The House

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0:43Yep, even on weekends. That's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash Bank Guy. Capital One N.A. Member FDIC. I'm Lester Holt. Tonight on Dateline, a dead body in a yard. Terror in the night. The end of a family. The start of a mystery. My dad was my best friend. He just liked to make people smile. He would always boast about how he was an FBI agent. He was so proud. My brother and his friend came running down to the neighbor's house. Just call 911. Okay, I'm telling you. We're up with the department. Can you come down here, ma 'am?

1:28What is going on? His body had appeared to be concealed. A robber is not going to take the time to cover your body. It's personal. Then maybe some tenants had bad blood. I'm going to gamble all the time. Someone that he put behind bars might have had it out for him. Several doors were padlocked. It seemed like it was forever, but it was maybe a 10-second silence in the courtroom. He was an FBI agent. Dealt with many criminals. He could take care of himself. At least he thought so.

2:12Here's Josh Mankiewicz with The House.

2:19A young man walks toward his house in the middle of the evening. He's wearing a GoPro camera to do that. Now, if it sounds strange for someone to start recording a video of their own actions, well, stay tuned. This is actually one of the less weird things you'll hear about. What happened next was nothing short of terrifying. Call 911. What's going on? What he found that night would spark an investigation and a mystery that would only deepen over time. It's all linked to the drama that began just hours earlier when a daughter couldn't find her father.

3:07Scott Horn wasn't the kind of dad to disappear. You see, Scott had spent 23 years as an FBI special agent. Even in retirement, he still scheduled his life like clockwork. If he did something, he normally did that same thing every single day at the same time. He never slept in either. He was up every morning at 7.30. Scott's daughter, Kelly, was living on her own by age 18. Even so, she remembers her dad starting each morning with the same phone call. Your dad called to wake you up every day. Yeah, he would call and say, are you up? And then five minutes later, he would call and say, are you up?

3:52Oh, so he's not just the alarm clock. He's also the snooze alarm. Yeah. Except on that morning, March 16th, 2017, Kelly's phone was silent. So I texted him, and he didn't respond. And I called him, and the phone went straight to voicemail. I texted him, and I said, I hope you're okay. This is unlike him? Totally. He would respond to you? Yeah. Kelly reached out to her dad's next-door neighbors, Marty and Cindy. Kelly called and asked me if I had seen Scott all day, and I said, no, I hadn't. And she said, call a wellness check. So I called the little police. They came out. His name's Scott, right?

4:35Yeah. Nice house. Officers from the Laurel, Maryland Police Department met Kelly at the house to do what's called a welfare check, when police go to an address essentially to make sure something bad hasn't happened. We walked through the house. Go police. Go police department. They moved from room to room. So my dad normally would take the dogs out to make sure they went potty outside, and there was pee all over the floor. Which meant the dogs had been left inside for a long time. Right. Because now it isn't just the morning he's been missing, obviously. Nobody has seen him, right. Since, like, the day before.

5:15Right. They went into the basement. Another officer searched upstairs. Officer Matt Zimmerman was there. Nothing appeared to be in disarray. Nothing appeared to have a struggle. She grabbed some belongings and stated that she was going to continue to try and locate her father.

5:42Later eventually arrived, and Kelly still hadn't heard from her dad. By this time, you have to be really scared. I was. I was. Kelly had been talking with her older brother, Riley. He hadn't seen their dad since the night before and was worried too. So that evening, Riley went over to the house with a friend. That's when Riley hit record on his GoPro and headed up the lawn of his family's large suburban home. As they walked, Riley and his friend heard banging and clattering on the left side of the house. And when they went to the area where the sounds had come from, They could make out a tarp in the darkness.

6:28They lifted it up. What they saw sent Riley running to a neighbor's house where his sister Kelly was waiting. Just call 911. Okay, I'm calling. No, no, wait, what? I need a police officer, EMS. What do you mean? Kelly ran to the house. I just, I didn't understand what was happening. They saw a body. They didn't know who it was. I honestly don't remember. I was so, like, my adrenaline kicked in, and I ran up to the house, and I stopped right before the door, and I just fell to my knees, and I was crying and screaming. So I went out to the porch and saw her prostrate in the snow, you know, just screaming.

