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When you run a business, there are a lot of boxes to check.
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Let's see, Payroll, Check. Inventory, Check Insurance. Ugh.
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Fire inside you you can't ignore. Stand still. Not a chance. You're a lifelong learner who's come this far. Now we are here to help to help you keep going further. Capella University what can't you do? Visit capella.edu to learn more.
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A heavy breather on the line? Or maybe a hang up phone call? A cold letter mailed to taunt police or a victim's family? A mean spirited email meant to inflict pain on its recipient. What do all these things have in common? They're all various modes of communication connected to shocking crimes going back decades. I'm Mike Morford, host of the podcast Killer Communications, and in every episode I tell the story of a case involving some form of sinister contact, whether it's to a victim, their family, police, or the press. For the senders of these communications, it's bold and brazen. For the recipients, it can be frightening or downright terrifying, and you won't believe just how often it happens. Check out Killer Communications right now, everywhere you listen to podcasts and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.
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You're listening to dnaid, brought to you by Abject Entertainment. Be sure to check out some of the other great true crime podcasts from this network, including the Murder in My Family, Missing Persons, Scene of the Crime, Zodiac Speaking Beyond Bizarre True Crime, Citizen Detective, and Campus Killings. All of these podcasts are available for you to binge on right now. Wherever you listen to podcasts, subscribe where you're listening to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. On February 16, 1993, a man was out for a walk at tucked away Trinidad Head beach in Trinidad Harbor, Humboldt County, California. The small beach is nestled among rocky promontories and has a bit of a wild feel with large rocks jutting from the water, untamed seagrass surrounding the small semicircle of tan sand, and a rustic pier extending into the shallow water. The walking man saw something on the ground at the shoreline that stood out. Picking it up, he noted that it very much looked like the top of a human skull, and that's exactly what it was. The man turned the piece of skull into the Fortuna, California Police Department, who in turn handed it over to the Humboldt County Sheriff's office. It was 1993, still early in the DNA era. But even though the skull fragment did not include any teeth, within a short time an STR DNA sample was obtained from the skull. The profile was entered into both the California Missing Person DNA Index and the National Unidentified Person DNA Index, but no match was made. Of course, given that the Humboldt authorities had no idea who the piece of bone belonged to other than the DNA extraction and entry that told them the bone belonged to a woman, there was not much they could do to identify its owner. They checked missing persons reports from the area, but none panned out. Eventually, the bone was shelved and was forgotten for 31 years. In 2013, Humboldt county elected a U.S. congressman to represent that district who was committed to clearing the county's unidentified human remains cases. Federal funding was obtained by Representative Jared huffman and in 2024 the Trinidad head skull segment was submitted to Othram Labs in Texas to see if an IGG analysis was feasible. OTHRAM was able to develop a SNP profile from the bone and began the genealogy analysis. The top match in the open source databases was a male who shared 290 centimorgans of DNA with the skull owner. I was told that the Otham report named this top match and stated they believed his ancestry intersected with the DOES at the third great grandparent level. The report also named a woman who might be a daughter to the DOE Cold case Detective Mike Fridley of the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office called the top match hoping to fill out his tree. But his messages were not returned. It's unclear how this came about, but then Detective Fridley got a call from a woman with the initials K.A. she said my mom was murdered in 1987 and not all of her was found at that time. KA believed the piece of skull belonged to her mother, Kay Adams Medine. Kay willingly gave a DNA sample for a direct comparison to the DNA from the skull and the California Department of Justice did the comparison testing. The results showed that KA indeed shared an amount of DNA with the DOE consistent with a parent child relationship. Who was Kay Medine? Humboldt investigators only had to look at the unsolved case files from nearby counties to find out. Kay Josephine Weber was born on October 1, 1938 in North Dakota to father Arthur John Valentine Weber and mother Grace Ellen Latshaw Weber. I found a photo for her from Moorhead State College in Morehead, Minnesota dated 1959. When she was a junior, Kay graduated and took a job teaching second grade at Clara Barton School. She married Navy vet Edwin George Randall in November 1959 in North Dakota. Their daughter K A, was born in Minnesota and their son SD soon joined the family which lived in Moorhead. This marriage ended and Kay married Phillips Stiles in September 1970 in Los Angeles. They divorced in December 1973. I could find nothing about this next marriage, but Kay married a man named Adams and took his last name. This marriage didn't last either, and