No Known Enemies

Summary

Cold Case Files: "No Known Enemies"

Host: Paula Barros
Release Date: July 8, 2025
Episode Title: No Known Enemies

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Introduction

In the gripping episode titled "No Known Enemies," Paula Barros delves into the haunting case of Helen Gale, an 81-year-old woman whose brutal murder remained unsolved for years. Despite Helen's well-respected standing in the community, her life was tragically cut short, leaving investigators and her family grappling for answers. This case exemplifies the perseverance and dedication required to solve one of America’s rare cold cases.

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The Crime

November 26, 2011 – Southfield, Michigan

The tranquility of the day after Thanksgiving was shattered when firefighters responded to a car fire at 196 West Buena Vista. Nate Irwin, a fire investigator, recounts the horrifying discovery:

"Head down, feet up, wrapped in a comforter or something, a blanket. I mean, she's badly, badly burned it was incredibly disturbing." ([02:26])

Firefighters quickly extinguished the flames, revealing the charred remains of Helen Gale. The scene suggested foul play, with the vehicle positioned in an overgrown alley, surrounded by vacant houses, making it an ideal location for a crime.

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Initial Investigation

Detectives Palmer and Peterson led the investigation, determined to uncover the truth behind Helen's death. Detective Palmer expressed the frustration of facing a complex case:

"We had no suspects. It was a whodunit case. When there's a fire involved, fingerprints are destroyed, DNA evidence is destroyed." ([01:23])

Initial assessments ruled out accidents or vehicle malfunctions. However, disturbing signs within the car indicated intentional arson:

"Her head was down into the like center council and she was squished in there. There's no, no way anybody would be riding like that." ([04:06])

Lewis Ebel, a cold case investigator, highlighted the challenges posed by modern forensic advancements:

"Our experience tells us that usually when someone sets a fire, it's destroy evidence, especially since the advent of DNA." ([04:50])

Despite thorough investigations, the lack of immediate leads rendered the case unsolvable, pushing it into cold case status five years later.

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The Victim: Helen Gale

Helen Gale was a beloved member of the Southfield community, known for her active involvement in the Parks and Recreation Department for over three decades. Her daughter, Nancy Gale, described her mother as vibrant and joyful:

"She worked there, gosh, from '78 until 2010. There was not a day that she wasn't there. So she loved it. I mean, it was really her soul. It was her heartbeat." ([07:34])

Helen's meticulous nature and lack of disputes with anyone made the motive for her murder perplexing. Her friends and family were left in shock, struggling to comprehend who would want to harm such a cherished individual.

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The Impact on Community and Family

Helen's murder sent ripples through the Southfield community. Nancy Gale shared the emotional toll the case took on her and those who knew Helen:

"It was hard for me to believe that anyone who knew my mom could do this." ([09:35])

The community mourned Helen's loss, holding a large celebration of life at the Parks and Recreation center, reflecting her devotion to the organization and its members.

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Cold Case Status

As years passed, the investigation stalled. Detective Palmer reflected on the challenges of cold cases:

"A case is considered cold when all your leads have resulted in negative results. It's very difficult knowing that every case can't be solved." ([26:12])

Nancy Gale struggled with the notion of the case going cold, determined to seek justice for her mother despite the fading hope.

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Renewed Efforts and Rediscovery

Five years after the murder, Nancy Gale, driven by unresolved grief and a relentless quest for justice, rekindled efforts to reopen her mother's case. Collaborating with her friend Rosie and private investigator Scott, Nancy crafted a compelling letter urging media attention and police action.

Scott's strategic outreach paid off when a sergeant from the Oakland County Sheriff's Department contacted Nancy, reigniting the investigation.

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Breakthrough: Darren Keener

Investigators revisited early leads, focusing on Darren Keener, a neighbor with a troubled past. Keener had previously reported a stolen gas can—a critical piece of evidence linking him to the crime scene.

Bill Peterson detailed the mounting circumstantial evidence against Keener:

"He was strung out on drugs. His house had been foreclosed. He was broke, natural gas turned off. He's really at a dead end." ([30:26])

Discrepancies in Keener's alibi emerged when his ex-wife provided a detailed journal proving he was not with his daughter as claimed during the time of the murder. Additionally, Keener's own admission to a girlfriend about having done "something very bad" further implicated him.