7:13It was 10 minutes or so before I could understand what she was saying. Which was what? That her dad was dead. For the second time, Officer Zimmerman was first on the scene. My father is under a bunch of... What is that? It's a GoPro on a... So we start moving down the driveway. I tell him to show me where he found the body.

7:40Right here. I can't look. He's got right... Scott Horn was dead. Now the mechanics of a murder investigation began. You got a crime scene tape. Where's the body? You got a couple more units here. We're going to have a potential crime scene. When we return, a body in the side yard, police in the front, and someone in the house apparently unaware of it all. Hello, Northwood Department. Can you come down here, ma 'am? What? Well, we're just conducting an investigation right now, ma 'am. And whoever murdered Scott Horn didn't just kill him. This was overkill. So someone shoots him from behind, and then after he's on the ground, begins beating him.

8:27That's correct.

8:40Police were swarming the house on this quiet residential road. Scott Horn had been found by his son. He'd been murdered in his own backyard. Can you all contact Kezzy? Detective Kezzy Henderson came to lead the investigation. He didn't need a medical examiner to tell him Scott Horn had been the victim of a brutal murder. And it wasn't just a beating. Another investigator noticed a bullet lodged in a shed. Scott was shot in the neck. Would the neck wound have killed him by itself? No. The neck wound would have disabled him. So someone shoots him from behind, and then after he's on the ground, begins beating him.

9:22That's correct. Could you tell what he was beaten with? He was beaten with firewood. You didn't find a specific piece of firewood he was beaten with? No, unable to find that. Unable to find it maybe because next to the body was a wood-burning stove. It connected to a boiler that heated the whole house. Scott had installed the system. He was quite proud of it. Suddenly, it seemed Scott's own accomplishment might have helped his killer destroy the murder weapon. Possible that someone just threw it in the boiler after they were done using it? That's correct. Detective Henderson had a sense of how Scott died.

10:03To get to the who, the detective needed more about his victim's life. And right there at the crime scene, family and friends were eager to talk. I go right up to the officers and I identify who I am and I let them know that he's one of ours. They know he's a retired FBI agent. Monique Winkes had been one of Scott's supervisors at the Bureau. It has to be weird being both an FBI agent and a friend of the victim in that situation. It is. It's a tough place to be. You want to do so much more. You're more friend than special agent in that moment. Yes. I'm there for the family. I'm there for him. Not surprising, that was the way Scott had been there for the Bureau.

10:45He'd carried FBI credentials for more than two decades after serving in the Air Force. He just liked to laugh and make people smile. So in suspect interviews, he was the perfect good cop. He was. He would say, listen, just be honest with us, work with us, and I'll talk to the prosecutors, I'll talk to my boss, we'll see what we can do for you. And then you would come in and put them in a chokehold. Right, exactly. Tell us the truth. On drug cases, bank robberies, and kidnappings, Scott Horn's good cop persona came in handy. After a while, family considerations made him ask for a lower octane assignment, background checks for people seeking government jobs.

11:28That squad handled polygraphs, presidential appointments, new recruits came through that squad. Now that's not exactly the sexiest of FBI details. It's not something that everyone shoots for, but it really had consistent hours. It's a dad schedule. It's a dad schedule, exactly. Scott's wife, Ann, worked long shifts as a nurse. Their daughter, Kelly, says dad liked being Mr. Mom. He made sure that we ate a well-balanced meal every night, and he made sure we went to bed on time, and all of our homework got done, and that our clothes were clean. My dad was my best friend. He took me everywhere with him and taught me so much.

12:11Scott loved his family, including the four-legged members. Mama bear, there was Papa bear, and then there was Kenai bear. And running a close second to family, Scott's passion for this four-bedroom house. It had more than just his fingerprints on it. Our house is so wonderful. I know it sounds really conceited, but it is. It's something to be proud of. And a lot of the nice things about it, he had personally worked on. Oh, yeah. Lots of projects. Solar panels, wood-burning stove. You know, the pool had solar panels that heated it. All his doing. Yeah. There were just so many projects that he was excited and did in the house.

