Sante Kimes | Fire and Vice | 1

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It's the evening of July 4th, 1998.

In her two-story apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side, 82-year-old Irene Silverman is holding court among a small group of her closest friends.

Earlier in the afternoon, Irene served up some classic Fourth of July favorites like hot dogs and beans.

Now, everyone's relaxing around the dinner table, listening to the sound of fireworks in the neighborhood.

Around 9.30, Irene calls everyone over to the front door.

The security system is turned on, which means someone's entering the apartment building downstairs.

As the owner of the six-story mansion, Irene's privy to all the comings and goings, and it's a good thing too.

All night, she's been telling her friends about the strange guy who's moved into apartment 1B.

The man always dresses well, but his behavior has been suspect from day one.

Irene's staff have reported him sneaking around the building, and every time Irene passes the apartment, she can see a shadow beneath its door, as if someone is standing on the other side watching her through the peephole.

Then there's the woman.

Ever since the man moved in about a month ago, his so-called secretary has come and gone.

Sometimes this older woman stays inside 1B for days at a time before vanishing.

But like her boss, the woman's making Irene and her staff unsettled.

She's even been asking questions about Irene's Social Security number.

It's clear that whoever he is, the guy's hiding something.

Irene points to the video monitor on the wall showing the foyer.

As everyone watches, a tall man dressed in a sharp suit strides across the marble floor towards his apartment.

He's holding his hands in front of his face, shielding his identity from the security cameras.

Once the man's disappeared into his apartment, Irene chuckles and rolls her eyes.

But her guests are worried.

They ask if she wouldn't like to call the police and wonder if she's safe with such a suspicious man living close by.

But Irene tells them not to be too concerned.

She's planning on serving him an eviction notice after the holiday weekend.

just a couple more days and he'll be out.

Then things can go back to normal on East 65th Street.

From Airship, I'm Jeremy Schwartz, and this is American Criminal.

In July 1998, Sante Kimes made headlines around the country for her role in a shocking crime.

The whole thing was unusual.

Sante just wasn't your typical criminal.

She was a 64-year-old with graying hair and an eccentric fashion sense.

Then there was the fact that Sante had only been in New York for a few weeks before committing the crime.

She wasn't from there, so who was this outsider?

As details about the case emerged, people started to ask more and more questions about this mystery woman.

Where did she come from, and what had she been doing with her life until now?

because the crime she was accused of wasn't something an amateur wakes up and decides to pull one morning.

This was a plot, a thoroughly planned and devious, truly evil scheme.

The kind of thing that could only come from the mind of an experienced con artist.

And if that was the case, then why hadn't Sante Kimes been on anyone's radar until now?

Well, as prosecutors dug further into Sante's past, it became obvious that she'd caused plenty of mayhem over the years.

It's just that she'd almost always gotten away with it.

And once people realized that, they started to wonder if maybe she'd get away with it one more time.

This is episode one in our five-part series on Sante Kimes, Fire and Vice.

It's early 1942 in Los Angeles, California.

In a small cottage in Studio City, seven-year-old Sante Singers is watching over her younger sister, Ritha.

The smaller girl is just a toddler, but Sante delights in making her feel pain.

Whenever their mother leaves the two of them alone, Sante likes to spend the time thinking up new ways to make Ritha hurt.

Today, though, it's an old favorite.

She orders her little sister to stay still, then strikes a match.

Moving carefully so as not to extinguish the small flame, Sante holds the match underneath Ritha's outstretched fingers.

She brings the flame closer until the little girl screams.

Only when the fire reaches her own fingertips does Sante drop the match.

But then, she starts the whole process over again.

because if there's one thing that Sante's singers loves more than hurting other people, it's fire.

Well, fire and lying.

Though lying might be more of a compulsion than a passion.

It's something that contributes to a lot of the mysteries surrounding Sante and her origins.

