- This is Ted Hoover, the prime suspect in the disappearance of teenager Ali Kemp who was last seen at the local pool where she works as a lifeguard. Hoover is currently under investigation after a witness said they saw a similar looking man at the pool at the time of the crime. - Everything points to this suspect.
He fits the description, drives the right car, and he even admits to being at the pool that day. But after hours of interrogation, Ted Hoover is released. But Ali Kemp's father Roger was sure they had the right suspect.
- I knew we had the guy. Not only did he really look like the person that we were looking for, but he had a history of abusing women. - But the truth is Ted Hoover is not his real name.
On June 18th, 2002, Ali's father went looking for his missing daughter at the community pool. At 5:30 PM, he found something disturbing under a tarp. - I saw something and I lift the tarp off, and it was Ali.
- There is a monster loose in our community and we need to get him off the streets. - He had started a fight with Ali, but I was gonna finish it. - The year is 2002.
19-year-old Ali Kemp is home for the summer after returning from college. Her parents live in a suburb called Leawood, considered one of the safest places in the state of Kansas where no one locks their door and nothing bad ever happens. The college student got a summer job as a lifeguard at the neighborhood swimming pool where she works with her brother.
On June 18th, 2002, Ali is expected for her shift. - It was a overcast day. It wasn't particularly warm, not a day you really go to the pool.
I went to work. Ali later went to the pool. And I got home about 5:20.
My son Tyler was on the phone with his mother and said that he had gone down to the pool to relieve Ali of her duties, couldn't find Ali. - Right away, Ali's father Roger drives down to the pool in a hurry to go look for his daughter. The first thing he notices his daughter's car is still in the parking lot.
- I looked in the pool, looked in the deep end, looked at the bottom. I looked around, I looked around the grounds. I went over to the baby pool, looked behind it.
- Roger notices his daughter's property was left on the counter, her purse, her cell phone, her car keys, but there's no trace of her. - I went into the pump room and couldn't see very well, and I looked around and I walked to the back of the pump room, I looked behind the pumps. And I was walking out and I turned around and saw a leg sticking out from under a tarp.
And I lift the tarp off, and it was Ali. - Roger is in shock. He doesn't know if his daughter is breathing or not, but he's doing everything he can to keep her alive.
- When I found her and I rolled her over, I couldn't, I couldn't believe how brutal it was. - The first responders find the 19-year-old lying naked on the concrete floor barely holding onto life. Ali is rushed to the hospital where she is joined by her family.
- Ali, most beautiful, innocent, sweetest thing did absolutely nothing to deserve this. - The day Ali was born, it was the happiest and I felt the luckiest day of my life. She was just a wonderful daughter.
- She was so kind and so sweet. She adored her parents. - The college student is every parent's dream, kind and loving.
She has perfect grades and excels in everything she tries. - Her high school year, she was involved in, like, 19 student activities. She was in the honor society.
She had all these things going for her. We'd felt for years that Ali was going to make a difference in this world. - As doctors do everything they can to save the young woman's life, at the crime scene, investigators are already focused on finding a suspect, but first they have to make sense of the evidence.
- That pump room was full of a lot of equipment and things. Everything was in disarray. Her flip-flops, what she was wearing, were in different parts of the pump room.
There was also blood spatter. It was very evident that Ali had tried to fight her attacker. She had several injuries to her fingers.
She had blunt force trauma to her face and the back of her head. - We don't know by just looking at the bloodstains, you know, is it all victim's blood? Could it be the suspect's blood?
- After running DNA tests on the blood, the results show it belongs to a male. It appears investigators now have the DNA from the attacker. However, after running the profile into their database, they find no match from anyone with a criminal record.
Their only option now is to find potential witnesses. Back at the hospital, Roger is waiting outside the operating room, uncertain if his daughter will survive. - All her friends and all the people from all over the city were showing up at the hospital.
They were just waiting and hoping, just thought she'd. . .
some chance she'd pull through. A doctor and a nurse came out, and the doctor that worked on her, and they tried and tried and said she was gone. - Ali Kemp died on June 18th, 2002.
