Sante Kimes | No Witnesses | 4

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It's the evening of July 5th, 1998, in the Upper East Side Mansion of Irene Silverman.

A small team of NYPD detectives have been on the scene for the last half hour, conducting a thorough search of the property.

No one's seen Irene for the last few hours, and her friends and employees are getting worried.

So when their initial sweep of the mansion didn't turn anything up, the police stopped by to investigate.

Given the size of the building, the cops called in backup with specialist equipment to help search every inch of the place, including inside vents and air shafts.

But there's still no sign of the 82-year-old philanthropist and socialite.

It's just after 6.30 in the evening when Carole Hanson arrives.

Carole's a graphic artist and a good friend of Irene's who was here only last night to celebrate the 4th of July.

Now, having heard that Irene's missing, she's come over to get an update from the cops.

Only when she walks into the foyer, nothing's changed since Carole first got the news.

And she's not willing to accept that.

Carole approaches a detective to ask if they've searched apartment 1B yet, the one where Irene's peculiar new tenant lives.

All last night, Irene kept talking about this guy and how suspicious she was of him.

If anyone's had something to do with Irene's disappearance, Carole's money's on him.

But no one's been inside 1B.

The police don't have a warrant for the apartment, and because it's being leased by someone, they're not sure it's above board to break in.

But Ramon, the building superintendent, is sure.

He's worked for Irene for some 20 years, and he's as worried as anyone.

He and Carol agree, this is an emergency.

So Ramon will let the cops into 1B, and if there's any trouble because of that, he'll wear it.

Ramon leads Carol and the detectives into the one-bedroom apartment.

Together, the small search party walks through a darkened hallway and down a few steps into the small foyer.

So far, nothing looks suspicious.

Just an ordinary apartment.

Then, they enter the bedroom, where Carol spots a sealed roll of duct tape.

Not an incriminating piece of evidence, but it's a strange thing to see in a bedroom.

Ramon points out that the comforter from the bed is gone.

The apartment was furnished before Manny moved in, and Ramon knows that the beige comforter was there before the guy arrived.

In the kitchen, Carol peers into the open garbage can to see a balled-up strip of duct tape.

Again, it's an eerie thing to see when you're looking for a missing person.

There's also a 50-foot clothesline on a dresser and a box of heavy-duty trash bags.

Innocuous enough on their own, but when you consider there's not room in the apartment for a clothesline or a trash can big enough to hold the bags, well, it doesn't look great.

In fact, put it all together, and it's starting to look an awful lot like a collection of things you might use to dispose of a dead body.

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

After a couple of decades smuggling women into the country to be her slave labor, Sante Kimes was sent to prison in 1986.

For three years, her family did incredibly well without her.

But all good things must end, and in 1989, Sante secured herself early release on a technicality.

Suddenly she was back with her family, ready to resume the luxurious existence she'd enjoyed since she first got her claws into kenneth Kimes.

Once she returned to Las Vegas, there were plenty of problems awaiting Sante, though.

She had to straighten out her family, and then there was that money she was so eager to spend, it was looking a lot more meager than she remembered.

So suddenly, Sante was feeling uneasy about her standing.

Ken Sr.

was aging, and the son she had specifically to secure a place in Ken's will had turned into a moody teenager who hated Sante's guts.

But Sante Kimes had the kind of twisted mind that was perfectly suited to this variety of pressure.

And even though her plans didn't always work out exactly how she wanted them to, she usually got her way in the end.

This is episode 4 in our five-part series on Sante Kimes.

No Witnesses.

It's December 1989 at the Cattlemen's Lounge in Las Vegas, one of Sante Kimes' favorite local restaurants.

She hasn't been here in a while, though.

She spent the last four or so years behind bars in California and DC.

Now that she's free, she's back at the lounge and ready to treat herself.

When she walks through the doors, Sante doesn't wait patiently to be seated.

She calls out across the dining room to the hostess, affecting her sweetest voice to ask for a booth by the window.

Once she's sitting down, Sante doesn't need to look at the menu.

She's been dreaming about this day for months.

She orders a table full of her favorite entrees, prime rib, roast chicken, pan-seared fish, and a 7 and 7 to wash it all down.

As soon as the first dish is placed in front of her, Sante wastes no time.

