Ted Peyton's sex offender registry photo, taken March 29, 2010

Ted Peyton, who was convicted of sexually abusing Scott Kimball in the 1970s and 1980s, registers with Boulder County as a sex offender after concerned mothers in Nederland contact the Sheriff’s Office about the fact that he is not registered.

Cmdr. Rick Brough, with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, said he wasn’t certain why Peyton wasn’t made to register in 1996, when he finished his prison sentence in the sex abuse case.

“I’m thinking that when he was released, a lot of the rules that are in place now weren’t in place then,” Brough said. “That’s why he slipped through. Things have tightened up over the years.”

Scott Kimball at his sentencing hearing in the Boulder County Justice Center. Camera file photo

Scott Kimball pleads guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of LeAnn Emry, Jennifer Marcum, Kaysi McLeod and Terry Kimball, and is sentenced to 70 years in prison.

In an emotional hearing at the Boulder County Justice Center, the victims’ families finally have a chance to face the man who killed their loved ones.

LeAnn Emry’s mother said her daughter was “no more important to him than the carcass of a dead animal.”

“He made the deliberate choice to murder, and he made that choice at least four times,” Darlene Emry said through tears.

Kaysi McLeod’s relatives, clockwise from top left, Charlene McLeod, Katherine McLeod, Ginger McLeod, Samantha McLeod and Michelle Strick listen to a live feed outside of the packed courtroom. (Kasia Broussalian/Camera)

Kaysi McLeod’s father said his daughter would have been 26 if she were alive.

“I was present, right there, the very moment that Kaysi took her first breath in this world,” Rob McLeod said. “Scott Kimball was there to take her last.”

Lori McLeod faces her former husband in court and says God has received her daughter.

“I believe that Kaysi has forgiven Scott Kimball,” she says. “I choose to forgive Scott Kimball.”

Jennifer Marcum’s family reiterated their plea for Kimball to show them where he left Jennifer’s body.

“There is not going to be any place for your soul until you truly repent and you tell me where my sister is,” Tammy Marcum demanded.

Jennifer’s father told the court that Kimball “has destroyed our lives.”

“How many other people are missing as a result of his life?” Bob Marcum said. “It’s time for Scott to be a man and give back what he took from us.”

Kimball remained silent.

After the hearing, his cousin and self-described spokesman, Ed Coet, said Kimball was sorry but laid much of the blame at the FBI’s feet for the agency’s decision to use him as an informant.

“I do want the families of all the victims, and the public, to know that although I must be held accountable for my crimes, none of this could have occurred, and the victims would not have been killed had the FBI not driven me into the extremely dangerous underworld in which both I and the murdered victims found ourselves,” Coet said on Kimball’s behalf.

[Show as slideshow]

Read the plea deal. (PDF)

Read Rob McLeod’s statement to the court. (PDF)

Read a transcript of Lori McLeod’s statement to the court. (PDF)

Read Darlene Emry’s statement to the court. (PDF)

Read Howard Emry’s statement to the court. (PDF)

Boulder County DA Stan Garnett. (Camera file photo)

Without Jennifer Marcum’s body, Boulder County prosecutors revoke their deal with Kimball.

In a December 2008 “memorandum of understanding,” Kimball had agreed to lead investigators to the bodies of LeAnn Emry, Jennifer Marcum and Terry Kimball. In return, he would face only one count of second-degree murder.

In a letter to Kimball’s public defenders, Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett writes that Kimball is considered “in breach” of the deal.

The Boulder County District Attorney's letter.

Kimball's mug shot. (Rocky Mountain News)

Boulder County prosecutors make a deal with Scott Kimball.

He pleads guilty to stealing $55,000 from Lafayette optometrist Cleve Armstrong as a habitual offender, and is sentenced to 48 years in prison.

In exchange, prosecutors draw up a memorandum of understanding in the missing-persons case. If he will lead investigators to the bodies of Jennifer Marcum, LeAnn Emry and Terry Kimball, he will only face a single count of second-degree murder.

They will otherwise pursue a first-degree murder conviction, punishable by life in prison without parole or the death penalty. But that will be difficult with only one set of remains — Kaysi McLeod’s — that show no evidence of the cause or manner of death.

For prosecutors Amy Okubo and Katharina Booth, the deal represents their only chance of finding the missing victims.

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t do that without his help,” Booth said. “It was a deal with the devil.”

Read the Rocky Mountain News article.

