Ep 74 | Kenny Gilbert Transcript

Ep 74 | Kenny Gilbert Transcript

Before we begin this podcast, please be advised that the following episode contains language that some listeners may find offensive and inappropriate. The opinions expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not reflect the views of the podcast producers. Listener discretion is advised. This week on Voices of a Killer, we revisit last week's conversation with Charles Higginbotham.

On July 2nd, 1993, 18 year old Charles conspired with his childhood friend to kill a man and dump his body in the woods. Now, 30 years later, Charles has revealed critical new details he's kept hidden for decades, details that cast the crime in a different light. Today, We're joined by Charles's co-defendant Kenny Gilbert to hear his half of this story.

From his complicated relationship with Charles to their time as fugitives, Kenny opens up about the grisly murder he committed with his elementary school friend. He reflects on the choices that landed him in prison, the justice system that keeps him there, and the reforms he believes could give people like him a second chance.

We'll also get Kenny's unfiltered reaction to the shocking revelations Charles shared about the victim in our last episode. So sit back, listen closely, and join us as we bring you this exclusive interview with Kenny Gilbert on this episode of Voices of a Killer. So Kenny, I spoke to your co-defendant.

And you guys have quite the story. You were 18 years old, basically, you know, days away from being a considered a child. Looking at your story that you sent me, you don't have any kind of violent past, but you're in prison for murder. I want to start from the beginning with you. Where were you born and raised?

I was born on an Air Force base. My dad was in the air force. Yeah. And your mom and dad, they ended up getting divorced? They did. And I think one of the driving factors on that was the death of my brother, who would have been two years older than me. Yeah. He died of a rare form of brain cancer before his fourth birthday.

And losing a child, no matter how it is, it's, gotta be very, difficult for not just the parents, but also a sibling. Was that really hard for you? I was so young. I was probably Maybe two years old. I remember him from pictures and stories my mom told, but it, .Wrecked her, all of her adult life, you know. And you had also your father was into alcohol.

Do you, you remember that as a kid, him drinking and getting violent or anything? Yeah, I do. Because when my parents divorced, I actually wound up living with my dad because of the military insurance that he did provide just in case anything went wrong with me. And so I lived with him down in Alabama, and I remember him drinking, I remember him being violent when he drank, I remember cr*cking beers for him and taking a sip off the phone and handing him like lighting a cigarette.

So, did your dad end up remarrying? He did. I'm not sure what year, but I was young when he remarried, and I had a half brother and a step brother. They had a child together. She had a previous child. We're all two years apart. I was the oldest. Yeah, and at some point you ended up living with your mother in Missouri, right?

Right. When I was seven years old, they brought me to live with my mom, and I had no idea. You know, at that point I was living with my stepmom because she had divorced my father. Yeah, that's strange that your father remarried, and then whenever they divorced, you went with your stepmom. that's a little bit odd. I'm sure it is odd, and I'm not really aware of the details of the whole situation. Maybe my dad was just too much of a mess. I don't know exactly what split them up. I'm sure it was the violence. If he would beat her up, I remember him putting his hands on her quite a bit. In fact, it's probably one of the earliest things I remember in my life, is hiding under a table while my dad just beat up my step mom and her best friend at a birthday party. Wow. I remember being afraid. He kicked a hole in the TV and stomped off and I'm underneath the table shaking, you know. A kid. So not only that, you know, bad experience, but you were also, according to your story, m*lested by your grandfather.

Yeah, at a time when I was probably, you know, five, six years old, and he would take me into the woods and make me do things with them. Yeah. And, you know, they were uncomfortable and I didn't understand what was going on until one night I had some relatives stand over it. I think relatives was my step mom and I told an older cousin or uncle about what was going on and I'm looking for help, right?

Because I'm not comfortable. I don't like what's happening. And so I'm trying to get help and he's like "I don't know what you're talking about. Why don't you show me?" He basically tricked me into doing the same thing. Yeah. And here's the thing is I've interviewed quite a few people in your situation and there's a recurring theme.

It's usually one or all of these. It's, you know, violence in the family, substance abuse or, you know, child m*lestation or whatever. So you're already, as a child, getting set on a course for, you know, damage in your future. So, did your grandfather ever get in trouble for that? I don't think so, and I'm not anything formal.

I do think that it came to light in the family. And, from what I was told by my grandmother years later, I think that's the thing that got him sober. Yeah. my grandpa was a, you know, a really bad drunk just like my father was and my aunt was. So I think that was a difficult point for him in his life.

Yeah. And more than likely, you probably weren't the only victim of him, you know. Growing up in Alabama, Kenny Gilbert experienced several traumatic events during his formative years. Tragedy struck the Gilbert family in 1977 when Kenny's older brother died from a rare brain cancer. When his parents' marriage fell apart under the strain, two year old Kenny was placed under the custody of his father, a volatile man who drowned his sorrows in heavy drinking.

It's his father's drunk and violent outbursts that stick out most in Kenny's memory of that time. But Kenny's childhood trauma was later exacerbated at the hands of another family member. When Kenny was barely five years old, he was m*lested by his alcoholic grandfather. Although this information eventually came to light, nothing was ever formally done to bring Kenny's grandfather to justice or to give Kenny the psychological help he needed. The damage by then was already done. The young vulnerable boy had been exposed to abuse, violence, and instability by the adults who were supposed to protect him. Things started to look up when Kenny's mom reentered the picture.

All of a sudden, the woman Kenny only recognized from old photographs, swooped into reunite with her only surviving son. So you end up with your stepmother. When was the transition from your stepmother to your mom and stepdad in Missouri? How long I stayed with my stepmother, it might have been six months or a year.

But when I was either 7 or right before my 7th birthday, they just put me in a car and drove me all the way to Arkansas and I had no idea where we were going. And we get to this little gas station or diner or something and I get out of the car and there's a camper parked there and I recognize the people in the camper pictures that I had been given of my mother.

How come your mom didn't have a relationship with you while you were with your dad and all that? I'm not a thousand percent sure about that. I think that probably she was having emotional issues of her own after losing my brother and her life was probably a wreck too, but I don't really know the details of that.

Yeah, it's confusing because I don't, you know, obviously she cares about her kids because it really messed her up when your sibling died, but I don't understand why she wouldn't... she went through a lot of abuse too, Toby. she was beat up by my dad too, and she was around a lot of stuff that probably screwed her up, and she's just been focused on getting her life back together.

Sure. Working on a relationship with my stepdad. Whenever you got back with your mother, she'd already remarried? Yes. And what'd you think, initially, what'd you think of your stepdad? I thought he was a pretty decent guy. He was very intelligent, very driven. At the time that I moved in with him and my mom, he was in college, studying to be a geological engineer.

And so, you know, my initial impression was he was a nice guy, and a good guy, but, you know, when you're seven years old, and you're trying to run around and play, and you're, when he's trying to study for college, you know, it's, you got to be quiet. Then I started getting into all kinds of trouble and he was a super strict disciplinarian.

Eventually his normal childhood stuff crept in and it was just amplified by who I was at the time. And it just drove a wedge between him, me, and my mom. I wound up on an island with them and I was an only child. They didn't have any other kids. So, it was just me and it was them. So whenever you did get back with your mother, how was your relationship with her whenever you got back with her?

It was good at times, but I was so screwed up by that point. I had a real hard time opening up to people, I had a hard time trusting anyone. In particular, I had a hard time asking for anything. It was decent and there were moments where it was great and smiles, hugs, happy and good. It could have been a whole lot better if I had just not been so locked up inside myself.

You do mention trust a lot in the story that you wrote. Where do you think that started? it's easy to point the finger at my grandfather, you know, and all the stuff that happened. Probably that's the most formative thing, but everything in my childhood from, like you said, the trauma of losing a sibling, even though I don't remember that,

it surely had some sort of effect on my development. It definitely had an impact on my family and where I was and who I lived with. So I'm not sure where it started. If you could put it on one thing or you could put it on everything. That was definitely the theme of my young life, not trusting people and being cut off and alone.

So there's obviously some, a lot of stuff going on once you move with your, brother and your stepdad, because you also ran away several times. What would cause you to run away? Just not wanting to be where I was. You know, and I found myself getting into all kinds of trouble, and the more trouble I got in, the more I would close myself off from my mom and dad, and then the more trouble I would get in, it was like a cycle. And they were strict and all kinds of punishments and me out in the yard, pulling dandelions out on the floor and all this other stuff while, people would be riding by on their bicycles. And I got laughed at enough and I didn't need that.

Always felt things would be better if I opened up. At this point, whenever you're with your mother and stepfather, did you inform them about what your grandfather did yet? I did. I do remember us having a talk about that, you know, and I'm not sure exactly how it came about, but we did discuss it and they were aware of it. But that was a rare thing for me to talk about things that I'd been through, open up and talk about the ways that I felt about things.

Did they never suggest therapy for you or anything like that? No. No, no counseling or anything for what happened? No, not that I recall. I'm surprised because, you know, your stepfather's educated and all that, and it seems like that would have been a, you know, a step to take, once hearing that kind of news, because that's a big deal, man, like a little kid getting, you know.

It is, but the background that my stepdad came from was probably worse than mine, you know, not in terms of s*xual abuse, but in terms of violence. His father was an alcoholic that came home from the Korean War and would do things like break his ocular bone with the telephone because he didn't like the way he answered the phone.

So, in that respect, he probably didn't feel like I needed that because he never had it. You know, and he was, he turned out like, alright. I don't know. I don't know how they felt about it. But in the, grand scheme of things, you're living with your mother and your stepfather was, you know, they weren't really abusing you or anything, right?

