Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White - Update

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1:02Hi, everybody. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and we're talking Dateline today with Keith. Hi, Keith. Oh, hello, Josh. So this episode is called The Devil Wore White, and it's the kind of story that we almost never do at Dateline because it's less about the relationship between killer and victim and almost entirely about the relationship between killer and victim. other killer. Now, this is the story of a criminal mastermind, someone you might have heard of. Her name is Sante Kimes. She became famous back in the 90s when investigators who were looking for a missing millionaire uncovered a very, very creepy, dark history of crimes and her surprising partner in those crimes and those murders, her youngest son, Kenny.

1:53Now, if you have not listened to this broadcast yet. It is the episode right below this one in the list of podcasts that you chose from. So you can go there, you can listen to it, you can watch it on Peacock. And then when you come back, Keith has an extra clip that he wants to play for more of his interview back in 2001 with Kent Walker, who was, you know, sort of the heart and soul of this show in a lot of ways. Later, Keith is going to be joined by Dateline producer Ann Priceman, who covered this story and worked on this broadcast, and they will discuss some new updates to the case before answering your viewer and listener questions on social media.

2:32So let's talk Dateline. So as I said in the intro, this is the kind of story we don't usually do here at Dateline. That is absolutely correct. This is less about killer and victim and more about killer and killer. And it's a crazy, crazy story. That's exactly what it is. It's the craziest story ever. And one we – you know, I became – first was there in New York to cover it way back in 98 or whatever the heck it was. But when you hear the story of Sante Kimes and her two sons, particularly the youngest one, Kenny, and what they got up to over the years, my goodness. The whole circus of activities that she was involved in was quite extraordinary.

3:13It's just a story that I hate to say it, but I really enjoyed living in it again, even though it's really dark in many respects. It's the kind of story that makes people want to get into journalism. I mean, it's a long, endless, twisting yarn that touches on all the different localities, different people, different crimes. I mean, you know, her big talent clearly is that she doesn't come off as being as dangerous and as homicidal as she actually was. She was charismatic. She was the sort of person you love to be with. She was friendly and open. She looked like Elizabeth Taylor. She looked fabulous all the time.

4:04And she could carry on a conversation with anybody, high or low. She came from low. She came from very, very, very modest beginnings, iffy beginnings. We don't really know what's true and what isn't true because she lied about everything. Her backstory is pretty murky. Yeah, it is intentionally on her part. Right. She was an oaky, supposedly, and a poor one was her story. But she got to the point where she could carry on a sophisticated and charming conversation with the vice president of the United States. And, you know, was able to persuade her or help persuade an official of the United Nations to make her husband into an honorary ambassador.

4:52I mean, it was just phenomenal, the sorts of things she was able to get away with. And then along the way, she was trying, of course, to get her son Kent to be her acolyte, to train him to be just like her. To be a criminal, to be a sort of small-time criminal. And she was making fine progress until he got scared straight in his mid-teens, both by the efforts of a girlfriend and by the recognition that he would probably spend most of the rest of his life in prison if he kept doing this sort of thing. Let's talk for a second about Kent's girlfriend, because I don't think she understands. Maybe she does now.

5:33I don't think she understood for a long time. One, what a huge service she did for him by talking him out of that life. And second, how lucky she was to be finished with him and her and Kenny and that world. That's right. Because she could have been in a landfill somewhere. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You know, I have no doubt she would have been. I mean, they took that thread very seriously. Simply, you cannot cross Sante and get away with it. And she didn't want somebody coming between her and either one of her sons. That was simply not going to be allowed. Well, what's interesting is that Sante was arrested a few times and had a criminal record, and that didn't slow her down.

6:18But the possibility that that might happen to him clearly did slow Kent down. It did. Because I think he was smart and never recognized the logical outcome of this sort of behavior. And she felt that she was smarter than any authorities who would try to catch her. One of the other things about that bunch that fascinated me, and I'll include Kenneth Sr., her husband with this, the millionaire, was how good they were at persuading otherwise normal people to engage in criminal behavior at their behest. You know, they could persuade them to burn a house down. They could persuade them to illegally sign their name to a deed.

