenny Kimes were indicted for murder on purely circumstantial evidence. Morgan Thau said, The mere fact you don't have a body doesn't give somebody a walk. All the facts show that the murder was committed. Yeah. Which is very true. Where is she? So when the trial finally arrived in the spring of 2000, it was exactly as sensational and chaotic as everybody expected. Before both sides had even selected the jury, Santa had to be ordered by the judge to stop speaking to the media after she continuously reached out to members of the press to give interviews. That checks. She was also caught passing a note to New York Times journalist David Rodentourt, and the note said, The deed is real. The notary is liable and lying. They know where she is.

Girl, you're doing the most. Yeah.

And then that wasn't even her doing the most. That was just the beginning of her crazy ass behavior.

She's already doing the most.

In late April, after the judge repeatedly told her lawyer to stop a certain line of questioning, Santa became irate and started yelling at the judge, Your Honor, how can we have fairness? And then she went on to compare the trial to the Salem witch trials and then told the judge that she was, quote, murdering the Constitution.

Shut the fuck up.

This bitch went nuts.

I hope someone just said, Shut the fuck up.

Can you imagine being accused of murdering the Constitution? No. You know what?

Get a life. Get a life.

Get a life. Throughout the trial, the prosecutor called over 100 witnesses, all of whom spoke to the criminality of Santa and Kenny. Mommy and Clyde. Mommy and Clyde. And presented a ton of evidence that established a direct connection to Irene Silverman. The only thing that they couldn't get around was the fact that there still was no body and technically no conclusive proof of murder. But in his closing statement, defense attorney Michael Hardy reminded the jury of that very thing. He said, There's no body, no witnesses. There's no proof of any murder at all. Oh, yeah. So on May 16th, the jury retired for deliberation. And when they returned two days later, they found both defendants guilty.

Good. I was going to say, if they get off, I'm going to riot in the street.

Yeah, no. They were both found guilty, not just of the murder of Irene Silverman, but on over a hundred other charges related to fraud, larceny, and kidnapping, among others. Yeah. That next month, they went before a judge to be sentenced, and the judge referred to Santa as a sociopath of unremitting malevolence. Yes. And her son as a vacuous dupe who had evolved into a remorseless predator under his mother's influence.

I have never heard a better description of two people in my entire life.

Vacuous dupe goes crazy.

No notes.

Obsessed. No notes. You are a sociopath of unremitting malevolence.

And a vacuous dupe in a Morseless predator.

Obsessed.

Just chef's kiss.

When asked if they had anything to say on their own behalf, Santa spoke up for the both of them and she said, All of our precious civil and constitutional rights were trampled, much like the witch hunts of old Salem You shut your mouth. The police planted and planted and planted evidence to fool the jury. No one has been told the truth in this case.

You didn't. That's not even a good, like, no. Correlation?

What are you talking about? Police.

Like, what are you talking about?

You have nothing to do with the Salem witch trial. Shut up. Shut up. So basically the judge felt the same way and they were like, Okay, are you done speaking? And she was like, I'm all done. And he said, Okay, cool. Or she said, I sentence you to 120 years in prison. Hell, yeah. And Kenny was sentenced to 126 in prison.

That's awesome. I just love that.

It was like, six more years. He was like, You done here? You done here? Yeah. Okay. In the wake of their sentencing, Santa and Kenny, of course, did not just fade into obscurity. Of course not. Still facing potential murder charges in California, Nevada, and Nassau. Kenny felt that it was his duty to make sure his mommy was spared from the worst of the consequences. In October, during an interview with Court TV reporter Maria Zohn, Kenny took her hostage by holding a ballpoint pen to her throat.

What?

While holding her hostage, he demanded his mother not be extradited to Los Angeles, where they both faced the death penalty for the murder of Dave Casdon. Fortunately, officers were able to create a distraction that allowed them to safely remove Maria's own from the room, and Kenny's attempts to save his mommy failed.

He is so pathetic.

It's really pathetic. Like, eeu. Yucky. A few months later, both Santa and Kenny were extradited to Los Angeles and charged with Dave Kasten's murder. Now facing the death penalty, Kenny accepted a plea deal from the prosecutor where he would confess to the murders in exchange for taking both death penalty sentences off the table. Wow. After pleading guilty, he confessed to the murders of Saeed Balal Ahmed, David Kazdine, and Irene Silverman. And as part of the deal, he was required to detail all of the crimes for investigators. So according to Kenny, after they failed to get Irene's money through deception, they resorted to violence. On the afternoon of July fifth, they went to the townhouse where he and Santa tased Irene, an 84-year-old woman, and then Kenny strangled her. Oh, poor Irene. Once she was dead, they put her body in several garbage bags and put her in a dumpster in Hoboke in New Jersey. To this day, her remains have never been found. Wow. I just want everybody to remember how I described Irene for you. Like, the lengths that she went to to make other people feel special and all of the connections that that woman had.

How generous she was. How generous she was, how talented. And they wrapped her body up and threw it in a dumpster in Hoboken. Like, what the fuck is wrong with you? All for money. That's it. Which, meanwhile, if he had been nice to her and actually ingratiate himself, he probably would have got money or something, anything. So in 2004, they were both found guilty of Dave Kastin's murder, but no charges have ever been brought up in the other two cases. After their convictions, Senta returned to New York to continue serving her life sentence for the murder of Irene Silverman. And on May 19th, 2014, she died of natural causes at Bedford Hills Correction Facility for Women. She was 79.

It's pretty old.

I feel like that's young to die of natural causes. 79. In prison, though. Yeah, in prison. That's true. You know. Kenny Kimes remains incarcerated at the Richard J. Dunovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, California. And that is the case of mommy and Clyde. Wow. Jam-packed.

That was a nonstop thrill ride.

Wasn't it?

I'm shook.

It was insane.

And what kills me is The amount of people that they just disposed of. Like they were nothing. When they didn't need them anymore or when they didn't give them what they wanted. Exactly. That's so disgusting. It's predatory, inhuman behavior.

Obviously, Kenny is a piece shit. But it's really sad that he was just like, he was molded to be what he was.

That's the thing that he was just like, he didn't have a choice.

You feel bad for the child version of him.

And then he became an adult.

When you become an adult, you make your own choices. Exactly.

You don't choose as a child, but as an I thought you make a choice.

You very much choose.

And he made a bad choice.

I think we need a fun fact. Yeah, we do. Do you want to hear the fun fact I found?

I really do.

The world's oldest dog lived to be 29 and a half years old.

I want to have that dog.

And their name was Bluey. Bluey? Bluey.

Oh.

Yeah.

That is a fun call.

Bluey, the Australian cattle dog, survived to the ripe old age of 29 and a half.

I want my dogs to live to 29 and a half.

Sydney, Blanche, and Dolores will live to be 100.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I will take no further questions.

With that, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you- Keep it weird. And definitely so weird that you spend the rest of your life with your dog. Yeah. Because they're going to live forever. Do it. Bye. Not so weird as Santa, though. No.