No. It was a good situation for you, but you, already had the damage that happened to you from your past. At seven years old, Kenny was unexpectedly thrust into a new home in Independence, Missouri. At the time, his mother and her new husband were little more than strangers to him. As Kenny soon learned, his stepfather was an intelligent and principled man who was preparing for a career in geological engineering. While not outright violent, Kenny's stepdad was still a strict disciplinarian who expected Kenny to fall in line with the household rules. To all outward appearances, Kenny's life had taken a turn for the better. But Kenny tells me that, deep down, he was still haunted by his troubled past.

The emotional scars left by his earlier experiences made him reluctant to trust these two adults. Over time, Kenny tells me he was so detached from his new guardians that he felt like he was living alone on an island. However, despite feeling like an outsider at home, there was one place where Kenny found a sense of belonging, the school classroom.

And even though you have this shoddy past already before you're even, you know, a teenager, you seem to do well in school, you know, like a good GPA and all that stuff. You also made it to like the honors classes and things like that, or I'm not sure if I'm saying the right, talented and gifted program? And school was fun for me in that respect.

I've, I read a lot. And so because I spent so much time in book as a young person,

I had a vocabulary, I knew a lot of stuff about a lot of different subjects. And so when teachers would ask questions, I'd always be the guy with the hand raised. I like the praise. I like the attention. Sure. And you feel good.

That's the one thing that didn't feel good. During all that though, you were an outcast in school. You didn't have a lot of friends? Nobody likes the guy that raises his hand. Right. Well, yeah. And you also talk about, you know, other factors that, you know, the other kids, you know, dress better and you were the outsider because you look different or whatever.

Yeah, you know how it is. Everybody else has got the designer clothes, and you got the crap from Walmart, hand me down stuff from your uncle. And you were also, a teacher even recommended that you skip a grade, so that's, a pretty big deal.

Yeah, they thought that I was capable of doing that, but when they ran it past my parents, they didn't think that I was ready for that emotionally and psychologically. Yeah. So they didn't allow me to do that. Yeah. Your co-defendant, Charles, you'd been knowing him since grade school, right? Yeah. Since we were 10 years old, fifth grade. He was a, friend of mine and I didn't really have a lot of, you know, I was a lonely kid, but Steve and I had been in school together since we were 10 years old, like I said, in fifth grade.

And you know how most kids will compete over who can ride their bike the furthest, you know, jump the skateboard the highest. Him and I would compete on who could win a chess game or who could win a debate tournament or who could get the highest score on the PSAT. And we drove each other intellectually, we were both smart kids.

And so he wound up becoming my closest friend, and in a situation where I got made fun of a lot, he was the one guy that would cheer me up and be in front of me and I felt really comfortable around him. Yeah, are you calling Higginbotham Steve? Yeah. To Kenny, school was a refuge and a major source of self confidence.

Unlike many kids with troubled pasts, Kenny thrived in the classroom. Sharp, inquisitive, and fiercely intelligent, Kenny won accolades, entered talented and gifted programs, and was even invited to skip a grade by his teachers. But excelling academically didn't win Kenny many friends. Seen as the teacher's pet who always had his hand raised, Kenny became an outcast in high school.

It didn't help that Kenny wore hand me downs and found it hard to fit in with the wealthier students at his school. One of the few friends Kenny did have, however, was Charles Higginbotham, who would later become Kenny's co-defendant. Throughout our interview, you'll hear Kenny refer to Charles by his second name, Steve.

Charles and Kenny first crossed paths in 5th grade and became fast friends. Both intelligent and competitive, they found a kindred spirit in each other, constantly competing to beat each other in chess, debates, or school grades. Over the years, Charles became the one person Kenny could count on, someone who accepted him and stood up for him when no one else would.

But neither could have predicted that this bond would lead them both down a dark road and ultimately end with both of them spending the rest of their lives in prison. So you start to get older and something occurs where you actually have the, ultimatum you leave. You don't come back. That's what your stepdad told you? Yeah. And it was on me. Just like everything else. You know, all the other times I was in trouble, it was all on me. It's all stuff that I did. So one of the, one of the things I also read was that you, got caught with dr*gs at school and stuff like that.

Let's go back before that. When did you first do hard dr*gs? I didn't do dr*gs until after I had left home and probably spent a summer drinking before I even picked up a joint. You know, so I grew up hating dr*gs because my mom and dad smoked w**d and always thought I was dumb because I would go to their places and hear how evil and terrible it was and see them do it.

And my dad was completely functioning. He was a professional and never had any consequence of that. And it made me feel lonelier as a kid because I couldn't invite other kids into the house because they didn't want to see what they were doing, and that's what they think, so. Yeah, and you grew up in, this is in the 80s, whenever the Just Say No and all that campaign went on.

Exactly right, Nancy Reagan and all that. Yeah, I remember that because, you know, I'm 45, so I can remember them coming to school and doing lots of programs and take a bite out of crime, they had the crime dog and all that stuff. Yeah, well what's weird is, you know, you're hearing that and then you go home to parents that are, you know, giving you rules and stuff like that and they're breaking a rule that you've just been taught that says you shouldn't break, you know.

So you started getting into alcohol before you moved out, right? And they caught you with alcohol a couple of times? And it started where I would, you know, I'd go to work at Sonic when I was about 16, 17 years old, and I would have friends buy me a half pint of Whiskey, and then one time I sold some from a truck that was on my grandpa's farm and I would take it back and I would drink by myself and it would make me feel like this much older.

All that. So I started sneaking all this stuff and hiding bottles up in the roof. What age were you? I went to a party with my friend and came back drunk, like stupid drunk, and puked all over the laundry room. Yeah. I was supposed to go to work with my dad the next day, and we make it there and I'm in bad shape.

But he gets this phone call from my mom. I can, she stumbled into the laundry room and found the condition that it was in. Wow. You hear her screaming through the telephone. Yeah. So what age were you, whenever you, cause he gave you an ultimatum, right? He said, if you leave, you can't come back. Whenever you said you were going to move out.

I was 17 years old. That was right between my junior and senior year, right at the end of my junior school. How do you feel about that? You think that he should have done it that way? I feel like I forced that situation. You know, I wanted to go to baccalaureate with this guy that I went to school with, and he wouldn't let me, and I was just sick of hearing no, and I was stubborn, and I, you know, somehow we wound up into a physical altercation, and like I said, my dad, he's not abusive.

And he didn't attack me back, but somehow in that scuffle, I punched him in the head and I saw like this goose egg rise up on his forehead and just very calmly, he just says, you can leave and I'm not going to stop. Don't come back. How did your mother feel about that? She probably supported my dad. because there were so many discipline issues when I was growing up.

They were probably both extremely frustrated. True. Well, looking back, what do you think was the right thing to do? Let you go? No, I don't think that's the right thing to do, but I don't place any blame on them. Sure. Because I understand how they felt. Sure. looking from the outside in, I would say that you probably wouldn't be in prison if they wouldn't let you go.

That's very true, but you say that about a lot of different things in my life. One moment, it could have changed everything. It's all over the place in my story. that could have changed a lot of different points and everything. Sure. But the thing is, you know, and I'm not trying to lessen the blow, but you're also a child and that's why people stay with their parents till they're, you know, 18 or plus, because they're not really good at making decisions. True, and it proved that I was not capable of making decisions after I left. I thought I was. Yeah. I felt overwhelmed by the freedom. I was like, oh my god, my life is so amazing right now. Because, you know, I moved out of home where I could not do anything, hardly,

everything was super strict. The world where there were no rules. Right. It's a big change for you. I think your parents were, you know, they were trying to parent a child that probably needed professional help and therapy, you know. You've been through a lot. Did you ever go back and visit them or did they invite you over for dinner or anything?

No, I think I was probably ashamed and embarrassed for the fact that I had left. I didn't reach out to them, and they didn't reach out to me, and it was just, you know, one of the things where maybe we both could have done something different, but neither one of us did. At 17 years old, Kenny Gilbert was given an ultimatum from his stepfather, leave and don't come back.

This came after months of increasingly rebellious behavior from Kenny. He'd begun experimenting with alcohol, sneaking drinks after work, and hiding bottles around his parents house, all of which drove a wedge between him and his parents. Tensions finally exploded one night during a heated argument about Kenny's future after high school.

When the fight turned physical and Kenny punched his stepfather, the room went silent. Immediately, Kenny knew he'd crossed the line. He was sent packing, kicked out of the family home, and left to figure out life on his own. In hindsight, this was a pivotal turning point in Kenny's life. As he looks back, Kenny himself acknowledges that if he hadn't left his family home that night, he might not be sitting in prison today for murder.

At the time, the freedom felt exhilarating. There were no rules and no restrictions. But at just 17, Kenny wasn't ready to handle the responsibility that came with independence. In the month that followed, Kenny's life spiraled out of control. We'll hear more about that after the break.

So you ended up leaving and that's whenever you stop hearing 'no' and you can just do whatever you wanted. Yeah, exactly. You said something in your story that I think really encapsulates everything. It's, it goes like this, it says, "everything I did after leaving home was spontaneous." You're probably doing everything by the seat of your pants, just doing whatever you wanted.

Well, I was just going to say, I went from an environment that was really strict to one where, all of a sudden, all of the things that had held me back, or all the things I thought were wrong with my life, were just gone. And so, now, I can wear designer clothes because you had a closet full of them and we were the same size.

I could go to parties, I could drink, and I could go out with chicks, you know, and stuff like that. So, it's it fixed my life in my mind. I didn't realize that it had actually broken my life. It felt like it gave me everything I wanted. Had you done hard dr*gs yet before you moved out? Not at that point.

Just drinking a little bit. Yeah. And then, so once you moved out, you experienced p*t, right? For the first time? Well, once I moved out, we drank that summer. We would go everywhere and we would drink. And I was still on a page where I didn't want to get high. You know, I thought that was dumb. I thought people that did it were dumb.