She'll tell a different version of her background over the years and her sister will eventually offer a competing narrative as well.

So, knowing the truth about Sante's childhood is difficult.

But if Sante is to be believed, then it seems like her father might have been the source of her deceptive nature.

Prom's singers was a chameleon with either an incredibly adventurous life or a knack for telling wild stories.

His most popular line was that he was a Rajah from India who'd been cheated out of his vast inherited wealth after a family dispute.

Upon leaving his homeland, he claimed to have traveled to China to work as a doctor, then to russia where he was apparently a magician for a while.

After arriving in the United States, he worked as an herb doctor in Texas, then managed a green house.

Eventually though, he settled in dust Bowl, Ohio and married Mary Van Horn.

For a while, Prom and Mary got by with their four children.

Then the Great Depression hit and things started to derail.

Like so many families around the country, the singers struggled during the 1930s.

When making a living in Ohio became impossible, Prom brought everyone to West Los Angeles.

Life in Hollywood wasn't any easier, though, so they came back to rural Ohio soon enough.

Unfortunately, things got even worse for the singers.

Prom died in 1940 at age 51, leaving Mary to raise four kids alone.

Sante was only about six when her dad died, so she didn't have any say in what happened next.

And even though she liked living in close proximity to farm animals she could torment, she, her mother and her siblings up sticks and headed back to California.

Now, Sante only has her younger sister to torture.

In later years, Ritha will recall Sante burning her fingers with matches when their mother isn't around.

Sante tells a different story though.

In her version, Sante is the neglected protagonist in a fairy tale, and her mother is cast as the villain.

Not long after they settle in Los Angeles, Sante starts hanging around a movie theater in the neighborhood, where she feeds the owners, Dottie and Kelly Seligman, a story about her childhood of neglect.

To hear Sante tell it, from the moment the singers arrived in Los Angeles, she's essentially been living on the streets.

Her mother is a drunk, Sante says, who's turned to sex work to get by in the City of Angels.

It's a sad enough story, that Dottie and Kelly take pity on Sante and offer her meals from time to time.

But if there's any truth to Sante's tale, it seems more likely that her mother might be dating men of means who occasionally help with the family's bills.

But the majority of their living expenses are covered by Mary's actual job, which is making paper lunch boxes in a factory.

At some stage, Mary catches the eye of the factory's owner and the two begin a more serious romance.

One problem is that Mary's new beau isn't a big fan of Sante.

He thinks that the family would be better off without the young troublemaker.

So he and Mary start looking for somewhere to send Sante to get her out of their hair.

As luck would have it, the theater owner Dottie has a brother in Nevada who's looking to adopt.

So with Sante's enthusiasm and her mother's blessing, Sante is sent 350 miles north of LA to Carson City.

She takes with her the clothes on her back and some important life lessons from her parents.

From her father, she learned the art of reinvention.

And from her mother, she's picked up the skill of finding wealthy benefactors who will exchange affection and attention for money and comfort.

They're lessons that Sante will make use of every day for the rest of her life.

Before her 10th birthday, Sante's singers from Oklahoma has become Sandy Chambers of Carson City, daughter of Edwin and Mary.

It's a fresh start for Sante and she intends to make the most of it.

Luckily for her, Sante doesn't have to do a whole lot of work in that regard.

Having arrived partway through the school year, she instantly exudes an aura of mystery to her new classmates.

One she plays up by bragging about her time in Hollywood, where she rubs shoulders with all the brightest film stars of the day.

She's got dark hair and a naturally deeper complexion that she inherited from her Indian father, which just adds to the intrigue that surrounds her.

In Carson City, the people closest to her figure out pretty quick that Sante is full of it, though.

The observant pick up on the fact that she's just a braggart and an exaggerator.

But if you're not paying close enough attention, you buy the bluster, and Sante's natural charisma just overwhelms your common sense.

You swallow the lies, believing her mostly because she's beautiful and charming.