7:01They were just phenomenally good at doing that sort of thing, as she was. And I think it was her charisma and charm that really, you know, led that parade. You know, frequently on Dateline, we cover stories. We cover the stories of murders. And the murder is the point of the person's criminal activity, which is like they want to get rid of their husband or wife or, you know, boyfriend or whatever, right? Whatever. But in this case, frequently the murders were to cover up other crimes, financial crimes, insurance fraud, check kiting, when they would be found out like they were with that bank examiner, right?

7:41Yeah, exactly. Like they killed that guy. Like they didn't gain anything from his death except that he was no longer investigating them. Precisely. And they clearly killed that poor old woman in New York City just because they wanted to either live in her house or sell it and cash it out. They had two ideas. One was that they were going to take it over and rent the apartments for a lot of money. And then the second idea was to sell it. Obviously, it was a pretty valuable piece of property. And the antics that she went through, poor old Irene Silverman, you know, didn't see what was coming. But the antics that Sante went through to try to get a notary public to sign the right kind of paperwork so that she could take over the property.

8:25And she found one that would. Yes, right. And she was posing as Irene at that point. She was lying in bed like the big bad wolf in Grandma's house with the wig on and the little frilly cap. She was trying to pretend to be Irene Silverman. And actually, at one point, appeared to be succeeding. I think she would have succeeded had she not been caught that day. Great police work in this one. And also some incredible luck in which one officer recognizes the sketch put out by a different part of the department. Yes. I think they probably would have figured that out in not too long a period of time.

9:09But the luck in my mind was the fact that the L.A. cops decided it was worth chasing down this woman who had stolen this car because they thought that she was good for the murder of David Kasdan. And they persuaded the Fugitive Task Force that this couple, the mother and son, should be arrested on a car theft warrant. Can you imagine just this 12-person or whatever it was, New York Task Force, spending a lot of time planning and arranging for the capture of these two people based on a car theft warrant? That must have taken some persuading, even if they knew there was a murder in the background.

9:56Yeah, I mean, one senses there must have been a conversation in which they said, look, this is a car theft warrant, but these two are on the hook for a bunch of murders. Oh, a lot more than that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When we come back, Keith has some extra sound that did not make the broadcast that he's going to play for us from his first interview with Kent Walker.

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12:12You know, most moms don't lead their kids into lives of crime, but that is a position of some colossal influence. I hear my mom's voice when I have not made the bet, right? I hear my mom saying, go make the bet. And I do. And I'm good at it, too. And that's all Holly Mankiewicz. but most moms don't groom their kids for a life of crime, you know. And the idea that one son couldn't break away and the other one knew he had to is such a great part of this story. It is. You know, when the older son wouldn't cooperate, the younger son became her next mark. And he was so attached to his mother. I think she made sure of that from the very beginning of his life.

13:03She coddled him. He was her little prince. She did everything imaginable for him, and she attached him to herself from such an early age. She wouldn't let him out of her sight except to go on very brief sojourns with a brother. I don't excuse his behavior at all. He's right where he belongs. He's a killer. Yeah, exactly. But one does sense that he sort of never had a chance. Right. Yeah. Pretty much. It would have taken a lot for him to break free. And the continuing relationship or non-relationship between those two brothers, I found fascinating. I don't even know exactly how to describe it. I'm not a psychiatrist, so I couldn't go there.

13:51One who loved her even as he recognized that she was a terrible person and he couldn't possibly associate with her. the other one who loved her in a way that a person who cannot break away from somebody loves them. Poor Kenny. You know, I say poor Kenny. He did some terrible things. So in a way, I don't feel sorry for him at all. He's exactly, as you say, where he belongs. But he's trying so hard to make it look like he's, you know, he's making amends for his past behavior. Kent doesn't buy it. Yeah. I'm not sure I'd buy it. I don't know what to think about it. Exactly. I don't think I'd buy it either.