And, but the more I drank and the more I partied, the more I was around those sorts of people. Right. It's conditioning you. I remember a situation, yeah, where there were, I was outside with some guys and they were passing a joint around and I turned it down three or four times. But eventually I'm just like, yeah, let me hit that.

And realized, oh my god, I like this. So, one thing lead to other. I went from not doing any dr*gs at all, to now I smoke p*t, I eat ac*d, you know, I eat mushrooms, I c*ke, I m*th, you know, all that stuff happened very quickly. How did you feel about doing c*ke the first time? Were you like, "oh man, this is not as bad as I thought it was?"

You know, how'd you feel? Well, I was intimidated by it, you know, and it's something that I never really saw myself doing, and even that first time, you know, put the straw to the line and just breathe it in, it's oh, it's like nervous feeling, sick feeling, but after I did it, it's just it wasn't that big of a deal anymore.

Right, and you probably were thinking to yourself, like, "how do people get hooked on this? It doesn't seem that bad." Is that kind of your mindset? Yeah. Yeah, it didn't seem, I wasn't a stark raven lunatic when I did it, I thought that it made me smart, you know, I thought that it gave me a ton of energy and made me better.

I remember writing an essay on it one time, where I'm like, smoking cigarettes back to back and just doing line after line and I think "Man, I'm the smartest person in the world." And I read that essay the next morning. I'm like, "Oh." You mentioned that in the story, like you were super high and you wrote all this stuff down and then you sobered up and read it and you were just like, what the hell?

So you're 17 and you're out of the house, your co-defendant Charles, where did you go whenever you moved out of your parents, did you go to his house? I did, my first night I went to that baccalaureate that the whole argument was about in the first place, and I stayed that night with that guy that I'd gone to baccalaureate with, and then the next night I spent in Steve's car, and then the night after that, I convinced his family that I needed a place to stay and they let me move right in.

And y'all started doing c*ke and m*th together, right? And we leapfrogged off each other, right? Because I think I might have been the first one to smoke w**d, but anything that one of us did, we had the other one talked into it almost immediately. Right. You know, so I did w**d and then I don't remember exactly what the sequence was, but then one of us would do ac*d, and then one of us would do c*ke, and then actually I think One of Steve's older friends who wound up being involved in this case a little bit wanted to turn him on to c*ke, turn me on to c*ke.

Yeah. I think I had him doing ac*d and that kind of thing. So we were a bad influence on each other. Sure. And at this point, you're literally a year away from your crime, which is considered a violent crime, but at this point you really don't have any violence except for that one little thing with your stepdad, which is not really, it's just a scuffle or whatever, but it's not like you have some kind of violent streak in you.

I had a frustrated streak. I had an angry streak in me. I was in some fights when I was in school. I wasn't athletic. I was skinny and uncoordinated and didn't have an athletic bone in my body. So I'd get into fights, they'd be windmill things, I'd never land a punch, I'd just break trapper keepers and, you know, wind up in school suspension for a while.

Yeah. But I wasn't a violent person. I was, a frustrated person. I had this storm of emotions inside me. And I, couldn't have told you what I felt back then. I couldn't put a finger on it. Looking back now, I can tell you that I was just insecure and I was, you know, I did, I lacked confidence, I was afraid, but back then it was just a mess.

I tell you what, man, I kept looking for other people to tell me that I was okay. To make me feel okay. And when they would make fun of me, You know, or when I would go home and I would get yelled at, it's like those things just made me smaller and smaller inside, like I was eroding. I just could not fix it.

It was a thrill to leave home at 17. All his stepfather's boundaries and rules vanished overnight, and Kenny tasted the intoxicating feeling of independence. But for the 17 year old, this newfound freedom came at a price. What Kenny didn't realize at the time was that he was making a series of bad choices, setting him down a path of self destruction.

He had moved in with Charles, whose parents were in the middle of a divorce and didn't object, and the two friends quickly became bad influences on each other. Before long, they started experimenting with increasingly hard dr*gs, from ac*d to c*caine, and fell into bad company. In the same way that they'd competed as kids, Charles and Kenny continued to push each other into increasingly concerning behavior.

In a candid moment in our conversation, Kenny opens up about how he longed for acceptance during those years. He was an insecure kid, and this new, reckless lifestyle seemed to offer him a sense of belonging. But as he sought validation in all the wrong places, the once promising student started skipping school.

His grades plummeted. Putting the bright future he'd worked so hard for in jeopardy. So typically, like a kid in school, that's, you know, recommended to skip a grade and has, you know, A's and raises his hand all the time. Did you ever have any principal or teachers see that something was going on and tried to, try to intervene?

I did, particularly late, you know, but by the time that happened, I wasn't really trying to because when you're in that life, And you're doing what you want and everything feels great and all your problems have gone away and all the things that used to hurt don't hurt anymore. You feel like you know what you're doing.

You don't want somebody to tell you to stop. Right. So even though they were concerned about me and they could see it from the outside looking in, I couldn't see it and I didn't want to. And at some point you also started following a girl and went to the military or something like that? Yeah, this was one of the girls that I went to school with and she was really pretty.

she was a model, in Newspapers Jones Store Company ads for underwear and stuff, and Just a very good looking girl, and I thought there's no way she would even talk to me, but one time she came into the counselor's office, and I said something to her, and she said something back, and I'm like, are you talking to me?

Right. And we wound up hanging out a little bit, you know, and it was nice to have a crush on her. At the time, my attendance was terrible, because I was drinking, get by all the time, but I just skipped school. I realized I was not going to get into college like I was expected to. She had signed up for the Navy.

I thought, that's a pretty good idea. Because women go to boot camp in Orlando. I was like, all right, I'll go to Duke school because that's also in Orlando. And I just follow her down there. So I took the ASVAB and got sworn in and she was there with me the whole time. I got a 99 on my ASVAB and they told me I could do anything I wanted to in the military.

They said you pull rank very quickly. In that field, you get a 2 000 enlistment bonus, 6 years, and you get a 25 000 re-up bonus of 85 000 a year in private connection. Was it like the GI Bill? The GI Bill would have applied too. They pay, I think, three quarters of your tuition while you're active duty.

Right. What did that conclude to? Well, see, I, was in a delayed entry program. All I had to do was graduate from high school. Which, given my academic history, was a no brainer. it was a foregone conclusion. I'm gonna graduate high school. But I didn't. I got kicked out of school in the third quarter of my senior year because I had an empty vial of cr*nk in my pocket at school.

I pulled out my change to, you know, count my lunch money and somebody saw it, said something and next thing you know, the sheriffs are going through my locker and they call me to the principal's office. They kicked me out of school. And that's, you said your stepdad tried to go over there and turn him around and keep you in school?

He did. They had a conference with him, but school was not going to allow me to stay. So what were your options if you get kicked out at 17? You just try to go somewhere else or that's it? To finish school, I would have had to come back the next semester or get my GED or something like that. Yeah. Listen, that, that day, that was a devastating day, because I got kicked out of school, and my friend's dad, he said, put me out of the house, so I'm literally homeless.

What did he put you out of the house for? Because it was obvious that I was a bad influence on his son. Yeah. Where'd you go? I ran around with another guy we partied with for a few days and then I slept in some, like underneath some stairs in an apartment complex and then ended up going to an apartment with this guy we went to school with.

Actually blackmailed him a little bit because we'd been partying and we broke the elevators a few months before in his apartment building and we owed him money. And so, he caught me walking around homeless by myself, and him and another guy, they jumped on me, and attacked me with pool cues, one of them picked me up from behind and slammed me on the concrete, and really screwed up my knee, so I had to crawl up to the gas station and call an ambulance to come take me to the hospital, and then he showed up, "hey man, I need a place to stay," and that's just how it worked out.

You wouldn't tell on him if he gave you a place to stay, basically? I was going to tell on him anyway, but he didn't know that. Yeah. How was that? Because this is a guy that just beat you up and you blackmailed him. Did that kind of make it difficult to live there? It was a little awkward, but we were friends anyway, so it wasn't really that big a deal.

Did he do dr*gs? Yeah, we would get high together. Where's your co-defendant during this, while you're living with this guy? He's still living at home, but we would still drive around together after he would get done with school and stuff. Of course, I was kicked out. I didn't have anything to do all day, so I just sat in the apartment.

Did Charles parents try to keep you away? They didn't want me around him, so it was you know, I couldn't show up at the house or anything. Yeah. But, you know, his parents were split, and so he didn't really have a lot of supervision. Right. That's part of the reason why there was so much freedom when I moved in with him, into his house, is because his parents had just started going through divorce.

In his senior year, Kenny was expelled from high school after being caught with dr*gs. Right. This was a devastating blow for a kid who had once thrived academically. To make matters worse, Kenny was kicked out of Charles' house that same day, leaving him homeless. With no place to go, Kenny spent nights sleeping under stairwells or crashing on couches, scraping by for a roof over his head.

This was rock bottom for Kenny. The once gifted boy who had thrown away his opportunities, and now found himself with no home, no diploma, and no direction. As the school year ended and the summer of 93 rolled around, Kenny was left directionless, wasting his days away partying with Charles. Now, if you've listened to my conversation with Charles Higginbotham, you'll know that this was the summer that Charles and Kenny conspired to commit murder.

Over that break, the boys would cross paths with Kevin, a former military man with a mysterious past. Not much was known about Kevin, But he'd recently reconnected with his sister, Stephanie, and moved in with her and her two kids. At the time, Charles and Kenny were deep in their dr*g habit and desperately looking for the money to sustain it.

On the 2nd of July 1993, they devised a plan to lure Kevin down to the woods, shoot him, and rob him for cash. Up until now, however, we've only heard Charles version of the story, including the secrets he kept hidden from Kenny. But now I want to hear Kenny's side of the story. On the next episode of Voices of a Killer, 

Kenny Tells all.

