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Brooke Giddings
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Bill Curtis
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John Keeley
As I pulled up, I pulled down Lucille street and right in the middle of the street was a female laying down.
Dan Gammi
John Keeley is a street cop with Garden Grove. At a little after 2am he finds 28 year old Keeva Bible face down in the middle of the road.
John Keeley
Originally I came in from over here from the north side and I drove down here at which time I immediately saw the female laying in the street right about where the light is shining on her chest. She had about four or five, I think it was five, but it may have been four stab wounds. They looked like they were pretty deep and they also had some type of a gauze or something shoved in them to help stop the bleeding. It made us Believe that the incident happened somewhere else and the person didn't want blood all over wherever it happened. That's what we were thinking at the time.
Dan Gammi
Keely finds no witnesses, no obvious evidence indicating how or why a young woman might have found herself dead. Bible's body is zipped into a coroner's bag and sent to the morgue for autopsy.
John Keeley
This is the Orange County Sheriff Coroner Division. This is the main autopsy room where the homicide autopsies take place.
Dan Gammi
Dan Gammi, a trace evidence examiner, works on the body inside the morgue. It begins with Kiva's clothes.
John Keeley
At the crime scene, the body was pretty much fully clothed, and in further examination of it, we saw that the jacket itself was fully zipped up and covering the upper chest portion of her body. Upon removing of the jacket, we then observed here that she had multiple stab wounds in the upper chest. Again, the jacket itself had no defects. It had no tears, it had no punctures within it, which again indicated to us that she had been redressed following these injuries that she had sustained. What was instrumental about that, in my mind, was it showed the close contact that our suspect obviously had. And so we're looking for those elements of transfer because of the closeness of that contact.
Dan Gammi
Using clear tape, Gammy goes over Keeva's clothing and body looking for hairs, threads, or carpet fibers, anything that might have been left by her killer.
John Keeley
At this stage of the autopsy, I was just interested in collecting anything and everything. Even if there were a number of them that looked like her own hair, I was collecting all that was present there.
Dan Gammi
Gammi collects more than 200 hairs, packages each one, and then waits for detectives to begin pulling suspects off the streets.
Scott Watson
Kiva, she had probably a $200 a day habit for heroin and cocaine, and so did most of the know girls work in this part of town.
Dan Gammi
In 1986, Sergeant Scott Watson works vice for the Garden Grove Police. He knows Kiva Bible and knows her habits.
Scott Watson
She came out here and made enough to go get drugs, and off she'd go to get drugs to support her habit.
Dan Gammi
Watson cruises the streets asking his sources what they know about Bible and how she wound up dead.
Scott Watson
The night she was killed, there was two different prostitutes we found that said, hey, there was this guy in this type of car that's looking for her because he said he wanted to kill her.
Dan Gammi
The guy, according to street sources, was a contract killer hired by Donald Lubers, a sex offender now in jail after Keeva Bible testified against him in an unrelated case. Detectives focus on Lubers trying to Connect him to the murder.
Scott Watson
We put mail covers for any outgoing mail, any in calls, see who he's calling, who he's talking to, all kinds of different things. But just in speaking with him, the investigator at the time felt like, you know, this guy's being upfront and honest with me. I just don't get the feeling that he's really after her for that.
Dan Gammi
Detectives go back to the streets, pressing sources about the supposed hit. What they find is a theory of murder that gets less reliable each time it's retold.
Scott Watson
When you get down to it and you start hitting them up, it's because they heard from this guy, and this guy heard from this guy, and this guy heard. And by the time you get to how the thing started, it was nothing like what you got.
Dan Gammi
Lubers and his alleged hitman fade as possible suspects, and Kiva Bible's case finds its way to the Orange county evidence room and into the cold files where it sits for 15 years.
Bill Curtis
This is what we call a tape lift. We use 3 inch wide sticky tape. And if we want to collect trace evidence from the surface of, say, clothing, what we'll do is we'll take this tape, lay it on the clothing, and pull it off.
