The Final Hours with Sarah Turney & Kourtney Nichole: Kurt Sova

19:40Sarah Turney:He works his way up and down nearby streets looking for Kurt, eventually coming to a parking lot at a nearby J.L. Goodman Furniture Warehouse, just a block away from the party. When he can't find his missing friend anywhere, Sam assumes Kurt found a way home. In fact, Kurt disappeared so fast that Sam thinks someone must have picked him up in a car. So he goes back to the party. What he doesn't realize is he might've been one of the last people to see him alive.

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23:10It's Saturday, October 24th, 1981. Kurt's brothers wake up that morning and realize he still hasn't made it home from the night before. The sofas don't panic at first, but Dorothy's concerned. This is her baby, and she usually knows where Kurt is when he's out past 10 or 11 p.m. He almost never spends the night out, and definitely not without telling her.

23:32Sarah Turney:Plus, you have to remember that this is a time long before cell phones, so she can't just call him. Instead, the family starts by calling Kurt's best friends, Danny and John, but neither of them know where Kurt is. Ken searches the neighborhood for any place he thinks his son might be, but he doesn't find a trace of Kurt. Now, all of the Sovas are panicking. Dorothy tries to file a missing persons report that afternoon, but for one reason or another, the police won't take one until the next day. Courtney and I have said it once and we'll say it a hundred times more. Nobody should ever have to wait to file a missing persons report.

24:09But the Newburgh Heights police have their own set of issues, which we'll get into soon.

24:14Sarah Turney:In the meantime, a small army of the Sova's friends and family keep searching. They break up into teams and spread out across the area. They look through alleys, ravines, schoolyards, and dumpsters. They ask every person they pass if they've seen Kurt. Then the following day, on Sunday, October 25th, Dorothy and Ken go back to the police and finally register Kurt as a missing person. Kurt's older brothers print flyers with his picture and information. They put them up on stores and utility poles all over the neighborhood. And their efforts pay off. That afternoon, a neighbor tells Dorothy about the Halloween party in Newburgh Heights on Friday night.

24:53Sarah Turney:She even gives her the address. So Dorothy's sons go with her to the duplex on Harvard Ave. But when Missy answers the door, she says that she doesn't know anything about a party. So Dorothy asks for Debbie, the one who threw it, but Missy tells her Debbie is not home. Dorothy tells Missy to have Debbie call her when she gets back. And Debbie does call Dorothy later that day, but she also denies having a party. It's strange for sure, but there's not much Dorothy can do about it at the moment. But she is determined to do everything she can, especially since the police don't seem to be putting much effort into finding Kurt, even though he's been missing for two days at this point.

25:32Sarah Turney:So Dorothy continues to spearhead her own investigation. She gets connected to a pizza delivery man who says the people at the duplex are definitely lying. He delivered pizzas to a party there Friday night. That's when Dorothy confronts Debbie again. This time she gets half of the truth. Debbie admits, okay, yes, they did have a party, but she says Kurt wasn't there until Debbie presses harder. Finally, she admits Kurt was there along with a dozen other people. Debbie tells Dorothy that Kurt had been drinking a lot, which surprises Debbie because Kurt isn't usually much of a drinker. After this conversation, Dorothy connects with Sam, the friend Kurt went to the party with.

26:13He confirms that Kurt was drinking and tells Dorothy how Kurt got sick. Sam took Kurt outside to get some fresh air, but left him alone for a few minutes to grab their coats. And when he came back, Kurt had disappeared. This is when Dorothy becomes hysterical. She's sure something happened to Kurt at the party or on his way home from it, but she has no idea just how bad things are about to get.

26:38Sarah Turney:After finding out about the party, the Sovas visit the duplex several more times to the point where it could be considered harassment. Dorothy even admits it herself. Eventually though, the people who threw the party call the cops to complain. Newburgh Heights Police Chief James F. Lucas, who still isn't looking for Kurt, mind you, orders the Sovas to stay away from the duplex. At least the family gets Kurt's jean jacket back from the duplex, though there aren't any clues inside of it. But on Wednesday, October 28th, 1981, five days after Kurt's disappearance, Debbie reaches out to Dorothy unprovoked.