If you wanna find out what happens next, right now, you can sign up at patreon.com/voicesofakiller. There you can find bonus content, early access, ad free listening, and access to our chat community. So go to patreon.com/voicesofakiller to sign up now your support is what keeps us passionate about bringing these stories to you.

That's a wrap on this episode of Voices of a Killer. A big shout out to Sonic Futures who handled the production, audio editing, music licensing, and promotion of this podcast. If you want to hear more episodes like this one, make sure to visit our website at voicesofakiller.com. There you can find previous episodes, transcripts, and additional information about the podcast.

Lastly, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback helps us improve and reach new listeners. Thank you for your support and we can't wait to share more stories with you in the future. Thank you for tuning in.

I'm your host, Toby, and we'll see you next time on Voices of a Killer. 

Ep 74 | Kenny Gilbert Part 2

Before we begin this podcast, please be advised that the following episode contains language that some listeners may find offensive and inappropriate. The opinions expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not reflect the views of the podcast producers. Listener discretion is advised.

Welcome back to the second installment of Kenny Gilbert's story. Last time, we heard about Kenny Gilbert's downfall from top student to high school dropout. Now, we hear how Kenny conspired to commit murder, along with his childhood best friend, Charles, on this episode of Voices of a Killer. So, the victim in your case, when did you meet him?

He was the brother of a friend of ours that We had actually worked for at McDonald's. Our manager at McDonald's, she was 35 and she had a couple of kids and we would go over to her house and party because she partied. He found out that she smoked w**d and they started hanging out together a little bit. You know, we started using her house as a crash pad.

Is that where you did c*ke for the first time? Yes. And was the victim living with her? Or just, that's just a runner? He showed up out of the blue. He was like 20 minutes outside of town. He hadn't seen his sister since he was a kid and called her up and said that he needed a place to stay. Oh, wow. So he, yeah, he moved in with her.

He had been a contractor for the army at Fort Hood and Killen and showed up with his Doberman and his computers. Yeah. So this, the victim Kevin is basically now living at his sister's. And are y'all just hanging out there or are you actually living with this, sister? No, I never lived there.

We would just go over there and drink, get high, sometimes we would watch the kids while she worked or whatever. How did Kevin feel about y'all getting high? I don't think he particularly cared for us being around his niece and nephew in that condition, and understandably so, you know. There were times when we were supposed to be watching them, and we were doing a horrible job of it.

Sure. We took Kelly to a party one night and forgot where she was and couldn't go pick her up. You know, we drop the kids off at Worlds of Fun and we're supposed to be there watching them, but we drove all the way back to the city to go get high. Wow. So, I mean, that's the type of thing he was trying to prevent by saying, hey, we shouldn't be around the kids.

Right. So, how did y'all feel about him? Did he kind of feel like an outsider because he didn't get high? Yeah, he was a square. He was an outsider, but he was a nice enough guy. I mean, he would drink beer and stuff. I even sat down and drank a beer with him the week before this stuff happened. He was a decent person.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was a kind of a thorn in our side because we're trying to right , but that didn't have anything to do with what eventually happened. I mean, this didn't happen because we were upset with him or didn't like him or anything like that. As Kenny tells it, he and Charles had no real animosity toward their victim.

Kevin. If anything, Kevin disapproved of the boys because they were irresponsible babysitters toward his niece and nephew. But overall, Kenny remembers Kevin as a decent guy, someone he even shared a beer with shortly before this tragic crime. Kenny insists that Kevin's murder wasn't the result of a personal vendetta or building tensions.

As he sees it, it was a stupid, thoughtless decision made by two dr*gged out teenagers who had lost touch with reality. But that's a different account from what Charles told me. When I interviewed Charles, he made a serious allegation that Kevin was a possible s*xual predator. He claimed that Kevin had made unwanted s*xual advances toward him, possibly in exchange for money.

He also claimed to have spotted warning signs that Kevin was about to target his nephew too. Because of this, Charles claimed that his motive to kill Kevin wasn't purely financial. He was also to protect the children he felt he had a responsibility to. At the time, however, Charles didn't tell Kenny his true reason for wanting Kevin out of the picture.

He was struggling to accept his status as a bisexual man, and was afraid of that secret being let out, even to Kenny, his closest friend. In fact, to this day, Charles has never revealed the full story to Kenny, even though he's had plenty of opportunity to do so while in prison. Up until now, Kenny has only been told half the story of why they killed Kevin, and why he's spending his life in jail.

I wanted to present Kenny with this new information and gauge his reaction. Well, so, Charles has a little bit different version, and he said that you didn't know about it 'til way later, that him and Kevin kind of had like some kind of s*xual thing going on. Yeah, I didn't know about that at all. At all?

Or you didn't know then? No, this is the first time I heard about it. So, let me kind of catch you up. So, he said that he convinced you that it was just about a robbery and stuff like that, but in reality, he had done some kind of s*xual stuff with him, and then on top of that, he was under the impression that Kevin also tried to maybe do something s*xual with a child, because He, there was some kind of kid, I don't know if it was the, his sister's kid or whatever said that Kevin had flashed money at him and he was thinking that maybe he tried to bribe the kid with money for, you know, s*xual stuff.

And then also, the place, well, yeah, and I'm just trying to fill you in on what he's saying, and also the place that you guys, you know, murdered Kevin. That was a place that they had gone out and done s*xual stuff before, and he was luring Kevin out there to do s*xual stuff, but didn't tell you that end of it.

That's the story that Charles gave me. And this is the first time you're hearing that? What are you thinking when I tell you that? Do you think it's bullshit? I don't.

I catch you off guard? Yeah, a little bit. But listen, you know, we don't really talk about that thing. Or, you know, what happened. I've been around Steve a lot, but we don't really discuss that situation, how we got to it, what was going on between him and Kevin. I don't know anything about that. Whenever I interviewed him, this is where he told me, you know, he said, "I told, I told Kenny I was doing one thing, and then I went and told Kevin that I wanted to do more s*xual stuff out there," and that's how he lured Kevin out there.

That's, that's what he told me. That seemed to surprise you when I told you that though. Yeah, and to be honest with you, it actually makes me regret being a part of this, I mean this, to me, that's an incendiary thing for the victim's family, it's such an unnecessary thing to even say, even if it's true.

Do you think it's not true? I mean, that's something I'm so extremely careful about. You know, I, like, victim's rights are extremely important. I've done a lot of work with victim's groups, I've written an amends letter to my victim's family. And to characterize him in that way, I mean, I don't like the idea of putting him in any kind of negative light.

Not that he was a saint, you know, or the world's most perfect person, but... well, even if it's the truth, though? I don't know. I mean, I'm big on the truth, too. So if that's what happened to him, then how could he say anything different than that? But, I mean, this is 31 years ago. You would think that he would've said something to me. I could have sworn he said that you didn't know at the time, but he's told you later on in prison about kind of the what happened or the circumstances, but yeah. Yeah, I mean, so that's, you know, what he told me, and he said that you didn't know about at the time, but here's something else that Charles said is he feels really, really bad because he feels like he's responsible for, you know, convincing you to do what you did.

And Obviously you're, you know, your own person and you, I think that you take responsibility for what you did, but he says that he feels really bad because he kind of talked you into this and all that, is that accurate? That's true to a degree. I mean, I wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been for him, but I don't think he would have done it if it hadn't been for me, and neither one of us could have made the thing happen.

Kenny is totally taken off guard when I reveal what Charles told me. He insists he knew nothing about any s*xual abuse, and had no concerns about Kevin's behavior around his nephew. Despite spending years in prison alongside Charles, it's clear that they've rarely discussed the crime in depth. It takes Kenny a moment to process the bombshell revelation that his close friend has kept hidden for so long.

This new information also stirs up feelings of regret in Kenny. He expresses concern for the victim's family and stresses the importance of respecting the victim's dignity when speaking publicly about the case. Even if what Charles says is true, it's an inflammatory detail that Kenny thinks might be best left unsaid.

With the new revelation out of the way, I shift the focus to the events leading up to the murder, and Kenny talks me through the plot to kill Kevin. So obviously y'all basically, want money from Kevin, want to rob him. Why murder? Why can't you just rob him? Because he knew us, and we were afraid that he would just go down on us.

It sounds so stupid now thinking about it that way. It all came about one night. We're just sitting around high, we're coming down off ac*d, trying to think of ways to make money because we're strung out on d*pe. And we're just talking about all this crap. Things that we would probably never do, in my mind.

We've never done anything like that before. We've stolen some clothes from shopping malls. I even stole a gun from this guy's house because he had showed me where it is and traded it for d*pe. In that life for real. So we were talking about things like watching someone go to the ATM with binoculars and get their pen and snatch a card and try to get money that way.

Or snatch it first. And then we somehow got up on the idea of the fact that Kevin had money because that's what we'd seen him with a whole big wad of money in his glove box. And maybe that's the kid. So why not just go open the glove box and steal the money, right? Because in our mind, he would have known that it was us.

We were afraid to get in trouble. And maybe that's what the co-defendant, your co-defendant was referencing is the, the nephew, I guess, saw the money and, and he's saying that he, he believed that Kevin had, you know, tried to convince him to do s*xual stuff with him or something like that with the money and I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know anything about that. I've never, I don't, I don't know anything about that.

Is it? Yeah, he said that he had a couple of experiences with Kevin, and then, like I said, he thought maybe that he tried something on the kid, and on top of that, he said he did want the money too, he was over money, but also, it kind of, for him, it was that too. So Who's the one that basically said, "okay, this is what we're going to do.

You're going to sit out here. I'm going to do this." Or did y'all just kind of plan it together? Yeah, it all came out that night. I mean, we're, we're sitting around, you know, talking about things and we're even taking little notes, you know, write things out like a bullet list, right. What we could do. And I think on that paper, it says " Steph's brother?" Or something like that is part of our discovery file, but we come up with this plan about one of us being.