Dan Gammi
Penny Lafferty is a trace evidence analyst. In 2001, she receives more than 200 hairs collected at the autopsy of Kiva Bible.
Bill Curtis
This hair is only about a quarter of an inch long.
Dan Gammi
This is a hair similar to the one found on the victim's sock. The hair shape tells Lafferty where it came from on the human body.
Bill Curtis
It has a wide portion in the center, and it comes to a very tapered tip that indicates to me that it isn't a body. What I call a body limb hair, and it is very, very tiny. So that, to me is descriptive of either an eyebrow or potentially an eyelash hair.
Dan Gammi
A single human eyelash somehow found its way onto the clothes of a murder victim. Lafferty focuses on the root of the eyelash, looking for possible sources of DNA.
Bill Curtis
So that tissue is on this hair is right here. That's the root. And then along the shaft, there is some cellular tissue, and that's where the DNA is contained.
Brooke Giddings
This is the DNA section.
Dan Gammi
Lafferty forwards her eyelash, along with several other human hairs, to DNA analyst Mary Hong.
Brooke Giddings
These are eyelash hairs, so I first examine them to see if they have a root, and I need to look.
Bill Curtis
At them under the stereomicroscope in order to do that.
Dan Gammi
Hong is able to extract a DNA profile from five of the hairs. All match the victim Kiva Bible. All that is save one one hair.
Brooke Giddings
Produced a DNA profile that was from a male and that profile I was able to enter into the database.
Dan Gammi
The profile is run against more than 250,000 felony offenders in the state's DNA database. Within a few days, the database spits back a match. The eyelash belongs to an ex con named James Suknich. The news quickly reaches the Garden Grove pd.
Scott Watson
Obviously when we got the call we were quite ecstatic because we had nothing on the case. I mean all leads had been exhausted. We had nowhere to go. The problem is our victim, she's a prostitute. And we realized how easy it would be for this guy to simply explain that away.
Brooke Giddings
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Bill Curtis
Kiva Bible was murdered in Garden Grove, California, where she worked on the streets. No witnesses came forward, and the only physical evidence was five eyelash hairs, four of which belonged to Keeva. The fifth eyelash belonged to someone else. And 15 years after her death, a DNA profile was extracted. The investigators were hopeful that the profile would lead them to the killer, but also feared that the perpetrator would claim he had been one of Kiva's customers.
Scott Watson
We get this hit on DNA, we check into it, find out the guy had been convicted of a rape in a city very nearby.
Dan Gammi
Usually, Scott Watson is a homicide detective with a hot lead. DNA has linked a single human hair pulled 15 years earlier from the body of Keeva Bible to a convicted felon named James Suknich. The case, however, is not without its holes.
Scott Watson
The problem is our victim. She's a prostitute. And we realize how easy it would be for this guy to simply explain that away.
John Keeley
Yeah, I would agree with that. You know, I remember thinking that the eyelash itself and the recovery of it and the DNA hit is almost like a scientific miracle, and it takes us nowhere.
Dan Gammi
The problem for Assistant District Attorney Larry Yellen is proving Suknich wasn't a customer of Kiva Bible, but rather her killer. The team decides to travel to Cleveland, Ohio, to talk to Suknic and see if the suspect makes a mistake.
John Keeley
Why do we have something that links you to this woman?
Scott Watson
Okay.
John Keeley
There's a reason for it.
Scott Watson
Tell me why you were linked to this woman.
Dan Gammi
On December 6th, cold case detectives sit down with Suknic and ask him about Kiva Bible. Could be sex.
Scott Watson
Could be a lot of different things. I don't know.
Bill Curtis
Well, tell me about it.
John Keeley
Why do you think it could be sex?
Scott Watson
Cause I had sex with a lot of women back then.
John Keeley
That was one of the first things he said was, oh, yeah, I had sex with a lot of prostitutes, like hookers.
