Colorado

Terry Kimball is born in Steamboat Springs.

Twenty-two years later, his brother Virgil will father Scott Kimball.

Terry Kimball in Georgia, 1998.

Terry Kimball in Georgia, 1998. (Courtesy Karen Johnson)

After four years in the Navy, Terry Kimball spends most of his adulthood working odd jobs and traveling the country.

From 1962 to 1966, he served “in the communications division aboard United States Navy Ships operation in the Pacific theater,” according to his resume.

He worked as an officer for the Colorado State Patrol from 1966 to 1970, then for the Longmont Fire Department until 1973.

He worked in a variety of jobs around the country after that, traveling around the South and West as a carpenter and truck driver.

Kimball had one daughter, Stephanie Pelster, who could not be reached for this project.

In 1993, he married Karen Johnson, who described him as a “happy-go-lucky person” who loved to work in the garden and cook elaborate meals.

Read Terry Kimball’s poetry. (PDF)

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.

Kimball’s parents divorce

January 1st, 1976

Scott Kimball’s parents, Barb and Virgil Kimball, get divorced.

Barb Kimball would fall in love with another woman, and Virgil Kimball eventually moved from Colorado to Montana and remarried.

(Date is approximate.)

Theodore Peyton

Theodore Peyton

Theodore Peyton, 41, a Lafayette neighbor of Kimball’s grandmother, begins hanging out with 10-year-old Scott and another boy, inviting them to his cabin in Nederland.

Over a seven-year period, he plies the boys with booze, takes pictures of them naked and tied up, and forces oral and anal sex on them.

Peyton warns Scott not to tell, even brandishing a gun on one occasion and threatening to kill his father if he squealed.

(For database purposes, this post is dated Sept. 21, 1976, Scott Kimball’s 10th birthday. It’s unclear exactly when Peyton and Kimball met, but the boy was 10 at the time.)

Jennifer Marcum is born

June 15th, 1977

Jennifer as a baby. (Courtesy Bob Marcum)

Jennifer as a baby. (Courtesy Bob Marcum)

Jennifer Marcum is born in Aurora, Colo., to Bob Marcum and Mary Willis.

Her parents will divorce when Jennifer is 6 months old,  and she will move to Springfield, Ill., with her mother and older sister at age 4.

Jennifer’s interests ranged from Wiffle ball and volleyball to reading and studying wildlife — especially lizards. As she got older, she also developed an appetite for mischief.

“She was a wild cat,” Willis said. “Sneaking out and being defiant. Testing the boundaries.”

Jennifer at 8. (Courtesy of Bob Marcum)

Jennifer at 8. (Courtesy of Bob Marcum)

Because of trouble at home, Jennifer and her sister ended up in foster homes for a couple of years, but neither of her parents would share details.

“My ex-wife and I had a very dysfunctional relationship, and the kids didn’t enjoy life because of it,” said Bob Marcum.

Jennifer ended up dropping out of high school, marrying a former classmate and moving to Colorado Springs, where she got divorced after a year.

Kaysi McLeod is born

September 14th, 1983

Kaysi as a baby. (Courtesy of Rob McLeod)

Kaysi as a baby. (Courtesy of Rob McLeod)

Kaysi McLeod is born in Westminster, Colo., to Rob and Lori McLeod.

She would grow up to love jewelry-making, drawing, dancing and music, especially Sarah McLachlan, said her mother.

“She didn’t ever talk back,” Lori McLeod said. “I got very lucky.”

But Kaysi tested her boundaries like any adolescent. She smoked, pierced her bellybutton, got tattoos — a four-leaf clover with the Virgo sign on her foot and a fairy on the small of her back.

Kaysi as a girl. (Courtesy of Rob McLeod)

Kaysi at age 6. (Courtesy of Rob McLeod)

Kaysi moved to Phoenix at age 15 because she needed some time away from her parents, who divorced when she was 6 and didn’t agree on how to raise her, said her maternal aunt, Donna Harper.

“I gave her consistency,” Harper said.

In Arizona, Kaysi worked at a skating rink in her spare time, even driving the Zamboni around the ice.

Tabetha Blow, her best friend there, said Kaysi had a “passion for life” but ended up falling in with a bad crowd.

Kimball, following his Broomfield arrest. (Courtesy of Boulder County DA's office)

Kimball, following his Broomfield arrest. (Courtesy of Boulder County DA's office)

Scott Kimball, 22, is convicted of his third felony, on one count of attempted theft in Broomfield, Colo.

He’d been arrested the previous October on charges of stealing a fishing pole, two rifles, a shotgun, golf clubs and tools from two Broomfield homes.

He is sentenced to one year of unsupervised probation and ordered to pay $232 in restitution.

On a hunting trip with his brother in western Montana, Scott Kimball puts the barrel of a .30-30 rifle against his forehead and pulls the trigger.

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.)

Theodore Peyton

Theodore Peyton

Theodore Peyton is arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting Scott Kimball and another male when they were young boys.

Most of the assaults took place at Peyton’s Nederland cabin.

Some time in the 1980s, after his attacks on Kimball, Peyton became a volunteer Big Brother, but was ousted from the program because of contradictory reports about his activities with the child in his care, according to Daily Camera archives.

(Camera archives)

Theodore Peyton

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.

(From the Camera's archives)

Theodore Peyton

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)

LeAnn Emry graduates.

LeAnn Emry graduates. (Courtesy Howard Emry)

LeAnn Emry, a straight-A student, graduates one year early from Eaglecrest High School in Centennial, Colo., and earns a community service award from President Clinton for her volunteer work at the University of Colorado Medical Center and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

She will go on to become a veterinary technician, and her love of animals — Dalmations in particular —  will prompt her specialized license plates: DAL-GAL.

She is diagnosed as bipolar, though, and lives with nearly constant back pain after cracking a vertebra while play-wrestling with her father.

Jennifer at 23. (Courtesy of Bob Marcum)

Jennifer in an undated photo. (Courtesy of Bob Marcum)

Jennifer Marcum gives birth to a son, fathered by her boyfriend, Jeff Wiggins.

The parents break up within a few years.

Jennifer called her son “little man,” said her father, Bob Marcum.

“When she was with him, he was the center of her world,” Marcum said.

(Date is approximate.)

Shotgun Willie's, in Glendale.

