Crushed Skulls & Missing Golf Clubs

Carol Kennedy was a therapist, artist and teacher who had lived in Prescott, Arizona, for most of her adult life. She taught yoga psychology, painting and dream work at Prescott College for eleven years, and by 2008 she was working as a therapist at Pia's Place, an extended care treatment facility for women on the outskirts of downtown Prescott. this part of the story is covered for now The marriage had been troubled for years. Carol's friends said she had counted seventeen affairs, including one with her own midwife while she was pregnant. In 2003 the couple separated, and in 2007 Carol filed for divorce. The divorce was finalised on May 27, 2008.

The separation was bitter, fought over money, the house and the children. Carol had agreed to a settlement but then realised she could not afford the mortgage on her own, partly because Steve had taken out a second mortgage without telling her. She earned about $24,000 a year from counselling. The couple continued to argue over smaller sums. On the evening of July 2, 2008, Carol emailed Steve to dispute his claim that she owed him $8,300, refusing to give him a cheque so that he could cover $6,000 in overdue alimony.

That night Carol went for a half-hour, three-mile run on the trails behind her house, greeting neighbours on horseback, then came home, texted Steve about Katy's car, texted Charlotte, and at 7.36 p.m. called her 83-year-old mother, Ruth Kennedy, in Nashville. At 7.59 p.m. Ruth heard Carol say 'oh no', and then the line went dead. Ruth called Steve's answering machine and his mobile phone, asking him to go and check on Carol, and then called the police. The house on the 7,400 block of Bridle Path was outside the city's jurisdiction, so the call was passed to the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office.

Deputy Matthew Tainter was sent on the welfare check and arrived at 8.52 p.m., thirty-eight minutes later, because he had stopped a car in front of him. He walked around the dark house, looked through a window and saw a woman lying in a pool of blood. He did not go in. He waited for backup, and Sergeant Candy Acton arrived at 9.10 p.m. Carol's tenant, Jim Knapp, who lived in the guest house at the back, pulled up in his white Ford Ranger and was told to wait in his truck. The deputies stood in the driveway for another hour before entering the house shortly before ten. They found Carol face down in the back bedroom, her right arm under her body, a toppled bookcase beside her and blood spattered across the desk, the walls and the carpet. An ambulance crew arrived at 9.40 p.m. and confirmed that she was dead.

The scene had been staged. A wooden ladder had been placed over the doorway and a bookcase knocked over to suggest that Carol had fallen, but the blood spatter was underneath the bookcase, the ladder's rungs faced the wrong way, and there were no fingerprints or blood on it. Three of the four bulbs in the laundry room track lighting had been partly unscrewed, and one was missing. The autopsy found seven major skull fractures and more than fifty fractures in all, caused by at least seven blows consistent with a golf club. Whoever killed her had been in a rage, and the detectives had no footprints, fingerprints or DNA to work with.

At first the police looked at Jim Knapp, but he said he had been at his ex-wife's house with his sons, watching a film, and then had stopped at Safeway for cherries and wine. His alibi held. Suspicion moved to Steve. He said he had gone for a long mountain bike ride, had a flat tyre and a dead phone battery, and had scratched his arm and leg on a branch. His phone had been off from 5.36 p.m. until 10.08 p.m., something his girlfriend, Renee Girard, said was unlike him. A neighbour saw him at the airport, and his daughter's boyfriend noticed the fresh scratches. When John Kennedy, Carol's brother, reached Steve at 10.30 p.m. and asked him to drive over to check on Carol, Steve refused, saying she might have a date and he did not want to intrude. He then sent Carol a text and left a voicemail describing the family's concern. A search of his condo found a golf bag with one club missing, a Callaway Big Bertha three wood, and a club cover that was photographed on a garage shelf and was gone when investigators returned. An FBI expert said a shoe print near the house came from a La Sportiva shoe, and Steve had bought a pair in 2006, though the shoes were never found. His computer showed searches for how to kill someone and make it look like a suicide. He said he was researching a novel.

details of the account remain covered until revealed A few months later Jim Knapp died by suicide, a gunshot wound to the chest. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it During the delay Renee Girard broke up with Steve and helped investigators find a packed bag he kept ready in case he had to flee. The defence argued that the case was built on suspicion: there was no DNA, blood, hair or fibre linking Steve to the house. The DNA found under Carol's fingernails was eventually traced to Ronald Berman, a man whose autopsy had been carried out on the same table shortly before Carol's, and whose blood had contaminated the sample. The defence also pointed at Jim Knapp, who was said to have wanted more than friendship with Carol and to have expected her to fund a coffee franchise.

this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed Charlotte graduated from college in 2014 with a degree in finance, and Katy went on to law school. The golf club was never found.