Dan Gammi
Did you happen to know some.
Scott Watson
Oh, yeah, I knew a lot of them.
John Keeley
And right away, we're going, oh, oh, my God, here we go. Cause if he would have stuck with that, we'd have been done. We have found some physical evidence on this case that's very interesting.
Dan Gammi
Detectives confront Suknic with the DNA evidence that connects him to Kiva Bible. Suddenly, Suknic remembers bible and the night they spent together in a drug house in garden grove.
John Keeley
He was using drugs, cocaine, quite heavily, and was in another part of the.
Scott Watson
House when he heard some commotion. There was all kinds of scuffling going on, and I was just too afraid to go out after it all quieted down. That's when I went out.
John Keeley
He came out, he saw Keeva naked, and these two guys that he called Steve and Allen. Keeva was stabbed on the floor. And that at that time, they forced him to help clean her up.
Scott Watson
That's when I walked out, and they were doing this cleanup thing, you know, And I'm going, oh, you know, what do I do now? What do I do now? You know?
John Keeley
And.
Scott Watson
Steve just looked at me and said, you better help or else. And the blonde guy says, if you tell anybody, you're dead.
John Keeley
And since he placed himself at the scene, and it told me that he probably had more involvement in this than he was actually saying.
Dan Gammi
Cold case detectives believe Suknich to be their killer. A month after the initial interview, detectives ask him to travel to California and help them find the mysterious Steve and Alan. Once there, they turn up the heat.
John Keeley
You have more involvement in this than you're saying. Now's the time. We've already explained that to you, Jim. Now's the time. James suknick flew to California from Cleveland because he truly felt that he was going to be a witness in this case and a witness only. We, of course, felt different. I just want to hear out of your mouth how it happened. You weren't in another room, Jim. Come on. You remember so much about this night. Except when the murder actually happened in.
Dan Gammi
California, Suknich once again changes his story. Now there are three men in the drug house. Steve, Allen, and a dope dealer. Suknich calls the stranger.
Scott Watson
And when I walked out and saw that he pulled a gun and said, this guy, the stranger. Stranger, okay? And he said, help clean up or else.
Brooke Giddings
Okay?
John Keeley
And, you know, he's an angry guy, the stranger, and he wants his money back. And he's ordering, kind of orchestrating Steve and Alan as these kind of fools, these lackeys, to do what his Bidding with Kiva. And we're here. We have this Allen, who we can't find anywhere. We have Steve, who lives there, who doesn't exist. And we have a stranger. And this stranger, when this is all done, pulls a gun and forces you. Okay, now you help clean up, or else. Wait a minute.
Scott Watson
They just stabbed the girl.
John Keeley
Why would he pull the gun on you and threaten you with a gun when a gun's gonna make noise? Does that make sense to you? Can't hear it very loud on the tape, but you can barely make it out where he says, I didn't think of it that way. That doesn't make sense. Does that make sense to you, how they're able to. How they're able to intimidate this girl? As soon as he said that, I knew I got him. Because he, at that point, finally figured out that we had more evidence and we were a little bit smarter than he thought we were. Jim, your boat's sinking. Is it close 1. One key. One key to. When I was talking that you said. When I. When I explained about the gun, you said, I never thought of it like that. That's how I know the stranger. And the gun is full. Just tell us the truth about what happened.
Scott Watson
There is no stranger. If anybody's a stranger, it was me, right?
John Keeley
And at that point, he admitted he was a stranger. There was no stranger. And then he started going into the story.
Dan Gammi
At that point, Suknicz finally gets down to something close to the truth.
Scott Watson
What I wanted to know was, when am I going to get my money back?
Dan Gammi
According to the suspect, Keva Bible stole drugs from him and his friends, something that angered Suknic, who decided to teach her a lesson.
John Keeley
How many times did you hit her?
Scott Watson
Twice.