She was only 19 years old. - Our hearts were broken beyond what anyone could ever imagine. It's just the most awful feeling in the whole world.
We went from the hospital to the funeral home, and they took Ali to the morgue. You're dealing with something you don't wanna be dealing with, but I went to the morgue and I spent the night at the morgue with Ali and I wasn't gonna let her be alone. - The news of the teenager's death spreads quickly across the community.
Everyone is in shock. - The entrance of Foxborough pool crowded with friends and neighbors paying their respects. Flowers and mementos pay tribute to a young life come to a violent end.
When we were out there covering the story, people just kept showing up. - And I hope they find him, the guy that did it, and I hope she didn't suffer long. - I have two kids, a little boy and a little girl.
You know, it makes. . .
You know, it's hard to explain, you know, how a mother feels. - Everybody knew Ali. She was so popular.
They just couldn't believe what had happened. There is a monster loose in our community and we need to get him off the streets. The first time I met Roger Kemp, his face was just the portrait of pain.
- The first week was just one long, horrendous day. Your mind runs everywhere, “Who was it? ” You know, “How could this happen?
Who could have done something like this? ” How you're going to ever get this predator tracked down? You have a choice whether you can stay in bed and pull the covers over your head or you get out and try to make something happen.
I had to keep moving. Well, I wanted this guy, and I had made a determination that he had started a fight with Ali, but I was gonna finish it. - I remember thinking Roger Kemp was an amazing father because he was so driven to find who did this to his daughter.
He was such a warrior and a champion for Ali. - Roger Kemp makes public appearances on TV doing everything he can to raise awareness for what happened to his daughter and hopefully help police catch the killer. Investigators have now switched into high gear as it went from an assault case to now, a violent murder.
They first have to eliminate the suspects closest to Ali. - In any type of case like this, you always have to eliminate family, close friends, boyfriends. That's gotta be done right away.
- One name on top of that list is Ali's boyfriend, Phil. After looking through her cell phone records, police find Ali had called her boyfriend at 2:50 PM just over two hours before she was found murdered. They learn that Phil, her boyfriend of five years, also works at the same pool and had covered the shift before Ali.
When they bring him in for questioning, the young man is visibly distraught, yet cooperative. - He's the last person we know that saw Ali alive. He had told us when interviewed that he had gone to another pool after he had left Ali.
He was asked for his DNA, and he did provide that. - Well, he was really grief-stricken. He was in shock by what had occurred.
- I'd say it's difficult most to deal with the way that Ali had to die. - Phil was a great guy. Roger will tell you when they asked is there any chance Phil could be involved, he said no way.
Phil was 19 years old. They'd been dating for about five years. He loved Ali.
- After running the DNA tests, police find that Ali's boyfriend is not a match. He also told police that he was working at another pool at that time, which proved to be true. But while Phil's name is cleared, he does provide authorities with some valuable information.
According to Phil, his girlfriend had shared her concerns that she was being stalked. - She just said that she was a little worried about people. Like when she was by herself, she just said she was worried about people being around there and watching her.
- She had told her boyfriend that sometimes the people that mowed the grass and did the lawn and garden stuff made her uncomfortable because they stared at her. Her boyfriend came to the pool, and she asked him to stay because the lawn and garden people were there and she didn't feel comfortable. - Phil had stayed longer after his shift so Ali would feel safe, but around 2:15 PM she told him he could go because the workers were gone.
When police meet with the two lawn care workers who were there that day, they learned that a tan 1980s Ford pickup had circled the parking lot at least three or four times before taking off. But that's not all. The day before the attack, they saw a man lurking around the pool.
- Three witnesses said he was hiding in the bushes near the pool with a camera. - And appeared to be looking at the girls that were there sunbathing. - As the mystery behind the teenager's death begins to uncover, police get their biggest break yet.
One of the calls the young lifeguard had made that day was to a friend of hers. She had asked her to keep her company at the pool since she was now alone. What police find out is that her friend might have unknowingly crossed paths with the killer.