And as Sante enters adolescence, she decides to reinvent herself again.

She sheds all connections to her past, including her heritage.

She uses excessive amounts of powder to lighten her skin tone, making herself pale in the Nevada sun.

As she grows into her looks, Sante attracts plenty of attention from the boys in her high school.

One kid in particular is especially smitten.

Ed Walker first notices Sante when he's about 13.

He sees her in the cafeteria one day and leans over to ask a friend about the chick with the dark hair and the full bust.

He's a grade below her, but that doesn't stop Ed from making up his mind about Sante.

Pretty quickly, he knows that he wants to be with her forever, and he sets his sights on making that dream come true.

But Sante is not an easy one to pin down.

She keeps herself busy joining the Spanish Club, the Future Homemakers of America, the Girls Athletic Association, the 4-H Club, and even gets a spot on the school paper.

To those who don't know her well, it might seem like Sante is a consummate joiner who's eager to make friends.

That's not accurate, though.

Her entire life, Sante will be motivated by her desire for status, control, and wealth.

In all the clubs she joins, Sante tries to make herself the center of attention, the one pulling the strings.

She may like bossing other people around, but it turns out she's not such a great leader, or at least she's not one people have any confidence in.

Twice she runs for school office, and twice she gets trounced by her opponents.

Still, Sante lets the losses roll off her back.

After all, if she can't win an election, there are other ways to wield power in high school, like dating one of the hottest guys around.

And luckily, one of them is already obsessed with her.

By this stage, Ed Walker is no skinny 13-year-old.

He's a star of the school's basketball and track teams.

That's gotten Ed the attention of plenty of girls, but he still only has eyes for Sante.

So the two start dating.

Ed's romantic plan is for them to marry once he graduates in a couple of years.

Then they can settle right here in Carson City and build their life together.

Sante has other ideas.

Ed's a useful prop in high school, but when she graduates in 1952, Sante decides that it's time for her to get out of Nevada.

So she leaves her steady boyfriend behind to finish out his last year of school.

Ed's heartbroken that she's going, but Sante offers him a glimmer of hope.

She tells him that maybe they can try things long distance for a while, see what happens.

Maybe Sante means it, maybe she doesn't.

Either way, it keeps Ed devoted to her, which is all Sante really wants.

So with Ed waiting loyally at the end of the phone line, Sante heads for Reno, about 30 miles north of Carson City.

There, with her loyal best friend Ruth, the 18-year-old takes a six-week secretarial course.

Then the two of them head southwest to Sacramento, California.

Acting every bit the newly minted adult, Sante tells people in Sacramento that she wants to be a journalist, or maybe a novelist.

Either way, she wants to write.

Whether that's a real dream, or just something she bandies about to make herself sound a certain way, Sante will eventually become infamous for the wild stories she weaves.

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It's the spring of 1955 in the Santa Inez Valley, California.

21-year-old Sante Singers is sitting at a large table on a ranch, eating lunch next to her longtime friend, Ruth.

Across the table sit Ruth's boyfriend, Jim Tanis, and Jim's father, Bernard.

Bernard manages the sprawling ranch, and he's invited the kids out for a weekend barbecue.

He's happy just to be able to share the space with his son and his friends.

It's a nice perk of the job, which doesn't pay all that well.

But there's a problem.

This Sante girl just won't stop talking.

It's getting on Bernard's nerves.

He wants to get to know Jim's girlfriend, but this other young woman just keeps making everything about her, bragging about her childhood in Hollywood, about the career she's gonna have one day.

It's exhausting just listening to her.

While Bernard grabs fresh beers out of the cooler, Sante starts talking about the classes she's taking at UCSB, the University of California Santa Barbara, which is about 30 miles away.

Catching his father's eye, Jim shakes his head slightly, letting Bernard know that Sante is full of it.

At the end of the afternoon, Bernard's happy to see the back of her and hopes he doesn't have to see her again.