She reaches out and grabs handfuls of food, barely paying attention to exactly what she's putting in her mouth.

Her silverware lies ignored beside her plate.

It'll just slow her down.

When she's done with her half dozen meals, Sante flags down a server to put in an order for some fries and a generous helping of ranch dressing.

Oh, and another cocktail.

The perfect way to finish a meal.

As she sits waiting for her after-dinner snack, Sante looks smugly around the room.

She's home at last, back where she belongs.

People are waiting on her, and she wants for nothing.

She had a lot of time to reflect on her mistakes while she was locked up.

She knows that she made mistakes in the past, but then the biggest one was leaving witnesses.

After her early release from prison, Sante returns to her family in Las Vegas, and within days of her homecoming, she and Ken Sr.

are fighting like cats and dogs again.

She's frustrated with him for not doing more to get her out of prison, and appalled that he's resumed contact with his children and other relatives.

Ken's mostly just sick of having Sante around and the trouble she's always making.

But even though it seems like their relationship is irreparably broken, they refuse to break up.

Sante depends on Ken Sr.

for his money, and he doesn't know how to be alone after 20 years with Sante.

So they fall back into what they know.

Sante's 27-year-old son Kent lives nearby with his wife and daughter, and he's roped into coming over at all hours to play referee in their late-night arguments, just like he did when he was a teen.

But Kent's got his own life now, and does his best to stay clear of Sante and Ken Sr.

whenever he can.

It's just not worth it to get involved.

That leaves Ken Jr., Kenny, alone in the house with his parents and their toxic relationship.

And the dynamic between all three has shifted in Sante's absence.

Ken Sr.'s grown closer to their son, and Kenny's lost all affection for his mom.

He spent years telling Ken Sr.

to file for divorce, and now it's too late.

Sante's back and Ken Sr.'s trapped.

Meanwhile, Sante's furious with Ken for ruining their son.

He's turned from a polite, shy, home-schooled kid into a rebellious teenager who has to be bribed to do anything.

It used to be so easy for Sante to keep a tight grip on every aspect of Kenny's life since he was always around the house.

But now that he's enrolled in a local school, freely interacting with kids of his own age, Sante's voice can't stand out from the crowd.

From her perspective, that's unacceptable.

Other children are mediocre at best, and Sante believes that her son is extraordinary.

For no other reason than because Ken Senior is wealthy.

If everything goes according to plan, Kenny will one day inherit the keys to the kingdom, and she needs him under her thumb.

So Sante pulls him out of school, brings in a new tutor, and forbids him from seeing his friends.

When he shoves her out of the way so he can get to the front door, she slaps him across the face.

She won't put up with any more defiance.

No talking back, no childish tantrums.

Never mind that Sante is the poster child for behaving like a spoiled brat.

Her son has to start acting like a future business mogul with limitless resources.

Just he can't be a dick to her.

Despite Sante's plans for her youngest son, Ken Senior's kingdom is a lot smaller than it once was.

By the time of Sante's release, he spent close to $5 million in legal fees over the years, covering Sante's smaller shoplifting offenses, her various tussles with insurance companies over her fire damage claims, and the bigger cases of the stolen fur and the enslaved maids.

Adjusted for inflation, that would be nearly $13 million in 2024.

Ken Sr.

has also been gambling a lot while Sante has been behind bars, and he's fed around a million or so dollars into video poker machines.

He has to sell one of his most lucrative properties, a motel across the street from Disneyland, but has held on to their homes in Hawaii and Vegas.

He's still wealthy, but he's a lot less rich than he was when he first caught Sante's eye in 1970.

If Sante knows just how much cash Ken's been bleeding for the last decade, she doesn't show it.

She resumes spending Ken's money like it'll never run out, running up huge credit card bills she expects him to pay.

After all, Ken's status as a millionaire is the only thing Sante's ever cared about, and what good is he to her if she can't count on him to bankroll her lifestyle?

Not everything that Sante wants costs money.

Despite having just served years in jail for keeping unpaid maids prisoner in her home, Sante's ready to do it all again.

Only because of her conviction, she's not allowed to have any contact with undocumented immigrants.

In Sante's mind, the best way to avoid getting in trouble again is just to look elsewhere for her slave labor.

