339. The Billboard That Caught a Killer: The Murder of Ali Kemp

You're listening to an ONO media podcast. Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. Well, here we are at a crazy week, haven't we? Would you guys like to know what's been going on? We'll start with Peyton. Oh, I just got out of the hospital today. Show them your little hospital band. Just got out of the hospital. I was in a little bit of pre-term labor. They stopped it. I was having lots of close and good contractions. Basically, her gallbladder attack just put her into labor. And we're back at home. But if it happens again, more than likely, we will have a baby. Which is so, so annoying because I've stuck to the diet and it had worked thus far. This all started at like 28 weeks or something. And I just spontaneously, randomly had a bad attack today. And it just threw me right into labor. Which they told me would happen, which was why they were wanting surgery. But we stopped it, I think. But the doctor was like, it could start again in any second. So I know. But right now, I'm good. Yeah. So we're back, we're chilling, everything's OK. We'll keep everyone updated, but that's what we got there. I got stitches in my arm. So that happened, too. I'm OK, at least I think I am. I got a pretty ginormous object removed from my arm, right? OK, it was cyst-like. We're still waiting for the test to come back. It was 1.5 centimeters. No, it was bigger. It was bigger. I watched them and heard them measure it. I'll post a picture of it. It's definitely bigger than 1.5 centimeters. Big 1.5 centimeters is big. That's the first something that doesn't belong in your body. That's the diameter of 1.5 centimeters, right? Yes. Yeah, it's pretty big. It's big. Like for a foreign thing, it come out of your body. They were digging in my arm. He had a bump. We went into the dermatologist. They were like, can we just do it right now? Cut his arm open, full of surgery on this table. I kid you not. He did a great job. I don't think he's listening to this, but he did a great job. It just was deeper. It was bigger and deeper than he thought it was. Yeah. I'm just saying. I know it was because I can tell. He ended up having to really get his scissors in there. There was a lot of blood. He ended up having his nurse glove up because it was. It was good. Yeah, it kind of looks like a little mini brain that came out, so they are testing it. I have stitches. I was supposed to play sports tomorrow, but I can't really move my arm like that. So just bagels, podcasts, baby, life. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. We got a crazy life. We really think about it an hour ago, an hour and a half ago, we were like, are we bringing a baby home? This is true. Literally, the doctor was like, who's in triage? She's in labor. That's how. Her contractions were over like a minute, 45 seconds. Yeah. And then it was like, oh no, they were just induced contractions from a gallbladder attack. Yeah. Anyways, that's my 10 seconds. That's our 10 seconds. That's our crazy life right now, and we're just chugging forward. That's the thing. I was like a little nervous sitting in the hospital room because I, you know, all these like, what if I have another attack? What if this starts again? What if I go home and it starts again? I'm not full-term, I'm not even at my own hospital, like, what am I going to be doing? And then I literally was like, okay, and like, what. I have zero control over this. That was ready. If we had the baby, I was ready. Our life's already so crazy right now, I'm just like, bring it on. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just. How all of this aligned to opening a bagel shop and having a baby and. And opening a second bagel shop at the same time that you're due with another baby? Yeah. A lot of cast. We also signed an extension for Netflix for those who didn't know. So we'll be on Netflix for longer, which we're excited about. We're very excited about. They've been awesome to us. You guys have been loving watching the show on Netflix. So thank you. Thank you to all those who continue to listen on audio too. I mean, between audio and Netflix, we love you guys. We got a little family going on. You know what's crazy is like, I remember early on, we would be like. The podcast was our whole lives and it literally hasn't changed even with the bagel shop. It is such a major part of our life. Even with a baby and a bagel shop coming. It's like. Oh, we saw recorded. Weekly. You guys are our OGs. You know what I mean? It's weird. I mean, when we first started recording, it was like one download, two download. Yeah. Two downloads. Three downloads. Gosh, remember when we hit a hundred downloads on one episode? Yeah. I know. I thought. Fly me to LA, baby. 99% of them are probably our family and friends, because they feel bad for us. I know. You know what? This is your sign right now. If you have a