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1998 Silverman,Irene 07/05/98; New York City
Topic Started: Jul 20 2006, 04:49 PM (424 Views)
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Murderer May Help Find Body Of Slain Socialite

By DAVID ROHDE (NYT) 780 words
Published: November 16, 2000

Kenneth Kimes, who was convicted with his mother of killing a missing Upper East Side socialite, has offered to clear up the final mystery of the case by telling detectives where they can find the victim's body, law enforcement officials said yesterday.
A senior law enforcement official said last night that Mr. Kimes told detectives yesterday that he dumped the body of Irene Silverman at a New Jersey construction site 35 to 40 minutes from the Holland Tunnel. Mr. Kimes, 25, said he was not sure what town he dumped the body in, the official said.


The whereabouts of Mrs. Silverman's body has baffled investigators since her disappearance two years ago. But yesterday's disclosure, if true, paints the Kimeses as more bumbling than brilliant.

''He doesn't know where in New Jersey,'' the official said. ''He doesn't have a town. He just drove around, and then he came across this construction site.''

The reports of Mr. Kimes's confession added another strange chapter to an already bizarre case.

Law enforcement officials are reviewing Mr. Kimes's statements, and have not yet begun actively searching for a body. Mr. Kimes has a long history of acting erratically and making outlandish claims. On Oct. 10, he took hostage a freelance Court TV reporter who was interviewing him at Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York.

Mr. Kimes, who like his mother is serving a life sentence for Mrs. Silverman's murder, was sentenced to eight years in solitary confinement for the hostage taking.

The law enforcement official said Mr. Kimes's desire to have his time in solitary confinement reduced apparently played a role in his decision to speak with detectives. ''He's looking for better accommodations,'' the official said. Mr. Kimes told detectives that he packaged Mrs. Silverman's body in black garbage bags, placed it in the trunk of his car and drove through the Holland Tunnel before disposing of it, the official said. Mr. Kimes's statements were first reported yesterday by Reuters.

Despite the fact that Mrs. Silverman's body was never found, a Manhattan jury convicted Mr. Kimes and his mother, Sante, 66, of murdering her in a plot to steal Mrs. Silverman's mansion. The main mystery of the three-month trial, which ended in May, was how the mother and son managed to sneak Mrs. Silverman's body out of the house in broad daylight on July 5, 1998, the last day the 82-year-old socialite was seen.

The assistant district attorneys in the case, Connie Fernandez and Ann Donnelly, told jurors that Mr. Kimes had used a stun gun to knock out Mrs. Silverman and then strangled her.

Prosecutors said the Kimeses then wrapped her body in garbage bags, stuffed it into a duffel bag and loaded it into the trunk of their car.

The description Mr. Kimes reportedly gave prosecutors yesterday nearly matched that account. But there was one telling difference: he made no mention of his mother's role in the killing.

The exact nature of Mr. Kimes's relationship with his mother was another strange aspect of the trial.

At initial court appearances, a judge ordered the mother and son to stop holding hands, and a witness testified at trial that the two shared a bed. Mrs. Kimes is serving her sentence in the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester.

Along with the murder of Mrs. Silverman, the mother and son are suspects in a string of killings and sophisticated scams that spanned the country. They are scheduled to be extradited to California to stand trial in the slaying of a former business partner.

Matthew Weissman, Mr. Kimes's lawyer, said he was stunned by the news that his client had apparently disclosed the location of Mrs. Silverman's body.

Michael Hardy, a lawyer for Mrs. Kimes, said that detectives from Los Angeles -- where Mr. Kimes could face the death penalty if convicted -- were also present when Mr. Kimes is said to have confessed.

Mr. Hardy said he feared that after five weeks in solitary confinement, Mr. Kimes might have been tricked by false promises regarding the California case. ''I'm concerned about whether or not Kenny was taken advantage of,'' he said. ''Hopefully, you don't have a situation where somebody might say, 'A con artist was conned.' ''
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Mother and Son Guilty of Killing A Socialite Who Vanished in '98



By DAVID ROHDE (NYT) 1311 words
Published: May 19, 2000

A mother and son described by prosecutors as a prolific and pitiless con artist team were convicted yesterday of murdering a wealthy socialite as part of an intricate scheme to steal her Upper East Side townhouse.
The conviction of the mother and son, Sante and Kenneth Kimes, was a triumph for Manhattan prosecutors who brought a rare type of murder case: one in which the body was never found, and one built entirely on circumstantial evidence. Prosecutors said it was the first case in New York, and one of only a handful in the nation, in which murder convictions were won without a body, an eyewitness, a confession or any forensic evidence.


