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.

(mexicobeachresorts.com)

Nearly a year after Terry Kimball’s disappearance, Scott Kimball’s father, Virgil Kimball, receives an e-mail at his Idaho home from terrylkimball@yahoo.com.

“In the e-mail, Terry claimed to be living in old Mexico with a woman named Ginger and added that Ginger liked living in Mexico,” FBI agent Johnny Grusing would later write in an affidavit. “Virgil recalled that supposedly Ginger never wanted to return to the United States, so Terry probably would not either.”

Police would trace the account to Scott Kimball’s computer two years later.

(Date is approximate.)

(Date is approximate.)

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.

Dillon Road, between U.S. 287 and 96th Street, where Kimball's son fell from his Jeep. (Paul Aiken/Camera)

After two weeks in a coma, Kimball’s son recovers enough to tell his own story: He remembers his father telling him to turn around and dig a hole near the grate before it fell, then pushing him by the face from the speeding Jeep.

Because of the boy’s head injuries, though, doctors say he’ll be an unreliable witness.

Boulder County prosecutor Katharina Booth suspects Kimball tried to kill his son, but she’s unable to build a provable case.

Employees at the Lafayette insurance office of Scott’s mother tell investigators that Barb Kimball changed her grandson’s life-insurance policy as soon as she heard about the accident. Scott Kimball had been the sole beneficiary.

One employee says Barb Kimball suspected her son tried to kill his own child to cash in on the $60,000 policy.

Read the full accident report. (PDF)

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?”

Main Street, Hamilton, Mont. (hamiltonmontana.com)

At the start of his freshman year, Scott Kimball moves to Hamilton, Mont., to live with his father and younger brother, Brett.

He attends Hamilton High School, in the town of 4,000 people an hour south of Missoula, but drops out as a senior.

(Date is approximate.)

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

(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.