14:33Well, I mean, first of all, you do this. He does this interview, you know, but I don't want to talk about my mom, right? Exactly, yeah. The only thing he wanted to talk about was, you know, I want to raise a million dollars, and you're going to help me raise that million dollars. Yeah, come on. And then we'll spend it on education because education needs to be better, and maybe I'll take a course in being a good military guy. And then you didn't want to really talk about it or any much of anything else. That's a guy who sort of is disconnected from reality now as he was when he was under his mother's thrall.

15:02Yes. And as I'm sure you have encountered frequently in doing these stories, Josh, as I have, when people go into prison, they tend to stay the same age in some weird way. That they'll come out 20 years later and they're still the 20-year-old who went in the first place. Intellectually, emotionally. And you think that's Kenny? seems to me yeah i mean you know he he has done some things in there he had a girlfriend for a while though uh she passed away he had a girlfriend who was while he was incarcerated yes exactly yeah okay that he wouldn't have been able to have one before he was incarcerated right i will never understand that although i did work years ago with a woman uh who was dating a guy, and he was locked up.

15:57And I assumed wrongly that they had been together before he got locked up. She's like, no, I met him, you know, after he was, and I'm like, why are you dating somebody who is incarcerated? And she said to me, well, you always know where he is. It's right. It's one of the more interesting factlets about criminal justice in America. A lot of these people who have done really terrible things have whole fan clubs full of people who would like to have relationships with them. And they say that our culture is flawed. Just imagine. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So this is the first interview that Kenny has done in a very long time.

16:39Well, ever since he tried to – it appeared to try to either strangle or stab the CNN reporter back in 2000 or whatever it was. That was a harrowing story. You hear anything from Kenny that sounded like remorse to you? Oh, you heard the usual, the kind of practiced remorse. Sometimes I feel sorry for people who are in situations like that when society around them demands that they be remorseful before that they are able to achieve anything like forgiveness or even understanding whether they're forgiven or not. And so they'll go through all the motions of remorse. And then the reaction is more often than not is I don't believe you or you're not really remorseful.

17:25You're just saying that. So in some ways, somebody who is locked up in his situation would say, well, you know, what do you have to do to be believed? I feel terrible about all this stuff and I really would like to make amends somehow. But you just don't know. Is it real or not real? Not sure. Yeah. Yeah, we're big on that in this country, on confession and redemption and, yeah. Oh, yeah. And not believing in confession for a long time. Maybe more cynical. So, was it difficult to get Kent to sit down and talk about this? Well, no, Kent, I wouldn't say difficult. Well, Kent has actually written a book about this case and has been interviewed before.

18:15You know, we interviewed him a couple of times before. So he's happy to tell the story. I think he is getting to a point where he would like some sort of resolution with his brother, but he's not quite there yet. I think once he achieves that, maybe he'll move on from the story. But that's been the cornerstone of his life. This feels like a good time to play the extra sound from Kent Walker. This is a piece of the interview that did not make the broadcast, and he's talking about some early memories with Sante. You're a kid. You're in a drugstore or something with your mother. What happens? Well, she's got a big purse, a real big purse, and we're going up and down the aisles.

19:02I'm usually a few feet in front of her, and when she comes out, the purse is half full of stuff. Might be oysters, might be lipstick, might be a roast. A roast? Yeah. We got caught one time in Newport Beach, and the store manager caught her, dead of rights, and she turned around and just, how dare you accuse me of this. After about five minutes, he's apologizing to her, saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. We get in the car, and she reaches into her purse and pulls out a big roast, not a little roast, a big roast, some oysters. She loves smoked oysters. Oysters and a roast beef. Roast beef. You can put it in the oven and cook it for dinner.

19:45Sunday dinner. Yeah, we ate well. It's not like six days a week she was a good girl and one week she went bad. No, that was always there. Was it for a thrill, you think? I think in my early years it was more of a necessity. I don't know if the thrill was part of it or not. She always loved beating the system. She loved maybe a little bit of a thrill to it. That's how we ate. I mean, she didn't do that. We didn't eat. I think I always held out hoping maybe she'd be okay. You fall in love with the good stuff that she was, and you know that was never going to be replaced, and it made it too easy to forgive the bad stuff sometimes.