And he won't, but that doesn't mean Sante is done with Bernard Tanis.

A couple of weeks after the barbecue at the ranch, Bernard Tanis gets a letter in the mail from a department store in Santa Barbara.

It's a bill for $400.

With inflation, that would be closer to $4,500 today.

Bernard's gobsmacked.

He only earns about $250 in a month, and there's no way he'd ever spend that much in one hit.

So he calls the store certain there's been some kind of mistake that he can clear up.

So the clerk on the other end looks at the records and tells Bernard that there's no mistake.

An account in his name was opened up about two weeks earlier by a young woman with dark hair.

Hearing the description, Bernard knows that it must have been Sante.

He'd had her pegged for a liar, but not an outright con artist.

Trouble is, Sante's gone by the time anyone realizes what she's done.

She's had enough of Santa Barbara.

A big part of that is Ruth and Jim have gotten engaged, and Sante doesn't like the idea of being outshone by her friend.

So it's time to get a husband of her very own.

Sante heads back towards Nevada.

Ed Walker, her high school boyfriend, is still pining over.

Since graduating in 1953, he's been studying architecture.

It's a profession he's confident matches Sante's grand ambitions.

All the while, he's doing everything he can to keep his relationship with Sante alive.

He's visited her in every city she's lived in.

Sacramento, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, stealing weekends with her whenever he can get the gas money together, and whenever Sante allows it.

After all these years, he's still got his eyes on the prize, finish his studies, then marry his sweetheart.

He's completely clueless to the fact that Sante's got other ideas.

In early 1956, Sante sleeps with Lee Powers, an army officer.

He's tall, handsome, and up for some fun.

A couple of months later though, Sante calls Lee to tell him the news.

She's pregnant.

It's not what Lee planned when he tumbled into bed with Sante.

It was supposed to just be a one night thing.

Now, upstanding guy that he is, Lee tells Sante that he's ready to do what's right.

He asks her to marry him, and she accepts, delighted that it was this easy to find a husband.

They marry in May of 1956 in Sante's parents' living room.

Now she's excited to give up her flirtation with more studying and settle into the role of kept woman.

She's sure she'll make an excellent trophy wife for a career soldier.

Except Lee's not planning on continuing his service.

Right after they say, I do, he leaves the army and enrolls as a graduate student at Cal State in Long Beach.

He'd been a high school athlete and has wanted to become a PE teacher for years.

Now he's looking forward to settling down and beginning his life with Sante and their child in California.

So it turns out that Lee is not what Sante had in mind for her perfect husband.

She wants to be married to an important man.

She's not interested in a life of bake sales and a starter home.

But Lee's a rare breed.

He's one of the few people impervious to Sante's charms.

She might have caught his eye over dinner and drinks, but Lee's easily able to look Sante in the face and tell her no.

He won't change his mind about teaching.

He won't change his mind about living in the suburbs.

So it's a good thing that Sante's not actually pregnant.

If she had had a child to take care of, she'd be dependent on Lee for just about everything.

But as it is, she can leave Lee in Long Beach behind.

And after about a year of wedded drudgery, that's exactly what she does.

just drives off one night, calling Lee from a payphone halfway to Nevada to tell him she's not coming back.

Then once she's in Carson City, Sante writes a letter to old faithful Ed Walker.

He'd been disappointed when he heard about Sante's shotgun wedding.

So when he hears that she's single again, he does exactly what she expects him to do.

He drops out of school and proposes to Sante.

The pair marry in November of 1957 and move to Sacramento.

That's where Sante's decided her life should be now.

And with a puppet of a husband dancing on a string, she's ready to see what she can create for herself.

For the first couple years of their marriage, Sante keeps a firm hand on the rudder, steering the ship to keep them on a course towards success.

Despite her grand ambitions though, Sante's not much of a career type.

She toys with the idea of public relations for a while, but it's Ed who's the breadwinner for the couple.