27:15Sarah Turney:It's really early when she calls the Sova house, around 3.30 a.m. That's when Debbie tells Dorothy someone is sleeping in her basement and it might be Kurt. Now Dorothy is confused. Why is Debbie calling to offer up this information after lying to her so many times before? Dorothy doesn't know whether or not to believe her. But Kurt's dad, Ken, and his three sons all get out of bed and go down to the Newberg Heights duplex. They literally kick in the door, go down to the basement, and they find a cot. It looks like somebody was just sleeping in it, but now it's empty, and so is the rest of the basement.

27:55I don't blame Dorothy do you blame Dorothy I don't blame her for a second I don't blame her at all

27:59Sarah Turney:and I feel like it's a little bit ridiculous that um the cops were called on her and they told her to stay away from the duplex I feel like that has to be infuriating I mean like you're just trying to find your son and it seems like the police are not taking it seriously and literally time is ticking like it's Halloween it's cold you need to find him and he's underage like I don't understand why the police weren't taking it seriously. But no, I don't blame her. In fact, I would do exactly what she did. Probably worse, if I'm being honest. Right? Like, then come arrest me. Come arrest me. I'll catch a charge for that any day.

28:31I mean, what else is she supposed to do? The police aren't doing anything. She's scared for her kid. She's going to go to the last place that, you know, anybody saw him. It seems so reasonable to me. And like, sorry if you feel annoyed, but maybe don't lie to me. Maybe stop lying and just tell me what happened. Like if it was just a party with a bunch of teenagers, just say it. But it seems like obviously there's something that they're hiding there. I mean, allegedly, in theory.

28:58Sarah Turney:Yeah, I feel like on one hand, maybe they're just scared that they were all drinking so much and maybe minors were involved and I get it. But when somebody is legit missing, it's time to put away those fears. Like there's definitely bigger problems to assess rather than you drinking or throwing a party where there's alcohol, where there, you know, it shouldn't be. And I think it's time to put those differences aside and just agree that like the main focus should be finding Kurt. And I love reading about how, you know, anytime there was like some sort of a lead, the dad and all of his sons go together.

29:32Sarah Turney:Like it's not an ideal situation, but like for some reason that really makes me happy. Like they all stuck together because they're just trying to find their little brother. That makes me emotional, honestly, thinking about that, like them rallying together. I know. And it's so unfair. Like I get if a teenager is like, no, we didn't have a party. There was no drinking on these premises as ma 'am. You know what I mean? Like that makes sense to me. But the going back and forth and then Kurt wasn't here and then, oh, there might be somebody sleeping in my basement. That crosses a different line, I think, other than somebody trying to just like hide drinking.

30:05Sarah Turney:That's true. Like, it's just a weird, it's a weird thing to lie about, especially at 3.30 in the morning. Like, if you think it might be Kurt, why didn't you go to the police maybe? Like, you know, he is reported missing at this point. So like, that's, that's weird to me. Yeah. Call the police. Don't call the lady that you called the police on for harassing you. Exactly. Because like, how is she supposed to believe you? Like when you've lied so many times in the past. But I mean, this family did all the right things, all the right things. You can definitely tell by their actions how close they are and how much they love Kurt and just want to find him.

30:38Yeah.

30:39Sarah Turney:Oh, it's so heartbreaking. All right, Sarah, well, let's skip ahead a few hours to about 5.30 p.m. that day, October 28th. While three young boys are out playing, they cut behind the J.L. Goodman warehouse on Harvard Avenue in Newburgh Heights, the same place where Sam checked the parking lot right after Kurt disappeared. The boys head through some neighboring steel yards and pass through a ravine near a waste and recycling center. And there, they stumble upon something they will never forget. A dead body partially submerged in a puddle of water. It's a young man dressed in a yellow t-shirt and jeans with no shoes.

31:17Sarah Turney:He's laid out like he's been crucified. Face up with arms outstretched, head tilted to one side, one knee slightly bent, with one foot placed on top of the other. The boys run to tell a workman who notifies the police. So the cops searched the area, which is just four blocks away from where the party was. They find a left tennis shoe wedged in a pile of rocks 12 feet away from the body, but they never find the matching right shoe. At first, the Newburgh Heights Police suspect foul play. A lot of people pass through that area, like workers and playing kids. So lead investigator Lieutenant Robert Karras thinks whoever left the body knew that.