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The Arrest and Resolution

With his alibi shattered and evidence stacking against him, Darren Keener was arrested in January 2017, seven years after Helen Gale's murder. Lewis Ebel expressed satisfaction with the plea deal:

"You're piling on so much circumstantial evidence that not only were we confident the prosecutor would take it, I was optimistic that he would plead guilty." ([36:33])

Keener pled guilty to second-degree murder without fully explaining his motives, receiving a sentence of 12 to 50 years in prison.

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Reflections and Legacy

The resolution of Helen Gale's case brought a sense of closure to her family and the community. Nancy Gale shared her journey towards forgiveness and honoring her mother's legacy:

"I think I have [found forgiveness]. It's not forgiving him for doing this. It's just this understanding of where people can find themselves in life." ([39:57])

Despite the lingering sadness, Nancy embraced resilience and the joyous spirit her mother embodied, ensuring Helen's legacy lived on.

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Conclusion

"No Known Enemies" is a testament to the unwavering determination of investigators and Helen Gale's family in seeking justice against overwhelming odds. This case underscores the profound impact cold cases have on communities and the enduring hope that drives families to never give up. Through meticulous investigation and relentless advocacy, Helen Gale's murder was ultimately solved, offering solace and a renewed sense of justice.

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Notable Quotes:

• Nancy Gale: "It was hard for me to believe that anyone who knew my mom could do this." ([09:35])
• Detective Palmer: "We had no suspects. It was a whodunit case. When there's a fire involved, fingerprints are destroyed, DNA evidence is destroyed." ([01:23])
• Lewis Ebel: "Our experience tells us that usually when someone sets a fire, it's destroy evidence, especially since the advent of DNA." ([04:50])
• Nancy Gale: "I think I have [found forgiveness]. It's not forgiving him for doing this. It's just this understanding of where people can find themselves in life." ([39:57])

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This episode of Cold Case Files not only highlights the complexities of solving cold cases but also celebrates the unwavering spirit of those who refuse to let their loved ones' stories fade into obscurity. Helen Gale's story serves as a poignant reminder of the importance of perseverance, community support, and the relentless pursuit of justice.

Transcript

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[Marissa Pinson]

I'm Marissa Pinson and before we get into this week's episode, I just wanted to remind you that episodes of Cold Case Files as well as the A E classic podcast, I Survived, American justice and City Confidential are all available ad free on the new A E Crime and Investigation channel on Apple Podcasts and Apple plus for just 4.99amonth or 39.99 a year. And now on to the show. The following episode contains disturbing accounts of physical and sexual violence. Listener discretion is.

[Nancy Gale]

My mom had this great life. She was just gregarious and joyful and fun. It was hard for me to believe that anyone who knew my mom could do this.

[Linda Smith]

Not a day goes by I don't think about Helen and what she suffered. The killer was still out there.

[Detective Palmer]

We had no suspects. It was a whodunit case. When there's a fire involved, fingerprints are destroyed, DNA evidence is destroyed.

[Nancy Gale]

You feel like you are fighting this impossible battle. When you're going through something like this, you don't even know what to ask. And everything you do ask makes you realize how little we know.

[Detective Palmer]

This case has to be solved. Helen Gale did not deserve to die the way she did.

[Marissa Pinson]

There are over 100,000 cold cases in America. Only about 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. It's November 26, 2011 in Southfield, Michigan. Nate Irwin is a fire investigator for the Highland Park Fire Department.

[Nate Irwin]

I was off duty. I was called in to investigate a car fire burning in the alley in the rear of 196 West Buena Vista.

[Marissa Pinson]

It's the day after Thanksgiving and most people are still at home sleeping off their turkey dinner. As the firefighters quickly douse the flames.

[Nate Irwin]

You can extinguish vehicle fires quite quickly in just a few minutes. In the process, the firefighters actually getting into the vehicle, they discovered the remains of a body.

[Marissa Pinson]

Firefighters determine the victim is a woman.