In the woods and somebody else bringing him down and what's doing it there, right? Under the pretense that y'all are going to go get somebody stuck, a jeep was stuck and you're going to go get it out of the mud? That's right. That was, yeah. So this all happened, I think it was Saturday night. You know, and we were just crazy high and A few days go by and I don't really think anything more of it, and then the next Thursday, I was running around with another friend of mine and we drove past the place where we had talked about doing a little turnoff by the woods in our neighborhood, a little neighborhood park.

And there was this, his car was there. There was no reason for it to be there. And it immediately made my heart start pounding. Like, Oh my God, what's going on? But you weren't waiting out there. You just drove by the location that this later happened. I've been playing a board game with this other friend of mine, it was a Star Trek game.

Down that road, going back to his house and see the car there. And I immediately connected to what we had talked about on Saturday. There's just no other reason for his car to be there, particularly not a tank. So what was this car doing there? I didn't find out until the next day. I got ahold of Steve and he told me that he had worked on it down there.

He had the gun down there and he just couldn't do it, and he didn't have the help, he couldn't do it without it. So, he tells you that he was going to do it that night, and he couldn't do it, basically? Right. How did you feel about that? Did it start to become a reality when he's telling you that he actually went down there with a gun and stuff?

Of course, yeah, and he's asking me to help him, and I tried to say no a few times, I tried to wiggle out of it, tried to make it disappear, didn't want to do it. But eventually I just said, yes, it was kind of like a joint. I didn't want it. "I don't want to smoke. I don't want to smoke. Give me that joint." Yeah.

It was the same. "I don't want to, I don't want to. All right, let's go." And I think for me, I just, you know, there's a lot of things that go into it. Yes, I was strung out on dr*gs. dr*gs are expensive. Like we talked about at the beginning of the call. Yeah. But for me, it was like everything in my life was falling apart and I didn't have much left, this is one of my only friends, one of my closest friends, been there my whole life, you know, and I was watching Tombstone the other day and I had that scene come on where somebody asked Doc Holliday, he's like, "why you put yourself out there for Wyatt Earp all the time?"

And Doc Holliday says, "Wyatt Earp is my friend," and the guy says, "well, I got lots of friends." Doc Holliday says, "well, I don't." And that resonates with me so much, it gave me chills when I was watching the movie because that's why. And I know that doesn't make sense. Sure. And I've thought about that a lot and I think if I could rationalize it, if I could make what I did make sense, then I probably deserve to be here.

Because if I think it makes sense to go down in the woods and shoot another human being, I deserve to be here. But it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. But it happened and it happened for a reason and those were the reasons that made sense to me at that time when I was 18 and my life was just being destroyed by the things that I was involved in.

So you're talking about, y'all talking about the planning of it, you know, the actual murder, but what about after? Did y'all talk about what you do after the murder? And that shows right there, the, you know, the immaturity and the not thinking right with it because of the dr*gs and things like that.

Because that's pretty important is afterwards you need to be able to, you know, cover it up or do something that's not going to get you caught up, which is nearly impossible because, you know, you're connected to the guy. So there was no discussion about "after we do this, we need to bury him. We need to run here."

Nothing like that? No, I don't remember talking about anything like that. It's just like, we're in the moment and it's happening. It's like, Yeah, it was almost like being under a strobe light where everything is jerky and, and you know, it's like stitched together with frames that don't really fit together.

Right. That's how that that whole situation comes leading up to it end during and afterwards exactly like that as the summer wore on. A plan to kill Kevin took shape. At first, Kenny tells me, it was just a far off idea that Charles talked about one night when they were getting high. At the time, this was just a wild suggestion in a series of schemes they devised that night.

Schemes that Kenny insists they never seriously intended on actually carrying out. To Kenny, these were just two immature kids acting tough and winding each other up. However, over the days that passed, this wild idea became a terrifying reality. When I talked to Charles, I learned that he'd made a failed attempt to execute Kevin's murder without Kenny.

He brought Kevin down to the woods, where he'd stashed a gun. However, Charles abandoned the attempt when he was unable to locate the gun. Kenny nearly witnessed this when he saw Charles car parked near the site, at which point it hit him that Charles was serious about Kevin's murder. Although he tried to back out, Kenny eventually caved to the pressure of loyalty to his closest friend.

For Kenny compares his relationship to Charles to that of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp from the '93 movie Tombstone. Like Doc, Kenny felt a strong sense of loyalty to Charles and wanted to appease the wishes of his close, longtime friend. At the time, Kenny was homeless, with no prospects or future, and heavily dependent on Charles, who was one of the few people left in his life.

Because of this, Kenny was easily persuaded to go along with the plan to murder Kevin. A plan that was never his to begin with.

So after you saw your co-defendant's car down there, how much, how many days after that did you, did the murder occur? It was the next day. The next day. Okay. So, the day that this happened, y'all meet up somewhere? We did, but I don't remember exactly where. If I went to his house or what. Y'all talked about it one last time, I guess, that day?

As far as, like, the planning of it, I think that we walked down into the woods together, you know, and he's like, I'm gonna go get him. Oh, wow. So, y'all went out there where you were gonna hide and kind of talked about, "okay, you're gonna do this and I'm gonna do that" and all this? Mm hmm. And I think, like, Steve was supposed to, we were both supposed to be involved, he had a knife, you know, and I had the gun, and so, Steve went up to get him.

What time of day did this occur? Probably early afternoon. And it was a shotgun, right? Yes, it was a shotgun. It belonged to Steve's dad, actually. Wow. Whenever he left you out there, and you're waiting, probably, like, silent in the woods, just by yourself, and within, Literally, just a matter of time, your life is going to change forever.

What are you thinking right there? You thinking it's not really going to happen, or what? Thoughts are racing through my head so fast. It was a hot day, it was July the 2nd, 1993, boiling hot. And I remember sweat being in my face and in my eyes, stinging my eyes, but my body is literally shaking. It was trembling apart.

And I was scared and I was hoping that it wasn't happening. I couldn't believe that I was in that situation. I'm shaking now, you know, just thinking. And he's gone for so long and I moved to a different spot of the weeds, you know, where the weeds were taller or something. And so he's gone so long and I'm thinking maybe it won't happen.

Maybe it won't happen. Maybe he won't be there or something. Hopefully something will change, right? Yeah, so you're waiting out there and you actually waited long enough to where you think maybe he's not coming, you move spots, which actually, you know, your co-defendant even said that when he got out there, you weren't exactly where you, he thought you were going to be.

So, are you in a spot where you can actually see them walking towards you? I was in a spot that was down at the bottom of a hill, down by a little creek, and there's a path up on top of the hill that you had to walk down.

And so, when Steve came back, after what seemed like ages, he came back by himself and he started down the hill and I, I remember feeling so relieved, almost like I hadn't been breathing for 15 minutes. And then I took a breath and then 15 feet behind him, here comes this guy, right, just walked right behind him. And then your heart probably dropped.

Things are just like, almost autopilot. Almost like I just Kind of shouldered the gun and then shot him. He dropped immediately. How far were you from him whenever you decided to come out and shoot?

I'm not sure how exactly, maybe 40 feet. Where was Charles? In front, in front of Kevin and a little bit to the left. He wasn't in the, cause you know, a shotgun has a spread on it, probably bigger than someone's head, so you weren't going to accidentally shoot him? That's probably why he was putting so much distance between him and the guy.

Yeah, how did that feel, you know, raising that gun up and, and doing that? Ah, sick. I mean, you just can't really... yeah, because you're not a, your history doesn't show violence, you know? No, I'm, I'm not a violent person. I don't like violence. I don't like hurting people. I don't like hurting animals, any of it.

That's pretty, you know, it's crazy that, because, you know, your history doesn't show violence, but yet you're, you know, killing somebody in the woods and it's all planned out, that's just really, it's deep, you know, it's scary that the dr*gs can do that kind of stuff. And whenever you shot, you say he immediately fell?

What was your co-defendant's reaction whenever you did that? Don't really remember looking at him at that exact moment, though, that I walked up to Kevin where he was, and he was laying on the ground, and his eyes were rolled back in his head, and the red spot from where he'd been shot on different parts of his face, in fact, and... Was he still moving?

Motioned to Steve, I remember motioning to Steve, I'm like, I held up my hands like, what? You know, like, he's got a knife, and I had it in his pockets, I mean Did the motion back to me like, Oh, yeah, I knew that I couldn't leave him like that. And so I shot it with the gun right next to him and shot him again.

And I've never seen anything that horrible before and I will never be able to not see what that looks like. Yeah. Cause that close with a shotgun is just, it probably, I'm assuming he had a closed casket? Yeah. It was a horrible, horrible thing. Yeah. Do you have dreams and nightmares about it? No. I don't have dreams about it.

I mean, I could tell like 30 something years later, you're extremely uncomfortable. You're just, you know, kind of going through it again. It's a terrible thing and I'm looking at it right now and it's a terrible thing. All these years later, I cannot believe that I put myself in this situation. I allowed this to happen.

Kenny is audibly distressed when he talks about Kevin's murder. It's clear that his decision to pull the pistol trigger still haunts him all these years later. And what torments Kenny most is the senselessness of why he did it. At just 18 years old, Kenny didn't have a violent bone in his body, yet he took a man's life in the most brutal way imaginable.

That summer afternoon was oppressively hot. As Kenny waited for Charles, sweat stung his eyes and minutes ticked by. The plan didn't quite feel real, and Kenny kept hoping it would somehow fall apart. But a sickening feeling rose up inside him. Through the trees, he saw Charles walking towards him. And just a few feet behind, Kevin, their victim.