She's happy to follow the rule forbidding contact with her preferred victims, but not the one that says slavery is wrong.

And if there's one group, Sante's sure is more disenfranchised than the undocumented.

It's the unhoused.

Sante invites the director of a local shelter over for drinks and tells the guy that she'd like to employ one or two people to do some work around the house.

Nothing terribly hard, mind you, just some light chores.

The gig will help them get back on their feet, she says.

What's more, she promises that she'll be their new family now.

Sipping on spiked iced tea, she says that the Kimes home is a loving place, but she has some requirements of her employees.

She tells the shelter director that she only wants people over 40, perhaps because she thinks that their spirit will be broken by circumstances at that age.

She also requests that the shelter not send her anyone who owns a car or who has family in the area.

A mode of transport or any kind of support network are out of the question.

They both make escape too easy.

But just like before, Sante's quote unquote employees all manage to escape eventually, some faster than others.

But now that she doesn't have to even leave the city to pick up another person to do her laundry, Sante doesn't mind the high turnover.

And having a clean house helps her focus her attention on consolidating Ken Senior's portfolio.

In the spring of 1990, she decides that it's time to sell their home in Hawaii and puts it on the market.

She wants money in the bank more than she wants a glamorous island vacation home.

The place attracts plenty of interest, and Sante and Ken Senior accept an offer close to $2 million.

Considering that's around 10 times what they paid for the place 15 years ago, it's a tidy profit.

But then comes the unexpected news.

It turns out there's a lien on the Hawaii property, which basically means that any proceeds from a sale of the house will be used to cover debts owed in a civil suit.

So a full 900 grand of the sale price will be forfeited right away.

And Sante can't have that.

She backs out of the sale, deciding to hold on to the home while she decides what to do about the lien.

But then the buyer sues for breach of contract.

Feeling backed into a corner, Sante figures her best option is the thing she's always turned to in times of need.

Prayer.

No, I'm just kidding.

It's fire.

Of course, it's fire.

Not only will it decrease the value of the property and hopefully make the litigious buyer back off, it'll destroy a few boxes of documents related to other ongoing lawsuits and charges against Sante and Ken Senior.

If all those go up in smoke, it'll buy them more time and delays and continuances.

Plus, there will be an insurance payout.

It's a win-win-win.

On September 18, 1990, the Kimes family home on Honolulu burns to the ground.

No one's home at the time, of course, so no one's hurt in the blaze.

Like so many times before, it's quickly apparent that this was an act of arson, because there are several different ignition points all throughout the home.

But with all members of the Kimes family in Las Vegas at the time of the fire, there are no strong leads about who might have actually struck the match.

It probably would have stayed that way, too, had Sante not hired a heavy drinker for the job.

In early 1991, Elmer Holmgreen is in a Vegas bar, sharing drinks with a friend.

Elmer's a washed up lawyer who Sante's been paying $500 a week to be her and Ken Senior's on-call attorney.

But that night, Elmer tells his buddy that he's broken the law for his boss a couple of times, too.

Sante gave him an extra three grand cash to fly to Hawaii and burn down the family home.

It's been weighing on his conscience ever since, he says.

Shocked by the confession, Elmer's friend reports what he knows to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, also known as the ATF.

They get the friend to wear a wire and convince Elmer to repeat the story.

Once he's on tape admitting to the crime, the ATF have Elmer dead to rights.

He can accept the blame for the whole scheme or he can help them bring the mastermind to justice.

Elmer doesn't need much convincing.

He agrees to wear a wire and gets Sante to admit to orchestrating the whole thing.

Then on February 18th, 1991, Elmer calls his contact at the ATF.

In a slightly tense voice, he says that he's going to need to postpone the recorded meeting with Sante.

He doesn't give an explanation, but he does tell the agent that Sante and Ken Senior are in the next room.

Then he hangs up.

It's the last time anyone ever hears from Elmer Homegreen.

It's like he just disappears off the face of the earth.

And although that's suspicious, there's nothing to indicate what actually happened to him.

Until about a year later.

That's when Kent Walker, Sante's eldest son, hears something he's not supposed to.

Remember, Kent is frequently called out of bed in the middle of the night to mediate drunken fights between his mother and stepfather.