But investigators said that the pair's murder of the woman, Irene Silverman, 82, was just one of a number of crimes: by the time the Kimeses arrived in New York in June 1998, they had left behind what investigators described as a huge mosaic of fraud, theft, arson, identity theft and murder that stretched from Hawaii to Las Vegas to the Bahamas. They now face a murder trial in Los Angeles.

Interviews and a review of court records revealed a story of a tyrannical mother and a malleable son caught in a bizarre relationship, living a life of scams and aliases.

After reaching yesterday's verdict, jurors called the evidence against the Kimeses overwhelming. They said their first vote for a murder conviction was unanimous, even though the body of the victim has never been found. [Page B4.]

Mrs. Silverman was last seen on July 5, 1998, and the Kimeses were charged with murder in December 1998 in an indictment that outlined a plot involving disguises, false identities, tapped telephones, forged deeds, false addresses and burglaries.

The jurors said the most damning pieces of evidence presented by prosecutors during the three-month trial were 14 notebooks with detailed lists and notes written by Mrs. Kimes. Prosecutors contended that the notes pointed to an elaborate scheme to murder Mrs. Silverman and steal her $7.7 million Upper East Side townhouse.

Mrs. Kimes, 65, blinked, rocked forward slightly and then sat motionless as the first of a total of 118 guilty verdicts for her and her son were read aloud in a packed courtroom in the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building yesterday afternoon. Mr. Kimes, 25, who struggled to contain his emotions throughout the trial, winced and swallowed as the first guilty verdict for murder was read.

As the jury forewoman continued announcing guilty verdict after guilty verdict for 20 minutes, Mr. Kimes turned to his mother, said ''Mom, it'll be O.K.,'' then frantically talked with his lawyers. The Kimeses were found guilty of murder, robbery, burglary, conspiracy, grand larceny, illegal weapons possession, forgery and eavesdropping. They both face 25 years to life in prison on the most serious charge of murder and will be sentenced by Justice Rena K. Uviller of State Supreme Court on June 27.

Mrs. Kimes's compulsive note-taking, which she continued throughout the trial, appeared to be her downfall. In the notebooks, Mrs. Kimes repeatedly wrote reminders like ''get s.s. #,'' ''get keys,'' ''get signature,'' and ''get checks.'' Her lists included items like: ''when goes to sleep,'' ''blood type,'' ''what kind of movies does she like?'' ''any exits in her apt.?'' ''is there a burglar alarm in her apt.'' and ''help there on weekends?'' On another list, Mrs. Kimes wrote, ''get Lincoln,'' ''practice,'' and ''park close,'' references to the Kimeses' plans for murdering Mrs. Silverman and disposing of her body.

''They kept writing 'get her Social Security number,' '' said Michael Alvarez, a juror who lives on the Upper West Side and is a librarian. ''There was a lot of evidence, so for us, it wasn't that difficult.''

The Kimeses' lawyers said they would appeal the verdict, but their clients now face trial in Los Angeles in the fatal shooting of a longtime friend and former business partner of Mrs. Kimes's late husband. If convicted in that case, Mr. Kimes, who is charged with being the gunman, could face the death penalty.

In an interview after the verdict, a visibly stunned Mrs. Kimes called the 118 guilty verdicts a ''temporary setback.'' She predicted that she would win her appeal and insisted that she and her son had been framed by the police. ''I want to cry out for help to anyone in the country who believes in justice to help us, help us,'' Mrs. Kimes said as tears welled in her eyes.

Michael Hardy, a defense lawyer in the Silverman case, complained that a ruling by Justice Uviller prevented Mrs. Kimes from taking the witness stand in her own defense. He said that the ruling would be the main basis for the defense's appeal.