[Nate Irwin]

Head down, feet up, wrapped in a comforter or something, a blanket. I mean, she's badly, badly burned it was incredibly disturbing. The area the car was set in was an overgrown alley situated behind mostly vacant houses. There was a large crowd around. The police were holding everybody, everybody back. I started processing the scene. You're always trying to note who's in the crowd. There's always the stories of, you know, is the potential perpetrator there. But we needed to determine if a crime had been committed. You're eliminating other potential causes. You're not just getting trapped into the tunnel vision of, oh, there's a body there, so it must be a homicide. I look at all the other possibilities that it could have been. First, was this some sort of accident? Second, was there some sort of vehicle malfunction? I was able to immediately eliminate an engine compartment fire. Was this somebody sleeping in their vehicle, smoking, doing drugs?

[Marissa Pinson]

While there's no sign of any breakdown or accident, the interior of the car is littered with worrying signs.

[Nate Irwin]

Her head was down into the like center council and she was squished in there. There's no, no way anybody would be riding like that. She was positioned like someone stuffed her inside of a vehicle and lit her on fire. For lack of better, better words. When he started unwrapping this blanket, there's just a strong smell of gasoline. The back seat was soaked, the comforter was soaked, and you clearly, the body had been soaked in gasoline. There was overwhelming evidence that it was an intentionally set fire.

[Marissa Pinson]

Lewis Ebel is a cold case investigator for the Oakland County Sheriff's Department.

[Lewis Ebel]

Our experience tells us that usually when someone sets a fire, it's destroy evidence, especially since the advent of DNA. You know, before it was fingerprints or fibers, hairs. But with DNA, you know, it's taking it to a new level.

[Marissa Pinson]

Investigators are now certain this is no accident and that foul play is involved.

[Nate Irwin]

You just sit there wondering who could have done such a, such a thing to her and why. It does bother you. It really does. All of the fatal fires bother you. This particular one was incredibly gruesome.

[Marissa Pinson]

Bill Peterson is a cold case investigator for the Oakland County Sheriff's Department.

[Bill Peterson]

It was an ugly scene. It was obviously not a natural death, and it certainly wasn't an accidental death either. So it certainly pointed to homicide and to my way of thinking, to an attempt to cover up the crime.

[Marissa Pinson]

Investigator Irwin searches for clues in the alley where the car is parked.

[Nate Irwin]

This was mostly a vacant neighborhood, really close off the expressway. It did provide good cover for somebody, you know, looking to commit a crime, which I believe played into why the perpetrator chose to set the vehicle on fire there. What's incredibly difficult is you're looking through an alley and there's garbage and debris all over the place. Approximately 40ft away from the vehicle, there's this burnt blue bag. You're looking at it, you're like, well, did a hose line knock this down there? Was it in the vehicle? Anything could be potentially evidence. You don't really know. It was literally, okay, this is burnt. This appears to be part of this fire scene.

[Bill Peterson]

One could reasonably conclude that it may have been right at the fire in the car and had been dropped some distance down.

[Marissa Pinson]

As they gather what evidence they can, police officers attempt to identify the tragic victim.

[Nate Irwin]

Police officers ran the plate and then we were able to see a medical identification bracelet on her wrist identifying her as Helen Gale.

[Marissa Pinson]

Darrell Palmer is a major crimes detective from the Southfield Police Department.

[Detective Palmer]

Helen gale was an 81 year old widower. She lived alone and she had two daughters.

[Lewis Ebel]

She was a pillar of the community, well liked by everyone, living an active, very active life. She had worked for the Southfield Parks and recreation department for 31 years. She retired, but she still kept doing volunteer part time work coordinating their dance programs.

[Marissa Pinson]

Nancy Gale is Helen Gale's daughter.

[Nancy Gale]

She worked there, gosh, from 19, roughly 78 until 2010. There was not a day that she wasn't there. So she loved it. I mean, it was really her soul. It was her heartbeat. She loved people. She was a history buff and a religion buff and she loved music. My mom had no disputes with anyone.

[Marissa Pinson]

Linda Smith is Helen Gale's friend.

[Linda Smith]

Helen had a wonderful personality. She didn't just sit in a rocking chair at home. Helen was on the move. She was upbeat, friendly, had a sense of humor. She was very attractive woman. She was meticulous how she dressed. She always put makeup on, had her hair done, didn't look her age. She was not a little old lady of 81. She was more like a 21.