dream, chase it. Okay. Just do it. Just do it. Because it was a little embarrassing when we first started the podcast. I think it's less embarrassing now, but back then, it was a little embarrassing to be two full grown adults being like begging people on Instagram to listen to our podcast. We had no idea if it was ever going to like work or not. And look, we just kept chugging. We kept our. We were like, we are doing this. So follow your dreams. If you needed a sign, this is your sign right now. Just do it. Nothing is embarrassing. Look at this. No. I'm teaching a class, an entrepreneurship class next week for a college, and something that I personally have never struggled with because I am a psychopath is just doing something. But I feel like that's the biggest thing in dreams you're chasing or business, like just do it. He's got to do it. You just have to do it. You don't have to know exactly what you're doing. You don't have to have all the answers. You just got to do it. And it'll work out. I'm telling you, just do it. It'll work out. If you commit to something for long enough, it's going to work out. All good vibes your way. We love you. And let's hop into this week's episode. Our sources for this episode are CBS news.com, atv.com, oxygen, NBC news, dot com, Galatin North, Missouri and dot com, Johnson County Post dot com, people dot com, kshb dot com, kmbc dot com, LJ world dot com, Fox 4 K C dot com, medium dot com and Kansas City dot com. Our world is oversaturated with ads. Social media, television, bus stops, billboards, billboards. Most of us pass them by without so much as a thought or a second glance. But what we don't realize is that information sits with us. It gets filed away in a part of our subconscious, ready to resurface the moment another memory triggers it. Ever thought, I'm hungry. I actually want a burger like the one I saw on that billboard today. That's what I'm talking about. They work, and if placed in a high traffic area, they can be seen by thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people a day. And this was something Roger Kemp considered in 2003 after his 19 year old daughter, Ali, was murdered by an unknown assailant after putting her photo, a composite sketch and information about her crime on billboards, trucks, ads across the country. It not only got them some really good leads. It actually ended up being the reason why her killer was brought to justice. So let's head to a quiet little enclave, about 12 miles south of Kansas City, Kansas, called Leewood. This is the kind of place where people grow up and they just never really leave. And why would they? Those who've spent their lives here say it's like a modern day, quote, leave it to be where you'd happily show up to a new neighbor's home with a welcome basket where you would allow a stranger to come inside your home for a glass of water or to use the bathroom. It was a town where everyone was known to be a hard worker with strong Midwest values, where supposedly a third of the locals actually had a master's degree. And where the violent crime rate was well below the national average, and it is here in this safe little suburb with its treeline streets that Alexandra Kemp grew up. Allie, as everyone called her, was the oldest of three siblings with two younger brothers named Tyler and Drew. And she was one of those girls around town that everyone had heard of. She was extremely involved in school, extracurricular activities, especially soccer, but she did love poetry. She was an honors student who also happened to be part of the unofficial welcome community at school. If there was a new kid in town, Allie was quick to just take them under her wing, show them the ropes. said she was warm-hearted and pathetic, with eyes that showed j. just how kind she was. And she had this boy-stress laugh that could be heard across the room. It was pretty infectious. So you can see why Ali was so popular. And she had so many friends in Leewood, many of whom she stayed close with after she graduated high school and began studying at Kansas State University, which was about two hours away from her hometown. The year is 2002. And 19-year-old Ali had just finished her freshman year of college there. She had joined a sorority. And when she wasn't studying or involved in extracurriculars, she was volunteering at the church or just somewhere in the community. All in all, Ali was the kind of young woman that any parent would be proud to call their daughter. So they were thrilled when she came home that summer. They wanted to soak up every single minute they had with Ali in between her freshman and sophomore year of college. Especially since she was actually already making plans for the next few years. Ali had been invited by her church group to study abroad in Russia, where she would be volunteering with people in need, but she was also considering another opportunity that might conflict. And