31:57Sarah Turney:They wanted the victim to be found. The body is taken to the Cuyahoga County Coroner's Office. After several hours, Dorothy and Ken are called in to identify their son, and they confirm it. This is Kurt. He has a bruise on one cheek and several more on his shins. He has a few nicks and scratches on his body, but there are no other signs of injury. And here's where things get more complicated. According to the autopsy, Kurt's body was found no more than a day and a half after his death. But by this point, Kurt's been missing for five days. which means he was alive for at least three days after he disappeared from the party.

32:36What the autopsy can't tell us is where Kurt was during that time, or how he ended up in the ravine. With no obvious cause of death, the coroner uses the process of elimination. Kurt hadn't been beaten or injured. His blood alcohol level was 0.11, which is not nearly high enough to be fatal, but it does mean he drank between the party and his death. He didn't have any hard drugs in his system, and he didn't have any illnesses. With nothing left to point to, the coroner labels the cause of death as instantaneous physiologic death and rules it probably accidental. They essentially told Dorothy that Kurt died of something like SIDS, but SIDS is sudden infant death syndrome.

33:19It's when a child under one year dies suddenly and unexpectedly. There's no known cause, but people suspect brain development, genetics, and environment may be factors. It really doesn't happen to 17-year-olds.

33:34Sarah Turney:This case, it's really easy to go down the rabbit hole because where was he from the minute he disappeared to when he died? Because there's a gap between like when he disappeared where he was still alive. My thought process is he was really close with his family. He was the baby of the family. He, you know, was super responsible in the sense that he would always tell his mom where he was. He wouldn't just kind of like stay out. Like that doesn't seem very normal. So it just makes me wonder what happened to him in that period of time. and was something physically making him not, I guess, be able to go home.

34:05Yeah, nothing about this makes me believe that he left voluntarily and stayed away for a few days before whatever happened to him happened and he passed away. It seems unfortunately very likely that somebody had him, if you will.

34:20Sarah Turney:It just can't be easy. Like for the family, you finally have some sort of answer. It's not the answer anybody wants because he was found deceased. it's almost worse in the sense because there was time that he was missing but alive and i feel like that certain aspect is like it's just really hard it's like a really hard pill to swallow because like what happened it does not seem like this was an accident he was hanging out with people that were unfamiliar to him and his family he literally vanished like in a split second before his friend came out it just doesn't look good like it does not look like this was an accident and i feel like the explanation that he died of something like SIDS.

34:56Sarah Turney:I just feel like that doesn't sound right. Like, I know I'm not a professional, but that does not sound right to me. No, it doesn't. And that would drive me insane to be told that, to be honest. It's almost in a certain way worse than having no answers and them just saying it's like inconclusive. They're like, no, he actually had this mysterious disease that looks very similar to SIDS, which is also very mysterious. And we don't exactly know how that happens either, but that's what we think happened. And it feels like it would have been more accurate. And again, like you, I'm not a professional, right?

35:28But perhaps more accurate and kind to just leave it as like inconclusive. Because I feel like that's pretty much what it says anyway.

35:35Sarah Turney:Yeah, it's kind of like another slap on the face to the family. Like they already did not take the case seriously and missed critical time. Like we always say in any missing persons case, like the first few hours are so critical. But especially in this case, because we know that he was alive for a period of time after he went missing. I just I have to always wonder if authorities have just taken the case a little bit more seriously right off the bat and not just left it to the family, if this outcome would have been different. Yeah. I mean, this is why I think both of us will always scream like stop saying that missing kids are just out partying and they'll be back.

36:13right? And you can argue all day that this is the time before cell phones, but we have to remember that pay phones also existed. And something like bumming a, I don't know what it was in the 70s, a quarter or a dime or whatever to make a phone call, like that was very easy to do. So yeah, he didn't have a cell phone in his hand, but there was a pay phone on every corner. Like, let's be so real.

36:33Sarah Turney:And it was also, it was, you know, a little bit surprising to me to find out that his blood alcohol level is 0.11, where it's not like, I mean, it's a lot, but it's like not enough to be fatal, like to contribute to his death. That was surprising to me with the way everyone at the party was kind of painting him as like this overly intoxicated kid. Like he was super sick, like drinking so much, which I don't know the facts. It doesn't really look like that. I don't feel like that would have contributed to his death. And then you have like the facts of his shoes not being on, the crucification position of his body, like that really sticks out to me as like, okay, something's not right.

