REOPENED: Carol's Diary

Summary

Reopened: Carol's Diary - A Detailed Summary

Podcast: Cold Case Files
Host: Paula Barros
Episode: REOPENED: Carol's Diary
Release Date: July 24, 2025

Introduction to Carol Hutto's Case

In December 1976, the peaceful community of Largo, Florida, was shaken by the disappearance of 16-year-old Carol Hutto. Known for her friendly nature, Carol lived with her parents, Norma, and her brother, Jerry. On December 13, Carol informed her mother that she would return home in a few hours after visiting a friend.

Disappearance and Initial Investigation

Carol's departure appeared routine until she failed to return as promised. Concerned, her mother, Norma, and brother, Jerry, initiated a search. Jerry recounted the evening:

[00:07] Narrator: "Carol Hutto turned 16 in 1976. She lived in Largo, Florida with her parents and her brother Jerry."

[01:35] Jerry Hutto: "She never. Not that I can really remember ever getting in trouble for not coming home or calling in when she was not gonna be there when she was supposed to be."

Discovery of Carol's Body

As days passed without Carol's return, the Hutto family intensified their search. Jerry ventured to a nearby lake and made a horrifying discovery:

[02:27] Jerry Hutto: "And I saw her face down in the water with cement blocks on top of her."

The grim find confirmed Carol's tragic fate, leaving the family devastated.

Suspicion Falls on Brother Jerry

Given Jerry's previous run-ins with the law, the police quickly cast suspicion on him. Despite his account of being with his girlfriend that night, the coincidence of his presence near the crime scene made him the prime suspect.

[04:25] Jerry Hutto: "They came right out and told me I did it. They know I did it."

An autopsy revealed that Carol had been strangled and was still alive when placed in the water, contradicting the notion of an accidental death. Although some hairs did not match Jerry, the evidence was deemed inconclusive, leading to his release.

The Case Goes Cold

Frustrated by the lack of progress, Norma Hutto remained steadfast in her belief that Jerry was innocent. Without substantial evidence, the case stalled, remaining unresolved for nearly two decades.

[05:34] Norma Hutto: "Every time that you asked something or you started something, it fell right back to Jerry."

Reopening the Case in 1994

In March 1994, Officer Brad Hoys, assigned to a desk job after an injury, sought to revisit cold cases. He chose Carol's case, suspecting that the original investigation had overlooked critical evidence.

[09:05] Narrator: "In March of 1994, almost 20 years after Carol had been murdered, Officer Brad Hoys was injured in a work accident."

Discovery of Carol’s Diary

Officer Hoys delved into Carol's personal diary, uncovering entries that hinted at a secret relationship and frequent meetings by the same lake where she was found.

[09:59] Officer Brad Hoys: "There's gotta be something in here that tells us, at least leads us to a suspect."

These revelations shifted the investigation's focus towards Jimmy Kim, Carol's secret boyfriend.

Investigation into Jimmy Kim

Detectives Mike Short and Brad Hoys sought to verify the diary's contents. Discrepancies arose between Jimmy Kim's statements and the Hutto family's accounts, particularly regarding a phone call on the night of Carol's disappearance.

[10:32] Officer Brad Hoys: "I met Jimmy at the lake, and it just was too close to home."

Norma Hutto confirmed recalling a phone conversation between Carol and Jimmy, contradicting his earlier denial.

[12:20] Norma Hutto: "I answered the phone and he said, Mrs. Hutto, this is Jim. Can I speak to Carol?"

Interrogation and Confession

Tracing Jimmy Kim to a naval base in Connecticut, detectives confronted him with the evidence. Initially evasive, Jimmy's demeanor changed under intense interrogation.

[19:11] Narrator: "Despite the lack of physical evidence, the agents were able to convince Ken to confess."

Jimmy admitted to accidentally killing Carol during a confrontation, attempting to cover it up by placing her in the lake with cement blocks.

[19:58] Interrogator: "It was an accident. The only reason I went to the lake must try to cover it up."