that was studying American foreign policy with the U.S. State Department. But for that summer, the summer after her freshman year, Ali was just happy being back home in her hometown and living under her parents' roof again. She'd gotten a part-time job, along with her brother Tyler, working at a public pool. And she was actually rekindling things with her old high school boyfriend, a guy named Phil House. Now the two had decided to call it quits after they graduated high school since she was going to Kansas State and he was going to Kansas University. And they were about like an hour and a half apart, but that summer they both moved home and they fall right back into each other's arms. In fact, Phil was working at the pool with her and her brother Tyler as well. And Ali's parents seemed to really like Phil. He appeared to be a good influence on her. Ali didn't drink her due drugs. She was always focused on her future and how that could be improved. So making a little extra money that summer was the only thing she was really focused on. And it was easy. The pool she worked at was just a few blocks away from her family home. And one of those quiet days was June 18th, 2002. That was until the afternoon when everything changed. Now June 18th, 2002 was an unseasonably chilly day at the pool, a bit windy with temperatures in the 60s. So Ali figured it was going to be a slow day if anyone even showed up at all to swim. Still, there always had to be someone on site. So Ali took her books with her and figured, I'll get a little coursework done this day 'cause there's probably not going to be any swimmers. She arrived for her shift at around 2 p.m. and actually took over for her boyfriend, Phil. He hung out for about 15 minutes, but he does end up leaving at 2 p.m. to head to another job he had across town. But the two made plans to just meet up like later after both of them had finished work for a little date night together. So Phil and Ali say they're goodbyes as he heads off to work leaving her at the pool. And then around 2.51 p.m., Ali called Phil, but he didn't pick up. So she left him a voicemail with some more details about their date. She also had plans to leave work a bit early that day to go get ready. Her brother Tyler was working the shift after hers. So he agreed to come a little early so she could head out sooner to get ready. So Phil. - I just, I just hate that. I know it's gonna sound cliche or obvious, but I just hate that like one second everyone, like you're having a normal life, you're just living. - Making plans. - Making plans, being normal. Then all of a sudden she's just gonna get killed. - Yeah. - Like, it's, I don't know. It just hard to comprehend sometimes, you know? - Yeah, it's devastating. So this day, Phil, her boyfriend worked the first shift at the pool. She came in after him and then Tyler, her brother is actually gonna come in a little bit earlier so she can leave and go get ready for her and Phil's date. So she's calling Phil saying, hey, here's the details for our date, but after making that phone call to Phil, she took her stuff into the pump room at the pool. She planned to do some tidying up there followed by a bit of more schoolwork. Cut to now 5 p.m. Ali's brother Tyler shows up at the still empty pool to relieve her. But when he opens up the gate and heads inside, he can't find his sister Ali anywhere. He checks the pump room, all the lights are off. He goes into all the restrooms, calls her name, still nothing. So this is when he calls Ali's phone. Again, no answer. So this is when Tyler, her brother does start to get a bit worried and he gets in touch with their dad, Roger, to see if he can swing by and help him look for Ali. Roger rushes over and gets there around 5.25 p.m. And he also goes to the pump room, which he knows that Ali sometimes used as an office, especially on slow days for like work. This time when he goes in, he actually finds the lights and flips them on. 'Cause like I said, Tyler went in and called her name, but the lights were off. So now her dad goes in, flicks the lights on, and that's when he sees Ali's things. Her phone and her backpack, he sees her books are out on the table in the pump room and there's blood on the floor. And this is when he spots it, underneath a pool tarp, there is a leg sticking out. - Oh my gosh. - Now imagine being this dad. - I just can't, I like I can't, it infuriates me. - He walks over, he removes the tarp, obviously. He's looking for his missing daughter and he finds that the leg that was sticking out belongs to his 19 year old daughter. Ali's fingernails are broken. One of her shoes is on the opposite side of the room. Her t-shirt is pushed up around her throat. Her bra is pulled up to expose her chest. She's not wearing any pants or underwear. She's been beaten, strangled, and she's covered in blood. And this is how her own father finds her. This is when he calls 