[Marissa Pinson]

After finding Helen Gale's name among the ashes, investigators head to her home to search the premises.

[Detective Palmer]

No one was home and everything appeared initially to be relatively normal until a closer look.

[Lewis Ebel]

There was no forced entry. The house was not ransacked either. In the bedroom, her flip phone is open, so she may have even tried to reach over him and tried to call the police. Once she realized an intruder was in.

[Detective Palmer]

The house, family members said she would never leave home without her phone. And there was a comforter from the bed that was missing. And when Helen Gale's car was found, there was a cloth type material in the backseat, possibly the comforter that was on Helen Gale's bed used to cover up the body. The big question with this case right away was, who would want to harm Helen Gale?

[Nancy Gale]

It was hard for me to believe that anyone who knew my mom could do this.

[Detective Palmer]

Who would want to murder Helen Gale? We did not know the answer.

[Nancy Gale]

The next morning I received a phone call from an old family friend and she said, the police found a burning car that we think is your mom's and her body is in the car. And so at that point, I just booked a ticket and jumped on a plane. That was the longest flight I've ever taken. I kept looking around thinking, nobody here has any idea I'm flying home because they found my mom's body in a car. It felt so hollow and so surreal. I kept thinking, what was that car ride like? Was she alive? My overwhelming thought was, at what point did she pass? At what? What was she? And what was she not aware of?

[Marissa Pinson]

Helen's daughter Nancy left Michigan in her mid-20s and moved to Los Angeles where she built a successful business designing high end handbags.

[Nancy Gale]

Growing up in Southfield was fantastic. They were my former de veers. My mom and dad both worked and we were a really active family. My father passed in 2000, but my mom was independent and had this great life. I've never seen anyone have that kind of love for life like my mother did. We used to talk about her moving out to LA at some point I wanted her to and she would say, I have such a full life here. I work full time, I have great friends, my life works. When you want to see me, we'll make plans to be together. And when I want to see you, I'll come out there. She was really, really happy.

[Marissa Pinson]

After her flight to Michigan lands, Nancy heads straight for her old neighborhood.

[Nancy Gale]

I still don't think I can quite define what it was like to see my childhood home as a crime scene. That's just so hard to palette and it's still such a blur how we even got through that week. It was a blank slate for everybody. We had no information to latch onto. When you're going through something like this, it's so foreign. You don't even know what to ask. And everything you do ask makes you realize how little we know.

[Detective Palmer]

Nancy Gayle stated to us that she spoke to her mother by phone on November 25th in the evening hours around 7 or 7:30pm and everything seemed to be normal.

[Nancy Gale]

We had talked on my way home from Thanksgiving and we talked about just my day. It was nothing out of the ordinary. The last Words we had were, I said, I love you, mom. And she said, I love you, Nan, and hung up the phone. I called her Sunday morning and she didn't pick up.

[Detective Palmer]

We determined that the crime occurred sometime in the evening after Nancy Gale spoke to her mother. And the next morning when the vehicle was discovered in the alley in Highland park set ablaze. During our investigation, we discovered video surveillance from a credit union that was just down the road from Helen Gale's home.

[Bill Peterson]

And video records found a vehicle going by early in the morning that was similar to her car. And in the video, there was something white in the back seat, in the area behind the driver's seat that could well have been the comforter off her bed.

[Marissa Pinson]

Detectives looked to forensic science to determine exactly how Helen Gale died.

[Lewis Ebel]

An autopsy showed that there was no suit in her lungs or trachea. So she was. There's no question she was dead before she was set on fire. She wasn't set on fire alive. The autopsy ruled that she died from strangulation and that was her cause of death.

[Marissa Pinson]

Helen's burnt out car offers no clues other than the comforter found on the backseat.

[Detective Palmer]

When there's a fire involved, it makes things a lot more difficult. If there is evidence left, it's much more difficult to decipher. Say fingerprints are destroyed. DNA evidence is destroyed. We had the Michigan State Police forensic crime team respond. And they did a very thorough job investigating Helen Gale's home. And officers noted inside Helen Gail's garage appeared to be possibly blood. We couldn't really tell based on the way things were in the home, what actually occurred. That was one of the unanswered mysteries of this case.