- At 3:15, her friend shows up at the pool. - She had pulled down into the parking lot, didn't wanna get out of her car, so she was just honking her horn to get Ali to come out from inside the little attendant table inside the pool. She noticed a male subject standing there.
Well, it wasn't anybody that she had described as ever having seen before. White male, probably in his 30s, little bit of hair, but basically balding. - He was carrying a pail and nodded to her and waved.
She got scared because she thought it was Ali's boss and she was gonna get Ali in trouble for honking the horn and all that stuff, so she left. - Right away, the friend is brought to the police station to meet with a sketch artist. The picture is then shared with every news outlet in the city, along with the description of the Ford pickup truck.
- She was brutally murdered yesterday afternoon. We have a description of that individual, and you will be caught. - More than 20 Metro Squad detectives are on the case.
They're not sure if the man in the bushes and the one seen at the pool the day of the murder are the same person. - Armed with a stack of more than a 1,000 copies of the sketch police released today, Ali Kemp's friends are spending hours putting them up all over town. Since her murder one week ago, calls have been coming into the hotline, but now that these sketches are out in the public eye, the phone just keeps ringing.
- Within the first couple of days, police receive over 400 leads. Everyone in the community is paying attention to this case and doing their best to find the killer. But the tips are not producing any results.
It's now July 2002. Roger Kemp and his family offer a reward for any information that would lead to the Killer. - TIPS hotline has a $1,000 reward for information that leads to a conviction.
But Roger Kemp felt like we need more, we need to get these tips coming in, and so he just kept raising more and more money, and eventually he raised $50,000. - Roger Kemp is doing everything he can to keep his daughter's case in the public eye. - We don't wanna be off just a little bit because in your minds you think, "Oh, well, it might not be it," you know, just because it's off just a hair.
Please call in those leads. - We just needed to catch this guy. We did not want him to victimize anyone else.
- It doesn't take long that the search goes national. As the sketch is shared with every major news outlet in the country, the Kansas State Police receive calls about possible suspects from every part of the country, but with very little success. - Who knows where the guy could have gone by this point.
- February 2003, it's been over eight months since Ali's murder and the killer is still on the loose with no solid leads until a familiar name comes up, James Strader. - About three or four months into the investigation we got a initial lead on a James Strader who looked a lot like the composite. - James Strader is wanted in Missouri and Kansas for brutal rapes and in Leawood, Kansas for questioning about the Ali Kemp murder.
- Not only did he really look like the person that we were looking for, but he had a history of abusing women. And he became a real person of interest because he took off running. - We need to get him into custody.
- To question him in connection with Ali's murder and to get this three-time convicted felon behind bars. - Breaking news comes when James Strader is arrested after a routine police stop in a Utah town. Their suspect is finally in custody.
- Your driver's license and registration, please. - James Strader was pulled over in Richfield last night. - You didn't get gas in Salina?
- No. - His arrest came after he allegedly skipped out on paying for gas at this station. - I can see the pump from here and he was the only car out there, and he just took off.
- She called police, and a few minutes later Strader pulled into this service station in Richfield. Richfield police were waiting for him. - Detective Langer, who has been waiting for this moment, flies down himself to meet Strader.
- I went out with the detectives from the Sheriff's Office and spoke with Strader, and he said he didn't do it. - The detective has heard Strader deny his involvement in Ali's murder before, but he doesn't care. All he's after is Strader's DNA.
Right away, Langer sends the sample to the lab for testing, but when the results come back, the news is devastating. James Strader is not Ali's killer. - It wasn't him.
We were totally shocked. - I could not believe my ears. Everybody was just absolutely certain.
- Well, I thought that I will never get this high or this low again. You drop to the depths when you don't catch who you're looking for. - Roger throughout the investigation was extremely afraid that the case would go cold.
- I met families that had terrible tragedies and lost their loved ones and they'd turned into a cold case, and it was just, it just breaks your heart, and my heart was already broken. It's just a place you don't wanna be. - In homicide investigations, time is the enemy.