Kay Married again on November 1, 1984 in Trinity County, California. This time her husband was Nicholas Medine, five years her junior. The couple lived in the tiny several hundred person town of Highampum, 300 miles north of San Francisco. Kay continued her career as a schoolteacher and she looked the part with her warm smile and somewhat prim hairstyle, complete with headband. She taught at Highampum Grammar School and also managed a childcare program. She ran for a school board in 1985 in Higham Pum. But there was a lot of competition and I don't know whether she was elected, although I didn't see her name in the paper again until the coverage of her missing persons case. Kay was 49 years old when she vanished in August 1987. She was living in Southwest High Ampalm with her husband, Nick Medine. His story was as follows. He was out of town on a prolonged business trip to the coast. He last saw his wife on the day he left, Monday, July 20, 1987. That day he saw Kay in the morning and then he went to run an errand in Hayfork. He came back to pick up their dog to bring him along on his trip to the coast and Kay wasn't home. Then he left for 11 days. When he got home on Friday, July 31, he reported to police his wife was gone. The house was empty. Since he was a member of the local search and rescue squad, he told detectives he searched for his wife on his own, thinking she must have gone out for a hike. According to Nick, Kay was an avid hiker and loved to hike the hills near their home. But he didn't find her. So on Monday, August 3rd, Nick filed a missing persons report that initiated a large scale search for the missing teacher by the Trinity County Sheriff's Office. That week, Trinity county authorities organized searches using Trinity county search and rescue teams, search dogs and a California Highway Patrol chopper. The police let the dogs take the lead, hoping they would track Kaye's scent from the house into the terrain. Where they thought she'd likely gone. One dog caught a scent and ran down the long dirt driveway from the house but then lost the trail in a culvert. After that, the searchers initiated a grid search of the property and surrounding areas. Sheriff Paul Schmidt told the Record searchlight that nearly 100 volunteer searchers had looked for Kay for several days alongside sheriff's office personnel. The area around the house was hilly and wooded, brushy, rocky and steep and the terrain described as rugged. To set the scene, the rustic home without electricity or a phone was past the old Hyampum mill. The three quarter mile long driveway ran uphill and was so steep it required four wheel drive to navigate it. There was a large ridge behind the property and a creek running through a crevasse with very steep sides. The sheriff's mountain search and rescue team and the mounted sheriff's posse and other volunteer riders came in on horseb to aid the effort. U.S. forest Service personnel joined in and volunteers that included explorer Scouts and others from High and Pump, Hayfork and Weaverville eagerly joined the cause as well. The community was heavily involved with local merchants providing food and water for the searchers and small planes piloted by citizen pilots transporting people and supplies between Weaverville and Higham Pum. The surge was so all encompassing and so many involved that a local, Pat Garrett, wrote a letter to the Trinity Journal praising the massive effort as, quote, a thing of beauty, compassion, hope, perseverance and dedication. End quote. There was one worrisome moment when a tipster called in a shallow grave in Peanut, but the resident of the grave was a cat, not Kay. An exhaustive search turned up nothing. By Midnight on Thursday, August 7, it was called off. Sheriff Schmidt said, we don't have any real direction. Well, that's not good. Trinity county deputies searched the Medine home. They found it very concerning that although nothing seemed amiss, Kay left behind all her things, including, including her purse, eyeglasses, hiking pack and car. Trinity County Sheriff Schmidt said the fact that she didn't take personal belongings like her purse and glasses leads me to believe she had every intention of coming home. They knew Kay had vanished before July 24. That day there was a massive rainstorm in the area and quote, everything was water spotted and it appeared there was no activity around the home since the rain. End quote. That from the Trinity Journal. Trinity County Detective sergeant Dave Lafroncini said, quote, there was always the possibility that she left without telling anybody, but it didn't seem likely, especially without these crucial personal items. Kay could not just walk away from her home. The couple lived in a remote area that required a vehicle to access. The whole thing was odd and suspicious. DNA ID Listeners we all know Father's Day is coming up, and let's face it, it's exhausting trying to come up with the latest gadget or novelty gift that will be put aside and forgotten. How about something the dad in your life will actually use? That's where Masterclass comes in. Not to be sexist, but we all know what dad's like. Manly stuff. 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You've never been one to settle. Stand down or stand still. You're a lifelong learner energized by excellence. There's a fire inside you you can't ignore. You've got competition to outrun, momentum to build on, and your own high standards to meet. Stop now. Not a chance. At Capella University, we help you catch what you're chasing because you've always, always had the drive now go earn the degree Capella University. What can't you do? Visit capella.edu to learn more.