Conviction and Aftermath

Despite lingering doubts and the absence of definitive physical evidence, Jimmy Kim was convicted of Carol's murder and sentenced to life in prison.

[21:16] Officer Brad Hoys: "I do adjudicate Mr. Ken guilty. I sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years."

Norma Hutto remains unconvinced by the conviction, feeling that justice for Carol remains unfulfilled.

[21:35] Norma Hutto: "He took my baby. He took my only daughter. And for that, I think he should stay where he is for the rest of his life."

Conclusion

"Reopened: Carol's Diary" highlights the intricate challenges of cold case investigations, the impact of overlooked evidence, and the enduring quest for justice by the families involved. Nearly two decades after Carol Hutto's tragic death, the case underscores the relentless pursuit of truth and the complexities inherent in resolving long-buried mysteries.

Notable Quotes

• Norma Hutto on Seeking Answers:
  "[05:34] Norma Hutto: 'Every time that you asked something or you started something, it fell right back to Jerry.'"

• Jerry Hutto on Being Suspected:
  "[05:14] Jerry Hutto: 'A lot of my friends quit talking to me and I made new friends.'"

• Officer Brad Hoys on Investigative Oversight:
  "[09:31] Officer Brad Hoys: 'From what I could tell, the entire focus of the investigation was the half brother that found Carol's body.'"

• Norma Hutto on the Verdict:
  "[21:35] Norma Hutto: 'He took my baby. He took my only daughter. And for that, I think he should stay where he is for the rest of his life.'"

Credits

Produced by: McKamey Lin and Steve Delamater
Associate Producer: Julie Magruder
Executive Producer: Ted Butler
Music Composer: Blake Maples
Distributed by: PodcastOne
Social Media:

• Twitter: @brookgiddings
• Instagram: @rookthepodcaster
• Facebook Group: Podcast for Justice
• Website: Cold Case Files @ A&E

For more information or to explore similar cases, visit A&E's Real Crime Blog.

Transcript

[Narrator]

Carol Hutto turned 16 in 1976. She lived in Largo, Florida with her parents and her brother Jerry. Carol was considered a friendly person by most everyone who knew her. On December 13, she told her mother that she would be back in a couple of hours and headed to a friend's house. Carol didn't stay with her friend long. Claiming she was headed to a nearby drugstore. Carol asked her friend to tell her parents that she would be back in 10 minutes if they happened to call. She wasn't back in 10 minutes and she didn't return home in a couple of hours. Carol Hutto never came home again because the 16 year old girl had been murdered. From A and E. This is Cold Case Fil. When Carol didn't come home, her mother Norma, was understandably worried.

[Norma Hutto]

I knew when Carol didn't come home in a couple of hours, like she said, I'll be back. I won't be gone long. I knew that something was wrong.

[Narrator]

Her brother Jerry had been out on the same evening and was surprised to find his parents awake and worried about Carol. When he got home, he was way past and was surprised he wasn't in trouble. This is Carol's brother Jerry.

[Jerry Hutto]

She never. Not that I can really remember ever getting in trouble for not coming home or calling in when she was not gonna be there when she was supposed to be.

[Narrator]

Norma and Jerry went out to search for Carol. They talked with her friends and visited the places she liked to hang out, but they didn't find her. Carol's mother Norma, then called the police.

[Norma Hutto]

She said, there's nothing we can do. Girls run away all the time. I tried to tell her that Carol didn't run away. She had nothing to run away from. She was happy. She didn't have any problems.

[Narrator]

When Carol still wasn't home the next morning, Jerry walked down their street hoping to find some kind of clue. He walked all the way to the end where there was a house under construction with a big lake behind it.

[Jerry Hutto]

And I just kind of glanced out at the lake and I saw some clothes and a raincoat. And then I believe one shoe. It was over in this area right here. They were just floating in the water. So I turned and I started looking closer and I looked down and that's when I. I saw her. Face down in the water with cement blocks on top of her.

[Narrator]

Jerry ran back home, shocked by what he had seen. He didn't quite know what to do or say.

[Jerry Hutto]

How do you tell your parents that their baby daughter is in the lake face down? You just can't do it.