Studies show that if a murder case remains unsolved for more than six months, the likelihood of it ever being solved drops by nearly 50%. With each passing day, the chances grow exponentially, leaving countless families in the dark, desperate for justice, much like hundreds and thousands of unsolved murder cases across the world. It's June 18th, 2003, one year to the day after his daughter's murder.
Roger is doing everything he can to not lose hope, but the amount of new leads has grown thin. It's becoming clear that Ali's case is slowly being forgotten by the public. - I was driving down the Interstate and I saw a billboard.
You have all these eyes that are looking at the billboard, you know, thousands, thousands a day. And I thought, well, why not? Why couldn't we do this on a billboard?
- That's the only time anybody's ever come in and say, "I want billboards to try to help find the person who killed my daughter. " - It was a groundbreaking idea. At the time, that kind of thing wasn't being done.
- To be honest with you, I didn't think it was gonna work. - That people have driven by 'em in some cases and they finally make that phone call and they say, "You know, we think maybe you better look at this guy. " And it just, you can't put a value on that.
- I remember just feeling so sad passing those billboards on the highway and knowing he was still out there, but everyone was so hopeful that someone driving by would see it and it would just jog their memory just a little bit that they saw something. - As soon as the billboard is put up, the leads start pouring in again, this time faster than before. It doesn't take long for police to receive a tip they've all been waiting for.
Multiple people call in about a man named Ted Hoover, who not only matches the description and drives an old tan pickup truck, but also owns a pool company. One of the callers give police Hoover's address. - I went up to the house and knocked on the door.
The maroon Ford pickup was sitting in the driveway. I went up and knocked on the door, and Mr Hoover answered the door. He couldn't say exactly what he was doing on the day of Ali's homicide.
Because of that, I asked him if he would be willing to provide us with some DNA. - But Hoover hesitates. He tells detectives he needs to speak to his lawyer before agreeing to give a DNA sample.
- Obviously, anytime somebody refuses to give you DNA, it makes you a little bit suspicious. - At first, Ted Hoover is just a lead like every other. But while police are waiting for a call from Hoover's lawyer, they learn that their suspect has fled the state.
- We tried our best to locate Ted Hoover throughout the United States, but he was not in any databases anywhere in the country. Basically, we couldn't find him. - Unseen’s mission is to bring the most powerful retellings of survival to light, and thanks to companies like BetterHelp, today’s video sponsor, we can keep bringing you more of these stories.
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- Investigators learn about a possible girlfriend of Ted Hoover who has recently moved to Connecticut. And when they contact the local post office, they confirm that a male is also living at her address under the name “Benjamin Appleby. ” It appears their suspect has changed his name.
They call the authorities in Connecticut and ask to put this Benjamin Appleby under surveillance. - They called back and said, "The ‘Teddy Hoover’ name, when we ran that through we've got some warrants here in Connecticut for indecent exposure on a Teddy Hoover. They're several years old.
It looks like it's probably gonna be the same Teddy Hoover guy that you guys were looking at. " - The Connecticut State Police agree to arrest on the indecent exposure warrant. - Appleby was arrested at this small home on a major thoroughfare in rural Litchfield County by Connecticut State Police on an outstanding warrant.
He's wanted here for risk of injury to a minor, disorderly conduct, and public indecency. Appleby was taken for questioning to the state police barracks. - It's November 8th 2004, more than two years after the murder of Ali Kemp, when finally detectives have their suspect in custody.
They are convinced they the right man, but without the DNA sample, nothing is certain. - Mr Appleby didn't want to give the DNA to the Connecticut detective. And he said, "What will happen if I don't do it, if I don't consent to this?
" And they said, "We'll get it one way or the other. " He eventually consented and they got his DNA. - But investigators aren't going to wait to get the test results back.
What they want is a confession. When Benjamin Appleby walks into the interrogation room where detectives from the Kansas State Police are waiting for him, they've staged the room to intimidate him. - We took a wall-sized poster and we put his picture right in the middle, and then around his picture we put everything we could think of with arrows pointing down to his picture as to why he's the focus of our investigation.