12:56Now, that house Scott had loved so much had become a crime scene. Outside, officers stood watch. But inside... Hello, all police department. Can you come down here, ma 'am? Yeah. Someone was walking down the stairs. Who house lives here? Anyone else? My husband. Your husband? It was Ann Allen, Scott's wife, and Kelly and Riley's mom. Ann appeared to have no idea what was transpiring just outside her front door. What's going on? Well, we're just conducting an investigation right now, ma 'am. For what? It would be up to a detective to tell Ann what was going on.

13:48Coming up, did Scott have money problems? Or other problems? We did receive leads that maybe some tenants had bad blood. when Dateline continues. Stop and look at your walls. Does anything there actually inspire you? Original art has the power to transform not only how a space looks, but how it feels. And that's why Saatchi Art is on a mission to make living with original art accessible to everyone. Join buyers from around the world who have experienced the joy of living with art. Visit saatchiart.com today and get 10 % off original art with code PODCAST10. That's 10 % off at SaatchiArt.com. That's S-A-A-T-C-H-I-Art.com.

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16:03I try to get a second evidence take out for us As he began his investigation, Detective Kesey Henderson thought it best to keep some details of Scott Horn's murder to himself. Ma 'am, Detective Henderson? So as he talked with Scott's wife Anne in the couple's kitchen, Henderson was careful not to share everything he knew. Where is Scott? The last guy saw Scott was early, early this morning. This is a man deceased in the yard. Okay. This is a deceased man in my yard? I haven't. Anne seemed to have no idea what was going on. And if you're wondering why Ann hadn't been out searching for her husband earlier, the answer is that after two decades of marriage, Ann and Scott were living separate lives under the same roof, while negotiating a divorce.

17:00He doesn't talk to me. I mean, he won't tell me anything. I hardly ever see him. He's gone most of the day, every day. I don't know what else to tell you. Right away, Ann helped police with this detail. where Scott had likely been the night before his body was found. I know he gambles all the time. He'd been at a casino. We established a timeline for him, and we wanted to look at maybe someone followed him. Security footage from the Maryland Live Casino showed Scott spending some of his final hours playing cards. After midnight, he cashed out and headed to his car. How do you know he wasn't followed coming back from the casino?

17:45The video footage of him walking around inside the casino, he's by himself. There was no one tagging along behind him. When he went to his car, there's no one following him in the parking garage. The night of his murder, Scott Horn won less than$100. Kelly says that was typical. Her dad was hardly a high roller. I wouldn't call it gambling. If anything, when my dad went to play, he would go and strategize what table was the best table to sit at because of winning. Detective Henderson still had to determine if this was a random crime of opportunity, a robbery gone wrong. Investigators at the scene had noted Scott's cell phone and wallet were missing.

18:33We checked into the activity on his bank cards. There were no activity. In my experience, when a robber takes property from a victim, you know, they end up at a gas station. And they're trying to use the cards as quickly as possible. Yes. Didn't happen. No, not in this case. And anyway, the crime scene was telling the investigators this wasn't random. There was a lot of emotion involved in the way Scott was assaulted. Because whoever murdered him, shot him, he falls to the ground, they could have shot him again. But instead, they choose to beat him to death. That's correct. Which sounds like anger.

19:17It does. As an FBI agent for 23 years, Scott Horn had come into contact with plenty of bad guys, many of whom might have carried a grudge about Scott putting his hands or his cuffs on them. So they looked at Scott's cases and found a whole lot of nothing. There had never been any threats in his past that I'm aware of. There had never been anything like that that I'm going to get you or curse you. And even though that does happen... It does. But that didn't seem to apply with him. That is correct. It did not apply with him. So what about Scott's second career? After fixing up his own house, Scott had bought several properties in the neighborhood.

19:59He was now a landlord with more than a dozen tenants. We did receive leads that maybe some tenants had bad blood. Detective Henderson found out Scott had recently evicted some people from one of his rental properties. Any possibility those people could have been angry enough at Scott to want him dead? We received that information. We followed up on that as a lead. A lead that, like others, didn't go anywhere. As they ticked through the possibilities, investigators were thinking the heart of this mystery was closer to home. That included considering Scott's son, Riley. Detectives knew the person who discovers the body is sometimes the murderer.