John Keeley
Where?
Scott Watson
The back.
John Keeley
You bound her wrist behind her back. You holding her at this point, who hit her in the head?
Scott Watson
I think Steve did.
John Keeley
Okay. At the point where he starts talking about, oh, we were just gonna kick her ass, he's minimizing at that point. He's trying to minimize his participation in the case.
Scott Watson
Alan went down holding her. One shoulder. I was fixing to go down and hold the other shoulder. And that's when Steve jumped on her. Jumped on her across the waist.
John Keeley
Okay.
Scott Watson
And that's when he stabbed her.
John Keeley
Unbeknownst to him that when somebody dies, you're just as guilty as the person that committed the crime in California. If you're assisting in that assault, that ends up in a murder.
Dan Gammi
Despite all the stories and all the characters Suknic brings into his conversations with police. He and he alone is charged with murder.
John Keeley
That says it all right there. He just felt his whole world crash around him because at that point, I truly believe he realized that he wasn't leaving California.
Brooke Giddings
This message is sponsored by Greenlight. As someone who's always been fascinated by the stories behind every crime, I've noticed money is often a factor in the crimes we cover. Sometimes it's the motive, the trigger, or even the desperation that pushes someone over the edge. Financial stress can turn ordinary people into criminals and the lack of financial literacy makes victims more vulnerable. That's why teaching kids about money isn't just smart, it's essential. Greenlight is a debit card and money app designed for families. It's a safe, hands on way to teach kids and teens about money, preparing them for bigger financial decisions down the road. With Greenlight, parents can send money instantly, get real time spending notifications, and even assign chores so your house doesn't end up like a crime scene. Greenlight turns responsibility into real world learning. Kids and teens learn how to save, invest and build money confidence skills that could make all the difference in their future. Growing up, I'd wish I'd known the financial information that Greenlight provides. It would have made me more confident about money and investing for the future and saved me from some hard lessons. Give your kids the financial education many of us didn't get. Join millions of parents already using Greenlight, the one family finance and safety app. Start your risk free Greenlight trial today@Greenlight.com Coldcase that's Greenlight.com Coldcase to get started Greenlight.com Coldcase hey, it's James Altucher.
Bill Curtis
I've been an entrepreneur, investor, best selling writer, stand up comic and whatever it is I'm interested in, I get obsessed. Yes, it's led to success, but it's also led to such heartbreaking failure. I have failed more times than I can count. I wish in my life I had had people to talk to. That's why I started the James Altitude show and bring on some of the most brilliant minds in every area of life. People like Richard Branson, Sara Blakely, Mark Cuban, Danica Patrick, Gary Kasparov. And I wanted to find out exactly how they've navigated the highs, the lows and everything in between. No fluff, just raw stories and real advice. I've talked to 1500 of the most amazing people on the planet. So if you want to learn from the best and skip the same old canned interviews, we're all about helping you find your next big idea. Level up your thinking and ultimately to choose yourself. So let's do this together. Subscribe now to the James Altucher show.
Dan Gammi
On May 3, 2005, James Suknich is convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. Kiva Bibles evidence is pulled from the Cold Files. Her case solved. Her murder book closed forever.
John Keeley
For me working homicide, I want to make sure that the right thing gets done and whether somebody was a millionaire or whether they were a street walker like Kiva was, it doesn't make any difference. You don't deserve to get your life snuffed out like that.
Bill Curtis
James Zukinich filed an appeal in 2006. He challenged the sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury's verdict. His conviction was affirmed. In 2012, Sukanich filed a civil rights suit against the warden and several employees at the prison. He stated that his eighth Amendment rights had been violated. The eighth Amendment is the protection from cruel and unusual punishment. The suit was filed because another inmate had attacked Sukunich and attempted to slash his throat. In order to prove his case, Sukinich had to provide evidence that the people charged had known about the violation and failed to act to prevent them. The case was dismissed. Sukunich is still serving his sentence in a California prison. He's 60 years old. He was denied parole in 2012, 2015, 2018 and will be eligible to petition for parole again in 2021. Cold case files the podcast is hosted by Brooke giddings, produced by McKamey Lin and Steve Delamater. Our associate producer is Julie McGruder. Our executive producer is Ted Butler. Our music was 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 files@aetv.com or learn more about cases like this one by visiting the AE Real Crime blog at aetv.com realcrime.