''That made it impossible for her to testify and have the jury see her testimony as having any integrity,'' Mr. Hardy said.

But prosecutors said the Silverman plot was the culmination of a wide-ranging crime spree by the couple. In September 1996, the mother and son fled Nassau, the Bahamas, before the Bahamian authorities could question them in the disappearance of a banker.

They left the West Coast in April 1998, after killing the longtime former business partner of Mrs. Kimes's late husband and dumping his body near the Los Angeles Airport, prosecutors there said. In Baton Rouge, La., they bought a $80,000 motor home from a dealer with a rubber check. The motor home was found abandoned in Florida. By mid-June, the Kimeses were in New York.

Once in Manhattan, the Kimeses tracked down Mrs. Silverman, a woman the pair had heard about at an anti-aging conference in Las Vegas.

When they were arrested in Midtown Manhattan shortly after Mrs. Silverman's disappearance on an unrelated warrant for passing a bad $14,000 check in Utah, the Kimeses were carrying Mrs. Silverman's keys, passport, Social Security card and bank books. In a folder marked ''Final Dynasty,'' investigators found what they said was a forged deed selling Mrs. Silverman's $7.7 million mansion at 20 East 65th Street to their off-shore corporation, for only $395,000.

Jose Alvarez, a man who traveled with the Kimeses to New York, testified that Mr. Kimes announced, ''this would be a good place to hide a body'' while driving through New Jersey. But the most chilling evidence was the notebooks.

Mrs. Silverman's home, which friends said was the center of her life, now sits empty. Its lone resident is Mrs. Silverman's longtime caretaker, Mengistu Melesse, an earnest and soft-spoken man whom jurors called one of their favorite witness. Jurors said they were struck by the way Mrs. Silverman's employees said she generously treated them and how they spoke so warmly of her.

Mrs. Silverman left all of her property, including her town house, to the Coby Foundation, a nonprofit charity she established to honor the work of her mother, an embroiderer, and others in the field. What will become of the mansion is up to the foundation's board, according to lawyers administering Mrs. Silverman's estate.

Carol Hansen, a close friend of Mrs. Silverman who was with her on the night before she disappeared, said she was overwhelmed by the guilty verdict, but still haunted by the loss of a spirited woman who rose from a family of New Orleans needle workers, to a Radio City Music Hall dancer, to a generous host and benefactor.

''Unfortunately, it's a bittersweet victory. Irene is gone,'' Ms. Hansen said in a halting voice. ''Just put a note in there about how much we all love Irene. She was a remarkable woman.''



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Lack of Body Was No Barrier to Conviction, Jurors Say


By JULIAN E. BARNES (NYT) 578 words
Published: May 19, 2000

There was no body, no eyewitness to an attack or even any evidence of a struggle, yet jurors said it was not difficult for them to convict a mother-and-son pair of grifters of murdering a wealthy Manhattan woman.
The panel of five men and seven women took 29 hours over four days to reach a verdict, but there was no real dissension over the charges of second-degree murder against the pair, Sante and Kenneth Kimes, jurors said yesterday.


One juror had momentary qualms about the lack of a body during the deliberations, said Michael Alvarez, a juror. But that juror and the others quickly decided that the Kimeses had killed the woman, Irene Silverman, 82, Mr. Alvarez said.

Outside the Manhattan courtroom after the verdict was read yesterday, jurors said it should not come as any surprise that the lack of a body did not present much of a stumbling block.

Before testimony began, Justice Rena K. Uviller of State Supreme Court and prosecutors had carefully dismissed from the panel all prospective jurors who said they could not convict the Kimeses on circumstantial evidence alone.

''To me it seemed obvious,'' said Mr. Alvarez, an alternate juror who was put on the panel on Monday, the day deliberations began. ''I wasn't sure about the others; I thought it might take longer.''

The four jurors who gave interviews after the verdict said they agreed with the prosecutors that notebooks made by the Kimeses outlined their scheme to steal Mrs. Silverman's house.

''I put the pieces together with the notebooks,'' said Robert Hernandez, a juror and Bell Atlantic technician. ''Everything that was said in the case by the prosecutors was backed up by the notebooks.''