[Narrator]

Norma could tell Jerry was upset.

[Norma Hutto]

And I said, Jerry, what's wrong? And he just stared and I got a hold of him and I said, jerry, what's wrong? And he said, we gotta go daddy, we gotta get her.

[Narrator]

Jerry's parents called the police and then followed him to the lake. 17 year old Jerry showed the police where he had found his sister's body.

[Jerry Hutto]

We went down there and I showed the officer. And that's when my world come crashing down. I mean, just totally come crashing down.

[Narrator]

The police immediately considered Jerry a suspect. He had a few prior run ins with the law. Besides being the person who found Carole's.

[Jerry Hutto]

Body, I wasn't a goody goody kid. I mean, I did things wrong. You know, all kids do stupid things. So I think maybe that's, you know, why they looked at me.

[Narrator]

Jerry told the police he had been with his girlfriend until really late. When he came home, he had gone past the leak where Carol's body had been discovered. For Jerry, it was a tragic coincidence. But the police considered it a red flag. Jerry became their number one suspect.

[Jerry Hutto]

They came right out and told me I did it. They know I did it. And it's like any interrogation. They. They try to wear you down. They try to make you go ahead and confess. And I didn't do this. I wasn't going to confess to something that I didn't do.

[Narrator]

Jerry was taken in for questioning and Carol's body was sent to the coroner for an autopsy. The coroner determined that Carol had been strangled. She'd passed out but didn't die. She also had a large burn on her thigh. And the most sickening discovery was that Carol was still alive when she was put in the water. The coroner collected four hairs that didn't match the victim. The hairs were compared to Jerry, but the results were considered inconclusive. Jerry was free to go.

[Jerry Hutto]

A lot of my friends quit talking to me and I made new friends. And honestly I did. But a lot of the people that I knew, they wanted nothing to do with me.

[Narrator]

Norma Hutto didn't believe Jerry had killed Carol. But she wasn't getting any help or answers from the investigators.

[Norma Hutto]

I wanted answers. I needed answers. The whole family needed answers, but we weren't getting any. Every time that you asked something or you started something, it fell right back to Jerry.

[Narrator]

And just like that, Carol's case went cold. Overlooked for 20 years.

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[Narrator]

In March of 1994, almost 20 years after Carol had been murdered, Officer Brad Hoys was injured in a work accident. He was assigned a desk job that felt like he was just pushing paper around. So he asked permission to review the cold case files. The oldest of those files was the murder of Carol Hutto. So Hoyes read through the original file and started to ask questions. This is Officer Hoyes.

[Officer Brad Hoys]

From what I could tell, the entire focus of the investigation was was the half brother that found Carol's body. And I really couldn't find a reason why at the time.

[Narrator]

It's called tunnel vision when investigators focus on a single suspect and ignore all other possible leads. While looking at the file, Hoyce found one of those leads he believed was overlooked. Carol's diary.

[Officer Brad Hoys]

So I open it up, and it begins about a month before her death. And I'm thinking, there's gotta be something in here that tells us, at least leads us to a suspect, because this is more than likely a crime that was committed by someone she knows and was relatively comfortable with.

[Narrator]

A few pages into the diary, Hoyes read about Carol's secret boyfriend, Jimmy Kim. Her classmate Caril also wrote that they often met by the lake where her body was discovered.

[Officer Brad Hoys]

I finally got to a point where it said, I met Jimmy at the lake, and it just was too close to home, you know, I mean, that's where her body was found, was right next to the house that we believe, you know, the crime occurred in.

[Narrator]

Hoyes called his fellow detective, Mike Short, and told him about the diary entries. This is Detective Short.

[Norma Hutto]

Detective.

[Detective Mike Short]

So it was a surprise to actually find out that she is speaking about an individual in a manner that established they had a relationship and her desire to be with him and the fact that he treated her oftentimes not very well and how she felt about that, places they would go, how they would meet, sneaking out, avoiding the fact that anybody knew they were meeting.