[Marissa Pinson]

What is clear is that Helen Gale's brutal murder has hit this small town hard.

[Nancy Gale]

The Southfield community was blown away. This isn't something that happened there. This isn't something that happened in any of our circles. She was family to so many people, so it really rocked everybody to the core. We chose to have our celebration of life at the Parks and Recreation because that was her life and those were her people. There were over 100 people there. It meant everything to see everybody there. It was hard for people to really wrap their head around it. So I felt like it was a lot. It was my job to make sure people realized no matter how she died, we had to celebrate her.

[Linda Smith]

To see so many people didn't surprise me. Knowing Helen, I knew she had many friends.

[Nancy Gale]

There was a press release that day, and I talked for a couple moments about the wonderful person my mom was. And then Reached out to the community to please, please speak up if they had any idea of what happened or if there was any way that they could help this investigation.

[Detective Palmer]

What makes this case difficult is the fact that there's not an immediate red flag that gives you a direction. In many cases there is. There's a ex spouse or there's involvement in criminal activity, so you have a direction right away. But in a case like this where a elderly person is murdered and they've lived a very clean, straightforward, healthy lifestyle, there was no direction that was immediate. There was a reward offered in this homicide and flyers were put out in the neighborhood. We talked to as many neighbors as we could. We looked at neighborhood residents in terms of parolees or people on probation, and there were several, but none that had the type of criminal history or background that would lead us to believe they would be involved in something like this. Several days after the homicide, a person by the name of Darren Keener, Helen's next door neighborhood, called the police department to report that a gas can was stolen off of his back porch. You always have to look at every possibility. So the thought that a prowler could have stolen the gas can and also done something to Helen Gale, that is a possibility. A prowler could have been involved in this crime.

[Marissa Pinson]

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[Detective Palmer]

Several days after the homicide of Helen Gale, a Southfield investigator went down to the alley and quite some distance from her car. There was a gas can in a pile of brush and trash and whatnot. There appeared to be a small amount of melted blue substance or fabric on the gas can itself, and we believe that it could possibly be the same material that the blue bag that was found next to the burning vehicle.

[Marissa Pinson]

The traces of melted bag on the gas can prove that the bag and the can were both at the crime scene when the fire was set. Detective Palmer checks with Helen's neighbor, who confirms that the can looks like the one stolen from his porch.

[Detective Palmer]

I felt it was high probability that it was the can used the to start the fire.

[Nate Irwin]

People don't understand even just a gallon of gasoline in a confined space like that is gonna give quite a little explosion.

[Marissa Pinson]

This new discovery sheds no light on what happened at Helen's house, but investigators quickly zero in on two suspicious incidents that happened there in recent months.

[Detective Palmer]

Nancy told us that several weeks prior, Helen Gale's purse was discovered missing from inside her home.

[Nancy Gale]

She called me and she said I was out gardening and I left the garage and side door open. And she said in my Helen bag, which was a bag that I've named after her, she said it's gone and it was stolen. Our assumption was kids in the neighborhood or someone must have just swiped it and it felt like a even though it was her handbag, which feels very personal, it felt like a petty crime.

[Marissa Pinson]

The bag isn't the only thing missing from Helen's home.

[Nancy Gale]

So my mom always kept a spare key under the pot on the stoop, and that went missing.

[Lewis Ebel]

Now, on the homicide, the house is not broken into physically. So it's very likely someone had a key that entered it.

[Marissa Pinson]

Nancy soon realizes that something else is missing from her mom's house.

[Nancy Gale]

So my mom always kept a little rainy day fund because she was. She was born in 1930 and Cash was still how the world circulated. And she was always very prepared for everything in life. In fact, she had a client closet full of wrapped gifts for the year to bring to people's birthdays and housewarmings. And so having some cash on hand was really about the preparation I think instilled in her generation.

