the 5th of July 1998 Manhattan New York 82 year old Irene Silverman vanished never to be seen again she'd been brutally attacked in her home tasered then strangled in a bid to fraudulently seize the title to her multi-million dollar property he was an act of the most grotesque malevolence they dumped the body in a dumpster it is such a brutal act the two killers were a mother and son Duo 23 year old Kenny kimes and his 63 year old mother Sante she was a con artist who would stop at nothing to keep her crimes and the wraps most of her victims were obstacles as far as she was concerned that needed to be got out of the way there was something innately evil about her over the course of two years Sante kimes coerced her son Kenny into committing three murders she transformed him into a really evil person like her she was like a Black Widow and he became that way too even their own family were wary of them mom has always been dangerous but when Kenny became her partner she became really dangerous driven by greed they duped innocent victims out of thousands of dollars and brutally killed three people to maximize their ill-gotten gains making Sante and Kenny kimes two of the world's most evil killers [Music] [Music] wealthy New York socialized Irene Silverman vanished on the 5th of July 1998. her Killers Sante and Kenny kimes had already been linked to crimes in five separate U. S states following a trail of Fraud and suspected murder former NYPD Detective Tom hovigim was investigating Irene's murder they thought they were Untouchable they thought they were smarter than everyone else especially Santi Kenny physically did it but she gave the orders make no mistake about it by sheer coincidence on the same day as the murder of multi-million dollar heiress Irene the police already had a sting in place at a local hotel to capture the crimes for other crimes they'd been linked to they've later found out that they were being arrested for the bear check on the car and that was a big relief to them but little did they know we were also investigating them for Irene Silverman's murder the Elizabeth Taylor look-alike and Master of Disguise Sante Combs fall victims across the U.
S during her outlandish 43-year crime spree she used her powers of persuasion to Gate Crash parties with the Rich and Famous including U. S Vice President Gerald Ford she had at least 22 aliases all kinds of different Social Security numbers all kinds of different passports she was a million faces she lies so relentlessly to everyone it's a complete construct he knew how to make you feel like the most important person in the world it was fun everyone loved her she was the life of the party as evil as she is my mom was a walking contradiction her nation is evil and and the problem was that she was good at it she was a coercively controlling manipulator some people in going after that sense of power and that sense of control will stop at nothing to achieve it Sante Kim's Story begins on July the 24th 1934 in Oklahoma City Oklahoma she was born Sandra singers and had a brother and two sisters it was the time of a global economic downturn the Great Depression families like santes who lived off the land were struggling to feed themselves due to an intense drought in America's South there's a lot of poverty in society at this point in time and this is something that she will always be very conscious of throughout her life she came from quite a poor background her father was East Indian her mother was a Dutch migrant and it said that she experienced quite a lot of racism but it's very difficult to know what's true and what's fabrication because this woman was good at creating histories that didn't exist somehow they ended up in Los Angeles and her father my grandfather was kind of a con artist too from what we can think of now he left my grandmother on the streets in L. A basically basically homeless as far as We Know it was tough shown to your use of Steel from food stores she claimed that was part of her survival strategy she was very conscious early on of the huge disparity in wealth between people like her and people like the Hollywood set and so she became very conscious early on of the need to achieve some kind of material wealth and of course she became obsessed by it desperate to escape her poverty at the age of 13 Sante or Sandra she was baptized was given a lucky break an LA theater owner took a shine to her and arranged for their childless sister to adopt Sante Story Goes that actually her mother and her sister were quite happy to wave her off because she was quite a handful and I think with this new Mum and Dad she would have been doted on so I think any kind of narcissism that was developing in her would have been exacerbated even more [Music] the young Sante was now living in Nevada and moving her way up in the world her adopted father had a well-paid job in the Army and she was focused on getting good grades at school to climb up the social ladder she was terrified of being poor she was scarred by her childhood she's been described as quite pushy quite overbearing