The notebooks contained lists of information to gather on Mrs. Silverman and equipment to buy, like leg irons and a stun gun.

''There was other evidence, but the notebooks played a great part,'' said Ernestine Bridges, another juror.

After listening to testimony for more than three months, the jurors had become familiar with the Kimeses. Mr. Alvarez said that when the trial began he was made uneasy by Mrs. Kimes's hard glare at him and his fellow jurors.

''She was really staring at us,'' he said.

The jurors who spoke yesterday said they believed that Mrs. Kimes, 65, controlled her 25-year-old son. Jurors said they saw Mrs. Kimes as overprotective and demanding of Kenneth. ''I felt a little sorry for him; he's a young guy and he was doing what his mother told him,'' Mr. Hernandez said.

One juror, who asked that his name not be used, said Mr. Kimes was in a difficult position. ''When your mother tells you to do something, you do it,'' he said. ''But he's an adult and he is responsible for his actions.''

Jurors said they were puzzled by the unusual relationship between Mrs. Kimes and her son. Mr. Alvarez said he was surprised by some of the details that emerged in the trial, including testimony that the mother and son shared a bed.

Jurors said the three-month trial was grueling, requiring them to put their lives on hold, delay honeymoons, take leaves from work and miss family engagements. ''I am truly exhausted,'' Ms. Bridges said.




Photos: Two jurors, Robert Hernandez, left, and Michael Alvarez, said prosecutors made a convincing case even without a body. (Photographs by Frances Roberts for The New York Times)




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Investigators Want to Check Kimes's Story


By KATHERINE E. FINKELSTEIN (NYT) 576 words
Published: November 17, 2000

Two days after Kenneth Kimes confessed to dumping the body of a missing socialite at a New Jersey construction site, claiming not to remember the town, law enforcement officials said the vague admission may have been a ploy to get out of solitary confinement.
Detectives, however, found his statement credible enough that they asked a Manhattan judge for permission to take him from prison for a tour of New Jersey roads, though their request was denied, one law enforcement official said.


Investigators will probably check construction records in the area Mr. Kimes described, about 35 minutes outside the city through either the Lincoln or Holland Tunnel, the official said.

Mr. Kimes, who with his mother, Sante Kimes, was convicted of killing the socialite, Irene Silverman, in an effort to seize her town house, was sent back to solitary confinement yesterday, where he began serving an eight-year penalty for taking a television reporter hostage during a prison interview last month. He was already serving a life sentence for the killing of Mrs. Silverman, who disappeared two years ago.

He will probably be extradited to California sometime next year, however. There, he and his mother face murder charges in the 1998 killing of a former business associate, David Kazdin. If convicted, they could face the death penalty.

Mr. Kimes's former lawyer, Matthew Weissman, called Mr. Kimes's chance of successfully appealing his conviction almost nonexistent now, since he essentially confessed to having murdered Mrs. Silverman.

The surprise statement came during an interview on Tuesday in Albany, where he was brought from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora to meet with a New York City detective, and three detectives and a prosecutor from Los Angeles.

During the interview, as reported by Reuters, Mr. Kimes admitted that after killing the 82-year-old socialite, he wrapped her body with duct tape and garbage bags. He said he then stuffed her into a duffel bag, which he placed in the trunk of a car, then dumped her in an excavation hole in a town whose name he cannot remember.

Mr. Kimes suggested that if released from solitary confinement, he might talk more, according to one senior law enforcement official.

But officials said they remained skeptical, given the Kimeses' record of deceit and their claim throughout their trial that they were victims of a vast police conspiracy. ''If I killed someone, I'd remember where I put the body,'' said one law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. ''Wouldn't you?''

Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik said yesterday that the city wanted more information and would continue to investigate.

Mr. Weissman, however, said that his former client might have been under stress when he made his statement. ''This goes to show you how seriously solitary confinement can impair an individual,'' he said.

Sante Kimes's lawyer, Michael Hardy, said he had not spoken to his client about her son's admission, which did not include anything about her possible role in the murder.

''At a new trial, we would be able to introduce evidence that someone other than Sante killed'' Mrs. Silverman, he said.''If they were to find the body, it could help to exonerate Ms. Kimes, or to implicate her, but I would think the former.''