One night in 1992, Kent is struggling to stay awake during yet another spat when Ken Sr.

says something truly shocking.

He points at 57-year-old Sante and says that she killed a man.

That gets Kent paying attention.

He sits up and flicks his gaze between Sante and Ken Sr.

as each tries to blame the other for killing Elmer Homegreen.

Eventually, the story comes out.

Sante lured Elmer into a rental car in California, offering him the front seat.

She was content to sit in the back, she told him.

Then, while Ken drove and kept Elmer distracted, Sante pulled out a hammer and bludgeoned Elmer in the back of the head.

She had learned her lesson.

No witnesses.

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It's the summer of 1992, and Kent Walker is on a quiet Las Vegas street, standing by a payphone.

Kent jiggles a few coins in his pocket, nervous about what he's planning to do.

After a few moments of hesitation, he steps close to the phone and lifts the receiver.

He looks over his shoulder, checking to make sure he hasn't been followed, then feeds a quarter into the slot.

Kent couldn't make this call anywhere Sante might find out about it.

His mother has a habit of listening in whenever she knows someone's on the phone, and he can't have her knowing what he's doing.

After a couple of rings, an officer from the Los Angeles Police Department answers.

With little preamble, Kent launches into a story.

He tells the cop that he thinks someone's been murdered, though he's not sure the guy's name.

What he does know is that the victim set a fire for Kent's mom so she could make an insurance claim.

He's got the date of the fire and everything, spells out Sante's name for the officer, and tells him to look up her extensive record.

But it's clear to Kent that the cop's not buying the story.

So he calls back the next day, and then a third time after that.

But no one ever follows up with him.

From what Kent can tell, the LAPD seem uninterested in the case.

So he stops calling, leaving Sante Kimes free to kill another day.

In December 1992, one of Sante and Kent Senior's former attorneys wins a judgment against them.

The couple have been refusing to pay their legal fees, so the courts were the lawyer's only option.

And this is Sante Kimes we're talking about, so she's not gonna let someone take anything from her.

She drags her feet, delays the thing for long enough that the lawyer decides he's gonna go after the Kimes Vegas house.

But Sante is ready for that.

She reaches out to David Caston, a man she once did some insurance business with.

They've stayed friendly over the years, mostly because Sante's always been very good at keeping people close, so they feel like they can't say no when she asks them for favors.

In this case, it's a fairly big ask, but one that won't cause David anything.

Sante just wants to put her house in his name.

So David signs the papers, which includes something called a quit claim deed.

That's an agreement which, when executed, relinquishes ownership over a property.

Basically, it's a ripcord on the whole setup for Sante and Ken Sr.

If David tries to sell the house out from under them, they can execute the quit claim and void his rights to the property.

But it's just a formality.

Sante knows that David won't cross her.

And if he does, she knows just how to handle it.

Other things she's less prepared for.

By this stage, Kenny's broken into Ken Sr.'s safe to steal jewelry and cash at least once and has displayed a tendency to get violent when he doesn't get his way.

Both could be symptoms of how Ken Sr.

spoiled the kid while Sante was away, but they could also just be reflections of Kenny's true nature emerging.

Or, option C, he's more like his mother than he'd like to admit.

Then again, maybe he's just acting out because he's not allowed to see his friends and his parents keep making him fly between Vegas, California and their new house in the Bahamas as they try to dodge court summances.

Whatever the reasons behind it, getting Kenny through the last few years of his education has been a fight.

But in 1993, he enrolls at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the same college Sante herself claimed to have studied at in the 1950s.

After years of being miserable living with his parents, Kenny finally has a chance at some freedom.

There will be a little space between him and his mother at last.

Unfortunately for Kenny, that doesn't mean Sante is going to give up her fight to control her son's life.

After all, she believes that he's going to inherit all of Ken Senior's wealth someday.

She can't have him shut her out.

She won't allow it.

So even though Kenny is hundreds of miles away in Santa Barbara, Sante keeps a close eye on him.

She enlists college staff to help her keep him on a short leash, or to at least make her feel like she's got her youngest son under control.

And while she's holding Kenny close, it seems Sante is doing everything she can to speed up her access to what's left of the Kimes' fortune.