and it's said that she had only one female friend during her school days and this female friend was somebody who really looked up to her and this is quite significant to me because when you have a case of somebody who is a narcissist you often have a co-dependent her friend Ruth she decided to move back to California where they enrolled in journalism at College it was in Santa Barbara where Sante first tried her hand at fraud using the name of Ruth's future father-in-law Bruce Bruce start getting all these bills and what mom had done is gone down the local department store and charged thousands of dollars to his name for makeup perfumes clothes and stuff like that and that was the first thing that I know of that made mom's so sure what she really was on the 9th of May 1956 at the age of 21 Sante decided to marry her boyfriend Lee but when he got a job as a lowly paid teacher Sante filed for divorce after barely a year of marriage she was physically quite attractive but she was very much a parasite she would hook on to particular man get what she wanted and then she would just abandon them santane now focused on finding the next man in her life who could take her up in the world just a few months after her first marriage ended on the 9th of November 1957 she married an old high school sweetheart Ed Walker my dad was kind of like that puppy my dad was completely enamored with her he was his entire life she wanted him to quote some better himself so that she could be better too she spent extravagantly I mean she would spend thirteen thousand dollars one Christmas on Christmas presents he couldn't afford that there was no way that in the end it wouldn't drive Ed to distraction sansey wanted to be more than an average Suburban housewife she wanted to exude wealth so she began to reinvent herself ditching her birth name Sandra to make herself sound more exotic mom's name changed several times for her life um she started off as Sandy and then she decided she wanted her to be kind of French somewhere along the blinds to turn into Santee she went to Sante in 1962 Sensei found herself in a whole new role when their son Kent was born and she became mum but even this didn't deter her from her grifting ways it was sometimes she treated me like a king or Prince and and made me feel like the most important person in the world you know and her love was fierce you know so when you saw the bad stuff well well maybe other families like that I I didn't know it's all that I knew long after Kent's arrival the cracks in the marriage were beginning to show and Sensei had a string of affairs with her spending Sky High she resorted to new ways of funding her lifestyle making fraudulent insurance claims through arson one of my earliest memories would pull up the driveway and fire engines all over the place and set up the house and burned through the ground and I think that was a third or fourth fire it pretty much destroyed my father I mean everything that he would do was successful but she found a way to destroy it the local police would later nickname Sante the Drgon Lady because of the number of mysterious fires that were attached to her name she'd move with husband Ed and their young son Kent from Sacramento to escape the suspicions about the number of homes she'd burnt down what a wonderful scheme you just keep on setting fireplaces you claim the insurance you make more money she knew exactly what she was doing and why she was doing it because of Santa's obsessive need for material wealth she also continued with another compulsive criminal Pastime mama always thought I mean it was our shoplifting involvement I mean that was her little helper I didn't know I was a kid they're not trying to make excuse but it's all I knew that's mine in 1966 she was arrested three times you know in a five-day period She had no concept of right or wrong the police raided the family home and found credit cards that Santa had taken out under a number of fake aliases she faced 17 charges of Grand Theft but thanks to legal help provided by one of her boyfriends she walked away with nothing more than a petty fine meanwhile the Affairs continued her husband Ed it was the final straw I remember there in this huge argument that mom was going crazy and and she actually threw a knife at him I saw it stick in his arm there's times when he walked in the house and saw her in someone else's Embraces my parents divorced to destroyed my father he's a Broken Man and he never fully recovered with nobody to raid her in Santa's escapades escalated on the altercation that she did get caught out she would do whatever necessary to get out of her latest fix even exploiting her own seven-year-old son not too long after Mom and Dad split I was sitting on the hood of the car waiting for Mom mom came running out of the dress shop and uh this lady was chasing her and she said get in the car get in the car lady came up and actually grabbed Mom's arm you're shoplifting we saw you put that dress in that bag so what Mom did is she stood up for a minute and she didn't say a word and she clenched