[Narrator]

The detectives believed that Carol had identified her killer, but they didn't have any Physical evidence. They dug further into the original investigation and found an interview of Jimmy Kinn done in 1976. He was identified as a friend of Caril's. Kin denied seeing or speaking to the victim on the night she was murdered. Eighteen years later, though, the cold case detectives uncovered a discrepancy between Ken's statement and. And the family statement to the police.

[Detective Mike Short]

When the investigator interviewed the Hutto family, they informed the investigator that on the night Carol went missing, she received a phone call from Jimmy Kim. When Jimmy Kim was asked about that in 1976, during his interview, he denied ever calling Carol on the night she.

[Narrator]

Went missing, despite the fact that Jimmy had denied having contact with Carol on the night she was murdered. Norma, Carol's mother, distinctly remembered talking with him.

[Norma Hutto]

I answered the phone and he said, Mrs. Hutto, this is Jim. Can I speak to Carol? And I said, yes, just a minute. And they talked for a little bit, and then they hung up. And shortly, maybe 15 minutes, he called again, and she told him she was leaving.

[Narrator]

The detectives wanted to speak with Jimmy Kinn. The only issue was finding him. In July of 1994, the detectives found Jimmy Kinn on a naval base in Connecticut, working as a petty officer on a Navy submarine. Investigator Mike Short traveled to the base to interview Kinn. Here's some audio from that interview.

[Detective Mike Short]

She wasn't dating anybody that you knew.

[Jimmy Kim]

Of then or seeing somebody or had any interest in anybody? I don't know if she's seen anybody really steady or anything like that. You know, we used to hang around a lot, but not that I can remember.

[Detective Mike Short]

Can you tell me anything at all about her? I mean, I don't.

[Jimmy Kim]

To be honest, I don't remember a lot of that back then. Yeah, I hardly remember the area.

[Narrator]

The detective showed Ken the excerpts from Carol's diary that mentioned him and the lake.

[Detective Mike Short]

The fact that she had a diary surprised him. And then to read excerpts, Carol's words, things that she wrote about him and the way he treated her obviously affected him.

[Narrator]

Then they asked if maybe he wanted to rethink his story.

[Jimmy Kim]

I don't honestly know what happened to her.

[Interrogator]

What I want to know is, were the two of you together that night, and was she okay when you left? That's what I want to know.

[Jimmy Kim]

Yes.

[Detective Mike Short]

He admitted that he had been with Carol on the night she went missing. That was a significant admission. And we knew at that time we had our suspect.

[Narrator]

Detective Sharp believed that Jimmy Kim had killed Carol, but he needed physical evidence to connect him to the crime scene. He went back through the original evidence and discovered the unidentified hairs. Even though DNA testing had developed immensely from the time of the original investigation, a DNA profile wouldn't be useful without a sample of the suspect's DNA for comparison. Detective Short asked the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, better known as ncis, for help executing a warrant for Ken's DNA. He wanted to make the most of the time they had him in custody.

[Detective Mike Short]

If we're going to serve a search warrant on Jimmy Kent, then use that opportunity for an interrogation as well.

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[Host Sarah James McLachlan]

Cold case from the waters of Lake Erie.

[Narrator]

It was raising flags, he said. There's no way that that fish should weigh 7.9 pounds. It's just not big enough to a.

[Host Sarah James McLachlan]

Nondescript office building in Richmond, Virginia, home to a $700 million fund for children with special needs.

[Jimmy Kim]

If there was a cliche list of how to blow money that you just stole very quickly, this guy did all of them.

[Host Sarah James McLachlan]

To the ski slopes of Salt Lake City, where a former Olympic snowboarder landed on the FBI's most wanted list.

[Interrogator]

Ryan James Wedding is one of those interesting Norcos who have had two very successful careers, one legal and one illegal.

[Host Sarah James McLachlan]

We're pulling back the curtain on a fresh lineup of opportunists who stopped at nothing to get ahead. These are the stories of people who saw a loophole, a moment of weakness, a chance to get ahead, and took it. I'm host Sarah James McLachlan. Join me for a new season of The Opportunist on May 19. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts.