Shotgun Willie's, in Glendale. (John Aguilar / Camera)

Jennifer Marcum starts stripping at Shotgun Willie’s, in Glendale, Colo.

A FoxNews television crew captures her first night, documenting her motivation and nervousness before taking the stage.

“I probably will cry, to be honest,” she says. “It’s a very scary feeling for me. I’ve always had manager jobs and (been) looked at as a very respectable person.”

She hopes the job will provide her the financial security to pursue bigger dreams with the father of her son, introduced on TV as her husband although the two never legally married.

“I could probably make more in a week than he can in two, and I’d like to live in a house, and so I have higher goals,” she tells the TV crew.

Jennifer’s father, Bob Marcum, said his daughter worked as a stripper primarily to support her son. She kept the job until her death, but Mary Willis, Jennifer’s mother, said she was anxious to get out at the end.

“She was wanting away from there real bad,” Willis said.

Read a transcript of the Fox News show. (PDF)

LeAnn Emry gets married

May 30th, 1999

LeAnn Emry marries Kevin Niner, an old high-school classmate who had asked for her help in bailing him out of jail.

The couple will live between Colorado and Dallas, Texas, for their first year.

LeAnn’s life spirals downward throughout their marriage, and she ends up stripping at private parties and being physically abused.

LeAnn Emry pleads guilty to felony menacing in Arapahoe County District Court, after brandishing a gun and threatening to kill her husband and herself.

She is given a deferred two-year prison sentence, meaning she remains free if she stays out of trouble.

A picture of Steve Ennis found in Jennifer Marcum’s belongings.

A picture of Steve Ennis found in Jennifer Marcum’s belongings. (Courtesy of Bob Marcum)

Steve Ennis is arrested in New York City after a sting operation catches him buying and selling ecstasy. His girlfriend, Jennifer Marcum, is with him at the time but not implicated in the drug ring.

Ennis would eventually be sent to the federal prison in Littleton, FCI-Englewood, where he ends up sharing a cell with Scott Kimball.

Steven Holley

Steven Holley

Having returned to Colorado from Dallas, LeAnn Emry files for a divorce from Kevin Niner.

She becomes romantically involved with Steven Holley, an FCI-Englewood prisoner whom she met through Niner.

Holley, facing a life sentence on charges that he shot at an officer during a Lakewood bank robbery, is held in the same prison unit as Scott Kimball.

FCI-Englewood, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)

FCI-Englewood, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)

Scott Kimball is transferred from the Alaska prison system to FCI-Englewood, a federal penitentiary in Littleton, Colo.

He had told federal authorities that seven Alaska inmates wanted to kill him for cooperating with the government.

fbiThe FBI activates Scott Kimball as a “cooperating witness” while he is an inmate at FCI-Englewood.

He tells an agent that his cellmate, Steve Ennis, asked him to kill a fellow drug dealer, and that Ennis’ girlfriend, Jennifer Marcum, would help.

A fake birth certificate, later found among Kimball's belongings, listed the alias he used as an FBI informant. (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

A fake birth certificate, later found among Kimball's belongings, listed the alias he used as an FBI informant. (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

After claiming that his cellmate, Steve Ennis, asked him to kill a fellow drug dealer, Scott Kimball is released from FCI-Englewood “to actively cooperate with the FBI on the Steven Ennis matter.”

Ennis, Kimball claims, told him his girlfriend — Jennifer Marcum — would help carry out the hit.

As a paid FBI informant, Kimball is given the name Joe Scott and told to keep an eye on Marcum.

His contact at the bureau is Special Agent Carle Schlaff.

After his release from FCI-Englewood as an FBI informant, Scott Kimball calls LeAnn Emry for the first time. He introduces himself as “Hannibal.”

Emry’s boyfriend, federal inmate Steven Holley, knew Kimball behind bars, and asked him to connect with LeAnn to share the details of a plan to help him escape prison.

Holley told LeAnn to listen to Hannibal, that if everything went off as it should, the couple would soon be able to unite in Mexico and start a new chapter in their lives.

Holley's letter to LeAnn

Holley writes LeAnn: "You can trust Hannible." (Courtesy of Howard Emry)

Jennifer Marcum at 23 or 24. (Courtesy of Bob Marcum)

Jennifer Marcum at 23 or 24. (Courtesy of Bob Marcum)

Wearing a wire, Scott Kimball meets with Jennifer Marcum and secretly records their conversation in his role as an FBI informant.

He claims Jennifer and her boyfriend, federal prisoner Steve Ennis, are plotting to kill a member of Ennis’ drug ring.

Jennifer doesn’t solicit Kimball to kill anyone, but she does say the drug dealer is a “scumbag” who “deserves to die.”

In the first six weeks of 2003, Kimball meets with Jennifer a dozen times and speaks with her on the phone daily.

He convinces her that he can help her stop stripping by setting her up in an espresso-cart business in Seattle.

Ennis tells his girlfriend she should trust Kimball and try a career change.

Read More >>

LeAnn, in a photo found on Kimball's laptop. (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

LeAnn, in a photo found on Kimball's laptop. (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

LeAnn Emry uses her debit card to buy Scott Kimball a $1,685 Toshiba laptop computer at Best Buy in Lakewood, Colo.

When investigators search the laptop years later, they find a photo of LeAnn, dated 11 days before her death.

LeAnn, in a photo later found on Kimball's computer.

LeAnn, in a photo later found on Kimball's computer.

LeAnn Emry leaves her home in Centennial, where she lives with her parents, Howard and Darlene Emry.

She tells them she is going on a caving trip to Mexico with friends.

Instead, she secretly leaves on a whirlwind voyage through five states, intermittently meeting up with Scott Kimball, aka “Hannibal.”

Before heading out, LeAnn called her younger sister, Michelle, with a message: If anything bad should happen, Michelle should know her sister loved her.

LeAnn's Super 8 receipt (Courtesy of Howard Emry)

LeAnn's Super 8 receipt (Courtesy of Howard Emry)

During a two-week trip across the West, LeAnn Emry writes a cascade of bad checks, overdrawing her account by $4,000.

She bounces checks in Laramie, Wyo., Baker City, Ore., Vancouver, Wash., and Reno, Nev., leaving a paper trail that her father will piece together after her disappearance.