her fist and round houses me and gets me right in the lip split my lip wide open I still have the scar cops got there and Mom started screaming this [ __ ] hit my son this [ __ ] hit my son and long story short the cops end up arresting her for hitting me now officially free and single Sante was determined to claim the social ladder to do this she knew she had to marry into wealth we call those years mom searched for a millionaire I think we're broke and we live in a nice house and stuff but the refrigerator was Bare I mean I grew up on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a while you should give me lectures for hours and hours married for money you don't want to be broke you know that was her Mantra Sensei would use her looks to find herself her millionaire man my mother had a striking resemblance to Elizabeth Taylor and she paid it to the help she was always made up big black wigs and stuff like that um men were attracted to her and she was the type of woman and she walked into a room she got everyone's attention everyone's before long she set her sights on 52 year old Ken kimes a multi-million dollar property developer who'd struck it rich by building a chain of motels across the U.
S he was 16 years sante's senior Chen was worth our estimates at the time about 22 million bucks and this was in 1969 1970 okay so that's today's money is a lot more she's very manipulative in how she goes about Landing him so she finds out that his favorite color is white so she wears white all the time she finds out that he likes gardenias the flower so she has a perfume that smells of those flowers so she's doing everything that she can to appear very alluring to this man Sante engineered a meeting with her Newfound millionaire Ken was rather flattered a friend I think warned him at one point she's not up to much you know she's got a very dodgy record But Ken didn't mind she became more and more controlling and Ken comes fell into her web people regarded him as goofy he was a man who in spite of his relative success was obviously very unsure of himself what the Kim's family didn't have that they really wanted was high level status Sante prayed on these insecurities she cemented her role as his lover by creating something that would boost his ego she created a fictitious role for him as an ambassador sansey grifted herself and Ken kimes into a reception that the U. S presidential Guest House in Washington D. C they're photographed with Vice President Gerald Ford and then they'll go on to crash another three parties at other embassies only salty only shoe because we got away with it in spite of her many talents Ken seemed unwilling to commit to marriage now Sante was concerned about how she would get hold of his millions she had competition as Ken had children from his previous marriage she disdainfully referred to them as the creeps they see her as a predatory gold digger so it's going to be quite difficult for for her to actually get access to Ken's money what's the best way to get to somebody's money well it's to create an heir on the 24th of March 1975 Ken and Sante welcomed the sun Kenneth Kareem kimes known as Kenny into the world as he grew up Sante kept him isolated she used home tutors so that he didn't even have to go to school comes his early years would have been when he was Kenny almost becomes an extension of her and there's very much a co-dependent relationship that emerges so his existence his identity is very much premised on hers Kenny was The Golden Child I love him I mean he was a great little brother with played and stuff he was a great kid the first big change in the happy young Kenny was at the age of 10 when he witnessed his parents get arrested on the 12th of July 1985 the FBI raided their Las Vegas home Santa had been trafficking young Mexican girls across the border and imprisoning them in her home as slaves several had escaped accusing Sante of extreme physical abuse one of her so-called Maids claimed she was attacked with an iron it became obvious that something much more dangerous and criminal was going on behind the facade of respectability and money rather sad can climbs who was not young gets charged with 15 counts of slavery he did a deal with the prosecutors he got a three-year suspended prison sentence he had to enter an alcoholic treatment program because it was perfectly obviously the FBI that he was drunk a great deal at the time SanSai however was sentenced to five years in jail free from his mother's influence for the first time young Kenny started to experience a normal life he was allowed to go to school and make friends with his peers but by December 1989 after serving three years of her sentence Sante was back home she was quick to Reign Kenny in the coercively controlling Behavior becomes much more focused she gets him to leave school if anything is even worse than it was before and it's at that point where the Kenny that grew up with me that I loved and was fun to be with rather the potential to being a good person startership and his disappointment and his anger and his rage was relentless he was out of control at the age of 16 Kenny ran away from home Sante sent his older brother Kent to stop him got Kenny back home and uh his attitude did not get better he's still in the Raiders of stuff but he did stay you know I thought I was doing the right thing for her you know I wonder every day if uh if I let him go well things feel like today SanSai and Ken had homes in various U.