[Detective Palmer]

When we searched the home, none of that cash was located. We suspected that this could be some sort of a robbery and someone that came there looking for money. So we now had a situation where Helen Gale had a purse stolen, she had a key missing. And we also had a neighbor reporting a gas can taken from his back porch. Those three things does tell us that someone was up to no good in the neighborhood. But who that person was, we had no idea. We had no clear cut direction, we had no suspects. It was a whodunit case.

[Marissa Pinson]

Looking for anything to jumpstart the case, Detective Palmer searches for any other local crimes that could be related to the murder of Helen Gale.

[Detective Palmer]

We learned that on November 20, six days prior to Helen Gale's homicide, there was a elderly female, Nancy Daley, killed in her home in Royal Oak, Michigan. This is a short distance from Helen Gale's home in Southfield. Her throat was slit and her hands were bound. She died in a very violent manner. Is this a serial killer of elderly people? We were very interested to find out more about that case because this could very well lead us to the killer of Helen Gale. And Nancy Daley had hired a couple to do some yard work. And we were also looking at the time of the landscapers at Helen Gale's home. So we were trying to connect those dots to see if the two cases were related.

[Nancy Gale]

My mom, she had landscapers that would come and do work on the house and she'd invite them in, she'd make them lunch. I can definitely see why any crew working at her house would have been looked at because they had access to her house.

[Detective Palmer]

And if they were to have someone working for them that had a criminal past or lifestyle, they could very well possibly be a suspect in this crime.

[Lewis Ebel]

They could have theoretically discovered the key under the pot. The bottom line is Someone has come into the house and committed a theft. The house is not broken into physically, so it's very likely someone had a key that entered it.

[Detective Palmer]

So we decided to look at a thorough background on those employees. And we also brought a number of them in to be interviewed. But they all appeared to be very cooperative. They weren't nervous or appeared to be hiding anything. And so there was nobody in that landscaping crew that raised a red flag.

[Marissa Pinson]

It's yet another dead end for investigators.

[Linda Smith]

I would talk with Nancy, and she felt very frustrated. One does wonder, where is this going and what's being done? And why is. Do we hear nothing? The killer was still out there.

[Nancy Gale]

I kept calling and asking questions. I felt like I was being, I think, sort of pacified by the department. They were trying and looking, and of course they have bosses and people like moving them to new cases. Darrell Palmer was always there for me, always pick up the phone. He used to say, I will not retire until this case has been solved. But I feel like even he was sort of pushed into this place where there was nothing more he could do.

[Detective Palmer]

Helen Gale's actual case file was kept on my desk. And I would never put it in a cabinet where it was out of sight, out of mind. But in 2016, I went back to being a patrol officer, became an evidence tech and training officer for the last few years of my career.

[Marissa Pinson]

With Detective Palmer no longer in charge, the case goes cold. It's now May 2016, five years after Helen Gayle's murder.

[Detective Palmer]

A case is considered cold when all your leads have resulted in negative results. It's very difficult knowing that every case can't be solved. I mean, there's either evidence or there isn't.

[Nancy Gale]

The case went cold. The first few times I heard that, I could not reconcile it. I knew I had to keep moving forward with my life, but I couldn't let this go. My mom was gone, and obviously we wanted this person off the street. And then something I think just hit me at the five year mark. And that's when I realized we have to do something. Finally, I was talking to my best friend Rosie. I said, what can we do about this? And she's a writer, as it happens. And so she wrote a story of just how ridiculous it is that something that is front page, frontline news for so long just goes flat as if, okay, they're over that my mom doesn't matter. That's if you're not careful. That's how it can be taken. So she writes this story. The Southfield PD appears to have ended their pursuit of justice in Gayle's murder. Gayle's family members, as well as many Southfield citizens are appealing for renewed efforts to apprehend the person who took the life they so cherished. The first time I read the letter, it embodied exactly what I was feeling.

[Marissa Pinson]

Nancy and Rosie plan to send the letter to the media to pressure the police to pick up the case. First, Nancy takes some advice from a new private investigator friend.

[Nancy Gale]

Scott was an investigative journalist and now he's a private investigator. Does a lot of innocence work. And he said, look, if we blast it to the media, it infuriates people and you get a lot of noise. But is that really what's our real objective? It's to get the police back on the case. So do we want to make them angry or do we want to say, look, we need something to be done and we want to work with you?