He works as a contractor, carefully saving as much of his paycheck as he can manage until he has enough to set aside for the next phase of the plan.

Sante wants Ed to use what he learned studying architecture to become a property developer.

So in 1960, he takes the $11,000 he saved, buys a plot of land, then designs and builds his very first house.

It's an impressive feat, and the cottage earns Ed a reputation in the area as a dependable builder with a keen eye for detail.

Soon enough, offers to work on other projects are pouring in, and it's looking like Ed might just be the kind of success that Sante hoped he'd be.

The sensible thing to do would be to sit back and let her husband do what he's evidently very good at, building houses and earning money.

But no, that's not enough.

Nothing will ever be enough for Sante.

She wants to be rich, and somehow she gets it into her head that insurance fraud is the best way to do it.

It's just before Christmas 1960, when Ed's new cottage catches fire.

Luckily, the blaze is contained in the kitchen, with the rest of the house left mostly unscathed.

The insurance company pays out 10 grand to cover the damage, which Ed uses to bring in a carpenter to make repairs.

But in Sante's mind, that money's for her.

So Sante spends big on Christmas gifts that year, to the tune of $13,000.

To put that in perspective, Ed sells the cottage a couple of months later for $40,000, which is more than double the median list price for the area.

Even with the holiday budget blowout, Sante and Ed should be fairly comfortable.

But despite their financial position, Sante's caught trying to shoplift a hair dryer in February of 1961.

It's an appliance she could easily pay for.

But for her entire life, Sante will never pay for something she believes should be hers.

She'll often tell people that stores inflate their prices to account for theft, so it's only right for her to get her cut of the action.

In this instance, Sante's five-fingered discount only earns her a $130 fine, and her husband dutifully pays it.

By this stage, Ed is already getting used to footing the bill for Sante's habits.

Over the next couple of years, while Ed grows his business as a property developer, Sante spends tens of thousands of dollars at upscale department stores around the city.

She insists on owning mink coats and designer furniture, even though those are things that are well beyond her means.

And when the stores send debt collectors and lawyers after Sante, she doubles down, opening new charge accounts under different names to buy more and more.

Ed, obedient and smitten as ever, tries to pay all of Sante's bills.

But while he's doing well at work, the bulk of his growing wealth is in assets, not cash.

He just can't settle all his wife's bills.

So, eventually, when the debtors come calling, he's forced to sign over the deeds to several properties he's developed.

He loses four houses and seven duplexes to Sante's spending habits.

Logic would say that Ed should leave Sante.

Clearly, she doesn't respect him and she's never shown much genuine affection for him.

But in September of 1962, Sante gives birth to a son who they name Kent.

Suddenly, they're a family of three and leaving isn't so simple for Ed.

And besides, despite it all, he's still in love with his wife.

She's beautiful and captivating, so he sticks by her, even when she makes catastrophically bad moves.

In 1963, Ed completes construction on a mansion for the family.

It's an impressive, modernist building at the top of a long driveway.

Ed figures they'll be happy there, they'll grow together and make a good life.

As always though, Sante has a different plan in mind.

On New Year's Eve, she and Ed are out ringing in 1964 with friends.

All through the evening, Sante keeps rushing to the nearest payphone to make calls.

When Ed asks what she's doing, she tells him that she's calling the sitter to check on Kent.

Really though, she's checking on her latest scheme.

All becomes glaringly clear when she and Ed pull up to their home in the early hours of the morning.

Well, they pull up to the smoldering wreck where the mansion stood just a few hours ago.

Sante had decided that she didn't like Ed's creation and wanted the insurance money instead.

So despite all Ed's work, after about six years in Sacramento, Sante and her husband have nothing to show for it but bad credit, some insurance payouts and a tarnished reputation in plenty of stores around town.

So they pack up what's left of their life and head south to Los Angeles.

It's time for another new beginning.