S states as well as Nassau in the Bahamas the illusion was a life of luxury and class but the reality was that everything had become very stressful for 77 year old Ken due to sante's Compulsive grifting suddenly on the 28th of March 1994 he died from an aneurysm now salty has another problem she doesn't want the creeps from his first marriage to get any of the money that there is in the estate and so nobody's told that he's died so doesn't allow there to be a full autopsy it's a very quick cremation died March 28th Kenny did not find out about it until uh uh Jim and what had happened mom convinced me not to tell Kenny until I don't know so ashamed of myself that she's able to manipulate me to do that Shantae can financially alive for some time after his death by using his credit cards and trying to access his accounts but soon questions are being asked by an executive at Ken's offshore Bank Gulf Union 55 year old Syed Bilal Ahmed was concerned about the flurry of faxes requesting money transfers by his client Ken kimes Syed suspected they were fake he turned up in the Bahamas to investigate irregularities in Kansas City's counts and of course Chante immediately recognized that he was an obstacle that needed to be removed on the 4th of September 1996 Sante and her son Kenny wind and dine the bank investigator at their favorite Nassau restaurant they eventually invited him back for coffee to the house and that's when they fed the date rape drug into his drink got him into a dozy state and drowned him in the bath the two of them took it in turns to hold him under the water it's believed Kenny took the body and dropped it in the sea however the body has never been found as far as the police are concerned he's simply a missing person yes of course the last two people to see side alive Asante and Kenny but there is no blood evidence there is nothing 21 year old Kenny was now fully committed to Santa's criminal ways helping her carry out the ultimate of crimes murder they fled from the Bahamas to the Sunshine State of Florida home and they went zigzagged across the states scamming as a matter of course as well the mother and son team embarked on a Bonnie and Clyde style shoplifting crime spree until the 19th of May 1997 when Sante was apprehended in a department store Kenny punched a policeman to let his mother escape and he was arrested for the first time the 22 year old called his brother Kent I'm in jail I was relieved I was thankful for it maybe this is one thing that got him to stay straight you know get them back on the right track let them lose consequences uh that didn't happen in the eyes of U. S prosecutors Kenny was a first-time offender and as such was treated leniently teach is Kenny a very important lesson essentially you can break the law and you can get away with it and there will be no consequences for you so this is something that is incredibly important [Music] by now is Santa's late husband's Millions had been depleted and what remained was mostly tied up in property so Sante and Kenny turned up flat broke at the door of sante's eldest son Kent it started to be more of Marlon Kenny against me they were becoming a team that just didn't feel right but one time I walked in my office and Mama Kenny was sitting her behind my desk going through my drawers I said what the hell you think you're doing mom and Kenny were getting Tighter and Tighter and I was becoming the outsider the criminal two some eventually left but not before they'd identified their next scam back in 1992 Sante and husband Ken had transferred the Deeds of their Las Vegas home to a family friend David kasdin to avoid it being seized in a legal dispute David Caston was a 63 year old New Yorker who had helped them out of a jam he pretended to own it at the same time they got him to sign a quit claim so if ever they wanted it back again they could get it back at once in January 1998 Santa used the property as collateral to borrow 280 000 in David's name he opened up his mail to discover he had a new mortgage then David found out that the house would burn down insurance companies were not going to cover it because they knew it was Arsenal David reported the fraud to the bank and revealed Sante kimes was behind it [Music] moshonte's reaction to the David problem was the usual one which was to remove the obstacle Kenny of course knew immediately that that would be his job on the 13th of March Kenny and an accomplice a Drfter called Sean drove to LA and paid a visit to David's Home in Granada Hills Sean waited outside whilst Kenny knocked on his door David welcomed him into his house and said would you like a coffee and went off to make coffee at which point