In the next few moments, Kenny says his body acted on autopilot. Mechanically, he pulled the shotgun up to his shoulder, pulled the trigger, and Kevin fell with a thump to the ground. But the deed wasn't yet over. Kevin was still hanging on to life. Shaking, Kenny walked up to Kevin and delivered a second, fatal shot at point blank range.

He was flooded with instant regret. The graphic crime scene would leave a horrific imprint on his memory for years to come. Even today, Kenny seems unable to believe how he wound up in this terrible situation. You said you've actually written letters to the victim's family? I have. I didn't think they allowed that, or is that through a certain program? It's through the victim services coordinator in civil office. Did you get a response from them? No, not directly, but years later I had written my story down in a book that was published with some other guys that I had done time with.

It was five young people who had committed murders telling their stories. What's the name of the book? It's called Lost Innocence, Understanding Youth who Kill. In fact, the first part of the story that I sent you was the original text of that. I slightly edited it a little bit. But the victim's niece in this case, Kelly, she was aware of the book being published and wanted to get a copy of it.

So she wrote me. And when I saw her name on the outside of the envelope, my heart started pounding. Open it up and it's this short letter that says, "you may not remember who I am, but how could you ever forget?" something like that. But, you know, and she was very honest about some of the things that she felt.

And basically I was the monster under her bed her whole adult life. The reason for her anxiety and her lack of trust, fearing people, you know, it's like I feared people because of what my grandpa did to me. I was the reason she was, I was the reason that she had anxiety, didn't sleep well, didn't go to bed cold twice.

She explained some of these things to me, and she asked for a copy of my story, and I sent it to her, and, but that's, that's the response, it wasn't really a response to the letter that I had written. That letter, when you write a letter to a victim's family, you send it to the victim's services coordinator, and they look at it to make sure that the language is appropriate.

Sure. And then they contact the family. You never contact them. Right. And then they can say whether they want the letter or not, and the family did accept the letter. What was that like writing that letter? It took a long time to write. 8 years, actually. Yeah I think I wrote it maybe 8 years after I've been imprisoned. But I went through a lot of versions of it in my head and thought about it for a long time. When I looked at the paper...

Years into his prison sentence, Kenny has struck up a correspondence with the victim's niece. Kenny tells me it's been a difficult, but therapeutic experience for both of them. Exchanging these letters has forced Kenny to confront the ripple effect of his actions back in '93, and gave him a major revelation he needed to turn his life around.

As he learned, he had become the monster under this young girl's bed, the source of her anxiety and the sleepless nights that had shaped her entire adulthood. That's given him a sobering glimpse into the impact of his crime And fair apps, that's why he talks about his crime with so much regret in our conversation.

Winding back 30 years, I wondered what Kenny's state of mind was like immediately after the murder. After you shot him the second time, was there any discussion before y'all dragged him out? You know, like, did y'all talk to each other about it or was it just reaction, like, "hey, let's drag him here, let's get out of here?"

I think it was just reaction. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, I don't recall any, anything. Like that, we dragged him over to the creek, we emptied his pockets, we got his keys, went back to his house, tried to make it look like he had left, but we left all kinds of his stuff at the house, left his dog at the house, you know.

Took off, went out of town. Did y'all immediately leave town after you took all the stuff? I think we went and got some d*pe first. Yeah. Were y'all just snorting the c*ke or were y'all smoking cr*ck or shooting it? We were just snorting the c*ke. I mean, every now and then we would throw some in a joint or on top of a beer can and smoke it a little bit.

But mostly we were just snorting c*ke and. Did you and Charles ever, you know, like talk about like the, the, you know, the event afterwards, like leave it and run and stuff like that. Did y'all go over the things again and like, talk about it? No, I don't remember having any kind of discussion about it. It's not like it was a secret, It's like between us, but we didn't really talk about it. It happened. Yeah. After y'all got the d*pe, where'd y'all go? Went down to Palm Beach, Fair Lake with Steve's mom. What's that like hanging around with the people that don't know it? Like his mother, she doesn't know what happened and y'all just murdered somebody.

How are y'all keeping it together? Staying high. Yeah. That night, I mean, I couldn't hardly keep it together. I couldn't fit my mind around the fact that I had just killed. I could not accept it. I just remember laying there and just thinking, thinking, thinking. I went out into the middle of the lake in the middle of the night and swam out there.

I was going to kill myself. I didn't want to be alive anymore. I didn't want to feel what I felt before. I was literally going to drown myself and I put my hands up over my head and let myself speak. Touched the bottom, panicked, scared, pushed off, came back to shore. In the hours after the murder, Charles and Kenny scrambled to cover their tracks.

Unable to process the enormity of their actions and acting purely on impulse, they dumped Kevin's body in a nearby creek, rummaged through his belongings and fled the scene. Kenny tells me that their actions were disorganized and impulsive, an indication of just how little thought they'd put into their plan. As luck would have it, that weekend was the 4th of July. Hoping to avoid suspicion, the two boys stuck to their weekend plans of attending a family getaway at a nearby lake. That night, they numbed themselves with dr*gs and pretended that nothing had happened. Kenny, though, was unraveling. As he lay awake that night, Kenny couldn't shake the images of the gruesome crime scene.

Under the crushing guilt of having just taken an innocent man's life, Kenny left his bed and waded out into the middle of the lake, intending to end his own life. Yet, as he submerged, panic took over, and he resurfaced, gasping for air. That night, Kenny returned to the shore, choosing out of guilt or survival to confront whatever grim future was to come.

On the next episode of Voices of a Killer, we hear how 18 year old Kenny faced the unforgiving letter of the law.

If you want to find out what happens next, right now, you can sign up at patreon.com/voicesofakiller. There you can find bonus content, early access, ad free listening, and access to our chat community. So go to patreon.com/voicesofakiller to sign up now. Your support is what keeps us passionate about bringing these stories to you.

That's a wrap on this episode of Voices of a Killer. A big shout out to Sonic Futures who handled the production, audio editing, music licensing, and promotion of this podcast. If you want to hear more episodes like this one, make sure to visit our website at voicesofakiller.com. There you can find previous episodes, transcripts, and additional information about the podcast.

Lastly, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback helps us improve and reach new listeners. Thank you for your support and we can't wait to share more stories with you in the future. Thank you for tuning in.

I'm your host Toby and we'll see you next time on Voices of a Killer. 

Ep 74 | Kenny Gilbert Part 3

Before we begin this podcast, please be advised that the following episode contains language that some listeners may find offensive and inappropriate. The opinions expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not reflect the views of the podcast producers. Listener discretion is advised.

Welcome to the third and final installment of Kenny Gilbert's Family. When we last left off, we heard how Kenny conspired with his best friend to murder an innocent man. Now we hear Kenny's frantic attempt to evade capture as a police investigation went underway on this episode of Voices of a Killer.

So y'all actually ran off to Colorado? Was it the day after the lake incident where you swam out there? It was shortly after that, we were there for the 4th of July weekend, came back on Monday and as soon as we got to Kansas City, we went to a friend's house and they were asking all kinds of questions, got on the interstate and took off.

So, they were, you knew that they were after you? Yes. One of the things that Charles mentioned that, well, he didn't, excuse me, one of the things that Charles didn't mention, but I read and I want clarification, there was some kind of s*xual assault after that, it's in the paper. What's that about? After we went to Colorado, is that what you're talking about?

Yeah. It's because when we went to Colorado, we met up with a couple of girls that were rolling pennies at a bank and we started talking to them and asking them out and stuff and went out with them. One of the girls, actually both of them, had left with us and were picked up when we were arrested. And I think it's because they were 17 that they were considering that as s*xual assault.

Ah, gotcha. So why Colorado? Because I was familiar with that. We used to go to Colorado on vacation a lot. We were on our way out, wasn't we? We were going to go to Disneyland. Yeah. So when do you find out that you've got to like hide in Colorado and they're like, you know, on your tail? Because y'all are just there and obviously you're just kind of like trying to hang out with women, but at some point you're like on the run there.

Right. Well, we had gone to Canon City and we were parked outside of a pool hall or something and happened to be looking out the window and see a cruiser just do a slow pass by the car. And then they stopped and they got out and they were looking at it and we're like, Oh, right. So we just took off and went up some back streets and up into the mountain. On foot?

Yeah. On foot. I had a pair of shorts on a pair of Eastland boots and a hat on backwards. And that's it go off into the high desert, walk around all that night with no water, no shelter, no clothes. What is the, now the cops are like stopping by the car, y'all take off running, is there any discussion like "this is it, we're never going to make it out of this, they know, you know, who we are and all this stuff."

No, I don't think, I don't remember having a conversation like that, it's just, you know, you're just reacting at that point, like, "gotta go. Run!" Well, who'd they catch first? Because y'all split up. It was me. How'd they catch you? I had slept in some farmer's shed and covered myself with empty grain sacks, and then started walking some more, and I was lost, and thirsty, and hungry, and I'm walking beside Highway 50, and every now and then I'll see a cop car drive by, so I'll duck down in the scrub brush and kind of try to avoid being detected, but at one point they saw me, and I just, I was so tired by that point, and I was just ready.

Yeah. Threw their guns down on me and took me to jail. You probably felt like shit too because you're not only running and also, you know, the thought of what you just did, but also coming down off of dr*gs too, right? Yeah, everything is all at once. I mean, sitting in that, that holding cell, no real experience of being in trouble before.

I mean, I've been to the police station a couple of times, like running away and stuff like that, but never to stay and just waking up in that cell So we're a lot, not being able to go anywhere. I just remember sitting on that concrete with my head in my hands going, Oh my God, what a life. Right. Did you get a phone call?