In January 1994, about five months after Kenny starts college, Ken Senior calls Kent to catch up with his stepson.

By this stage, Sante and Ken Senior are spending most of their time in the Bahamas where they rent a house.

Something about being away from the US and its tax laws has always appealed to Ken, and Sante likes living anywhere that makes her feel wealthy.

But from what Kent can tell, things aren't going well in Paradise.

His 76-year-old stepfather's whispering down the phone line as if he's afraid Sante will overhear him.

Sounding paranoid and slightly drunk, Ken Sr.

says that he thinks he's being poisoned.

Kent, now 31, scoffs at the idea, figuring that the old man's just had one too many drinks.

Looking back later, he won't be so sure.

Just two months afterwards, on March 28, 1994, Sante and Ken Kimes are back in Santa Barbara.

They've just dropped Kenny back at college after spring break and are heading back to their luxury hotel by the beach when Sante asks Ken Sr.

to pull into the bank.

She has to take care of some business.

Sante is only inside for a few minutes, but that's all it takes.

By the time she gets back to the car, kenneth Kimes is unmoving in the driver's seat.

Later, Sante will insist that Ken Sr.

was still alive when she found him, and she'll spend the next few hours berating EMTs, doctors and hospital staff, insisting that they let her see her husband.

She throws spectacular tantrums, ordering staff to operate on her husband and save his life.

But the truth is that Ken suffered an aortic aneurysm, and was dead before Sante left the bank.

Even when Sante is brought back to see Ken Senior's lifeless body, she refuses to believe what's happened.

Or at least, she acts like she's in disbelief.

And eventually, her behavior gets so bad that she's escorted out of the hospital.

Later, Kent arrives in Santa Barbara from Las Vegas.

Sante had called him from the hospital.

Now, when he asks his mother what happened, she walks him through every detail of the day, trying to sell the idea that the hospital refused to help Kent Senior.

All that's over now, though.

Sante fixes her son with a beady stare and tells him that they have to keep the death a secret from Kenny.

She insists that it was Kent Senior's dying wish.

His final words with his last breath were, Don't tell Kenny.

Of course, that's not true, but Kent goes along with his mother's wishes, convinced that she's right, that the shock of losing his father will cause Kenny to drop out of school.

He drives his mother to the mortuary in Santa Barbara and watches as she fills out the mandatory paperwork.

As Kent looks over her shoulder, Sante fudges some of the details on the forms.

But she's not making mistakes.

She's using incorrect information to ensure that the Social Security Administration doesn't find out that Kent Senior's dead.

That's when it dawns on Kent.

His mother doesn't want to just keep this a secret from Kenny.

She doesn't want anyone to know that kenneth Kimes is gone.

Sante's got one big reason for keeping the death under wraps.

Ken's will.

He'd always said that he was going to leave all of his money to charity, though given that he usually said that in front of Sante, it's possible that this was just a bluff.

Still, it's got Sante worried.

Now, exactly what Ken's intentions were, no one really knows.

Sante's got no idea where the will might be, and she's terrified that if someone else finds it first, and it's not good for her, it'll be disastrous.

What if he left the money to his other children?

She can't let that happen.

But if no one knows to go looking for the will, it gives her time to search on her own.

So Sante doesn't place a death notice in the newspapers.

She doesn't arrange a funeral.

There's no grave.

Just a quiet cremation as quickly as possible, before anyone can say, I don't know, ask for a full autopsy.

After that, it's time to find the will.

About two weeks after Ken Senior's death, Sante heads to a bank near her Las Vegas home.

In her purse is a freshly forged and notarized power of attorney form, which she hands to the clerk before demanding access to Ken's safety deposit box.

A few minutes later, in a large vault of a room, Sante sits in front of an open steel box, digging through the contents.

But, no matter how many times she shuffles through the small pile, she doesn't find what she's after.

No will, no secret bank account details, no piles of cash, no valuable jewels.

So, on to the next, but it's the same at the second place, and the third, and fourth.

Sante can't understand where all the money is.

She and Kent find a few of Ken Sr.'s accounts that add up to about a hundred grand, which would be roughly double that today.

But aside from that, there doesn't seem to be much money to speak of at all.

At least none that they can find.