911. Now Roger tells the operator, his daughter has been murdered, but he's also heard over the line, telling Ali to just stay with him and to fight and when the first responders show up, it appears that's exactly what Ali's doing. Roger is holding her in his arms and she still has a slight pulse. - Oh my gosh. - I hate this so much, I honestly truly hate it. - So they load her into an ambulance and they rush her to a nearby hospital. And meanwhile, the police immediately get to work at the crime scene like realizing this has been an attack. This was obviously an attempted homicide. One of the first things they realize is that Ali definitely fought with her attacker. There are pool supplies everywhere in this pump room. Like they were knocked off the metal shelving units. There's also a puddle of blood near the pool tarp, which they collect DNA samples from. And there is a tube of antibiotic ointment that is separated from its cap and it is lying near the spot where Ali's body was found. So they bag and tag thinking, maybe we can pick up something like Prince or DNA. It looks like it's been opened or used. Now unfortunately, there are no cameras at the pool that could have caught her attacker. But there is a shopping center just across the street and a few of those businesses have cameras. So police ask them for their security footage but it really doesn't bring anything of value to the case, which means a lot of this is gonna just have to rely on good old fashioned eyewitness testimony. And at this same time, doctors are doing everything they can at the hospital to save Ali's life. But shortly after her arrival, it seems all hope is lost and Ali is pronounced dead at just 19 years old. This means police now officially have a homicide investigation on their hands. And the first person they want to speak to is the last person that was known to see Ali alive before her brother showed up to look for her. And that was her boyfriend, Phil House. Now the reason they decide to rule Phil out first is this appears to be a crime of passion and with Phil being the only one romantically linked to Ali, it makes sense to start with him first. When police bring him in for questioning, Phil tells them how he left the pool around 215 people. to go to his other job. He was literally supposed to see Ali later that night and she even called to talk more about this date around 2.51 PM, but he had missed her call. And his alibi is actually really easy to confirm his other job, which is all the way across town, vouches for him being there and showing up for the shift. Now they also ask Phil to give some DNA samples to use as comparison. He obviously cooperates, but talking to Phil also helps with something else. It's the timeline of Ali's death. If she last called him at 2.51 PM, and her brother arrived to relieve her from her shift a little before 5 PM, that leaves about a two hour window where this attack most likely occurred, which can help them verify future alibis. Luckily, it doesn't take long for leads to start coming in after this, including two gardeners who were working at the pool that day and had spotted something of note. So they claimed that when they took a lunch break in their car that afternoon, they noticed a tan 1980s Ford pickup truck pull up to the pool parking lot, which was important because that was the only car that was there that day with it being so cold in the pool being empty. They said the trucks circled a couple of times before leaving, but they didn't get a good look at the driver unfortunately or the license plate, probably because they didn't even find this alarming until after they heard about Ali's murder. So it's not the perfect lead, but it was a start. Though the police got something even better, when one of Ali's friends came forward to say she had actually swung by the pool that day and she noticed something she thought was weird. So around 315 PM, this is after the call to fill, but before Tyler has showed up for his shift of relieving Ali, Ali's friends stopped by the pool to hang out with her for a minute knowing like she was on shift. And when she got to the parking lot, she said she started honking, she admitted she was being a bit obnoxious. She was just trying to get Ali's attention. She figured Ali would poke her head out from the pool, laughing like again, there's no one there. So Ali's just hanging out, but the friend says it wasn't Ali who she saw. Instead, she saw a man peek out at the parking lot from the pool. She said he was wearing blue cover rolls and carrying a bucket. So she assumed it was probably just Ali's boss or someone like working maintenance at the pool. And that's when her friend thought, oh shoot, I probably just got Ali in trouble. I thought she would be here alone. So she ducked down in her car in the parking lot in various. Apparently, the man then walked past her toward the parking lot, waved at her, got in his