20:42I want you, listen to me, I want you out front on the porch. Have a seat. Have a seat. We brought Riley back to the station. He voluntarily came and he also voluntarily gave us a detailed description of what he found and how he found it. And where he'd been. And where he'd been. But Detective Anderson quickly determined Riley had been at work all day. As far as you know, he had no history of being at odds with his dad. He actually loved his dad and his dad was one of the stronger figures in his life as a mentor also. Like Kelly, Riley said his dad had been his best friend. So then who were Scott's enemies?

21:27That big house looked beautiful from the outside. Inside was another story. Coming up, life behind closed doors. You sort of keep the details of this from other people? Yeah, it's embarrassing. It got to the point where there were locks on everyone's doors.

21:59The celebration of Scott Horn's life drew quite a crowd. Nobody could make Scott laugh more than Scott could make Scott laugh. There were jokes and tears. And there was an air of awkwardness, too. Scott's estranged wife was in the front row. Just about everyone who was close to Scott knew there'd been trouble inside that marriage and that home. And I even said, I said, Scott, you should leave the house. Debbie Wrights and Tessier was an FBI colleague and one of Scott's best friends. She says the clashes with Ann started years earlier, mostly over the kids. What I saw, sometimes she would be really sweet and nice to the kids.

22:47and then she could just turn on a dime and be mean to them. You saw that? I saw, yeah, I saw that on occasion. And he'd tell you about it other times? Yeah. It turned out Scott's friends were getting only glimpses of what happened at home. Daughter Kelly says growing up, her mother was volatile, sometimes violent. You sort of keep the details of this from other people? Because, you know, you don't want everybody to know that you're living in this atmosphere? Yeah, it's embarrassing. Kelly says one time she got in trouble for breaking a rule and having a Facebook account, and then for borrowing a pair of her mom's heels.

23:30For that, she says, Ann made her sleep in a hallway for months. Her dad, she said, pushed back. We were in the hallway where I had been sleeping, and an argument arose, and my dad said that, you know, that I deserve to have my bedroom back. And my mom got so angry. Out of nowhere, Kelly says, Ann pulled a handgun from underneath her bathrobe and pointed it at Scott. She said, you know, we made an agreement. You said I'm taking care of the kids. And if you get in my way, there's going to be a problem. Like his whole demeanor changed. It was more like, okay, you know, we're just going to take a step back.

24:15And you leave the house with him. What did he say? He just said, if you ever see her gun again, call 911. You never saw that gun again? No. Kelly says that happened about five years before the murder. And she says the fighting escalated in the years that followed. It was bad. It got to the point where there were locks on everyone's doors, on the outside and on the inside. Both spouses padlocked their bedroom doors to keep the other out. Scott and Ann became two sides of the same coin, bound together but unable to face one another. It was a toxic atmosphere that seemed beyond repair. Riley began recording his interactions with his own mother.

25:03That's why he was wearing a GoPro the night he went looking for his missing dad. By that point, the family home was already quite familiar to the Laurel PD. How many times did police come to that house? They knew us regularly. They were there a lot. You lost count. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't lose count. Between 2012 and the start of 2017, Laurel police responded to that home at least 15 times. Sometimes it was Ann calling. Sometimes it was Scott calling. Sometimes it was the kids. Sometimes they went down and filed paperwork on their own. We found 30 cases ranging from domestic violence to second-degree assault to numerous protective orders, all of it representing more contact with law enforcement and the criminal justice system than most of us have in a lifetime.

26:01None of those cases resulted in criminal convictions for anyone. Kelly says her mom told her to move out of the house at 18. Scott, however, stayed. This was, after all, his house. That said, Debbie believes Scott may have underestimated his wife's resolve and that Ann's engine was running on spite. She said he loves this house. She said, I hate this house. And if he thinks that he's going to live here and keep this house, he has another thing coming. She said, because I will take this house from him and I will take everything he has. And I can do it.

26:50Detective Kezzy Henderson heard all of this and thought back to the first night he spoke with Ann. Was she really as clueless as she seemed?