[Narrator]

On July 15, 1998, after issuing a warrant and collecting a blood sample, Detective Short was asked to wait outside an interrogation room while NCIS investigators Tana Simos and Dave early interrogated Petty Officer Jim Kinn. Asimos and early started with the hard questions during their interrogation.

[Jimmy Kim]

And, Jim, not only me, but really, the consensus of everyone is really, without a doubt, you're responsible for what happened to Carol. We can place you at spots, okay? And unfortunately for you, the spots we can place you at. There's no other conclusion you can come to than you were there when certain events occurred.

[Narrator]

For half an hour, Ken sat quietly as the investigators narrowed down his options. Admit that the murder was an accident, or by silence, admit that he had intentionally killed Carol.

[Jimmy Kim]

You're focused on the wrong thing, okay? You're focused on the wrong thing. You're sitting out in your yard, and you got this tree growing, and it looks like it's dying, and you're saying, man, I hope I don't wake up one day and that tree falls in the house. And I'm telling you, look behind you because there's a freaking Rottweiler, okay? And it's about to bite you in the ass. All right, you need to focus, Jim.

[Narrator]

You're ready to put this behind you.

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[Narrator]

It's time for everybody.

[Jimmy Kim]

It's simple, Jim. You're sorry, or you did it intentionally. That's all I'm asking. I don't need. Jim, are you sorry you killed Carol? That's all I'm asking, Jim. You're sorry, aren't you? I can say you're sorry, Jim. That's all it's gonna take. We know that you didn't for this.

[Narrator]

To happen, did You.

[Jimmy Kim]

You didn't do this intentionally, did you? It was a mistake, right? You didn't plan it, Jim. It's a mistake. Wasn't it? Jim, it's an accident. That's what we need to explain, brother. We just gotta get it out.

[Narrator]

Despite the lack of physical evidence, the agents were able to convince Ken to confess. He wiped away his tears and explained how he had killed Carol.

[Interrogator]

It was an accident. The only reason I went to the lake must try to cover it up.

[Jimmy Kim]

I understand.

[Interrogator]

Something else.

[Jimmy Kim]

I understand, Jim. We understand that. How did she get hurt in the house?

[Interrogator]

We were playing around and started chasing each other. She tripped and fell.

[Jimmy Kim]

Okay. What happened then?

[Interrogator]

She was unconscious. I didn't hear a heartbeat or anything. I tried to cover it up like it was something else or somebody else.

[Jimmy Kim]

What did you do then?

[Interrogator]

So I took her clothes off.

[Jimmy Kim]

Okay.

[Interrogator]

Took her out by the leg, working.

[Jimmy Kim]

What'd you do with her down by the light?

[Interrogator]

Well, I put her in the water. I just put a bunch of rocks on top of her and then I took off. Okay.

[Narrator]

Despite Jimmy Kin's tears, the detectives still believed he was lying. The autopsy pointed to injuries consistent with blunt force trauma and strangulation, not an accidental fall. Ken was charged with murder and convicted.

[Officer Brad Hoys]

On case number 98-12-339. I do adjudicate Mr. Ken guilty. I sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years.

[Narrator]

Norma Hutto doesn't think any amount of time served is satisfactory. It won't bring her daughter back.

[Norma Hutto]

No. I don't think he should ever get out of prison. He didn't give her the chance to get out of the lake. So I don't think he should ever get out. He took my baby. He took my only daughter. And for that, I think he should stay where he is for the rest of his life.

[Narrator]

Cold Case Files, the podcast is hosted by Brooke giddings, produced by McKamey Lin and Steve Delamater. Our associate producer is Julie Magruder. Our executive producer is Ted Butler. Our musical is created by Blake Maples. This podcast is distributed by Podcast one. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and is hosted by Bill Curtis. You can find me rookginnings on Twitter and rookthepodcaster on Instagram. I'm also active in the Facebook group Podcast for Justice. Check out more Cold case [e-mail] or learn more about cases like this one by visiting the A and E Real crime [e-mail] RealCrime.

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