car, pick up truck, and drove away. Okay. Now, the friend like was just kind of creeped out by this whole thing. So she did give him a minute to drive away. And then she gets out of her car and she's going to go look in the pool area for Ali to be like, who was that? Did I get you in trouble? He like waved at me. He was creepy. But she goes in and she doesn't see her. She's like, okay, maybe Ali's just running an errand or something. So she actually just gets back in her car and leaves without seeing Ali. That breaks my heart because it's not her fault. Obviously. No, no. That's just so just what a situation. Now police think, well, this this friend's random visit might hold the key to solving this case. The man she saw has got to be their suspect. He's the one that was driving the tan truck. So they have Ali's friend sit down with a sketch artist because she does remember this guy's face. A few hours later, they have a composite sketch and description of their suspect. A white male around his mid 30s with short brown hair. Heavy set kind of round in the face somewhere between five foot eight and six feet tall. Now a few days later, that sketch is posted all over town and tips start pouring into the Leewood police department. But nothing that's really worth pursuing. Now around the same time, Ali's autopsy report is completed. And this gives police a clearer picture of the crime that was committed against her that day. They determined her official cause of death was blunt force trauma and strangulation. Ali also, like I said, had broken fingernails but broken fingers, which proved she did fight her attacker. So they collect additional DNA from under her fingernails. The marks on her neck indicate she was likely approached and strangled from behind. Though they aren't able to determine what sort of object was used to strangle her. They do however conclude that while her clothing was removed, there didn't appear to be any signs of sexual assault. Meanwhile, analysts are also working on recovering DNA from the items collected at the scene, including that ointment tube and cap that they had found. And when it comes back from testing results say it does have DNA on it, but it isn't Ali's. It belongs to an unknown male. So not Phil or anyone else they had taken samples from up till this point. However, that sample, the one on the ointment tube also matches DNA that was found on Ali's shirt and bra. So not having anyone else to compare it to yet, they run these shared samples through codeus and unfortunately they don't come up with a match. But they do have a good enough read on the DNA that when a lead does come through, they will have a really good sample to compare it to. And actually that first lead comes sooner than they anticipate. Four days after Ali's murder, Lee Wood police get a call from the Leavenworth County Sheriff's Department saying this. They had a warrant out for a local man's arrest and it turns out he also matched the composite sketch of Ali's murderer pretty well. And even more damning, when police approached him, he said to them, quote, are you here about the girl who was murdered at the pool in Lee Wood? Yeah, I mean, just because of how you started the story, I know it's not going to be him, but let's keep it going. So obviously they arrest him because they have a warrant for something else. They bring him in for questioning. And when they do, they notice these scratch marks all over his arms and the sheriff's department's thinking, this is the guy who murdered her. Problem is, he has a very solid alibi for the time of the murder. He was at work where multiple people saw him, but vouch for him. And he has an excuse for the marks on his arms too. Turns out they were from a domestic dispute with his wife from just a day or two earlier. And this is something she confirms as well. Interesting. So this is a dead end. Maybe it's a different guy than what the friends saw. I don't know. But a couple days later, the police get another good lead, a man who once again looks a lot like the person in the sketch. His name is James Strader. The 27-year-old is an auto mechanic who lives just 50 miles or so away from Lee Wood. And when officers go to speak with him, he also says, how was it work at the time of the murder at an auto repair shop in Kansas? So detectives speak to his boss. Sure enough, it's true. He was working at the time. So police end up scratching this tip off the list as well, which means when friends gather for Ali's funeral, they are no closer to having someone to blame. Ali's funeral is held on Saturday June 22nd at the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Lee Wood. This is the largest United Methodist Church in the world. It seats 3,500 people. And that day, every single chair was filled to honor Ali. Now, meanwhile, police are taking every possible step they can to try and find who is responsible for this murder. They are