Investigators later place Kimball in some of the same spots at the same time, but he also goes to Seattle on FBI business.

At a pawnshop in Hermiston, Ore., Emry buys the .40-caliber Firestar handgun that will become her murder weapon.

She is back in Colorado by Jan. 27, when she checks into a Super 8 motel in Grand Junction.

She checks out two days later.

Leann Emry disappears

January 29th, 2003

Utah’s Bryson Canyon, where Scott Kimball killed LeAnn Emry. (Courtesy of Howard Emry)

Utah’s Bryson Canyon, where Scott Kimball killed LeAnn Emry. (Courtesy of Howard Emry)

After checking out of the Super 8 motel in Grand Junction, Colo., LeAnn Emry is never heard from again.

Kimball later told a fellow inmate that he killed LeAnn after telling her they were going for a hike in Bryson Canyon in eastern Utah.

According to that account, Kimball told her to strip nude and to kneel down before shooting her in the head.

Kimball has since claimed that members of a drug gang executed LeAnn and he was only a witness.

LeAnn, 24, was shot with the gun she bought a few days earlier.

The Lodge Casino at Black Hawk. (blackhawkcolorado.com)

The Lodge Casino at Black Hawk. (blackhawkcolorado.com)

Scott Kimball meets Lori McLeod at the Lodge Casino at Black Hawk, where the 39-year-old mother is a regular at Boston 5-card poker.

McLeod  is taken with Kimball, who is pushing his mother around in a wheelchair and attending to her every need. He has an easy smile, and pleasant demeanor.

McLeod, who lives in Westminster with her 19-year-old daughter, Kaysi, gives Kimball her number at the end of the night. “Wait,” she jokes, “You’re not a felon or anything, are you?”

LeAnn Emry’s boyfriend, FCI-Englewood inmate Steven Holley, writes a letter to her father, telling him he’s worried because he hasn’t heard from LeAnn in more than a month.

“So have you heard from her and is she alright?” he asks Howard Emry.

Holley's letter to Howard Emry. (Courtesy of Howard Emry)

Holley's letter to Howard Emry. (Courtesy of Howard Emry)

Kimball's Lakewood condo, 8210 W. Eastman Place.

Kimball's Lakewood condo, 8210 W. Eastman Place. (John Aguilar / Camera)

Two days before their planned trip to Seattle, Jennifer Marcum moves all of her furniture into Scott Kimball’s condo in Lakewood.

She had been staying in Colorado Springs with the father of her 4-year-old son, and commuting to Glendale, where she worked as an exotic dancer at Shotgun Willie’s.

But Kimball convinced her that he could help her quit stripping for a living. He claimed he ran an espresso-cart operation in Seattle and would help her learn the business.

Jennifer Marcum disappears

February 17th, 2003

At 9:30 p.m. the night before her planned trip to Seattle with Scott Kimball, Jennifer Marcum has a last conversation with her boyfriend, federal inmate Steve Ennis. The call was recorded by the prison:

Jennifer at age 24.

Jennifer at 24. (Courtesy of Bob Marcum)

“You OK?” Ennis asked.
“Yeah.”
“You all ready to go?”
“Packin’.”
“Are you? Cool. Are you excited?”
“No, not really.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know.”
“You should be, you’ll have a nice time. … You taking a cab out to the airport?”
“Um, I’m not sure yet. I think I’m taking my car.”
“You’re gonna have fun up there. … What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“I’ll see you next Thursday, huh?”

Marcum is never heard from again.

Frantic, Steven Holley writes another letter to Howard Emry from FCI-Englewood.

LeAnn is in “real trouble,” he warns.

“I don’t fully understand what the hell she thought she was doing, but I know she is way out of her league!”

Holley asks Howard Emry to call the FBI and have an agent come talk to him in prison.

Holley's letter to Howard Emry.

An excerpt of Holley's letter. (Courtesy of Howard Emry)

Read Holley’s full Feb. 24, 2003, letter to Howard Emry. (PDF)

Howard Emry rebuffed by FBI

March 1st, 2003

Howard Emry (Matthew Cilley / for the Camera)

Howard Emry (Matthew Cilley / for the Camera)

Howard Emry contacts the FBI in Denver, and talks to an agent about the alarming letter he received from Steven Holley, his daughter’s boyfriend.

The agent calls Holley a liar, and says he will not waste his time visiting him in prison to talk.

(Date is approximate.)

Scott Kimball signs a plea deal with federal prosecutors in Denver on the theft and fraud charges stemming from his 2001 arrest in Alaska.

Kimball pleads guilty to two counts of counterfeiting a check, and agrees to continue cooperating with the government.

In exchange, prosecutors recommend that he get the lowest sentencing range, which could include probation rather than prison time.

Read Kimball’s plea deal, March 10, 2003. (PDF)

Denver International Airport

Denver International Airport

Jennifer Marcum’s 1996 Saturn, abandoned in a parking garage at Denver International Airport, is impounded.

The car had been parked since Feb. 18, but surveillance video doesn’t show who was driving it.

Two certified letters were sent to Marcum’s last address, but they went unanswered.

Statement from Alderman to FBI Agent Jonathan Grusing, reprinted in a Lafayette police report.

Statement from Alderman to FBI Agent Jonathan Grusing, reprinted in a Lafayette police report.

Scott Kimball absconds with $7,300 and a pickup truck and trailer from his former FCI-Englewood cellmate John Alderman.

Alderman, a doctor convicted of tax evasion, said he had just been released from prison and needed help getting on his feet. He asked Kimball to pick up the truck and trailer, which he planned to live in, and to cash his $7,300 check since he had no bank account.

Alderman, 69, never saw Kimball again.

No charges were pressed.

Kaysi McLeod's driver's license photo

Kaysi's driver's license photo, copied by Westminster police

Kaysi McLeod is charged with felony theft and forgery after admitting to buying more than $3,400 worth of merchandise with a stolen credit card, according to Westminster police.

She went on her alleged week-long shopping spree starting in late February 2003.

Scott Kimball, according to the victim in the case, took Kaysi into a room for 45 minutes when she was first accused of the theft. She emerged from the room and admitted to using the card fraudulently.

Kimball's Denver mugshot. (Courtesy of Denver police)

Kimball's Denver mugshot. (Courtesy of Denver police)

At the behest of FBI Special Agent Carle Schlaff, Scott Kimball is arrested in Denver on suspicion of violating his probation from his 1999 forgery case in Spokane, Wash.