37:09Sarah Turney:And I feel like it's weird the police didn't bring more attention to that. Yeah. And especially in the seventies, right? This is a time where they're kind of have this heightened awareness of these types of things. And there was a lot of panic around possible, you know, religious crucifixions or whatever you want to call it, right? Kind of satanic panic in a certain way. So yeah, for them to look at this and be like, yeah, we don't know, but it seems like, you know, it was possibly something just natural and, you know, move on with your life. And I know they didn't say that, but that's what it feels like.

37:40The fact that they don't think it's strange, or at least they're not conveying that as far as we know.

37:48Sarah Turney:The fact that the coroner can't come up with a concrete explanation for Kurt's death only frustrates the family more. But Dorothy and Ken do know one thing for sure. 24 hours before Kurt's body was found, it wasn't in that ravine. They're sure of that because Ken searched there carefully the day before. He would have recognized his son's bright yellow t-shirt against the landscape. So he suspects that someone dumped his body on Tuesday evening. Dorothy has her own theory. She thinks Kurt was in the cot in the basement of the duplex, but he was already dead. And before the Sova men got there, the people responsible panicked and then dumped his body in the ravine.

38:27She wonders if any of those people were with him when he died or if they found his body after the fact. Either way, she believes they moved his body because they didn't want to get caught with it and the people who threw the party were somehow involved.

38:40Sarah Turney:But a theory is not an answer and Dorothy has to know the truth. The problem is the police still aren't really investigating even though they have a body. So Dorothy keeps asking people questions around town. She gets in touch with Kurt's friend, David Trisnick, who'd been out of town for a bit and didn't really know Kurt's family was looking for him. But David tells Dorothy he actually saw Kurt three days after he went missing, but only from a distance. On Monday, October 26th, 1981, David was in his car driving down the road to a job interview. Less than a mile away from the Sova house, he spotted Kurt walking with another boy along a busy street.

39:19Sarah Turney:David pulled over to offer Kurt a ride, but at the same time, a van pulled up. Kurt yelled out, Franco. Then both boys ran over to the van and hopped in. So David went about his business without ever talking to Kurt. Now David's kicking himself. If he knew Kurt was missing at the time, he would have done something like followed the van, but he had no idea. And two days later, Kurt was found dead. Okay, Courtney, this is a huge clue if it's true, but it's not the only shocking thing that happened that day. Turns out a strange man had been hanging around a local record store in the Slavic Village neighborhood for the last couple of weeks.

40:00For no apparent reason, he bragged to people that he had access to dead bodies flown into Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. He even said they'd taken off their shoes, which if you remember, Kurt wasn't wearing any when he was found. On Monday, October 26th, the same day David spotted Kurt, the man went inside the record shop. He pointed at the missing person poster of Kurt taped to the window and told the manager, Judy Oros, that she might as well take it down. The person on it would be found dead in two days, and they weren't going to know what happened to him. At the time, Judy was skeptical, but the prediction turned out to be true.

40:38The day after Kurt's body was found, on Thursday, October 29th, the situation escalated. When Judy came to open the shop, she learned that the same man had left a bouquet of flowers and a note for her with a neighboring shop owner. We mentioned it before. Roses are red. The sky is blue. They found him dead. and they'll find you too.

40:59Sarah Turney:Extremely creepy, we know. Which is why Judy called the Cleveland police before the man could make it back to the store that day. When he arrived, two detectives took him outside and put him in their car. Judy watched them give him a once over, but then they let him go. They told Judy he was, quote, just some wacko from Detroit, end quote. After that, Judy never saw him again. But this isn't the only place the police dropped the ball. The Newburgh Heights PF didn't question anyone really. Nobody took photos of Kurt's body at the crime scene. Nobody searched the duplex on Harvard Avenue where Kurt was last seen alive.

