A career criminal and con man, Boulder County native Scott Kimball had an uncanny ability to convince people to give him the benefit of the doubt. His charms worked on the FBI, which released him from prison as a paid informant, and on the four people he killed while free. But the victims’ families, a Lafayette detective, two Boulder County prosecutors and one FBI agent finally called his bluff.
In this interactive 15-part series, the Camera explores the complex web of events that kept a serial killer on the streets for three years, and the remarkable breaks that finally brought him to justice.
Scott Kimball has been convicted of murdering four people, but investigators think he may have claimed more victims.
If you suspect Kimball is connected to another missing-persons case, call the FBI at 303-629-7171.
"Free to Kill" is brought to you by the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, Colo.
Scott Kimball leads a contingent of U.S. marshals and Riverside County sheriff’s deputies on a high-speed chase through California’s Coachella Valley.
Reaching speeds up to 80 mph, he cranked Nickelback’s “Rockstar” through the speakers of the Ford F-350 and called his girlfriend, Denise Pierce.
She told Kimball to stop and turn himself in, but he refused, insisting the cops would kill him because he knew too much.
Kimball drove the full length of the valley in a televised chase, eventually turning onto dirt roads, careening through orchards and rolling over irrigation pipes in a farmer’s field in Mecca, Calif., just north of the Salton Sea.
Low on gas, he finally stopped but wouldn’t surrender for several hours.
A rifle and handgun belonging to Scott Kimball are recovered at a friend’s house in Indio, Calif.
His girlfriend, Denise Pierce, identifies the handgun as one she saw Kimball shooting recreationally on an outing. The rifle was purchased for Kimball at a Thornton Wal-Mart by another girlfriend, Melissa Anderson, in December 2005.
Scott Kimball is indicted in federal court in Denver on a charge of Felon in Possession of a Firearm.
Earlier in 2007, two guns belonging to Kimball had been found at a friend’s house in California. Kimball was prohibited from owning firearms according to the terms of his federal probation on an earlier check fraud case.