A warrant had been issued three weeks earlier, accusing Kimball of failing to report to a supervisor with the Washington Department of Corrections.

Lori McLeod, then Kimball’s girlfriend, says Schlaff deliberately disabled Kimball’s Jeep so Denver police could swoop in on him and arrest him. She says it was Schlaff’s way of reminding Kimball who was boss in their agent-informant relationship.

Kimball was taken to Denver County Jail.

Jennifer Marcum in 2001. (Courtesy of Bob Marcum)

Jennifer Marcum in 2001. (Courtesy of Bob Marcum)

Behind bars at Denver County Jail, Scott Kimball tells his FBI handler, Carle Schlaff, that a drug dealer had strangled Jennifer Marcum, who’d been missing for four months.

Kimball had even seen pictures of her body — hands and legs bound, mouth taped shut — on the drug dealer’s laptop, he says. In fact, the killer offered to pay Kimball to find Jennifer’s corpse and remove her breast implants and IUD so the serial numbers couldn’t be used to identify her remains.

Kimball tells Schlaff he can help catch the killer.

fbiThe FBI reactivates Kimball’s status as a “cooperating witness” 10 days after his release from Denver County Jail.

Carle Schlaff, from his Facebook page. (Facebook.com)

FBI Agent Carle Schlaff files an affidavit in federal court in Denver seeking a warrant to search Jennifer Marcum’s car, which was found abandoned at DIA earlier in the year.

“The whereabouts of Jennifer Marcum cannot be determined and there is probable cause to believe that she is a victim of a homicide,” Schlaff concludes.

He notes that Scott Kimball had contact with Jennifer before her disappearance but doesn’t finger him as a suspect.

Read Carle Schlaff’s affidavit here. (PDF)

Kimball's rental property in Adams County. (Lafayette police)

Kimball's rental property in Adams County. (Lafayette police)

The FBI pays Scott Kimball $2,000 in relocation expenses so he can move from his Lakewood condo to a home in rural Adams County, at 14701 Huron St.

Kimball moves into the new property with his girlfriend, Lori McLeod, and her daughter, Kaysi.

Three weeks later, the FBI pays Kimball another $500 to cover expenses at his new house.

Scott Kimball is issued a Colorado driver’s license under the name Joseph Lee Scott, his FBI alias.

Motel6

The Motel 6 in Thornton, where Kaysi McLeod stayed. (John Aguilar/Camera)

Scott Kimball shows up at his girlfriend Lori McLeod’s work with a vial filled with white crystals, claiming he found it at their home.

McLeod decides that her 19-year-old daughter, Kaysi McLeod, who has struggled with meth addiction, needs to talk to police.

After a fight at home, Kaysi goes outside with Kimball and ends up leaving on her bike. She ends up at a Motel 6 in Thornton, where she gets a room with her boyfriend.

Kimball assures McLeod that her daughter just needs time on her own.

Kaysi McLeod, pictured on a memorial Web site. (respectance.com)

Kaysi McLeod, pictured on a memorial Web site. (respectance.com)

Scott Kimball comes by the Motel 6 in Thornton, Colo., where Kaysi McLeod is staying with her boyfriend, Celestino Bovill.

After chatting with the couple in their room, Kimball offers to take Kaysi to her 6 p.m. shift at a Subway in Broomfield.

Kaysi leaves with Kimball in a pickup truck, with trailer attached, that he had stolen from fellow federal prison inmate John Alderman the previous spring.

Kaysi McLeod is never heard from again.

Scott Kimball, an avid outdoorsman and hunter, insisted he’d been alone in the mountains scouting out bow-hunting grounds the night Kaysi McLeod disappeared. (Courtesy of Rob McLeod)

Scott Kimball, an avid outdoorsman and hunter, insisted he’d been alone in the mountains scouting out bow-hunting grounds the night Kaysi McLeod disappeared. (Courtesy of Rob McLeod)

Scott Kimball’s cell phone goes dead from 8:15 p.m. Aug. 23 through 4:38 p.m. Aug. 24.

When he turns his phone back on, its signal is picked up by a tower near Walden, Colo. A receipt later found in his belongings also shows that he bought pasta, meat, lighter fluid and spaghetti sauce at the North Park Supers market in Walden on Aug. 24.

When Kimball’s girlfriend Lori McLeod — frantic that her daughter Kaysi never showed up for work the night before — finally gets a hold of Kimball, he insists he’d been in the mountains alone, scouting out bow-hunting grounds.

He denies picking Kaysi up from her motel the night before, but he pledges to help McLeod track down her daughter.

Red Mountain RV Park. (struck.us/bikepics)

Red Mountain RV Park. (struck.us/bikepics)

On Kaysi McLeod’s birthday, her mother is honeymooning with Scott Kimball at Red Mountain RV Park in Kremmling, Colo. But the new bride can’t get her mind off her daughter, missing for three weeks.

“Happy 20th birthday sweet love,” Lori McLeod writes in her diary. “I hope wherever you are, you are enjoying your day. I miss you and wish I could celebrate with you. Anticipating your arrival 20 years ago today, I was in the most severe pain I thought I would ever feel. That would also not be the last time I would be wrong in my life.”

McLeod would later learn that her new husband had murdered her daughter, and that their honeymoon camping trip took place less than 30 miles from the spot where she was left to rot.

Scott Kimball starts Faith Farms, a Westminster-based beef company. He buys cattle on Colorado’s Eastern Plains and sells them at auction.

Alaska mugA federal judge in Denver sentences Scott Kimball to three years of supervised release as part of his plea deal in the 2001 Alaska check-fraud case.

Judge Marcia S. Krieger agrees to give Kimball a minimal sentence on his fifth felony, recognizing that he has been helpful in his cooperation with the government.

She orders him to pay Wells Fargo $8,287.94 in restitution, and chastises him for failing to be forthcoming about his personal finances even as he accepts “substantial funds” from the FBI.

Krieger says Kimball’s actions smack of an attitude of “I’m happy to turn other people in, but I don’t want to be held fully accountable for my own behavior.”

He is also barred from owning firearms.

Read a transcript of the sentencing hearing. (PDF)

The trailer that Scott Kimball stole from his former fellow FCI-Englewood inmate John Alderman burns to the ground on Kimball’s Adams County property.