And this one won't go any better than the last, not for Ed at least.

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It's the summer of 1964, and Ed Walker is getting home to his condo in Burbank, just north of Los Angeles.

Walking up the stairs from the garage, he can hear noises coming from the living room.

It sounds like someone's moving furniture around.

plus, there are men's voices, several of them.

And that's weird, because the only other people who should be in the condo right now are Ed's wife Sante and their young son Kent.

When he reaches the landing and steps into the living room, Ed stops short.

There are a bunch of cops clearing tchotchkes and books off the shelves and emptying the kitchen cupboard of dishes.

Ed gapes for a moment, then realizes what's happened.

With a sigh, he introduces himself to the officers and asks what his wife's done now.

A detective sitting at the dining table explains that 30-year-old Sante has been arrested for grand larceny.

17 counts.

Ever since she arrived in LA, she's been opening up credit cards under a variety of aliases and charging thousands to fill the condo with furniture and expensive clothing.

In total, she's defrauded stores of around 26 grand, more than four times the average family's income at the time.

Unfortunately, by this stage, Ed's all tapped out.

He can afford to bail Sante out of jail, but he doesn't have enough money to hire a decent attorney for her.

Sante's passed the stage of needing her husband for things like that, though.

Long past it.

She hasn't let Ed sleep in the same bed with her since they moved to Burbank, and instead she's been getting cozy with older, wealthier men.

So Sante convinces one of her cash-dub honeys to foot the bill for an attorney, and ends up walking away from the whole affair with a minuscule fine.

It's the beginning of the end for her marriage to Ed, though.

Sante's been sleeping with other guys for most of the time they've been together, and Ed's been content to look the other way, so long as it means he can stay with her.

But when he walks in on her actually in bed with another man, well, that's the final straw.

He tells Sante that it's over and gets a place of his own.

Sante's not phased by the separation.

She was never that into Ed and has always thought of him more like a brother than a lover, just, you know, a brother she could bleed dry and cast aside.

Even now, she thinks she can get a little more out of him.

because the separation isn't a formal one, Ed is still legally responsible for taking care of both Sante and Kent.

He has to pay the bills when they come in, and because Sante's got their son with her, he has to open his wallet anytime she asks for cash.

Otherwise, she won't let him seek Kent.

That's not enough for Sante though.

She continues drawing on Ed's checking account, putting him in the red so often that the bank eventually gets fed up and closes his accounts altogether.

Ed seems to take it as a hint that he needs to put more distance between himself and Sante.

He packs up his things and heads east to Palm Springs.

But the hundred miles that now stands between him and Sante isn't nearly enough.

He's still hopelessly entangled with her.

Her new boyfriend, a fellow scammer named Clyde, hires Ed to renovate his house in the desert town for Sante to use when she wants a break from LA.

Ed lives in the attached garage during the construction, taking Kent off Sante's hands whenever she needs a babysitter.

Sometimes she flirts with the idea of getting back together with Ed.

Even after everything she's put him through, he's still enthralled by her.

And Sante gets a kick out of that.

But their relationship is toxic, and on occasion, it's violent.

Whenever she and Ed get into an argument about something, money, usually, but sometimes about their son, Sante is not above resorting to violence to make her point.

She throws anything she can reach at Ed, from a camera to a butcher's knife.

Eventually, Sante decides that she's done with Ed for good.

Towards the end of 1967, about a decade after they tied the knot, she throws his clothes out of the Palm Springs garage and tells him to get lost.

So he heads back to Carson City, Nevada, to lick his wounds and figure out what to do next.

He doesn't get much respite from Sante's torment though.

Soon after he flees California, Ed gets a call from a frantic Sante.

Between terrified sobs, she tells him that five-year-old Kent's been bitten by a rattlesnake and it's not looking good.

Understandably, Ed's beside himself.

He races to the airport and boards the first flight he can get on to Palm Springs.