You, could you call your stepdad or mom? I don't remember calling my stepdad or mom. I do remember calling Stephanie. How lowas thatwas. Yeah. How long was it after you got caught did you see Charles again? It was months because he was arrested in a different county and we both got extradited back to Missouri so I saw him at some point in the county jail.

Kenny and Charles had made a sloppy attempt to cover up their tracks. In their haste to flee Missouri, they'd left behind key evidence that led the authorities to immediately suspect foul play. Suspicions were raised when Kevin's beloved Doberman was found abandoned, and when his car was discovered in a nearby parking lot.

Over a week later, Kevin's dead body was finally recovered from the creek, leading officials to declare the case a homicide. By that time, Kenny and Charles had fled, and were living rough in a hideout camp near Clear Creek Reservoir. But the law was closing in fast. Shortly after the discovery of Kevin's body, police tracked down the two fugitives.

The adrenaline that kept Kenny running for days could no longer sustain him. When officers apprehended him on the side of a main Colorado road, Kenny didn't resist. But reality hit Kenny hard in the holding cell after his arrest. The boy who had once been a top student was now facing the consequences of a murder he couldn't undo.

Once he and Charles were extradited to Missouri, the full implications of the law began to fully sink. Did you tell the whole story truthfully right off the bat or did you? Yeah. You did? The next day after I was arrested they had detectives from the Police Department and they just asked me what happened and I told them exactly word for word what had happened.

Really? And I was so naive at that point I'm thinking because I shot the person that he's not in trouble, you know? Right. And then when Steve got arrested he had stolen a van and wound up getting to another spot in the station. He got arrested. They told him that I said that he did everything, and he told the same thing that I did, and he just basically told the truth about the events, but what I didn't know is the way the law works is that if you were there or involved in any kind of way, you're just as guilty as the person with the gun.

Yeah, and I interview a lot of people that don't understand that. they think they're innocent and, you know, maybe they aren't the one that pulled the trigger, but as far as the letter of the law, you know, they're just as guilty. but a lot of people can't wrap their mind around that. So you plead guilty.

Did you know you were getting life without? No. Well, I mean, by the time I actually pled guilty in court, but initially when I gave a statement, I was thinking, and probably even after I was sentenced, I was thinking, I would do 15 years. For some reason I got that stuck in my head because you were so, I think it came from one of the officers that interviewed me.

I said, so how much time do people do? He said, I've seen people do anywhere from 10 years to a long time. Yeah. Just vague, you know? And so I kind of put it in my head that I would do 15 years, but then it was, you know, obvious that there were only two possible outcomes, the death penalty, or life without.

Rather than put my family into victim's family through a trial, I might as well just take life without, you know. That must have been very difficult. 18 years old. It was and now, but none of that I've had to go through as hard as things I put through. sure. And now you're in a situation where you just hope that a law changes or 'cause you've went through all, did you, do you have any appeals whenever you plead guilty?

I think if you do it quickly enough, I think there are some appeals that you can file, but I never had any. Right. I played Guilty and it was on my 20th birthday, like I said, and everything I saw in that courtroom was through a haze of tears, so, I remember when they sentenced me, they took me back into the holding cell, and I was just sobbing like a kid, my lawyer came in and put her arms around me and held me like a mom, you know?

Wow. After his arrest, Kenny confessed to Kevin's murder word for word to the detectives who interrogated him. But at 18 and barely a legal adult, Kenny tells me that he was completely naive about the legal consequences he was facing. When he heard that prosecutors were going to pursue the death penalty against him, it was a brutal wake up call.

On the advice of his legal counsel, Kenny agreed to willingly plead guilty to Kevin's murder so that prosecutors would take the death penalty off the table. For most people, your 20th birthday marks a new chapter of adulthood. For Kenny, that day marked the end of his freedom as he was sentenced to life without parole.

To pay for the callous murder of Kevin, the Missouri judge ruled that Kenny and Charles would spend the rest of their lives behind bars. Kenny barely registered the legal proceedings through a haze of tears. Back in his holding cell, the weight of this life sentence hit in. And Kenny broke down in sobs.

In that touching moment, Kenny's lawyer took compassion on the scared, helpless boy behind the crime and held him in her arms, a rare moment of kindness in an otherwise unforgiving legal process. But was Kenny's sentence of life without parole appropriate for his crime? We put that question to Kenny after the break.

Looking back now, do you, what do you think is fair to like, you know, a fair sentence, you know, when you think about the victim's family, yourself, what do you think a sentence would be fair for what you did? When you're talking about fair, If it was the same for everyone, if it was an eye for an eye, a life for a life, then I could deal with that, but it's not, it's arbitrary, I've seen people go home all the time that have done what I've done, or worse than what I've done, I've seen people go home with multiple bodies, so that's a tough question, and one that I've struggled with a lot since I was arrested.

One of the things we have to remember, too, is y'all were both 18 at the time, which legally we both know that means you're an adult. But that also means you were days away from being a child. And you did a lot of growing, probably, in prison. You became a man in there and, you know, changed a lot, I'm sure.

So there are, it's a big question mark over the, you know, the subject matter of somebody so young Doing something to, you know, so heinous, but they end up changing in prison, they end up growing, and they get in situations like you where they have life without. How do you keep it together whenever the system is basically saying you're more than likely going to die in there?

Sometimes my dad asks me or people out there ask me, like, "how do you do it?" And you don't really have a choice. You know, what else am I going to do? I have to be here, I cannot go anywhere else, they will not let me go anywhere else. I have to make a life. And one thing that I strongly believe is that my circumstances are ever so bad that I can't do something stupid and make it worse.

So I try to make the best I can of it. But I also believe that things will change. Things change all the time. I have friends that were never going home, but are home right now and have been home for years. Friends that are married and making a life for themselves out there because they were juveniles and they overturned juvenile life in 2012.

This concept of a diverging adulthood. Tell me about it, and okay, I was 18 when I committed my crime, as you know, and I was spending time on my 20th birthday. The newspaper headline the next day said, life after 20 will be in prison. So think about that. On that day, when I received the second harshest punishment available anywhere in the world, I was still a year away from being trusted to buy a beer.

The legislature, they recognize a certain age group should be treated differently when it comes to the law because of their immaturity. We always have. It's why we don't let teenagers buy alcohol or be soft with their own hands. Children are different from adults, right? Remember, what does that mean scientifically?

At what point does a person change from a child to an adult? Clear that there's no distinct point at all. It's the brain. It's a gradual transition. You're not a child of 17 and an adult on your 18th birthday, like something happens magically at midnight. Right. You're still a teenager. You're still prone to irrationality and impulsivity.

You're short sighted. You're heavily influenced by your peers. I think that most people would agree that you don't even really know who you are at that age. I didn't. I didn't. I say that all the time. It's like you're two different people when you're 18 and you're 30, you know. And I don't think there's too many people that argue with that.

However, you know, the system really weighs heavily on how the victims feel. And I would ask you, how do you think they would feel if you got released? I think their feelings would be mixed. Because, like I told you, I had contact with my victim's niece, because she reached out to me. And initially, those conversations were very hard on both our parts, because she had a lot of things that she felt, and I had a lot of things that I didn't even know that she felt.

You know, and I've got a lot of guilt and shame about the things that I've done, the things that I've put her through, and her family through. But in the process of communicating with her, she and I have gotten to a point where I think You know, we call each other friends, and we've been able to help each other through a lot of those negative feelings, but there are other people in our family that I don't think feel that way, and that's entirely up to them.

They feel how they feel. I put them in that position. They can respond to however they respond to it, and I gotta own that. We mentioned one of your friends in there that passed away that I interviewed, Billy Dyer. He committed a crime at 14, probably way worse because he was a child and all of his victims were children too.

But one of the things that he mentioned, and this is not the first time I've heard this, but the victim's family actually going over there and visiting and asking questions and wanting to see the person that killed their family, he said that was very difficult because the mother of the children that he killed wanted to know details and he just couldn't do it.

Couldn't tell them. How would you feel if one of them wanted to come see you and talk to you and sit down with you? I would welcome them to come and ask whatever it is that they wanted to ask and say whatever it is they wanted to say. if they wanted to call me 10 000 names or just cut loose on me, I would welcome that.

If they want to know what, what happened, I would tell them everything. If the victim's family was listening. What would you say to them? I hope they are listening because I want them to know that I'm sorry for all the things that my decision that they've been put through, for the way that it changed their lives, the way that they saw the world keep moving. Sorry for the anger, the grief, the fear, the insecurity, the distrust, any negative emotion that I put them through because of me. They didn't deserve that, and I hate that I caused those things for them. You know, my victim was estranged from his family for the greater part of his life since he was a kid, basically, left home as a teenager.

And one of the things that bothers me the most about what I did is that I destroyed the ability for that to ever heal. Yeah. I think he was on a path to healing that. I mean, he was reconnected with his sister. His parents were probably next. He might have been at Thanksgiving. Right. But I destroyed that.

What would it be like if you did get out? I mean, would you live in the same town as them? Because that would be really, you know, that would be really awkward. I'm not sure. I mean, I hope that at some point the rest of Kevin's family can make the same choice that Kelly has made. And maybe, Get some peace with the situation that's happened.

I'm not saying that, you know, I'm seeking forgiveness for them. That would be nice, but I just want them to feel better. You know, I want them to not have the anger and not have the weight of it and not have the questions that are unanswered if they have them or the things that they want to say that they haven't had an opportunity to say.

I hope they can come. Yeah. Were they in the courtroom whenever you went to trial and all that? Yes, I believe they were. Was it fair to sentence Kenny to life without parole? That's a tough one for Kenny to answer. To be clear, Kenny committed a heinous crime, and it's a crime that he takes full accountability for today.

Over the years, Kenny has matured, and he now truly understands the pain he inflicted by taking Kevin's life, cutting short any chance of reconciliation with his family. And while Kenny knows he has no right to ask forgiveness from Kevin's family, he tells me he's open to doing whatever he can to help them find peace.