It was the same trailer that Kimball picked Kaysi McLeod up on the day she disappeared, according to her boyfriend.

Emergency officials deem the trailer fire accidental, but years later a witness — one of Kimball’s business associates — tells police Kimball intentionally burned it to destroy any evidence that Kaysi might have been in it and also to collect insurance money.

Kimball's Adams County rental property, where his 10-year-old son was hurt. (Paul Aiken/Camera)

Kimball's Adams County rental property, where his 10-year-old son was hurt. (Paul Aiken/Camera)

Scott Kimball’s 10-year-old son is severely injured when a 200-pound metal grate falls on him while playing on Kimball’s rural Adams County property.

Rather than waiting for paramedics, Kimball rushes his son to Louisville’s Avista Adventist hospital, but the boy falls from the Jeep en route, Kimball tells doctors.

Read More >>

Terry Kimball with his dogs Badger, Dutch and Matilda in 1997. Dutch and Matilda, left, accompanied “Uncle Terry” on his trip to Colorado. (Courtesy of Karen Johnson)

Terry Kimball with his dogs Badger, Dutch and Matilda in 1997. Dutch and Matilda, left, accompanied “Uncle Terry” on his trip to Colorado. (Courtesy of Karen Johnson)

Upon hearing that his nephew Scott Kimball’s eldest son has been critically injured, Terry Kimball, 60, comes to Colorado to visit.

He ends up staying to work with Scott Kimball’s beef business, Faith Farms, and moves into his nephew’s Adams County home. 

(Date is approximate.)

Terry Kimball at Montana's Lake Como, 1996. (Courtesy of Karen Johnson)

Terry Kimball at Montana's Lake Como, 1996. (Courtesy of Karen Johnson)

Someone begins kiting checks on Terry Kimball’s account.

The activity continues through Nov. 18, 2004, and totals $23,083 in the end.

Terry Kimball’s bank, MBNA America, filed a suspicious activity report with the FBI’s Denver office, but it’s unclear when the report was made or whether the bureau did anything about it.

Scott Kimball was not charged in the theft, but a teller identified him as the person who presented the last check on Nov. 18, according to police records.

Terry Kimball

(Camera file photo)

“Uncle Terry” Kimball goes missing a few weeks after moving in with his nephew, Scott Kimball.

Scott Kimball’s wife, Lori McLeod, recalls coming home one day in late August or early September to find her couch sitting outside, drenched in what looked like vomit.

Scott Kimball says one of the dogs threw up on the couch, but McLeod suspects “Uncle Terry” and asks where he is.

Scott Kimball claims his uncle won the Ohio lottery and cruised down to Mexico with a stripper named Ginger.

(Posting date is approximate.)

Terry Kimball at Christmas dinner in 2000. Kimball was an expert in the kitchen and a green thumb in the garden, his ex-wife recalls. (Courtesy of Karen Johnson)

Terry Kimball at Christmas dinner in 2000. (Courtesy of Karen Johnson)

By Labor Day, Terry Kimball’s wife, Karen Johnson, hasn’t seen her husband for six weeks.

Knowing that he’s taken off on his own before, she begins to suspect he’s run off with another woman.

Johnson calls Scott Kimball’s house and hears the story that “Uncle Terry” won the lottery and left the country.

She tries to corroborate the story, but eventually files for divorce.

No one reports Terry Kimball missing.

Scott Kimball starts Rocky Mountain All Natural Beef with his mother, Barb Kimball, and brother, Brett Kimball. It is headquartered at 801 S. Public Road in Lafayette.

(Date is approximate.)

Posing as his missing uncle Terry Kimball, Scott Kimball buys 21 head of cattle from High Plains Livestock Exchange in Brush, Colo., for $11,617.50.

The check bounces.

High Plains filed a complaint against Terry Kimball with the Department of Agriculture two months later.

High Plains' complaint against 'Terry Kimball.' (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

High Plains' complaint against 'Terry Kimball.' (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

Read the full complaint (PDF).

Lori McLeod (Mark Leffingwell/Camera)

Lori McLeod (Mark Leffingwell/Camera)

Adams County authorities arrest Lori McLeod on suspicion of third-degree assault, criminal mischief and domestic violence after her husband, Scott Kimball, claims she threw a vacuum cleaner at him and threatened to kill him.

Kimball gets a restraining order against her.

McLeod says he lied about the incident.

Read Lori McLeod’s arrest report (PDF).

Still married to Lori McLeod, Scott Kimball starts dating 25-year-old Melissa Anderson, a waitress at a Perkins restaurant in Westminster.

Anderson later described Kimball as “gentleman-like” but also said he had an appetite for rough sex, including bondage.

(Date is approximate.)

Lori McLeod is arrested in Adams County for violating a restraining order that her husband, Scott Kimball, got against her after claiming she hit him with a vacuum cleaner.

McLeod says Kimball lied about the attack and wanted her in jail so he could bring his new girlfriend, Melissa Anderson, over to the house.

Read Lori McLeod’s arrest report (PDF).

Bob Marcum holds a picture of his daughter at age 8. (Kristen Schmid Schurter/for the Camera)

Bob Marcum holds a picture of his daughter at age 8. (Kristen Schmid Schurter/for the Camera)

After trying for more than a year to find the man with their daughter’s belongings, Bob Marcum and Mary Willis fly to Denver and put up fliers of Jennifer Marcum all over town.

Bob Marcum talks again with FBI Special Agent Carle Schlaff, pushing for information about the man with Jennifer’s furniture.

Schlaff won’t give up the man’s name, but eventually gives Marcum a cell-phone number for Scott Kimball.

Ask for Joe Snitch, the agent says.

(Date is approximate.)

The contract found in Scott Kimball's possession, apparently meant for Mary Willis. (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

The contract found in Scott Kimball's possession, apparently meant for Jennifer Marcum's mother, Mary Willis. He used his FBI alias, Joe Scott, although his handler at the bureau introduced him as Joe Snitch. (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

Hoping to find out more from the man who has their daughter’s furniture, Jennifer Marcum’s parents meet with Scott Kimball, whom they know only as ‘Joe Snitch,’ at Broomfield’s North Midway Park.