Kenny took a revolver put in at the back of David's neck and fired he was dead before he hit the floor Kenny returned to the accomplice and together they loaded him into the back of David's own green Jaguar they dumped David's body in a dumpster in an alley it wasn't very long before he was discovered among the prime suspects in his murder were Sante and Kenny I mean one of the really strange things about the David kasdin murder is the absolute Detachment that Kenny showed in actually doing the deed because this person was not someone unknown to him he was one very well known to him but what happened next was even more astonishing he sends flowers to his mother it's almost as if this is celebratory this is an act of approval seeking it's like hey mum look what I did for you and this really reinforces how strong that codependency was between this narcissist and her number two instead of keeping a low profile Sante was back to her old tricks two weeks prior to David's murder she'd purchased a car with a forged check the dealership had now realized they'd been duped and filed charges warrants were issued for Sante and Kenny's arrests now they were on the run for two murders and fraud they fled 2 800 miles in the stolen car to the east coast in the relative anonymity of the big city New York the partners in crime conjured up their next money-making scam Sante had been researching nice comfortable apartments in New York and she come across an 82 year old Widow called Irene Silverman who had a house in East 65th Street in Manhattan which he converted into really very comfortable Suites this was a lady who was worth a lot of money property on the Upper East Side in the Central Park area is very very expensive in the tens of millions of dollars and Sante wanted a piece of this Sante concocted another fake Alias Manny guernin who was looking for an apartment this time her criminal Protege her 23 year old son Kenny would play the lead role now normally Irene likes very good references but Kenny plays the classic con I'll give you the six thousand dollars now the implication being if you don't ask too many questions it takes less than 24 hours for him to place a bug in her apartment so that he and his mother can listen in to her telephone conversations they want by one hook or crook to get her to sign over the mansion to them but from the outset Irene seemed dubious about her new Resident iron Silverman was an incredibly smart woman she noticed that he was able to evade the security cameras around the building he kind of crept around and and she knew that he stood behind his door looking out through the peephole because she could see his feet underneath the door she told people that she didn't like this guy [Music] after managing to purchase a copy of the Deeds to the Manhattan Mansion Center used her skills as a forger to fake Irene's signature on a Deeds transfer the con began to take on full force Sante dresses up as Irene to convince the clerk to notarize the document it's a truly horrifying Story the property was signed over to a corporation Sante had set up now that they had the paperwork there was only Irene herself that remained in their way on the 5th of July 1998 Kenny pounced and dragged his 82 year old landlady into his apartment Sante tasers her rendering the poor woman utterly helpless and then Kenny ever Keen to do his mother's bidding strangles her he was an act of the most grotesque malevolence but yet further evidence of the extraordinary bond between mother and son Keen to please his mother 23 year old Kenny smuck Irene's all but five-foot body into a duffel bag and drove it across the water into Hoboken New Jersey where he dumped her in a trash bin the callous couple now had the wealthy socialite out of the way and the falsified Deeds to her Manhattan townhouse their outlandish plan for Sante to fill the elderly Millionaire's shoes appeared to be falling into place straight after the killing they celebrated their latest scam they take themselves off to Trump Tower to have pastries and coffee Kenny at one point reminisced and said these are the hands that have just been round the neck of Irene and now they're around a cup of coffee it is almost unbelievable inconceivable but for people who knew the New York socialite her disappearance that Sunday afternoon was completely out of character she'd just completely gone off the radar people were very quick to notice that it was only a matter of hours that went by before somebody reported her missing to the police soon former NYPD Detective Tom hovigim was alerted by one of his patrolling officers phone rang I picked it up and I had a patrol officer on the other end tell me about an elderly woman who is missing the officer said that the staff was pretty insistent that she would never leave the townhouse and she had difficulty walking and if she did leave she wouldn't leave by herself so then it started to raise my suspicion a little bit more than the average missing person call when he arrived at Irene's home detective hovergim was told about one of her new tenants many