Dan Gammi
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Episode: REOPENED: Caught By An Eyelash
Release Date: June 12, 2025
Host: Brooke Giddings
Produced by: McKamey Lin and Steve Delamater
Executive Producer: Ted Butler
Distributed by: PodcastOne
Based on: A&E's Emmy-nominated series "Cold Case Files"
In this gripping episode of Cold Case Files, host Brooke Giddings delves into the heartbreaking and perplexing murder of Keeva Bible, a 28-year-old sex worker from Garden Grove, California. The episode opens with a bleak overview of Kiva's life and mysterious death:
"I don't know who her parents were or if she had any siblings. I don't know what city she was born in or where she grew up. The only information I found about Kiva is that she was a sex worker in Garden Grove, California, and she had a drug problem."
— Brooke Giddings [00:34]
Kiva’s life was cut short the day before her 28th birthday, leaving investigators baffled with no immediate leads or witnesses.
The episode shifts to the early hours of the morning when John Keeley, a street cop in Garden Grove, discovers Kiva's body:
"As I pulled up, I pulled down Lucille Street and right in the middle of the street was a female laying down."
— John Keeley [02:19]
Upon inspection, Keeley notes multiple stab wounds on Kiva's chest, intentionally dressed to conceal the brutality of the attack:
"She had about four or five, I think it was five, but it may have been four stab wounds. They looked like they were pretty deep and they also had some type of gauze or something shoved in them to help stop the bleeding."
— John Keeley [02:37]
This meticulous dressing suggested that the assailant intended to avoid leaving blood evidence at the crime scene.
With no witnesses and scant evidence, the case quickly went cold. Kiva’s body was sent to the Orange County Sheriff Coroner Division for autopsy, where Dan Gammi, a trace evidence examiner, meticulously examined the scene:
"At the crime scene, the body was pretty much fully clothed, and in further examination of it, we saw that the jacket itself was fully zipped up and covering the upper chest portion of her body. Upon removing of the jacket, we then observed here that she had multiple stab wounds in the upper chest."
— John Keeley [03:32]
Gammi collected over 200 hairs from Kiva’s clothing and body, hoping to find trace evidence that could lead to the perpetrator:
"Using clear tape... looking for hairs, threads, or carpet fibers, anything that might have been left by her killer."
— Dan Gammi [04:22]
Despite these efforts, the case lacked the necessary clues to identify Kiva’s killer, leading it to be filed away as a cold case for 15 years.
Fifteen years later, advancements in forensic technology breathe new life into Kiva's unsolved murder. Penny Lafferty, a trace evidence analyst, identifies a single human eyelash among the collected evidence:
"It has a wide portion in the center, and it comes to a very tapered tip that indicates to me that it isn't a body. What I call a body limb hair, and it is very, very tiny. So that, to me, is descriptive of either an eyebrow or potentially an eyelash hair."
— Bill Curtis [07:14]
This eyelash, along with others, undergoes DNA profiling. Mary Hong, a DNA analyst, successfully extracts a profile from five of the hairs:
"Produced a DNA profile that was from a male and that profile I was able to enter into the database."
— Mary Hong [08:21]
The breakthrough comes when the DNA profile matches James Suknich, an ex-convict with a criminal history, including rape:
"Within a few days, the database spits back a match. The eyelash belongs to an ex con named James Suknich."
— Dan Gammi [08:52]
This revelation sends shockwaves through the Garden Grove Police Department, reigniting hopes and fears about identifying the true perpetrator.