Joe Snitch tells Bob Marcum and Mary Willis that Jennifer had been murdered, and he knows who did it and where they left her body. He tells Willis that if she’ll let him into her hotel room that night, he can demonstrate how Jennifer was killed.

Read More >>

Jennifer Marcum. (Courtesy of Bob Marcum)

Jennifer Marcum. (Courtesy of Bob Marcum)

Jason Price, an alleged associate in Steve Ennis’ drug ring, tells the FBI that he suspects Scott Kimball was involved in the disappearance of Jennifer Marcum.

Two years earlier, Kimball had told the FBI that Price killed Jennifer and showed him pictures of her dead body.

Price says he only recently realized that Jennifer had gone missing.

Less than two weeks after meeting “Joe Snitch” in a Broomfield park, Jennifer Marcum’s mother, Mary Willis, records a phone conversation with Scott Kimball, referring to him as Joe.

Willis demands to know more about Jennifer but says she won’t strip naked and let Kimball demonstrate how her daughter was killed.

“You had your chance,” says Kimball, who wanted Willis to sign a contract allowing him to have sex with her in an effort to re-create Jennifer’s murder.

Read More >>

Scott Kimball rented this Lafayette house, at 12632 Flagg Drive, in the fall of 2005. (Cliff Grassmick / Camera)

Scott Kimball rented this Lafayette house, at 12632 Flagg Drive, in the fall of 2005. (Cliff Grassmick / Camera)

Scott Kimball moves from the Adams County home he shared with Lori McLeod to a small rental at 12632 Flagg Drive in Lafayette.

His landlord, Wendy Phillips, said Kimball was “adorable” and a “perfect tenant,” until his rent checks started to bounce.

(Date is approximate.)

A trailer reported stolen by Scott Kimball. (Courtesy Lafayette police)

A trailer reported stolen by Scott Kimball. (Courtesy Lafayette police)

Scott Kimball goes to the Lafayette Police Department to report that his white box trailer — filled with grilling equipment and coolers — has been stolen from outside his office at 801 S. Public Road.

He later collects $10,000 in insurance claims on the trailer.

Using pilfered personal financial information from family friend and Lafayette optometrist Cleve Armstrong, Scott Kimball begins moving thousands of dollars over the phone from Armstrong’s money market account to Armstrong’s checking account.

Over the next three weeks, he transfers $83,000 between accounts, then uses several accomplices to forge nearly $55,000 worth of checks to Kimball’s companies: Rocky Mountain All Natural Beef and Rocky Mountain Cattle Company.

When Armstrong returns from vacation in mid-January, he will immediately point police in the direction of Kimball, who had an office in the basement of the 801 S. Public Road building shared by Armstrong and Kimball’s mother.

Winchester RifleMelissa Anderson, Scott Kimball’s 25-year-old girlfriend, buys him a .22-caliber Winchester Model 70 rifle at a Wal-Mart in Thornton for $437.

Anderson, of Thornton, fills out the paperwork, and Kimball lays out the cash.

He told Anderson he would teach her how to hunt, but once she buys the gun she never hears from him again.

Once Lafayette optometrist Cleve Armstrong calls police about his missing money, Scott Kimball leaves the state.

He ends up in California’s Coachella Valley, where he stays in a rented casita with Denise Pierce, his 31-year-old girlfriend.

Lafayette police detective Gary Thatcher stands in front of the 801 S. Public Road building that in 2005 housed the offices of Cleve Armstrong, Barb Kimball and Scott Kimball. (Kasia Broussalian/Camera)

Lafayette police detective Gary Thatcher stands in front of the 801 S. Public Road building that in 2005 housed the offices of Cleve Armstrong, Barb Kimball and Scott Kimball. (Kasia Broussalian/Camera)

Lafayette police detective Gary Thatcher is assigned to investigate the Cleve Armstrong check-fraud case.

He starts looking for Kimball, but to no avail.

Scott Kimball’s basement office at 801 S. Public Road. (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

Scott Kimball’s basement office at 801 S. Public Road. (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

Lafayette police detective Gary Thatcher searches the basement of 801 S. Public Road in Lafayette, where Scott Kimball had been running a beef business.

He finds sheets of practice signatures; bogus subpoenas regarding the assault case against Kimball’s wife; and a counterfeit lien release for a Jeep — complete with company letterhead and an altered seal from his mother’s notary stamp — that Kimball had used to cash in on insurance proceeds after wrecking the vehicle the previous month.

Kaysi McLeod, at 16. (Courtesy of Rob McLeod)

Kaysi McLeod, at 16. (Courtesy of Rob McLeod)

In investigating Scott Kimball for stealing $55,000 from optometrist Cleve Armstrong, Lafayette police Detective Gary Thatcher interviews Kimball’s now-estranged wife, Lori McLeod, and learns that her daughter has been missing for more than two years.

Lori McLeod says she has long suspected that her husband played a role in Kaysi’s disappearance.

Equipment reported stolen along with the trailer. (Courtesy Lafayette police)

Equipment reported stolen along with the trailer. (Courtesy Lafayette police)

Lafayette police detective Gary Thatcher finds the trailer reported stolen by Scott Kimball the previous December hidden at Kimball’s former Adams County home.

Kimball had already collected $10,000 in insurance claims.

Kaysi's schedule. (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

Kaysi's schedule. (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

In a box belonging to her estranged husband, Lori McLeod find her daughter’s hand-written work schedule for the week she went missing.

McLeod takes it to the Lafayette Police Department, which is already investigating Scott Kimball for check fraud.

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 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.

Read More >>

Alaska mugScott Kimball is sentenced in federal court in Denver to 10 months in jail and six months in a halfway house for violating his supervised release in the 2001 Alaska check-fraud case.

He’d been arrested on a federal warrant in the case after a car chase and standoff in California two months earlier.

A billboard of Jennifer Marcum outside Shotgun Willie's. (Courtesy of Bob Marcum)

A billboard of Jennifer Marcum outside Shotgun Willie's. (Courtesy of Bob Marcum)

Jennifer Marcum’s parents unveil a billboard outside of Shotgun Willie’s, the Glendale strip club where their missing daughter worked.

The billboard attracts media coverage, and in an interview with Denver’s Westword newspaper, Bob Marcum intentionally mentions Scott Kimball as an acquaintance of Jennifer’s.