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Murderer Reveals New Details In Slaying of Socialite in 1998


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By THOMAS J. LUECK (NYT) 490 words
Published: June 24, 2004

Kenneth Kimes, who is serving a life term in prison for the 1998 murder of Irene Silverman in her Upper East Side mansion, has revealed new and chilling details about the killing to a jury in Los Angeles, including where he dumped the body.
For the first time, he said publicly on Tuesday that after he and his mother, Sante Kimes, killed Miss Silverman, he disposed of the body in a trash bin in Hoboken, N.J.


Mr. Kimes, 29, and his mother, 69, were convicted in 2000 of killing Miss Silverman in a plot devised by Ms. Kimes, who also was sentenced to life in prison. The mother-son team planned to swindle Miss Silverman, an 82-year-old socialite, out of her townhouse on East 65th Street.

Mr. Kimes's testimony in Los Angeles on Tuesday was given during another murder case, in which he has already admitted to killing a California businessman, David Kazdin. Ms. Kimes has also been charged in that case, and Mr. Kimes was called to testify by prosecutors in Los Angeles County Superior Court, who are attempting to convict his mother.

Law enforcement officials in New York said yesterday that the account provided by Mr. Kimes on Tuesday would have no bearing on the Silverman murder case, since it had been resolved with convictions.

Still, Mr. Kimes's testimony provided a lurid footnote to one of the more notorious Manhattan murder cases of the last decade.

Mr. Kimes's testimony, portions of which were reported yesterday in The Daily News, included a step-by-step account of how he rented a room in Miss Silverman's home, how his mother secretly moved in with him and how they sought ways to steal or forge Miss Silverman's personal papers in a plot to swindle her out of her home.

According to a court transcript, Mr. Kimes said Miss Silverman had become suspicious. ''The more arduous and the more complicated it got, the more desperate we became, and the more morbid-minded we became,'' he said. ''We wanted to kill her.''

He said that on the day of the murder, July 5, 1998, he grabbed Miss Silverman and dragged the struggling 4-foot-10 woman into her bedroom.

''I walked up to the bed with Irene Silverman, and my Mom turned the TV on,'' he said. ''And my Mom had a stun gun and hit her in the head with the stun gun and then said, 'Do it.'''

Mr. Kimes said he then strangled Miss Silverman, wrapped her body in several garbage bags and loaded the body in a duffel bag. He then placed it in the trunk of a car he had left parked nearby and drove to New Jersey in search of an isolated spot with a trash bin. He said he selected a trash bin in Hoboken, but did not specify where.



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Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance

Missing Since: July 5, 1998 from New York City, New York
Classification: Endangered Missing
Age: 82 years old
Height and Weight: 5'0, 115 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Red hair, brown eyes. Silverman has pierced ears. She wears eyeglasses.
Clothing/Jewelry Description: A nightgown.


Details of Disappearance

Silverman was last seen at her townhouse on east 65th Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan on July 5, 1998. She was a wealthy former ballerina who often rented out apartments in her mansion to business people. Silverman has never been heard from again. Her disappearance brought to light a myriad of bizarre events that ultimately led to two convictions for her presumed murder.
Kenneth Kimes was a tenant in Silverman's mansion at the time she vanished. He moved into one of her apartments in June 1998, one month before Silverman was last seen. Kenneth used the alias of Manny Guerrin while residing on East 65th Street. Authorities believed that Kenneth and his mother, Sante Kimes, were actually con artists who monitored Silverman's business activities for months before Kenneth moved into her home. Photos of Sante and Kenneth are posted below this case summary.

Authorities arrested the mother and son on the day of Silverman's disappearance. They were standing outside of the Hilton Hotel near Silverman's townhouse at the time. The initial charges against Sante and Kenneth stemmed from a fradulent check written in Utah for $14,900 for the purchase of a Lincoln Town Car earlier in 1998; they were charged with Silverman's murder in December 1998. Authorities believed that Sante and Kenneth devised a scheme to steal Silverman's mansion, which was valued at between seven and ten million dollars. Investigators produced evidence indicating that the pair wiretapped Silverman's phone and taped her phone conversations to become familiar with her lifestyle. When he was arrested, Kenneth had Silverman's keys, cassettes of her tape-recorded calls, loaded firearms, wigs, masks, plastic handcuffs, $30,000 in cash, an empty stun gun box and a substance similar to a 'date rape' drug.