combing hundreds of DMV records looking for that tan truck. They pull every single car registered in that style in both Missouri and Kansas. And they begin looking to everyone who drives them. But over the next few months, these leads dry up. So Ali's family and friends kind of start to take matters into their own hands. Her father Roger put it like this quote, you've got two choices. You can stay in bed and pull the covers over your head or you can go out and fight the battle. And I was going to fight the battle. There was no way I was going to let this guy win. Good for him, which is when Roger contacts the producers of America's most wanted. Okay, gets them to do a segment at first and then an entire episode on Ali's case. And he ups the reward for information on her case to $25,000, which is then matched by city officials for the grand total being 50 K. Okay. He places a large ad in the magazine USA Today with the composite sketch and a photo of Ali underneath the headline quote "do you know who killed me?" He even takes out ads on long haul trucks, so people across the country can see the sketch of the man. But Rodgers' most successful idea is to put this composite sketch on a billboard, okay? So he calls around a local advertising companies. He's like, what's a billboard gonna cost me? He's gonna pay for it. But when he speaks to a local company that owns several billboards in the area and tells them, well, this is what my plan is, they offer to do it for free. - Oh, it's what I'm talking about. - And within a few days of making that call, the first billboard goes out. - That's awesome. - Followed by three more throughout the area. And suddenly, now eight months after Ali's murder, leads are pouring in again. It is exactly the boost the case needs to gain more momentum. And shortly after that, an old suspect pops back up on the police's radar. It's that auto mechanic, James Schrader. Now it turns out the guy has been arrested in Kansas City after being accused of a string of sexual assault. - So it's the same guy they already thought? - Yeah, but he had an alibi. And so they were like, we let him go, but now he's popping back up again. - Okay. - Because he's been accused of a string of sexual assaults, all young women, some as young as 14 years old, though some sources did say younger. Now police, no, he has an alibi. They've already checked this. He has an alibi for the day Ali was killed. But what are the chances you have this guy who has a string of sexual assault allegations? - He has an alibi, but the friend was like, I saw this person. - Yeah, and it matched. - So someone's wrong. - Right. - And so let's figure out, obviously, who's wrong? - And the cops are with you. They can't shake that this might be the guy. Now luckily, they have that DNA sample they can test, but the problem is, James Schrader is out on bail. So he's not currently in custody to take DNA from. However, police catch a lucky break when he's pulled over in Utah on a traffic violation and supposedly stabbed during that dispute. Okay, he gets in a dispute during this traffic violation and is stabbed. Now police are able to collect his DNA and when they run it against the results found at the crime scene, they aren't a match. Turns out James really isn't their guy. So he's officially excluded as a suspect. And to them, it's like. - Dang, so what are they with them? - Yeah, they're like, what are the chances this guy has a string of sexual assaults? - What? - He looks just like the guy from the sketch and he's not our guy. - Okay. - Either way, those billboards are really working over time and they are bringing in a lot of leads that police feel are worth pursuing, including one really good one that comes in right around the one-year anniversary of Ali's murder. An anonymous caller foams the leeward police to say, I recognize the sketch on the billboard and the person they're suspecting also happens to be a pool maintenance guy. So can you imagine driving past this billboard and like being like, well, that looks like so-and-so and then being like, wait, this girl was killed at a pool while working on shift and the guy I'm thinking of is a pool maintenance guy. She tells police, his name is Teddy Hoover and that makes the police perk up because 27-year-old Teddy had actually been questioned back when this investigation started. - Of course he had been. - But for one reason or another, like he never became a serious person of interest, but this tipster seems to know Teddy pretty well. And not only does he give the police Teddy's current address, he says, also, Teddy's dad drives a Ford pickup just like the one that you guys are reported like you were reporting was seen that day. And this guy is like, and Teddy borrows it a lot. So not only is he a pool maintenance guy, not only does he look like the guy in the sketch, but he also has access to a car that multiple eyewitnesses saw in