Marcum had learned Kimball’s real name shortly after his surreal meeting with “Joe Snitch.”

Rob McLeod (Mark Leffingwell/for the Camera)

Rob McLeod (Mark Leffingwell / Camera)

Reading a Westword article about a billboard erected for Jennifer Marcum, Rob McLeod spots Scott Kimball’s name.

McLeod’s ex-wife is still married to Kimball, who lived with their 19-year-old daughter, Kaysi McLeod, when she went missing three years earlier.

McLeod calls Jennifer’s father, Bob Marcum, who mentioned Kimball’s name to the Westword reporter as an acquaintance she stayed with before vanishing.

“Now we’ve got two people missing, and there’s only one commonality — Scott Kimball,” McLeod said.

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

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.

Terry Kimball in 2002. (Courtesy of Karen Johnson)

Terry Kimball in 2002. (Courtesy of Karen Johnson)

Bob Marcum, who has flown out to Colorado, meets with Rob and Lori McLeod to search for clues to their daughters’ whereabouts.

They drive to Scott Kimball’s former condo in Lakewood, where Jennifer had left her furniture, and talk to the manager there.

They scope out his former Adams County property, and a nearby field where Kimball had run cattle. A pit on the property contains the bones of slaughtered cows.

Convinced that Kimball has claimed more victims, Marcum asks the others: “Is there anyone else Scott Kimball has been around who you’ve never seen again?”

In fact, Lori McLeod responds, Scott’s uncle Terry had vanished a couple of years ago after living with them for several weeks.

“She said it like she had never thought about it before,” Marcum said.

(Date is approximate.)

Bob Marcum mug

Bob Marcum.

Rob McLeod.

Rob McLeod.

Bob Marcum and Rob McLeod meet with Lafayette police Detective Gary Thatcher, who is investigating Kimball for check fraud, about their missing daughters.

They ask to have a bone pit on Kimball’s cattle pasture searched for human remains, but police find nothing.

The two fathers also meet with the FBI at the bureau’s Denver office and explain the similarities in their daughters’ cases. They tell the FBI about Terry Kimball, too, saying they don’t buy that he ran off to Mexico.

“You can look into this and see if it goes anywhere, or you can choose not to,” McLeod tells the bureau. “It’s your choice.”

The receipt. (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

The receipt. (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

FBI Special Agent Jonny Grusing and Lafayette police Detective Gary Thatcher find a receipt from North Park Supers grocery store, dated Aug. 24, 2003 — the day after Kaysi McLeod vanished — in boxes of old documents and receipts belonging to Scott Kimball.

They also find Kaysi’s date book and a map of the North Park area.

Winchester RifleScott 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.

Investigators found this photo of LeAnn Emry on Kimball's laptop but did not yet know who it was. (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

Investigators found this photo of LeAnn Emry on Kimball's laptop but did not yet know who it was. (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

In a search of Scott Kimball’s Toshiba laptop, the FBI finds a search of the term “Jennifer Marcum missing” and pictures of various women, including LeAnn Emry, although investigators don’t yet know who she is.

They also find 291 graphic images “depicting women clothed and unclothed, being assaulted, forced into violent sexual activities or raped, bound and gagged, feigning or posing as being dead and threatened at gunpoint or knife point.”

The search finds that Kimball logged into Internet sex sites as “Beefman1996″ and visited multiple rape video Web sites, including “Brutally Raped Young Girls,” “Rape Island TGP,” and “Japanese Girl Rape.”

Read the search-warrant affidavit. (PDF)

Routt National Forest, where a hunter found a human skeleton in September 2007. (Courtesy of Rob McLeod)

Routt National Forest, where a hunter found a human skeleton in September 2007. (Courtesy of Rob McLeod)

Bushwhacking through a dense section of Routt National Forest in the shadow of Little Haystack Mountain, a hunter finds a human skeleton.

“If I hadn’t been at that exact spot at that time of the morning with the sun glinting off the skull, I would not have seen it,” said the hunter, a Brighton resident who asked that his name not be used. “Something happened. Somebody wanted me to find it.”

With snow in the forecast, the hunter ties a rope to a tree to mark his find, packs the skull carefully in his backpack, and continues his trek.

He calls 911 the next day, and the Jackson County coroner takes possession of the remains, thought to belong to a young woman.

The Sheriff’s Office writes up a full report, and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation is notified, but news of the find doesn’t reach the FBI for six months.

Steven Holley

Steven Holley

FBI Special Agent Jonathan Grusing and Lafayette police detective Gary Thatcher interview Steven Holley at the federal prison in Florence, Colo.

They learn that his girlfriend, LeAnn Emry, had been with Scott Kimball in the month before she disappeared on Jan. 29, 2003.

Holley, who spent time in the same unit as Kimball at FCI-Englewood in 2002, said Kimball went by the name “Hannibal.”

Scott Kimball pleads guilty in federal court in Denver to one count of possessing a firearm as a felon. He is scheduled for sentencing five months later.

The receipt, found in a box of Kimball's belongings. (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

The receipt, found in a box of Kimball's belongings. (Courtesy of Lafayette police)

Nagged by a $17.95 grocery store receipt found in Scott Kimball’s possessions, FBI Special Agent Jonathan Grusing decides to take a closer look around Walden, Colo.

The receipt — dated Aug. 24, 2003, one day after the disappearance of Kaysi McLeod. — came from the North Park Supers store in the tiny northern Colorado mountain town.

Scott Kimball, who said he was alone in the mountains the day Kaysi disappeared, had later told Grusing that she might have overdosed on drugs somewhere on national forest land.

Grusing calls the Routt National Forest district office in Walden to ask for a map of the area, and a receptionist tells him it costs $8.

In no mood to fill out an expense sheet, Grusing asks to talk to someone higher up the chain of command.

He tells supervisor Sue Yeager he’s with the FBI and is searching for human remains. She says she’ll get some maps out right away.

Then, almost as an afterthought, she tells him to talk to the coroner. A skull, likely belonging to a young female, had been discovered by a hunter six months earlier in a remote area southwest of town.

“When she told me that, I pretty much knew it was Kaysi,” Grusing recalls.

An initial DNA analysis 2 1/2 weeks later will point to the same conclusion.