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The Trinity county investigators questioned the Medine's neighbors and Kay's co workers and extended family. The neighbors said they had last seen kay sometime around July 16, meaning her husband was the last one to see her. On the 20th, her doctor was contacted WHO reported she had no serious medical issues. There was no health issue keeping her away from she seemed happy with her job. Her boss said she was in good spirits the last time he saw her. But Kay's family, her parents and those who knew her best said that things were not going well with Kay's marriage to Nick. In fact, Nick Medine had taken to leaving for long stretches of time and staying with his ex wife, working from her home. And now Kay had disappeared off the face of the earth. But someone knew where she was, or part of her anyway. Hold onto your hats because this is about to get crazy three months later, on November 25, 1987, an administrative staff member at the adjacent coastal Humboldt County Sheriff's Office opened a box addressed to the Humboldt County Sheriff. Inside was a piece of bone. The package contained no return address and included an anonymous typewritten letter. The letter said something like I was out hunting and I came across this. This poor SAP must have gotten attacked by a bear. It gave specific directions to the quote, poor SAP lying on the ground near Ammon Ridge in eastern Humboldt County. The letter said the remains were marked with stakes with flagging tape on them, the kind commonly used by loggers. The missive did not specify who the bones belonged to, and the implication was that the letter writer did not know. I wonder how fast the deputies zipped out there. Sure enough, more bones were found in a heavily forested area south of Willow Creek near Friday Ridge road. This was 45 miles from Kaye's High and Pum home, off remote back roads between High and Pump and Willow Creek, on a mountain in a whole different county from where she lived. These remains were later identified as belonging to K. Medine through a comparison of dental records, othram Lab's newsletter DNA Solves wrote recently. The skeleton was far from complete, but since dental records were used to identify Kay in 1987, presumably her lower jaw was found. I don't know what portion of her upper skull was found in Trinidad Head in 1993. Back in November 1987 when Kaye was identified finally after being found, Trinity County Detective sergeant Dave Lafroncini told the media that his agency had suspected foul play when they failed to Locate Kay, and she remained unheard from with no explanation. Her disappearance had been listed as suspicious. Her cause of death was unable to be determined from the skeletal remains. But now that she'd been found so far away from her home and no clothing was found, and it was impossible that she had perished accidentally on a hike, her death was even more suspicious, and police felt that foul play was highly likely. After a significant portion of Kay was found, thanks to this macabre mailing, Trinity county and Humboldt county investigators teamed up to conduct further investigation. The letter and package had no return address, but were postmarked from San Francisco, 300 miles away back in 1987. The packaging was of no help. DNA was not a thing yet, much less touch DNA. And even though the investigators finally had some remains, they didn't have a lot of answers. Detective Sergeant Lafroncini told the Records searchlight that Kaye's case had not progressed much further than when it was originally a missing person's investigation. But that statement was hiding the ball a little bit. The investigators had their eye on a suspect, and it's just who you're thinking it was. Nicholas Medine had tried to collect on life insurance he had on Kay after her disappearance. The insurance company declined the payout, saying there was no evidence Kay was deceased. After all, she hadn't been found yet. And then the letter and piece of bone miraculously arrived at the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office. Kay was found, identified, and officially declared deceased. A death certificate was finally issued for Kay in 1988, but her case remained classified as a missing person, since not all of her was located. Detective Fridley from Humboldt county said that a substantial portion of Kaye's remains are still missing. The investigators keep track of what parts have been found by drawings of the skeleton and labeling of the bones. But that 1988 death certificate was all Nick Medine needed to collect on Kay's life insurance policy, which the Trinity Journal reported that he did. And then he remained in highmpalm, remarrying with everyone in the tiny town pretty much knowing what he'd done.
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You've never been one to settle, stand down or stand still. You're a lifelong learner, energized by excellence. There's a fire inside you you can't ignore. You've got competition to outrun, momentum to build on, and your own high standards to meet. Stop now. Not a chance. At Capella University, we help you catch what you're chasing because you've always had the drive. Now go earn the degree. Capella University. What can't you do? Visit capella.edu to learn.