41:36Sarah Turney:Nobody took witness statements from anyone who was with Kurt the night he disappeared. It was a complete disaster. I mean, to say the least, especially because three months after Kurt died, on February 1st, 1982, the police discover another body. 13-year-old Eugene Kovett, a boy who lived one block north of the Sovas and actually knew Kurt, his body's discovered in a different ravine along the same street, two and a half miles from where Kurt's was found. Both boys were missing for several days before they died, and Eugene's right shoe was also never found. According to his autopsy, he died from falling into the ravine, but Eugene's case is never connected to Kurt's in any official way.

42:21Sarah Turney:This is so frustrating because to you and I, Sarah, the connection between Kurt and Eugene feels so obvious. And yet there's no real effort to put the pieces together. It actually takes another year before a meaningful tip comes in and it's a by chance encounter with Ken Soba. One day, Kurt's dad runs into a woman named Angeline Reddix. She lives between the party duplex and the location where Kurt's body was found. She tells Ken, around the time that Kurt went missing, she looked out her window and saw two young men dragging what seemed to be an unconscious teenage boy down the alley. They were headed toward the ravine where Kurt's body was later found.

42:59Sarah Turney:To make matters weirder, the boy they were carrying only had one shoe on and she's pretty sure it was his left. At the time, she figured they'd all drink too much and were trying to sober up. That is until a few days later when Kurt's body was discovered in the ravine. Only she didn't report it because her husband told her they had to mind their own business and she listened. Up until the time she meets Ken Sova on the street. She tells him what she saw and Dorothy passes the information onto the Newburgh Heights police, but they never reach out to Angeline. And Dorothy is not surprised. The Newburgh Heights police haven't interviewed half the people who've come to her with tips.

43:39Sarah Turney:Lieutenant Karras treats her like a mother who won't accept her son's death. What she really won't accept are all the unanswered questions. Where was Kurt in the time between the party and discovering his body? How did he die? And who put his body in the ravine? Dorothy works tirelessly to answer these questions herself, seeing as the Newburgh Heights police haven't put a dent in her son's case. But over time, Dorothy convinces four law enforcement agencies to take a closer look. The Cleveland police, the county sheriff and prosecutor's offices, and the FBI. And then they finally get their first person of interest.

44:16Someone considered one of their own.

44:24Sarah Turney:Such an ordinary thing to walk home from high school. Her name was Mickey Costanzo, just 16. She didn't have far to go, seemed perfectly safe, until it wasn't. What happened to Mickey? I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Five Miles from Home, an all-new podcast from Dateline. Listen to all episodes of Five Miles from Home now, wherever you get your podcasts.

44:57Sarah Turney:It's the spring of 1983, a year and a half after Kurt Sova's death. Dorothy is fed up with the Newburgh Heights police and their lack of action on her son's case. So she convinces detective Al Figler at the Cleveland Police Department to look into it. He gets the file from Lieutenant Karas, the officer in charge at Newburgh Heights PD. And what he receives looks like a joke to him. It doesn't even qualify as basic detective work, just a manila folder with three or four pieces of paper and four Polaroids. Al spends the next eight years working on the case, but he can't undo the mess that was made of the investigation.

45:37This is unacceptable, completely unacceptable. What do you mean? What do you mean that the folder only had these few items in there? I just, I'll never understand it. Like, why be a detective if this is the work you're going to do?

45:53Sarah Turney:I have no idea because you cannot tell me that three or four pieces of paper contains all of the information needed to make this like a successful investigation. Like, literally nothing was done right from the very beginning. Like, even when his parents came to the police saying, my son is missing, they literally just like went in one ear and out the other. It seems like. Yeah, I mean, three to four pieces of paper, that's not even like all the interviews for witnesses, right? You're talking about a party with, I mean, we don't know how many kids, but I'm assuming more than three to four if it's a true house party.

46:25And that doesn't even include people who knew Kurt outside of the party as family members. And that's just witness statements. I mean, for all we know, those three to four pieces of paper could be like the autopsy.

46:36Sarah Turney:Especially when you don't interview any of the witnesses that were at the party that night, let alone search that house. That is just something you can never get back. At this point, so much time has passed. all of the evidence that could have been there had anything bad happened inside that house is no longer there. Like I said, that's just stuff that you can't get back. Like the investigation was botched so badly that I don't know. It's just infuriating. I really feel for this family because, I mean, imagine eight years goes by and you get this folder. There's literally some pictures in it, three pieces of paper.