gurin AKA Kenny kimes who'd recently been acting strangely the police even found him mentioned in Irene's notebook she knew something was not right with this guy Irene made notes in regards to Kenny's Behavior at the time and drawings and even said that he looks like he should be in jail meanwhile a Joint Task Force of the LAPD and FBI were pursuing the crimes for the bad check on the stolen car and as Chief suspects for the murder of David kasdin they'd found a criminal associate of the kimes Stanley he'd previously supplied them with illegal guns and the deadly Duo had recently been in contact with him again they had called and said uh Stan we want you to come out to New York we have a beautiful townhouse that you're going to love we're going to have you be the caretaker we want you to change some locks into place and get rid of everyone that's in the townhouse the police and the FBI approached Stanley and say if you help us pinned down Sante and Kenny whom they now clearly have a firm view our Killers we'll cut you a deal by coincidence on the same day as Irene's murder the task force had set up a sting to arrest the kinds still helps them lure Center and Kenneth kimes to this Hilton hotel on 6th Avenue one of the things he had to do to let the police know that they were there was tip his hat the police stood on alert but there was no sign of Sante or Kenny they finally arrived over six hours late after dumping Irene's body standing takes his hat off which is a clue if these are the right people so they're arrested Sante who is carrying out a black bag at the time throws the bag on the floor says this isn't mine and then Kenny reacts by wetting himself they had killed Irene literally a few hours before this was possibly the first time in their lives that they've been caught off guard in Santa's bag they found seven passports Five bank books and numerous checks belonging to Irene on Kenny they found a forged Social Security card in Irene's name the claims were taken into custody I think Kenny must have been feeling incredibly alone like a fish out of water at this point in time because knee separated from his mum he's always looking for her to tell him what to do next so he's feeling like his normal has just been tipped upside down at this stage the investigators hadn't realized the significance of the paperwork belonging to Irene Silverman that they'd found on the canes that is until the New York police team investigating Irene's disappearance held a news conference a detective heard the news conference early in the morning and he heard the name Irene Silverman so then they immediately called up and said hey I think we have a couple of people here you might want to speak to now the police knew that Kenny kimes and the Mysterious Manny gurin were one and the same Irene's staff identified Kenny as many in a police lineup and detectives obtained a search warrant for his apartment when we went in we found a shout curtain was missing we found several wigs we also found a drug that is used to they called the date rape drug it's used to knock people out we also found papers with Irene Silverman's signature on it someone was practicing her signature we found a to-do list written by Sante kimes duct tape rope garbage bags we were hoping Irene was still alive but we had our doubts at that point in a bag that they checked at the Plaza Hotel we finally found the motive Forge deed to Irene Silverman's townhouse it was a huge piece of evidence now that they had conclusively linked the crimes to Irene Silverman detective hovigim questioned 23 year old Kelly I was talking about poor Irene and her missing and how her staff misses her and I was trying to play on his emotions trying to get him to feel sorry for her at one point I thought I had him he started to tear up he started to slouch and I thought this is it he's going to spill then all of a sudden in snap of a finger he became Stone Cold rigid set up Stone Cold and said I have no comment that was it he was done even though Irene's body was never found on the 16th of December 1998 at Manhattan Criminal Court Sante and Kenny kimes faced a total of 84 charges including Irene's murder it was a media circus and sansei reveled in the spotlight she sees the chance for yet another performance she went on 60 Minutes she went on another news show and proclaimed her innocence and it was so over the top it just was ridiculous crying carrying on as God as my witness we we would never do anything like that why would we murder a sweet old woman the prosecution were missing one crucial piece of evidence Irene's body we had a homicide without a body and all circumstantial evidence but that circumstantial evidence was overwhelming we had everything we needed we just didn't have the body I think we were all a bit nervous but we knew we'd get a conviction I mean if you sat on a jury and listened to the presentation from the District Attorney's office without a without a doubt these two people killed Irene Silverman Sante was finally convicted and sentenced to 120 years in prison then he was given 125.