20:22You know, you kind of held out hoping maybe she'd calm down. Maybe she'd become rational. Maybe she'll outgrow this, maybe. You know, once Shante Kimes got in your blood, she never left. Never completely. Wow. Well, that tells you something. That's actually a very good way of describing it. That's a good bit to use. Did police have anything to say about whether or not Shante and Kenny are suspects in any uncharged murders? There are other people out there that they killed. I didn't hear anybody saying they think there are more. I think that probably is it. It's possible there's another one, but, you know, it's never been anything that any police department has been chasing down that I know of.

21:06So, you know, they're both on the hook for these murders. Kenny confesses to save her. Like, it's like the last act of this controlling relationship that they have. Well, yes. Kenny confessed to all the murders to save her from death row. save her from the death penalty. He saved himself too at the same time. But really, I think the more important thing to him was saving her. As you pointed out earlier, Kenny really didn't have a chance. He was up against it from the beginning. His brother Kent feels bad for not doing a little bit more to save him, but I'm not sure he could have, you know, because Sante, you know, she loved this boy and she was enveloping him in her protective arms.

21:50And I guess the way of describing it from the outside is that she was trying to make him make herself his whole world. Yeah. Yeah. That part was super creepy. Okay. After the break, we'll answer some of your questions from social media.

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24:15Hello, everybody. I'm Keith Morris. I'm here with Anne Priceman, the producer of this episode. As anyone watching can probably tell, some time has passed since we initially shot this program, and we talked to Josh about the case. That was last year. But Anne and I wanted to get together to talk about an update, which is really quite remarkable. We never really thought that it would go this far. At least I didn't. Did you expect that they would identify Anne, the person who was... No, it was sort of straight and out of the blue. Surprising this many years later, Ken Holmgren, the son, had thought his father was murdered in Costa Rica, never to be found, never to be investigated.

25:01But, you know, the guy's found in a dumpster, and sure enough, that's what happened to their other victim. So tell me how they figured it out. A former FBI agent joined the Inglewood PD, and he was picking up some cold cases and was looking at this one, trying to ID the body. They had good autopsy photos. They've done a decent crime scene analysis. But that many years ago, the DNA was not where it is now. So he opened up the case, hooked up with his old colleagues at the FBI, and they did a genealogy search. And they found some distant cousins and eventually made their way to Ken Holmgren in Texas, who is the son of Elmer Holmgren.

25:54And he, Ken, sees these autopsy photos and immediately identifies him as his dad. It's amazing how many cases are now, you know, being resolved this way. It's like they're all sitting out there in these cold case files, and in many cases, all they have to do is pluck out the DNA. Yeah. If they could do the genealogy work, that's the complicated part. And the FBI is particularly helpful in this area, I gather, with local police departments. They essentially, as they put it, offer a service to smaller or police departments with less resources, and the FBI offers these resources free of charge. Yeah, the FBI does amazing work, and I think sometimes they don't always get credit for it.

26:45But in the regional offices around the country, there are dedicated professionals who are, you know, really eager to help local police departments solve crimes and do the sort of work that local police departments simply can't do. And they're extremely helpful with a number of investigations, one of which was this one, right? There we are. Yeah. All right, let's get to some questions and some comments from viewers on social media. Dawn on Facebook says, I'll never understand how she got away with so many crimes for so long. She probably wouldn't get away so easy today. You know, I'm not so sure that's true, actually.

27:27Some people do get away with things for quite a long time. Yeah. I mean, I think the only difference would be they weren't – they were non-lip – what's the phrase? The digital footprint might be easier to trace in terms of the money, but they were smart criminals. If somebody actually knew to look for them, they were very smart and they managed to avoid being chased. If somebody knows who the criminals are, it's easier to catch them nowadays. But if you have no idea whether somebody's a criminal, yeah. There's another question. Here's from Sarah's Life on TikTok who says, why is it we tend to watch these more when we can't sleep?