Whether that means being a target for their anger, or sharing the full, unfiltered truth about that July afternoon. Despite this, Kenny believes sentencing a teenager to life without parole is unjust. He was 18, legally an adult, but still very much on the brink of leaving childhood behind. In recent years, this issue has sparked plenty of debate in the United States, especially after 2012, When the Supreme Court banned life without parole for anybody under the age of 18.

In this landmark ruling, they acknowledged that young people are not like adults, so they should be tried accordingly. The latest research has shown that juveniles are more prone to reckless behavior because they're easily susceptible to peer pressure and are bad at making decisions. However, they also have a much greater capacity for change than adults, and they're far less likely to re-offend after they grow up.

After this ruling by the Supreme Court, many child lifers who had resigned themselves to dying in prison have since been sentenced again, and ultimately released. Now, Kenny points out that there's a growing movement to abolish life without parole for anybody under the age of 25 too. He argues that the line between childhood and adulthood isn't sharp, it's a gradual process.

He insists that his impulsivity and poor judgment as a teenager led him to commit murder. But today, he's a totally different person who poses no risk to society. He's watched many men, some who have committed even more violent crimes, walk free, while he remains stuck behind bars. One day, he hopes that a ruling will be made that gives him a second chance at life on the outside too. So now you're put in prison at a pretty young age and you, like I said, kind of become an adult in there. You get your GED and you start to, to change, and now you're, are you in college? I've taken some college courses. I'm not currently in college. Right. And do you have a relationship with your stepdad and your mom still?

I do. I call them every week. And right now, my dad spends all of his time taking care of my mother because she's had dementia for the past five years or so. And so, he spends all of his time making sure that she's okay and that she's not confused. And I call and he'll be, "Diane, it's your son. Say hi to your son.

Tell your son you love him."

Difficult? It's one of the hardest things about being here is because they don't deserve that. They don't deserve the fact that they never got to be grandparents. Yeah. They don't deserve the fact that they have to take care of each other alone because I'm not there to be there for them. Yeah. If... that's the hardest thing for me, you know, it's like things that they've had to go through because of me.

Yeah, I took so many good things away from them when I made that decision that day. And I'm sorry for everyone that I hurt that day. There's so many. So do you think something will change and you'll get out? I hope so. I think that it will. I mean, I want to go out there and take care of my family.

Put this part of my life behind me. I see people go home every day and that's the thing, you know, whenever they talk about reform for life without you get the drum, like you can't let these guys out, but they let them out all the time. Yeah. And the way that it works is that they charge people with first degree murder and then they don't have the evidence for when this changes their story or the person does not cooperate with law enforcement.

And so it's a hard conviction to get. And so they make them a deal, they give them a sweetheart deal. They say, plead guilty to the second murder and, you know, go home in 25 years or whatever. And it happens all the time. And I see it every day. I see people go home, and there's no reason why I can't be one of those people.

There's nothing that society needs to be protected from, from me. You know, I believe that actually, I really do. I can't see either one of you guys like getting out and just, it's not like you're killers, but you are because of what happened, but not in the sense of, you know, you're in your DNA, you know, it's not who you are, it's just, you know, But I, like I said before, they put so much weight on the victim's family, it's, they got a lot of say so.

But also They do. And I think they should have say so in the process. I mean, because the things that they go through are terrible, and they're real. But one thing that's bad about it is that it's arbitrary. Because if you have victims in one case that are protesting someone's release, and victims in another case where they don't, what's the difference in the thing the person did?

Right. Right. So, in a sense, it's not directly And you know, there's other countries that, you know, and civilized countries that do it a lot different. There's people that get, you know, get to have home time and then go back to prison and they're in there for, you know, murder. I'm sure you've heard of those countries, right?

Yeah, sure. Places like Norway, where you get 17 years for killing 96 people on a hill. Yeah. Yeah. Why do you think our criminal justice system is so rigid? I don't know. I think it's because it's easy for politicians to say that they are protecting people by keeping them in prison forever. Because they're protecting society. Yeah. But you know what the number one predictor of crime is? What's that? It's not socioeconomic background, it's not education, it's not membership of the gang, it's not dr*g addiction, it's not history of violence or, like, abuse. It's age. According to the SENSI project, this research group in Washington DC, if you graph the occurrence of crime against the age of the person who committed it, that curve goes to size after the mid 20s.

Older people, while they're capable of committing crimes, they're far less likely to do it. Which is, if you, in mid 20s is exactly where scientists also say that the brain is, you know, where it's, you know, fully developed, I guess. That's right. That research has come about after the Miller ruling in 2012.

The scientific community reached a consensus around 2015 because of new medical imaging and new interest in the area. So that research that should have set the bright line in Miller between 20 and 21 or between 25 and 26 actually set it as 17 and 18, which is far too young. I mean, scientific research has shown that The decision making centers of the brain are still developing into the mid 20s.

Now in his 40s, Kenny has spent over half of his life in prison. He's grown up behind bars, completed his high school diploma, taken college classes, and even co-authored a book about his experiences, all while the free world rolls on without him. As our conversation turns to his mother, who now suffers from dementia, I hear the pain sting Kenny's voice.

The thought of being unable to give his mother and his stepdad the support they deserve in their old age weighs heavily on his conscience. Still, Kenny holds out hope that one day, the laws will change and he'll be given a chance at being released. Throughout our interview, he's been outspoken about his criticism of the justice system.

In his view, the way crimes are punished often feels arbitrary. While he faces a life sentence with no possibility of parole, he's seen people convicted of more severe offenses released after 20 or 25 years. He's well versed on the science of brain development during adolescence, And Kenny believes that the justice system should take into account the fact that teenagers are still maturing when they commit crimes.

Kenny's passion for criminal justice reform is clear. Before wrapping up our conversation, I wanted to hear more about how he thinks the system should evolve, not only to protect society, but to recognize the potential for growth and change in young offenders. So, I've never asked this question before and I just thought of it, I usually say, you know, I ask, you know, if the victim's family is listening, what would you say, but what would you say if these politicians that can make these things happen, what would you say to them if they were listening?

That's a really good question. I would say that a politician's mandate is to provide society with the best level of protection with the resources that they have available. When you incarcerate the old and keep people around for decades, I mean, more resources go into incarcerating older prisoners because of increased age related medical costs, pills, wheelchairs, surgeries, special diets, but the taxpayer gets way less return on their investment.

You spend more money to lock up those that are less of a threat, and particularly like first time offenders who have been down for decades. If I was part of society, I would much rather be protected from a guy that committed a crime last week than from someone who did one dumb thing as a teenager, when Bill Clinton was in his first presidency, but you know in reality this place is full of old men.

When they call it Chow, it's like a wheelchair race. Walking through the dining room is like going through a maze because certain aisles and rows are sealed off by wheelchairs and blocks. It's insane. A few years ago, some friends and I were at Chow. Someone called the wheelchair guys transformers because they're riding around in these vehicles.

And then we went on a schtick about decrepit cars and I am out of my prime. But it's all gallows humor laughing at people's primes because you can't have a sentence like mine. And look at another man who grew old in this place without it feeling like some kind of crazy nerd. It's really sad how they keep people locked up for so long.

Lock up the wrong guys and I see people come in with little short sentences going out. Knowing that they're still gonna get high, knowing that they're still gonna commit crimes, knowing that they're gonna come back after they hurt somebody. But there's so many people around here that are this old and are never gonna hurt anyone again and it would just give them a chance to go home.

Yeah, I have The people that they let go. Those that had juvenile life without, they were never going to let them go home. They didn't know what was going to happen if they let them go home. But they did. The law changed and they let them go home. And they're out there doing great. And they're out, they're not risking it.

They're out there living a life contributing to society. There's no reason that can't happen. Yeah, especially whenever it happens, you know, the crime happens at such a young age, you know. it's unfortunate for everybody involved. You know, I, these stories are always just so sad because nobody wins. It doesn't matter if you know, they catch the guy and put them away.

It's just, it's still a loss for everybody. And I would, if I was a father to a child that was 18 and did this, I mean, that would be devastating to know that your child's going to, you know, locked up for so long, but I appreciate you opening up to me, Kenny. I'm going to share your story on this podcast, as well as your little thing you wrote.

And I appreciate you opening up to me. I know it's difficult. So yeah, it's, no problem. I'm glad to do it. If you need anything else or you want to follow up on anything else, just hit me up. Okay, buddy. All right. Hey, take it easy. You take care of yourself. Okay. All right. You have a good day. Yep. Bye bye.

On the next episode of voices of a killer. So you have a unique situation because you're in prison right now, but not For murder, but you were in prison for murder. Yeah, you're right. Prior to the murder. Would you say these are sinister people? They just had a bad side to them. You felt something or just normal people that did dr*gs?

No, they had a bad vibes. She wanted to divorce and so he paid Willie and Dave to kill her. So when you walked in, they'd already killed her? Yeah, they were on their way to doing that. They were still in the, they were still in the. In the process of killing her. I don't know if she was dead or not. She was being beat on and blood was flying everywhere.

I, she was unconscious. I wanna thank Kenny for sharing his story with us today. His ability to be open and honest is what makes this podcast so special. That's a wrap on this episode of Voices of a Killer, a big shout out to Sonic Futures who handled the production audio editing, music licensing, and promotion of this podcast.

If you want to hear more episodes of. Like this one, make sure to visit our website at voicesofakiller.com. There you can find previous episodes, transcripts, and additional information about the podcast. Lastly, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Your feedback helps us improve and reach new listeners. Thank you for your support, and we can't wait to share more stories with you in the future. Thank you for tuning in. I'm your host, Toby, and we'll see you next time on Voices of a Killer.