the parking lot. So this is when police pay another visit to Teddy Hoover. And when they get to Teddy's house, he allows detectives to come inside to ask him a few questions. They admit to him, we received a tip about you. We wanna eliminate you as a suspect. Teddy apparently seems calm and collected. He says he isn't surprised because he himself had seen the billboards. He knew he resembled the sketch. But when they ask him if he was at that pool that day, he says, no, I've never done any work at that pool. - Okay. - However, he did have other clients in the area. So he could have been in the area that day. He admits though, it's been too long. It was a year ago. He can't specifically remember where he was that afternoon. Police are like, hey, no problem. We've got a really easy way to cross you off our list 'cause we've got solid DNA samples. - And he doesn't give it. - And that's when Teddy starts acting a little nervous. - Okay. - He also can tell the police are picking up on this. So he plays it off. I just don't want my DNA ending up in like a national database. That's weird to me. He says, I'll have to get in touch with my lawyers. See if this is something I even want to do. And then I'll get back to you. So he also gives them his attorneys information 'cause he's like, you're also gonna need to contact me through my lawyer. - He had an attorney already? - I guess. But by the time detectives leave his house, they are like suspicious. Now after that, three days pass, they get no word from Teddy. So they finally get in touch with his attorney. And he says, look. The guy never actually paid me. So you don't have to go through me. Like you can go talk to him if you want. Which is why detectives now go back to Teddy's house. They knock on his door again. Only Teddy's not there this time. - What a surprise. - His landlord says, Teddy told him he was going to Las Vegas. And so they go back to the attorney. They're like, hey, Teddy wasn't there. Like we know he didn't pay you, but did he talk to you about going to Vegas? And he's like, he didn't talk to me about going to Vegas. He said he was maybe gonna go to Florida. So now police are like, oh great, so he's on the run. Like he's on the run. And he does a pretty good job of concealing his location. They run his name through databases in both Florida and Nevada, as well as the surrounding area. He doesn't come up. Well, actually he does, but not in the way you would imagine. Turns out when police try to dig deeper into Teddy Hoover's background, they find out he's dead. He has been for 10 years at that point, which is when they realize the man they had been speaking to had actually stolen this Teddy Hoover identity and was living under this guy's alias for a while. Obviously this is only gonna make him harder to track down. He's living under an alias. They don't even have his real name. But thankfully, there are some people they speak to who say they knew the name of Teddy Hoover's girlfriend, like local girlfriend in the area. It was a woman named Lara Bar. But she's equally as hard to find. And I hate to tell you this, but 17 months then passed in this case. - Oh my gosh. - Please have no idea where Teddy or his girlfriend Lara are. And so this is when they come up with an idea. They start contacting postal inspectors to see if anyone under the name of Lara Bar or Teddy Hoover has gotten mail in the state. - I think you're pretty smart, huh? - And finally, in the fall of 2004, they get an answer and they find an address. Lara is living in Connecticut with a new boyfriend named Ben Appleby. And when local detectives go to look into it, they find that Ben Appleby is actually Teddy Hoover who isn't actually Teddy Hoover. - I had no way. - This is crazy. - They are still together 17 months later and they have this guy and he's the exact same person as all these names. So a little bit about Ben Appleby or Teddy Hoover. His family lived in the Kansas City area. They did have a small pool cleaning business when Ali was murdered. Ben also had an outstanding warrant from the 1990s for three misdemeanor counts of looed conduct. - Oh my gosh. - After he went around flashing high school girls. And can I just say? I know it's like we don't judge behavior. - No, that's insane. - But like whenever we have a random murder of a girl that is sexual in nature, even if there's not sexual assault, and then you look at a guy and he's peeping Tom or flashing girls at high school or has a multiple sexual assault allegations against young girls. It's hard not to be like, okay, he escalated to murder. Like this just feels like a pattern of behavior we see time and time again. Not only this, he has been arrested a few times in Missouri once for second degree robbery, which he supposedly committed with a double-barreled shotgun. - Oh my gosh. please feel like this guy's rough. He's got to be our guy. They have officers in Connecticut, execute