[Marissa Pinson]

Scott sends a letter to his contacts at local police departments, including the cold case unit at the sheriff's office in Oakland county, the county where Southfield is located.

[Nancy Gale]

I was actually getting my hair done, and the next thing I know, I get a phone call from a sergeant at Oakland county, and he said, you, mom's paperwork is on my desk and we're going to start giving some real attention to the case. And there we were, like, back in, back in action. But we had no idea the chain of events that this would set off. It actually was the biggest piece because it ignited everything when we first got.

[Bill Peterson]

The case, we start to read and read and read. There's a lot of paperwork involved and we have to go through every bit of it before we can actually do anything. We saw that Southfield had talked to Darren Keener, a neighbor of Helen.

[Detective Palmer]

Darren, right?

[Bill Peterson]

Yeah.

[Marissa Pinson]

Back in 2011, Keener reported his gas can stolen from his front porch. A gas can that was found near Helen Gale's burnt car, along with a partially burnt blue bag.

[Detective Palmer]

The last time you saw that can, do you remember if it was in the bag or out of the bag? I don't know.

[Linda Smith]

I just know it was right by that door.

[Detective Palmer]

Do you don't know if it was in the bag? I'm not 100% sure on that.

[Bill Peterson]

Darren Keener had an alibi. The murder happened on the Friday night, Saturday morning of the Thanksgiving weekend. Keener's alibi was that he had his daughter that weekend. He had been divorced from his ex wife and he had, I believe, one weekend a month where she could stay with him. And he told Southfield that that was his weekend. And he had spent the weekend with his daughter, most of it at his mother's house.

[Lewis Ebel]

And when we start following up with additional interviews, Darren Keener jumped out at us for several reasons. His life was a train wreck at the time of the murder. He was strung out on drugs. His house had been foreclosed. He was broke, natural gas turned off. He's really at a dead end.

[Bill Peterson]

The fact that he had a history of narcotics use gave him a motive for stealing money from her. Obviously, he was known to our victim. He was a next door neighbor and he would occasionally do favors for run errands, whatever. Her key had gone missing several days before the killing happened. Did he take it? We don't know. But if he did, he had access to the house. Clearly.

[Lewis Ebel]

We contacted him, let him know that the cold case Unit, Oakland County. And we're looking at this case now. We want to talk to you. Then all of a sudden, he's in Toledo, Ohio. And I don't know if he thought, well, by leaving Michigan, I'm going to escape the long arm of the law, but, you know, Toledo is about an hour drive from Southfield, I suppose on.

[Bill Peterson]

The theory that if he moved to Ohio, we'd never find him. I'm not quite sure how that was supposed to work, but he continued working at the Ford plant, so finding him was not rocket science.

[Marissa Pinson]

The cold case detectives bring in Keener for an interview.

[Lewis Ebel]

At first, Keener said that his mom had picked him up on Saturday morning. And then he said, well, no, actually it was Friday night because he realized Saturday morning didn't quite cover up when the murder happened.

[Marissa Pinson]

The new detectives need to talk to Keener's mother and his ex wife.

[Lewis Ebel]

The focus was, well, let's break down his alibi.

[Bill Peterson]

We did talk with his mother, and her responses were varied, I guess is a good way to put it. She tried to cover for him, but was not completely successful. She was not terribly credible. We talked with his ex wife about visitation weekends, when he had his daughter, and she responded immediately, oh, I have a journal. I have a journal going all the way back. So yes, I can tell you when his weekends were. Really. Could we see it? And it was pretty detailed and went back a long way, including the time of this homicide. So it was extremely helpful.

[Lewis Ebel]

So the records show that he didn't have her that weekend. His alibi is verifiably false.

[Bill Peterson]

So when his alibi falls apart, he goes way up on the suspect list.

[Marissa Pinson]

The cold case team takes a closer look at Keener's cell phone records.

[Bill Peterson]

One of the things we found was that he made some calls to a part time girlfriend whom he had met, as I recall, in rehab and told her that morning after the crime had happened that he had done something bad, something very bad. She didn't know what it was about, but he was definitely upset and possibly remorseful after the killing happened, which is terrific evidence also.