A check forged on Cleve Armstrong's account. (Courtesy Lafayette police)

Boulder County issues a warrant for Scott Kimball’s arrest on suspicion of theft, forgery and false reporting.

The charges stemmed from the theft of $55,000 from Lafayette optometrist Cleve Armstrong.

In the course of that investigation, police also found a trailer on Kimball’s former property that he had reported stolen two months earlier.

Kimball had already collected a $10,000 insurance claim for the trailer.

Boulder County Jail. (Camera file photo)

Lafayette police detective Gary Thatcher interviews Scott Kimball for the first time, while Kimball is held in Boulder County Jail for a brief period.

The conversation centers on optometrist Cleve Armstrong’s check-fraud case.

Boulder County prosecutors Katharina Booth, left, and Amy Okubo, dubbed by Scott Kimball as "the Boulder bitches," pose in Courtroom Q at the Boulder County Justice Center. (Marty Caivano / Camera)

Boulder County prosecutors Amy Okubo and Katharina Booth, assigned to the Lafayette check-fraud case against Scott Kimball, meet with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI in Denver, asking for a wider investigation.

Lafayette police Detective Gary Thatcher had found out about Kaysi McLeod’s disappearance, and had also been told by FBI Special Agent Carle Schlaff that Kimball might be connected to the disappearance of Jennifer Marcum.

But neither federal agency launched a missing-persons probe.

With no bodies and no witnesses, Booth and Okubo knew they had no murder case against Kimball. They homed in on the fraud case, planning to use Kimball’s six previous felony convictions to paint him as a habitual offender, allowing for a quadrupling of prison time if convicted of stealing $55,000 from Lafayette optometrist Cleve Armstrong.

Realizing that he wouldn’t easily shake this pair, Kimball came up with a nickname that the prosecutors came to wear as a badge of honor: the Boulder bitches.

“He realized that Katharina and I were not going away,” Okubo recalls. “The Boulder bitches weren’t going away.”

Theodore Peyton

Theodore Peyton is sentenced to seven years in prison for sexually assaulting Scott Kimball and another boy a decade earlier.

He would spend five years, three months and two weeks in prison before being released on Oct. 6, 1996.

Writing to a Boulder district judge considering a sentence reduction for Peyton in July 1992, Scott Kimball said the crimes “cost me and my family very dearly.”

“Ted Peyton denied me my right to a normal, healthy innocent childhood,” Kimball wrote. “Because of Ted Peyton’s selfishness and his need for sexual gratification he has damaged my life forever.”

Peyton, now 74, still lives in the Nederland cabin where he molested the boys in the early-1980s.

“That was a long time ago,” Peyton said when asked recently about the abuse.

Turning slowly, he walked back up the driveway to his home on the northern shore of Barker Reservoir.

Read Kimball’s letter to the court. (PDF)

Theodore Peyton

Theodore Peyton is convicted of molesting Scott Kimball and another boy a decade earlier at his Nederland cabin.

A Boulder County jury deliberates less than three hours before finding Peyton guilty of six counts of sexual assault on a child.

“The effect of this defendant’s behavior haunted them for years and still haunts them,” the prosecutor says of the victims.

The bullet, which glances off his skull, combines with the backblast from the shot to tear a hole in his forehead.

He remained in critical condition for several days and remains visibly scarred to this day.

Kimball’s cousin Ed Coet says Kimball “was never the same” after the suicide attempt.

“It’s like he lost his conscience,” Coet said.

In the wake of the shooting, the truth about the sexual abuse he endured as a child emerges.

The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office investigates.

(Date is approximate.)

Scott Kimball at age 5 or 6. (Courtesy Ed Coet)

Scott Lee Kimball is born at Boulder Community Hospital to Virgil and Barb Kimball.

He would grow up in Old Town Lafayette, attending Lafayette Elementary and Lafayette Middle schools.

“He wasn’t one of the popular kids,” said Tina Goeden, 42, who went to elementary school with Kimball. “He was pretty quiet.”

But police knew early on that Scott Kimball could be trouble.

Lafayette police Cmdr. Mark Battersby remembers responding to a call involving the adolescent Kimball within a few years of joining the force in 1976.

The boy had gotten a hold of one of his father’s guns and was shooting out of his home, hitting other houses, Battersby said.

“I knew he was going to be a handful.”

Kimball also attended Centaurus High School in 1981, but withdrew after one month and moved to Montana.