Still, Sante's determined to stake her claim in whatever is left.

After exhausting all her options in Vegas, she flies to their rental home in the Bahamas.

She comes back within a few days, finally in possession of the will.

Only, it's not exactly what Sante expected.

According to the document, she only gets half of Ken's estate.

Kenny gets 25% and the rest is split between Ken Senior's grandchildren.

That doesn't work for Sante.

She's put in decades of her life and she feels like she's earned all of Ken Senior's money.

So isn't it lucky for her when she miraculously finds a newer will tucked away somewhere in Vegas?

This one leaves everything, every property, every investment, every red cent to Sante Kimes.

All told, there's a chunk of land in California that's worth at least a few million and an account in the Bahamas worth several hundred thousand and a few smaller accounts here and there, a far cry from the height of Ken's wealth, but nothing to sneeze at.

But it's not enough for Sante.

She wants, no, she deserves more.

She always has and she always will.

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It's the summer of 1996 at Miami International Airport.

21-year-old kenneth Kimes Jr.

has just arrived on a flight from Cuba and is waiting in line to pass through customs.

He's made this trip plenty of times before without any trouble, so he's not worried.

But then, the customs agent fixes Kenny with a shrewd stare, scanning his designer suit, his brand name sunglasses, the leather shoes.

Suddenly, Kenny's not feeling quite so confident.

He feels sweat starting to bead on his scalp down his back.

Then, the agent waves Kenny forward.

He wants to look inside the kid's bag.

Kenny steps out of line, trying to swallow his nerves down as the agent places the suitcase onto a table.

It happens in a matter of seconds.

The agent unzips the suitcase, opens it, and pushes aside the few items of clothing to reveal several boxes of Cuban cigars.

The agent smirks and starts pulling the boxes out one by one.

Kenny can feel his face getting hotter, like everyone in the airport is watching what's happening.

But no one's all that concerned with Kenny Kimes' contraband cigars.

The agent simply confiscates the Cubans, types Kenny's name into the computer to add him to a database, and waves him through.

Kenny can't believe it.

It's less than a slap on the wrist.

Walking through the airport to make his next flight back to Nevada, Kenny thinks that it's a good omen.

His mom's always told him he was special.

Now he's starting to believe it.

In the two years since Kenny's father died, he's become more and more entwined in Sante Kimes.

He's drifted from the stable path he was on, and has fallen under his mom's spell.

At college, he displayed an aggressive and violent nature.

Things got so bad that in 1995, his roommate's girlfriend took out a restraining order against Kenny.

It wasn't long after that that he dropped out of UCSB.

College might be the right path for some people, but not for him.

Over the last couple of years, Sante's worked hard to convince her son that he's special, that he'll one day be an impressive, powerful business tycoon like his father.

In reality, Ken Senior wasn't ever much more than a man who made some savvy investments in his youth.

Then he spent his twilight years burning through his money on travel, gambling and his wife's endless legal bills.

In contrast, Kenny has displayed a bit of a knack for business.

But because he's his mother's son, it's not in any way legal.

After discovering the capabilities of the internet, Kenny built his own website to sell Cuban cigars to American customers.

For his supply, he and Sante have been making frequent trips to Havana from their house in the Bahamas.

There they visit cigar factories and bribe security guards to let them walk into the store room and pull out cases of the merchandise.

Because Cuban products have been embargoed in the US since the 1960s, Kenny has had to smuggle his product into the country.

So far, things have been going well.

He's been charging around $750 a box, which would be double that amount in 2024.

But after airport security confiscated a suitcase full of merchandise in the summer of 1996, the thriving business comes to a screeching halt.

Luckily for him, Kenny doesn't face jail time over the small time smuggling ring.

And while that might make him feel that his mom's been right all along and that he is better than other people, he still doesn't want to press his luck.

Besides, now he's on a list that means he'll be pulled aside for questioning every time he enters the country.

There's no way he can keep things up with that hanging over his head.

But Kenny's not the only one in the family who's nurturing an entrepreneurial spirit.

Since Ken Sr.

left her with much, much less money than she was expecting, Sante's been trying to find ways to make some cash of her own.

Most recently, she's decided that she's something of a wellness guru who specializes in quote-unquote, longevity.