[Lewis Ebel]

So not only are we attacking his alibi, but now we have more circumstantial evidence that he's our suspect. The things he told Southfield PD aren't true. It's all nonsense.

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[Lewis Ebel]

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[Lewis Ebel]

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[Detective Palmer]

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[Bill Peterson]

As we talked to various people involved in the investigation, the puzzle became more and More clear until it was finally a completed puzzle.

[Marissa Pinson]

It's now January 2017, seven years after Helen Gale's murder.

[Bill Peterson]

I was convinced way beyond a reasonable doubt that Keener was our guy, that he had attacked and killed Helen Gale in her bedroom, had put her in the car, taken her car with the body in it to Highland park and torched it in an attempt to separate it from the initial crime scene.

[Lewis Ebel]

You're piling on so much circumstantial evidence that not only were we confident the prosecutor would take it, I was optimistic that he would plead guilty. Because I'm looking at this going, I'd love to try this case and I would love to have this type of evidence that you just can't explain away.

[Bill Peterson]

And that's when we arrested him and put him in front of the court.

[Lewis Ebel]

It was very satisfying to get him arrested because all these years later, he probably thought, I'm home free.

[Nancy Gale]

Darryl Palmer called me and told me that Darren Keener was arrested. And he said, he opened the door, he knew it was all over. He knew that was the end. We were all collectively so excited, we.

[Linda Smith]

Went to see the hearings. It was terrible to lay eyes on this man, this person that did this. What's under that skin that a human being could do this?

[Bill Peterson]

I believe Keener was probably using drugs that night. He probably needed more money for more drugs.

[Lewis Ebel]

Helen Gale was often not home on Thanksgiving weekend because she would be visiting one of her children. So Darren Keener may have assumed that this was a good opportunity to use that key, come into the house and see what he could get. In any event, what I do seriously believe is once he got into the house, she may have surprised him, whatever, but he kills her in the bedroom, and then he goes out through the hallway to the garage, and then he drives off.

[Marissa Pinson]

Facing overwhelming evidence against him, Keener strikes a plea deal. Just as cold case detectives had hoped.

[Bill Peterson]

He was charged with murder and subsequently pled guilty to second degree murder.

[Lewis Ebel]

He never confessed what he did. He pled guilty, but he never explained his actions.

[Nancy Gale]

I think I feel better not knowing exactly what happened. The truth is, if I knew exactly what happened, then I could never get that picture out of my head.

[Lewis Ebel]

By the very nature of a plea, you're not going to get 100% of what you want, but you take the uncertainty of a jury away, you take the stress of a trial away from the family, and you get justice. He was sentenced to 12 to 50 years in prison. And so overall, I'm satisfied, especially if it's closer to 50.

[Nancy Gale]

I was happy with the plea deal because we knew at this point we needed to move forward. We found who it was very happy that he'd be behind bars and couldn't do this to someone else.

[Linda Smith]

My feeling is Helen's case was solved because of Nancy's relentless quest to get justice for her mother.

[Nancy Gale]

The impact statement for me was a complete catharsis. But still, to this day, no matter how much I can deal with it and how much I can focus on. On the greatness of my mom, every time the words my mom was murdered come out of my mouth, I sort of. It's like I see myself saying those words, and it's still so impossible to believe. There was a lot of sadness for me, of course, the obvious sadness for my mom's friends and family and for me and my friends, and just. I was also really sad for Keener's family because they're innocent bystanders to this. They have nothing to do with this, and they get sort of cast out into the world of, you don't matter because you're associated with him. I do feel like, let's see. I think the final chapter is this journey to forgiveness that I. I think I have. I think I am there. And it's not forgiving him for doing this. It's just this understanding of where people can find themselves in life. Something snapped for this man, and that makes me sad. And it feels better to feel sad for him. And it's really a nod to my mom. She taught me to be resilient, and she taught me about redemption. And that's what that is. My mom's legacy. That is Helen Gale's legacy. I don't want to be a person defined by my tragedies. I want to honor her by staying like a joyous, happy soul. Because when we're here, that's a choice we get to make every day.

[Linda Smith]

Foreign.

[Bill Peterson]

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