Kenneth also held a forged deed in his possession at the time of his arrest. The deed approved the transfer of Silverman's townhouse to Atlantis Ltd. for $395,000. Atlantis Ltd. was a "shadow corporation" investigators said was created by Sante for illegal purposes. Sante was the widow of a wealthy individual who died in 1994; she and Kenneth often hired homeless people as servants. One of the former employees was a transient who found his name used as the "owner" of Atlantis Ltd. in 1998. Sante and Kenneth apparently stole the man's identity without his knowledge.

Authorities believed that Kenneth and Sante smothered Silverman to death, somehow smuggled her body out of her house during the day, then drove her remains to an unknown burial location in their Lincoln Town Car. The Kimeses' trial brought out many colorful stories about other possible motives and suspects from their defense attorneys, including one claim that Silverman operated a bordello from her mansion. That story came from Sante and was quickly proven as a lie by Silverman's friends. In the end, the Kimeses' attorneys attempted to point out that there was not any blood or DNA evidence to connect their clients to Silverman's disappearance, nor did authorities locate the woman's remains. Silverman's home had no signs of blood or other signs of foul play. However, prosecutors produced Sante's notebooks during the trial and managed to sway the jury in their favor. Sante detailed plans to learn Silverman's Social Security number in the notes, among many other passages about the crimes. Prosecutors also produced evidence and witnesses that Sante disguised herself and posed as a notary in order to obtain Silverman's signature on the fradulent deed to her mansion.

Sante and Kenneth were convicted of Silverman's murder in May 2000. She was sentenced to 120 years in prison; he was handed 125 years behind bars. Kenneth made headlines again in October 2000 when he held Maria Zone, a Court TV producer, hostage during a prison interview. Zone was released unharmed and Kenneth received eight years in solitary confinement as a result of the incident. He later claimed that he was attempting to stop his mother's extradiction to California, where they both faced another murder trial. Sante and Kenneth were charged with killing businessman David Kazdin in 1998 after he learned they used a forged signature to obtain a $200,000 loan. Kazdin's body was discovered inside a dumpster. He had been a longtime friend and business partner of Sante's husband. Both of the Kimeses were extradicted to California during the spring of 2001 in anticipation of court proceedings.

Many people believe that Sante led Kenneth into a criminal life, including her other son. She has a criminal history that dates back over 30 years; one of Sante's more notable convictions was for enslaving and beating maids. She has denied any wrongdoing, hinting at times that she acted as a 'federal agent' in some capacity. None of Sante's claims of innocence have ever been proven. Kenneth and Sante's relationship was heavily scrutinized when a judge requested they stop holding hands during one court appearance in the Silverman case.

Authorities have always maintained that Sante planned Silverman's murder and Kenneth acted as the physical force. Kenneth confessed to killing Silverman in November 2000, a move that surprised his attorneys. He claimed he did not remember the exact location of her burial site. Kenneth said that he wrapped Silverman's body in black plastic garbage bags and dumped her remains in a ditch at a construction site in New Jersey, 35 to 40 minutes from the Holland Tunnel. Authorities were conducting searches with Kenneth's input until his extradiction to California; the search for Silverman has since been postponed. Kenneth continues to maintain that his mother was not involved in Silverman's murder.

Sante and Kenneth were also considered possible suspects in the 1995 Mississippi disappearance of Mary Jacqueline Levitz, the heiress to a multi-million dollar estate. Levitz vanished from her home and is presumed murdered, but her body has never been recovered. While there are similarities between her case and Silverman's disappearance, no link between the two cases has been established.



Left: Sante Kimes in 1998;
Right: Kenneth Kimes in 1998


Investigating Agency
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
New York City Police Department
646-610-6914



Source Information
New York City Police Department
http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/nypd
The New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/
Court TV
http://www.courttv.com/
ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/
The Las Vegas Review-Journal
http://www.lvrj.com/
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/

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