She's been traveling to conferences where she leans on her Indian heritage, which she once suppressed.

Oh, and she calls herself Princess Sante as a way to market supplements.

But the main focus of Sante's attention is the late Ken Sr.'s account at the Gulf Union Bank.

There's around 850K just sitting there, waiting for her to spend.

If only she could get her hands on it.

Problem is, she still doesn't want Ken's relatives to know that he's dead.

She's worried that if his family find out Ken's dead, they'll challenge the will, and she'll lose.

She's aware of her reputation and her criminal record, and figures both will count against her in a legal battle over the estate.

So she's done everything she can to obscure the truth for all this time.

Once she can finally consolidate all of Ken's money into her own account, then she'll let the world know.

If any of the other Kimes come calling, expecting a chunk of the money, they'll find the coffers completely cleaned out.

The Princess Sante persona is part of that plan.

Sante's been sending faxes to the Gulf Union Bank, posing as Ken Senior and asking that varying lump sums be wired to different accounts in the US.

But the Assistant General Manager of the Bank, Sayed Bilal Ahmed, is also the branch's head auditor, and the faxes seem suspicious to him.

So all of Sante's attempts to withdraw the money go ignored.

Even when her requests become angry demands, she gets nothing, and it's infuriating.

That money is Sante's, and she's not gonna let one little man stand in her way.

Sayed has to go.

In contrast to Sayed, some of the other higher ups at the bank seem much more pliable.

When Sante talks with them, she gets the feeling that they'll play ball.

So in the summer of 1996, around the time that Kenny's cigar business dies, she turns on the charm for the other bankers.

She makes numerous phone calls to them, seemingly teeing up a deal to go into business on her latest wellness venture.

When she feels them nibble on the line, she weaves tales about bringing in enough business for the bank that she'll be able to have Sayed move sideways out of the branch and install one of her preferred men in his position.

Throughout her life, Sante's displayed a knack for getting people to believe whatever she tells them.

It helps when the lies she's telling are designed to make the other person feel like good things are coming their way.

So, Sante's contact lets his guard down and discusses Sayed's movements with her.

It all seems harmless to them.

Just another incredibly wealthy customer who's particular about the people handling her money.

The bankers don't realize they're being conned by the woman who's about to kill their troublesome colleague.

From Airship, this is episode 4 in our series on Sante Kimes.

On the next episode, Sante's desperation for a big payday leads to her most outrageous and bloody crimes yet.

We use many different sources while preparing this episode.

A couple we can 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.

On a quiet June morning, an airliner took off from the Seattle area, headed to Anchorage, Alaska.

Just after 10 a.m., one of the Northwest Airlines pilots radioed in, asking for permission to change altitude.

Within moments, Northwest Airlines Flight 293 with 101 souls on board, soldiers and airmen along with wives and children on their way to Cold War assignments in the land of the Midnight Sun was gone.

In the skies 14,000 feet above the Gulf of Alaska, something went wrong.

They said they've lost radio contact with the plane.

What do you mean it's down?

Well, they can't find the plane.

Whatever was left of Flight 293, including everyone on board, was a mile and a half underwater.

Families buried empty caskets and put up backyard memorials as they waited for answers.

Answers that never came.

What did happen to Flight 293?

Was it mechanical failure, human error, or something more sinister?

The DC-7 does not fall out of the sky.

If you lost all four engines, any pilot will tell you that thing wouldn't just do a nosedive.

One of our planes landed with a side-winder missile gun.

It's conspiracy theory.

And why do so many of the victims' loved ones say the US government turned its back on them and tried to forget Flight 293?

Everything about this, my whole life was hidden.

I just think it's a travesty.

It was a living nightmare.

The military was going to have some kind of memorial.

We never had a service of any kind.

I'm historian and journalist Felix Bannell.

I've been researching and studying Flight 293 for the past several years.

I've interviewed experts and spoken with friends and family members of the 101 souls lost that dark day.

Ordinary Americans impacted by extraordinary tragedy who've been searching for answers, searching for healing and searching for closure.

Unsolved Histories Season 1.

What happened to Flight 293?

New from the journalists of KSL Podcasts, searching for answers to some of the greatest mysteries of all time.

Coming soon.