- They brought him up to us, and he sat down and his eyes got real big and he looked around and he kept looking at that link chart with his picture in the middle, and he said, "You know, I kind of lied to you. " And we said, "Really? About what?
" "Well, I was at that pool. I just remembered. " - Their plan works, far better than they had expected.
- Can you go ahead and tell us what you remember and what happened that day? - I went in there to the pool with the intentions of looking at the pool for, to get their business. - On June 18th, 2002, Ted Hoover, also known as Benjamin Appleby, drove into the parking lot of the Leawood local pool.
He had seen Ali Kemp from afar and decided to go hit on her. Because of his pool company uniform, he was convinced he wouldn't look suspicious. As Ali walked into the pump room, Hoover made his move.
- And I, uh, I hit on her. Small talk, I don't remember exactly what I said. She just didn't.
. . you know, wasn't interested in anything I had to say.
And I was blocking the doorway. - As Ali becomes suspicious of him, she tries to go around him and leave. This is when he grabbed her.
- I tried to hit on her. I reached, I touched her, not hard, nothing. Either on the shoulder or the hip or something.
She pushed me back and she punched me. I f***in’ lost it. I took her clothes off with the intention of trying to have sex with her.
I don't know how many times I hit her. I hit her back. I hit her in the face, I think.
- It was probably about 10 minutes into the interrogation with him, and my partner John Dickey said, "You killed her, didn't you? " And he said, "Yeah, I did. " - You said she was strangled.
I know I strangled her. I don't know what I strangled her with, and I don't know why I f***ing did it. - After Ali fell unconscious, he covered her body with a blue tarp found nearby and he left her for dead.
- I just laid it on her. I didn't want anybody to find her like that, but I didn't think she was dead. - They said, "We have a confession.
" And I heard all about the details and I knew we had the guy. He killed her so he wouldn't have a witness and he wouldn't go to jail again. - In November of 2005, Ted Hoover stands trial for the rape and first-degree murder of Ali Kemp, and on December 5th, after just two hours of deliberation, the verdict is in.
- On the first charge of capital murder, we the jury find the defendant guilty. - Benjamin Appleby guilty. The words Ali Kemp's friends and family have waited for ever since the woman's father found her beaten and strangled at the neighborhood pool where she worked that summer in 2002.
- We have justice. We just want him put away and never want him back on the streets again. - Benjamin Appleby, once known as Ted Hoover, is sentenced to 50 years to life without parole until 2054.
Although it will never bring back his daughter, Roger Kemp finally can put his beloved Ali to rest. - Roger was such a devoted father. We may never have solved this crime without Roger, be honest with ya.
Roger just never gave up. - He became the spokesperson for every father out there. - My wife and I realized that we never wanted this to happen to another little girl again.
We wanted to do a self-defense class for girls, and we call it T. A. K.
E. Defense, The Ali Kemp Educational Foundation. We had our first class in the basement of Leawood City Hall.
We had 12 people in it. We've had 68,000 people go through our classes now. And we have women that have contacted us and said, "Your program saved my life.
" I don't care how many people we teach, but if we teach 100,000 and we save one life, it's worth it. - Roger Kemp has also worked with law enforcement on a nationwide billboard campaign featuring the faces of wanted criminals. It has brought new hope for cases that have never been solved to support the families of those forgotten victims.
- I have never met a person like Roger Kemp. The president of the United States invited him to the White House and recognized him during a ceremony. - Roger Kemp lived every father's worst nightmare when his daughter Ali was taken at a young age.
Through immeasurable pain and grief, Roger devoted his energy to building a safer world for future generations. His foundation has provided women of all ages with valuable self-defense training, and his billboard campaign to post the faces of wanted criminals has led to multiple arrests, including the conviction of Ali's killer. The United States honors Roger Kemp for his unwavering efforts to ensure the safety of his fellow citizens.
[Applause] - This certainly is not the way we wanted Ali to make a difference in the world, but, you know, I'm very, very proud of her and I hope she would like what we're doing. Hope she'd be proud, and I think she would be. - They couldn't save Ali, but they have saved many women, and that's Ali's legacy.