Scott Watson, a vice sergeant familiar with Kiva’s life, spearheads the reinvestigation. Initial leads point to Donald Lubers, a sex offender linked to Kiva in an unrelated case. However, interviews and evidence build doubts about Lubers’ involvement:
"When you get down to it and you start hitting them up, it's because they heard from this guy, and this guy heard from this guy... By the time you get to how the thing started, it was nothing like what you got."
— Scott Watson [06:22]
As leads towards Lubers grow unreliable, the focus shifts to the DNA match—James Suknich. Efforts to connect Suknich to Kiva's murder intensify, leading investigators to Cleveland, Ohio, to confront him.
During an intense interrogation in December 6th, Suknich is pressed about his connection to Kiva:
"Why do we have something that links you to this woman?"
— John Keeley [13:36]
Initially, Suknich deflects, insisting he was merely a customer among many:
"I had sex with a lot of women back then... I knew a lot of them."
— Scott Watson [14:04]
However, faced with the compelling DNA evidence, Suknich's facade begins to crumble. As detectives confront him with inconsistencies in his story, he recalls the night of the murder:
"I was fixing to go down and hold the other shoulder. And that's when Steve jumped on her across the waist."
— Scott Watson [15:20]
Suknich admits to being present during Kiva’s murder, albeit downplaying his involvement and implicating others:
"Alan went down holding her. One shoulder. I was fixing to go down and hold the other shoulder. And that's when Steve jumped on her across the waist."
— Scott Watson [19:45]
This partial confession solidifies his role in the crime, leading to his arrest and eventual conviction.
On May 3, 2005, James Suknich is convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison:
"On May 3, 2005, James Suknich is convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison."
— Dan Gammi [22:55]
Suknich files appeals, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence and alleging civil rights violations due to prison conditions. Both appeals are dismissed, and he remains incarcerated, denied parole multiple times.
"John Keeley: For me working homicide, I want to make sure that the right thing gets done and whether somebody was a millionaire or whether they were a street walker like Kiva was, it doesn't make any difference. You don't deserve to get your life snuffed out like that."
— John Keeley [23:14]
The case closure brings a sense of justice for Kiva’s family, but also underscores the complexities and challenges inherent in solving cold cases.
John Keeley reflects on the case, emphasizing the importance of dedication in law enforcement regardless of the victim's background:
"For me working homicide, I want to make sure that the right thing gets done and whether somebody was a millionaire or whether they were a street walker like Kiva was, it doesn't make any difference. You don't deserve to get your life snuffed out like that."
— John Keeley [23:14]
The episode concludes by highlighting the perseverance of investigators and advancements in forensic science that can bring closure to long-unsolved cases.
Forensic Technology's Role: The case of Kiva Bible underscores the transformative impact of DNA profiling in solving cold cases. A single eyelash, once deemed inconsequential, became the key to unlocking a 15-year-old mystery.
Challenges in Cold Cases: The episode illustrates the hurdles in resolving cases involving marginalized individuals, such as sex workers, where leads are scarce, and societal biases may impede progress.
Police Dedication: The relentless pursuit by detectives like Scott Watson and John Keeley exemplifies the unwavering commitment required to bring justice, even when initial investigations fall short.
Legal Complexities: Suknich’s legal battles post-conviction shed light on the complexities of the legal system, including the difficulties in overturning convictions and addressing inmate rights.
Cold Case Files is produced by McKamey Lin and Steve Delamater, with associate producer Julie McGruder and music by Blake Maples. The podcast is distributed by PodcastOne and is based on A&E's original TV series produced by Curtis Productions.
Stay connected and learn more about this case and others by visiting A&E Real Crime Blog or follow the producers on their respective social media platforms.
Note: This summary excludes advertisements, intros, outros, and non-content sections to focus solely on the investigative narrative of Kiva Bible's cold case.