47:06Sarah Turney:That's just, like I said, another slap in the face. I mean, what this tells me, right, again, not an expert, but it tells me that Karis looked at this case, did a little bit of work, made up his mind and put it to the side. That's nothing. Three to four pieces of paper and four Polaroids. That's not an investigation. Most true crime podcasts do, you know, more research than that. Like an incredibly more, I can't even speak right now. I'm so frustrated for this family. But like the level of the detective work is just non-existent. And it's very clear that he made up his mind and never had the intention of collecting this material to possibly pass on to another detective someday.

47:45Sarah Turney:That's actually kind of scary to me because this case should have been taken a little bit more, I mean, obviously more seriously from the very beginning. But then again, when you have another kid go, you know, missing and then is found dead in a ravine, everything is very similar to how Kurt was found. You would think that after that discovery, like Kurt's case would like be paid a little bit more attention to. And the fact that it wasn't like, that is so concerning to me. And it just makes me, it just makes me question the investigations and other cases that took place around that time. Like, unfortunately, that's where my mind goes.

48:17It's just it's so infuriating because it's so easy to not do this. Like, just do your job. I don't think that's too much to ask. Take pictures of the crime scene. Is that so much to ask? Like, I know it's the 70s and maybe this detective was like, kids drink and things happen. That's the end of that. But like, do your job. Surely that's not how you were taught.

48:36Sarah Turney:I know. And then, I mean, if you take it back to that really sketchy guy that was going into that shop and like leaving those poems. Like that's another big thing to me. It's like he said things that nobody knew at the time. And like, yes, maybe he did have some issues of his own and maybe he was just throwing things out there because he wanted attention and could. What he said was what happened, like what was found a couple of days later. Yeah, just a wacko from Detroit. Is he a psychic? Is he Nostradamus? Like who is this person that so accurately depicted this? And why is he being so weird and creepy about it?

49:11Sarah Turney:Well, in 1990, things make a bit more sense when everything comes to a head for the Newburgh Heights Police Department. Lieutenant Karras is exposed for abusing prescription painkillers. It's also revealed that he has a record of beating and stomping handcuffed prisoners. The FBI charges him with brutally assaulting five suspects between 1988 and 1989, including several youths. Yeah, so one of them was 25-year-old Eric Kontensky, who was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving. When he refused to hand over his car keys, Karas bashed him in the head with a flashlight. Karas then picked him up at the hospital later to bring him back to the police station.

49:52But he didn't go straight there. He took Eric behind the J.L. Goodman Furniture Store, the warehouse near where Kurt's body was found. And there, he tried to taunt him into a fight while Eric was still handcuffed. But Eric refused to get out of the car.

50:06Sarah Turney:In addition to charging Karas with assault, the FBI also opens up an investigation into Kurt's death. At the same time, Cuyahoga County Assistant Prosecutor James A. Gutierrez looks into the case. He asks Lieutenant Karras, who's still with the department, by the way, even while facing charges, if he himself had anything to do with Kurt's disappearance and death. But Karras denies playing a role. Assistant Prosecutor Gutierrez doesn't leave it there, though. He calls the initial investigation done by the Newburgh Heights PD a joke, as well as non-existent and unbelievable. He says if he had been made aware of it earlier, he would have indicted the officers involved for dereliction of duty, meaning they didn't even try to do their jobs.

50:51Sarah Turney:When asked to explain, former Newburgh Heights police chief, James Lucas, who was active during the original investigation, says they didn't call forensic specialists to the scene because they were a small police department. They didn't have any, but they also could have gotten specialists to come out from Cleveland. In fact, Dorothy says the Cleveland Police Department offered to help with the case immediately after Kurt's body was found, but Newburgh Heights declined. When asked why his officers didn't obtain a search warrant for the party house where Kurt was last seen alive, Lucas said they had no reason to search it.

51:27The whole investigation was a nightmare, but at least karma comes for Karas in 1990. He's convicted on 76 counts of aggravated drug trafficking and illegal processing of drug documents. In August 1990, police chief Lucas is permanently banned from law enforcement for helping get bogus police credentials for a dispatcher. And this isn't his first offense. In 1984, he pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty for allowing gambling at a party. He was working it as a security guard while off duty for some extra cash. And on Wednesday, January 2nd, 1991, Karis is sentenced to six to 15 years in prison.