Lafayette police detective Gary Thatcher, left, and FBI Special Agent Jonathan Grusing, near the site where a hunter discovered Kaysi McLeod's body. (Courtesy of Rob McLeod)

Lafayette police detective Gary Thatcher, left, and FBI Special Agent Jonathan Grusing, near the site where a hunter discovered Kaysi McLeod's body. (Courtesy of Rob McLeod)

A final DNA analysis at the FBI’s lab in Quantico, Va., identifies the remains found in Routt National Forest the previous fall as those of Kaysi McLeod.

Investigators, along with Kaysi’s family, will return to the site looking for evidence, but nothing is uncovered.

The vacant Adams County home where Kimball once lived. (Paul Aiken / Camera)

The vacant Adams County home where Kimball once lived. (Paul Aiken / Camera)

In a search of Scott Kimball’s former Adams County home, at 14701 Huron St., investigators find bloodstains in the living-room carpet, carpet pad and floorboards. They cut out samples and sent them to the FBI lab for analysis.

Lori McLeod sits near her daughter's headstone at Crown Hill Cemetery in Wheat Ridge in December 2009. The family was still waiting for the FBI to release Kaysi's remains. (Mark Leffingwell / Camera)

Lori McLeod sits near her daughter's headstone at Crown Hill Cemetery in Wheat Ridge in December 2009. (Mark Leffingwell / Camera)

Lori McLeod’s marriage to Scott Kimball is declared invalid.

Married since Aug. 31, 2003, the couple had separated years earlier.

Kimball's mug shot. (Rocky Mountain News)

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.

Vail Pass. (colorado-counties.com)

Vail Pass. (colorado-counties.com)

Scott Kimball draws authorities a detailed map to the spot near Vail Pass where he left his uncle Terry Kimball’s body. But a search will have to be postponed until the snow melts in the high country.

Kimball later tells FBI Special Agent Jonathan Grusing that Uncle Terry’s body — stashed in the woods in his clothing, tennis shoes and eyeglasses — is wrapped in a grey tarp bound by about 100 feet of nylon rope.

Garnett mug

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.

Read More >>

Lafayette optometrist Cleve Armstrong, who had been a Kimball family friend, succumbs to cancer.

Scott Kimball’s attempt to steal tens of thousands of dollars from Armstrong four years earlier led to an investigation that eventually brought Kimball to justice.

Scott Kimball is sentenced in federal court in Denver to 70 months in prison for possessing a firearm as a felon.

When Terry Kimball's body is returned to his family, he will be buried next to his parents in Lafayette Cemetery. (Paul Aiken / Camera)

When Terry Kimball's body is returned to his family, he will be buried next to his parents in Lafayette Cemetery. (Paul Aiken / Camera)

With the snow melted in Colorado’s high country, a search party follows a map drawn by Scott Kimball to a logging road near Vail Pass.

There, Lafayette police Detective Gary Thatcher finds Terry Kimball’s body wrapped in a gray tarp. He appears to have been shot through the head.

A bullet fragment found at the scene is later found to be consistent with Scott Kimball’s .40-caliber Firestar handgun.

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

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.

Read More >>

Kimball's DOC mugshot

Kimball's DOC mugshot

Scott Kimball is sent to Sterling Correctional Facility to start serving his 70-year prison term.

He could first be eligible for parole in 38.5 years, at age 81, according to the Colorado Department of Corrections.

“I won’t spend the rest of my life in prison, ” Kimball later told the Camera through his cousin. (See story.)

Those are the desperate words of a man with nothing left to do but “sit in prison and rationalize his sentence and minimize his crimes,” Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett responded.

Garnett said he’s confident Kimball will die in prison.

Kimball's DOC mugshot

Kimball's DOC mugshot

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver upholds Scott Kimball’s 70-month prison sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Kimball had challenged the June 11, 2009, sentence, claiming that his ownership of a rifle was legal under the “sporting exception” in federal law because he used the weapon to ward off coyotes targeting his cattle on his Adams County property.

But the appeals court found that Kimball had lied during his testimony at the sentencing hearing and that the evidence indicated he wasn’t using the rifle solely for sporting purposes.

Katharina Booth, in her Boulder office. (Paul Aiken / Camera)

Katharina Booth, in her Boulder office. (Paul Aiken / Camera)

In a search of Scott Kimball’s cell in the Sterling Correctional Facility, an FBI agent finds several fraudulent documents.

Claiming that Kimball used discovery from his own case to create the fake FBI papers from behind bars, Boulder County prosecutor Katharina Booth files a motion trying to prevent Kimball from accessing anymore hard-copy files.

She contends Kimball disseminated the doctored reports to the media in an effort to show that other people were involved in the deaths of his four victims.

The Camera received several of Kimball’s bogus documents in late 2009. One had the plural header “Federal Bureau of Investigations.” It featured a February 2006 interview with Steve Ennis at the federal prison in Beaumont, Texas. However, U.S. Bureau of Prisons officials said Ennis was never housed at the Beaumont facility. FBI Special Agent Jonny Grusing, who purportedly conducted the interview, was still nine months away from being assigned to the case.

Read one of the fake documents. (PDF)

In his first televised interview from prison, Scott Kimball tells Fox 31 News in Denver that he’s not a traditional serial killer, and there were reasons for every murder.

“I’m a cleaner,” he says. “I clean up somebody else’s mess. I make bad situations go away.”

He hints that he was involved in a vast criminal conspiracy that led to his victims’ deaths — a theory debunked by investigators — but insists he’s still a good person.

“Even a good guy can have a bad side,” he says. “We all make choices. I chose to be an outlaw.”

His only regret: “That I let my kids down.”

Kaysi McLeod is laid to rest in Wheat Ridge, 6 1/2 years after Scott Kimball murdered her, and a few weeks after the FBI returned her remains to her family.

About 200 friends and well-wishers — including Howard Emry and Bob Marcum, whose daughters Kimball also killed — attend a memorial service at Bethlehem Lutheran Church. Kaysi’s divorced parents, Lori and Rob McLeod, walk down the aisle together as their 19-year-old daughter’s flower-draped casket is wheeled toward the altar.

“Life was not always easy, but her glass was always half full,” says Mike Harmon, a Baptist pastor and Lori McLeod’s half-brother. “She knew the Lord. She’s with him today.”

Then, the congregation gathers graveside in Crown Hill Cemetery as Kaysi is placed in the ground.

 

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.”