the warrant, and they knock on the front door of the house where he's living with Laura. They ask him, "Hey, are you Ben Apple buy?" And once he says, "Yes, they put him in handcuffs and they bring him to the station." And there, Leewood officers are already waiting eager to question him in Ali's murder case. And almost immediately, he breaks down and starts confessing. He tells these Leewood officers, "He actually was at the pool that day. He just went to see if he could get their business." And he walked in, no one was there, but that's when he spotted Ali working in the pump room all alone. He said he went in, he hit on her, she wanted nothing to do with him. And he says that just pissed him off. Holy crap. He claims he blocked the doorway. She started to feel uncomfortable and tell that something was wrong. That's when he made a move and placed a hand on her waist. Ali stood up for herself. She pushed Ben. She punched him in the chest. Ben says he snapped. He said he pushed her laid down on top of her, ripped her clothes off with the intention of sexually assaulting her. Then he began choking her. He doesn't remember even what he strangled her with. Of course he doesn't. Or why he did it. They all say this, but soon Ali was unconscious. He says he just kept going. He grabbed the tube of antibiotic oipment used as lubricant. Oh my, what a absolute freak. But then he hears the honking in the parking lot. Now if you remember, this honking is from Ali's friend who has showed up just to say hi to her work and is trying to get her attention. He says he got up. He rushed out of there. He went out to his truck and casually waved to Ali's friend to try to like make it seem like nothing was going on. Says he got in his truck and he drove away. With his confession signed and matching the eyewitness testimony, 29 year old Ben Apple buys charged with first degree murder and attempted rape. His bail is set at one million dollars, which he's unable to pay. Speaking of a high price, that anonymous caller who phoned in the tip about Teddy, which led them to Ben Apple buy, they refused to accept the reward money. They're like, I'm not taking the 50k instead. They donate it to the foundation that had been started in Ali's name. Now, it first obviously, it looks like Ben's going to plead guilty to the charges, but that doesn't end up being the case despite his confession. That happens a lot, right? They like, they confess, then they get an attorney, and then they're like, oh, actually, let me try to fight this. Yeah. He backs down on his confession. He's like, I was coerced. Yeah. So he decides to plead not guilty. And in the winter of 2006, Ben goes to trial. And on December 5th of that year, he's found guilty of all charges. He ascended to life in prison with a chance of parole at 50 years. And as for Roger and the camp family, Ali's dad and her family, they've found ways to help other people in Ali's memory. Roger believes that if Ali maybe had more self-defense training, maybe she could have really fought back. So he since started an organization called the Ali Camp Education Foundation or take. It's a self-defense program that teaches women of all ages tools on how to escape a confined attack. So like very specific to what Ali his daughter went through. And the program has actually since trained over 85,000 participants since it was opened in the early 2000s. So if you want to learn more about the take defense or honor Ali's memory with a donation, you can visit takedefense dot org for more information. We will have it linked over as well. But that is the murder of Ali. Oh my gosh. It just like those punishments are just they're not good enough for me, man. Those aren't good enough for me. I think they just aren't they never will be. I'm just not okay with it. I don't know how other people can be okay with it. I don't know how honestly the people can be like, yeah, just put them in jail for life. Truly you can disagree with me. That's fine. I just truly don't understand how that's that punishment works. I just don't understand how you show up to this pool to like off of their head to like see if you can get them as a client. And you're so disgusting. And so if you mean that when you spot that it's only just a young single girl like individual working, you decide yet I'm just gonna go raper. And that's what I mean. It's like off with their heads just off. Like how evil of a decorible of a person do you have to be to casually walk into this situation and take advantage of it. It's it's honestly mind blowing. I truly can't comprehend it. I can't it's gross. And then also like just her family having to be there and go through all of this. Anyways we have the all the self-defense stuff linked and again also donations linked. Thank you guys so much for watching or listening to today's episode and we will see you next time with another one. I love it. I hate it. Goodbye.