52:08He's on unpaid leave, but he still doesn't get fired from the Newburgh Heights Police Department until six weeks after his prison sentence begins.

52:17Sarah Turney:I'm just going to be fully honest. It's very rare to see this level of nothingness done in a police department, at least like in the cases that I've covered over the past five, six years. I feel like this is up there with washing your hands and like turning, you know, turning a cheek, like to not paying attention. I feel like this is just insane to me. Yeah, well, I mean, it seems like corruption was coming from the top, right? And it seemed like the type of department where these detectives, these officers could do whatever they wanted. Especially Karis. And like, that is so suspicious to me that he literally beat up another suspect behind the same area, like the same warehouse near where Kurt's body was found.

52:57Sarah Turney:That is really suspicious to me. And it honestly just makes me question, like, does that have anything to do with Kurt going missing? Like, what did he see? What did he do? What is he hiding? Yeah, it's a fair question. I mean, maybe Kurt left the party. He was drunk and then he got picked up by the cops. It's not the craziest theory. You know what I mean? People throw out crazy theories in true crime all the time and that seems pretty likely, allegedly. That definitely could have been a scenario. Like, he was outside alone waiting for his friend to come back out with his jacket. You know, leaning up against the fence, sick, drinking a little bit.

53:29Sarah Turney:Yeah, like, he's underage. Like, he shouldn't have been drinking. Maybe the officer, Officer Karras comes by, sees him, picks him up. Something escalates. Maybe Kurt says something that makes him mad. Like we all know we cannot trust Karras. It's very clear he has a temper. He's beaten up so many other people before. Like this is definitely a logical thing that could have happened. But it is weird to me that his body wasn't found sooner. Like the family searched in that specific spot and he wasn't there just the night before he was found. So that's confusing to me. Yeah. And then you have the sighting of him.

54:02there's a lot of different factors here that just seem really weird and I don't know how to put all those pieces together.

54:09Sarah Turney:But I will say we kind of like admired them at the beginning as well but I feel like if Dorothy did not step in and push as hard as she has for her son her baby you know I don't think Kurt's case would have gotten taken to the next step. I'm very thankful that Karma came for Officer Karras and he did get exposed and sentenced and eventually fired. I feel like he should have been fired way sooner than what he was. So I'm thankful for that happening. But I really don't think if it wasn't for Dorothy, I don't think Kurt's case would have eventually gone on to get the attention that it deserved. Yeah.

54:42I mean, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And I always say it like you are always going to be your loved one's best advocate. And Dorothy is the perfect example of that.

54:54Unfortunately, that justice against the Newburgh Heights PD doesn't mean a happy ending for the Sova family. By September 2017, 36 years since Kurt died, 58-year-old Kevin is the only family member still alive. Without resources for counseling and support groups, all the brothers struggled with vices and addictions after what happened to Kurt. Meaning Kurt wasn't the only victim of this crime. His whole family suffered. His father Ken died in 2001 at the age of 68. Their second youngest brother, Keith, died in June 2014 at the age of 52. Six months later, in December 2014, their mother, Dorothy, died of an aneurysm at 76.

55:35Three years after that, on Monday, September 4th, 2017, 57-year-old Kenny died of an overdose. He was still living in the home in Slavic Village at the time, the same place they lived when Kurt disappeared. Kenny's body was in the house for 10 days before he was discovered. The last surviving brother, Kevin, takes several boxes of documents, news clippings, and notes Dorothy kept on Kurt's case from the house.

56:00Sarah Turney:About two years later in 2019, Kevin gets a call from John Majoy, who took over as Newburgh Heights chief of police in 2013. He's asking about Kurt. Kevin goes to see him and brings some of Dorothy's boxes, which is extremely helpful because Majoy wants to discuss reopening Kurt's case. In November 2019, the Newburgh Heights Police Department makes it official. They announced the reopening of Kurt's case and that they are partnering with Tiffin, an Ohio university about 90 miles west of Cleveland. They put in thousands of hours of work traveling across three states to interview witnesses and give polygraphs.