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Fast forward to the 2024 linking of K. Medine's unsolved missing persons case from 1987, which was considered a likely homicide, to the identification of yet another partial remain belonging to K, the one found in 1993. This sparked a reinvestigation of Kaye's case by the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office. Humboldt County Cold Case Detective Mike Fridley, who was a lieutenant before retiring and returning as a cold case investigator, said to KimCamp.com of the 1987 remains quote, there's no reason for her to have been out there. No car was left behind and we don't know if she was killed and cut up or if animals did that. But that's a good place to drop a body, End quote. That's because the area was remote and uninhabited and was between 30 and 40 miles from the home Kay shared with her husband in Highmpum. Were it not for the November 1987 letter to the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office, it's doubtful that Kaye ever would have been found. And then the 1993 find of the remainder of Kaye's skull. This location was 50 miles from where the initial remains were found six years earlier. Humboldt county cold case Detective Fridley pointed out that it wasn't necessarily the case that Kaye's remains had been placed by her killer miles apart. He believed the top of her skull found in 1993 and linked to her in 2024 could have ended up on Trinidad Head beach after being carried by waterways, perhaps the south fork of the Trinity river to the ocean. Trinity County Undersheriff Brian Ward isn't so sure. He and I discussed the possibility that a bird of carrion picked up some of Kay and deposited her on the beach at Trinidad Head or dropped her in a waterway leading there. It sounds outlandish, but recall the case of Captain Yeager that I covered a while back. A part of his jaw was found an entire state away. Detective Fridley did tell me something interesting when he spoke with K A Kay Adams, Medine's daughter. She told him that she is convinced that her mother's husband, Nick Medine, was responsible for her mom's death and disposal. And what KA didn't know is that the Trinity County Sheriff's Office agreed. Undersheriff Ward told me that in 2012 he even obtained a search warrant for Nick Medine's DNA. Let me explain. The letter sent to the Humboldt County Sheriff's office in November 1987 specified that the body could be found near some flagged stakes, those flags and unspecified other items. I assume the stakes were still in evidence, although contemporary fingerprinting of those items had yielded non usable results. In 2012, the Trinity County Sheriff's Office wanted to see if they could find Nick Medine's DNA on these items. Of course, when this all initially happened, DNA was not a thing. And even if Kay's home and personal items had been checked for DNA, her husband's DNA being found there could have been innocent since they lived together. But if his DNA was on items found at the body disposal site, that was an entirely different story. Undersherif Ward obtained a search warrant after laying out all the circumstantial evidence against Nick Medine, including that he was the last person to see his wife alive that he had not reported her missing for two weeks. He had tried very soon after her death to collect on the life insurance policy and that her death was deemed highly suspicious. When the deputies showed up on his reading doorstep in 2012, search warrant in hand, Undersherif Ward told me that the only word that describes Nick Medine's reaction is surprised. So surprised that the undersheriff thought he might pass out. Recovering Medine gave a buckle swab and the deputies went away. Well, it was a bust. No DNA from Medine was found on the evidentiary items. And Nicholas Medine died a free man on February 5, 2018 at the age of 74. Which is super disappointing as it sounds very much like he got away with murder. Of course, he's innocent till proven guilty, but Undersherif Ward told me that this is indeed one of those cases in which pretty much everyone knew who did it, but they didn't have the evidence they needed to make an arrest in 1987. They had no way to link the husband to the crime. They could not check the anonymous letter and packaging or bone segment for DNA. The packaging is long gone and the bone's current location is unknown. The cars back then didn't have GPS tracking to determine whether Medine drove to wooded eastern Humboldt county in July 1987. The Medine House was searched, but nothing criminal was found. And of course, Nick Medine did not have a cell phone that police could seize to access his conversations or locations. But assuming the police are right and Nick Medine did kill Kay, consider what lengths he went to to get that insurance money. He murdered his wife and dumped her 40 plus miles away in a different county. Then when he realized that he couldn't collect the money without proof of death, he went back out there, collected a piece of her, and drove to San Francisco to mail it to Humboldt county where the remains were. He knew they would be able to identify her. He was probably the one who put the police in touch with his wife's dentist to access her scans. The steps he took were interesting. Kay was found without clothes or any identifying objects. It seems at first he didn't want her to be ID'd. But then he realized his mistake and he had to make it happen. He also didn't attempt to make it look like an accident. If he had killed her and hidden her body somewhere near their home and in her hiking clothes and with her hiking backpack so that it looked like a tragic hiking accident, it would have been a lot easier. It seems as though he didn't really think things through very well, but he did get away with it, so I guess in the end he won. What an incredible tragedy that Kay will never see justice. I hope very much that her children are able to make peace with what happened to their mom. Rest in peace, Kay. Thank you so much to both Undersheriff Brian Ward and Cold Case Detective Mike Fridley for speaking with me about this case. Recently, I let listeners know about a new benefit available to them called an AbJack Insider subscription that's available through Apple Podcasts. An AbJak Insider subscription will give listeners ad free access to every bit of DNAID content published, both past episodes and future episodes. It will also give you benefits like early access and bonus content. Head over to Apple Podcasts and click on the DNA ID show page or the ABJAC Entertainment Channel to start a free trial. Thanks for listening to this episode of dnaid. If you'd like to listen to the show ad free and help support the show in the process, please head over to patreon.com DNAID and if you're interested in some fun DNAID merch, visit the store@computizedgirl.coms DNAID. To contact the show, please email us at dnaidpodcastmail.com follow us on social media @dnaid podcast on Instagram, NAIDpodcast on Twitter or on Facebook @Facebook.com DNAIDpodcast finally, if you want to visit our website, go to DNAID podcast.com you'll be able to get all the episodes of the show. Leave comments on episodes that I can respond to, and you can even leave voicemails. You'll get all the latest news about the show and important updates, find links to our social media merch and a lot more. It's really your one stop shop for everything dnaid DNAID is written, researched and hosted by me, Jessica Bettencourt. It's produced by me and Mike Morgan Morford of abjack Entertainment Music by Connor Bettencourt. Check out our other collaborative podcasts, Scene of the Crime, Missing Persons and Beyond Bizarre. True crime.
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