When Ed touches down, Sante's waiting for him at the gate, not to take him to the hospital, but to hand him divorce papers.

This was just so much easier than hiring a process server.

Then, with a malicious smile, Sante turns and walks away from her ex, delighted that she can still make him dance on command.

And the grounds for divorce she included in the papers, she wrote excessive mental cruelty.

At that point, another person might sever all ties with Sante, let the courts work out custody and limit contact with her as much as possible.

But Ed's got too big of a heart, and Sante's got too much charm for anyone's good.

So on Christmas Eve 1969, Sante's in Carson City with her beau Clyde and Kent.

Ostensibly, they're there to see Sante's adopt a parents for the holiday.

But there's something else on her mind, too.

That night, Ed, saint that he is, agrees to sit down to dinner like they're all a normal family.

And it's a surprisingly pleasant meal.

Afterwards, Ed gets into his car with Kent, and Sante goes with Clyde.

They're all headed in the same direction, so Ed follows Clyde through the winding roads for a few minutes.

Then Clyde pulls off the highway and puts his hazards on, thinking that they must have popped a tire.

Ed slows down to stop behind them and gets out to help.

The adults gather around the right rear wheel.

That's when the accusations start.

Sante needles at Ed, asking him who else he's told besides the police.

Bewildered, Ed turns to look at Sante.

There's fury in her eyes and her voice gets louder.

She demands that he owns up to turning her and Clyde into the cops.

Ed's got no idea what Sante's talking about.

But when he tells her that, she pulls a revolver out of her coat and points it at him.

She punctuates her words with jabs, jerking the gun wildly.

Ed's got his hands in the air, shocked and terrified.

And then, to his horror, Sante pulls the trigger.

The pistol goes off with a crack that shatters the silent night.

But Ed doesn't feel anything.

Seems she missed, but then she fires again and again and still Ed's on his feet.

Seizing his chance, he lunges forward and grabs the gun from Sante's hand and throws it as hard as he can into the field beside the highway.

That's when he hears the unmistakable sound of a racked shotgun.

He turns to see Clyde pointing another gun at him, this one much bigger than Sante's.

Before Ed can do much besides start to run, Clyde's firing.

Louder bursts ring out and explosions of light illuminate the scene for fractions of a second.

But again, Ed doesn't feel a single bullet even graze him.

That's when he realizes that Sante and Clyde have been firing blanks.

Turning, he rests Clyde's shotgun away and hurls it into the dark too.

By this stage, there are headlights approaching, so Sante and Clyde jump back into their car and book it.

Shaken, but unhurt, Ed gets back behind the wheel and makes sure Kent's okay.

After his heart slows down some, he pulls back onto the road and heads for home.

He's grateful that whatever that just was, it's over now.

And he's right.

The incident with the guns is an isolated event.

Ed Walker will never find out exactly what he was supposed to have done to earn Sante's gun wielding performance.

But it seems like Sante finally loses all interest in him after that.

She'll also leave Clyde in the dust, too.

because by the start of the 1970s, Sante's decided that she needs to move on up in the world.

Men her own age and small time crooks like Clyde just aren't cutting it.

The money is never enough, and the scores are always too small.

What she really needs is a millionaire, and she knows just how to get one.

From Airship, this is Episode 1 in our series on Sante Kinds.

On the next episode, Sante finds a man worth millions, and together they make headlines for all the wrong reasons.

We use many different sources while preparing this episode.

A couple we can particularly recommend are Son of a Grifter by Kent Walker, and Dead End by Gene King.

This episode may contain reenactments or dramatized details.

And while in some cases we can't know exactly what happened, all our dramatizations are based on historical research.

American Criminal is hosted, edited and executive produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz.

Audio editing by Mohammed Shassi.

Sound design by Matthew Filler.

music by Thrum.

This episode is written and researched by Joel Callan.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive producers are Joel Callan, William Simpson and Lindsey Graham for Airship.