56:38Sarah Turney:In February, 2020, members of the Newburgh Police Department, Tiffin University, and Kevin Sova all go to a crime con event called CrowdSolve. There, they share information on Kurt's case with 300 participants who try to help them make breakthroughs. If they've uncovered new information, they haven't shared it with the public. I think it's important to remember that, like, part of the reason why I think both of us, right, are so outraged at Karras is that because these things become generational. Like, as amazing as it is that Kevin picked everything up and he ran with it and he's, you know, helping solve his brother's case, he should never have to do that in the first place.

57:19Sarah Turney:Something I always say is like the crime does not just end with the victim. It doesn't just affect the victim. As we've seen, especially in this case, it literally affects everyone surrounding the victim. In this case, his entire family. They all had to live without Kurt and it all took a toll on them in some way or another. If I'm trying to look at the bright side, I'm really, really happy that, you know, they're attending like a crime con event. Like a whole university is coming together just to help hopefully solve Kurt's case. And I feel like that is heartwarming because I feel it's probably just reassurance to him that nobody has forgotten about his brother, like even after all these years.

57:57Yeah. Well, and I do think that these crowd solve events can be really beneficial. Like, I think part of the beauty of, you know, true crime in general and so many people looking at these cases is that everybody has a different lens. Everybody has different experience. They have different education. And when these cases, you know, are this old, what harm can it do? Let's open it up. Let's let everybody take a look and see what they think. I think it's a really beautiful thing. And I've certainly seen some things come of crowdsolive events like this. So shout out to Kevin.

58:28Sarah Turney:And I also think it's really interesting that this university is kind of like taking on Kurt's case. These students kind of have like a rare opportunity to like go back in time and basically just conduct the investigation themselves because there clearly was never an actual investigation. Kurt's case is definitely like a unique one for these students because they really can take it all the way back. I don't know, and hopefully find some sort of answer like nothing was done for Kurt. And now all of these people are coming together from all over the world to try and help solve this. And I think that is just a beautiful thing to see.

58:59Yeah. I mean, there's so much comfort in knowing that people outside of your immediate circle care about your loved one and that they want to see their case solved. There's so much peace in that, too. And I know for me personally, right, like the true crime community makes me feel so supported. And I hope that Kevin feels the same way.

59:21Sarah Turney:Kurt's case is still open, but it's once again cold. Many people have tried, but so far nobody's been able to recover from the initial terribly mishandled investigation. That's what's so hard about this case. We can't help but wonder if it would have been solved with the police more involved or what would have happened if they looked for Kurt when he was still a missing child. We know that Kurt went to a party with a new friend. Most of the crowd was older and he didn't know many of them. Kurt drank a little too much and got sick. So he went outside to get some fresh air. It was cold, so his friend went back inside to grab him a jacket.

59:56And by the time he came back, Kurt was gone. Nobody heard him leave. Nobody knows where he went. But his mother, Dorothy, spent the rest of her life trying to find out. And his oldest brother, Kevin, is still looking for answers.

1:00:10Sarah Turney:So if you have any information about Kurt Sova, please contact Crime Stoppers at 216-252-7463 or the Newburgh Heights Police Department at 216-386-0024 or SovaTips at newberg-oh.gov.

1:00:39Thank you for listening to The Final Hours. If you have any other details about Kurt Sova's case, please share it with us on social media. We want to hear from you. Your thoughts, condolences, and feedback or what make this community so special.

1:00:53Sarah Turney:At Crime House, we value your support. Share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review, and follow The Final Hours to help others discover the show. And to enhance your listening experience, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode of The Final Hours ad-free, along with early access and exciting bonus content. The Final Hours is hosted by Sarah Turney and me, Courtney Nicole, and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. This episode is brought to life by the Final Hours team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benadon, Lori Marinelli, Natalie Pertzowski, Alyssa Fox, Dana Brazil-Solovy, Andrew Rosenblum, and Russell Nash.

1:01:35Sarah Turney:Thank you for listening.

1:01:41Thank you for listening. If Kurt's story stayed with you, there are so many more like it on the Final Hours. Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen. Courtney and I put out new episodes every Monday.

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1:02:31Sarah Turney:Her name was Mickey Costanzo, just 16. She didn't have far to go. Seemed perfectly safe until it wasn't. What happened to Mickey. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Five Miles from Home, an all-new podcast from Dateline. Listen to all episodes of Five Miles from Home now, wherever you get your podcasts.