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- [00:00]
Wondery Host
Hey, Hollywood and crime fans. On behalf of everyone at Wondery, we wanted to thank you for listening. The next episode of the Cotton Club murder is coming out next week, but in the meantime, there's another series you should check out called suspect. In October 2008, the residents of the Valley View apartment complex in Redmond, Washington held a Halloween party. Dozens of people in costume mingled, drank and danced. But before the night was over, one of them was murdered. The police had a suspect. His story kept changing. His DNA was at the crime scene, and when he finally came in for questioning, the detectives felt they were a breath away from a confession. But that never happened. So the police focused their attention on another man, a man with a criminal record whose DNA was also found at the crime scene. And he just so happened to be the only black man at the party. Suspect is a true crime miniseries about cutting edge forensic science and mislaid justice. It's about race and policing and ultimately the kinds of weighty decisions that cops and prosecutors make every day. Decisions that once made, change lives forever and are almost impossible to reverse. You're about to hear the first episode of Suspect. You can binge all 10 episodes of suspect exclusively and ad free on Wondery. Start your free trial in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts, or Spotify today. And thanks for listening.
- [01:27]
Matthew Sher
Campsite Media about five years ago, in the fall of 2016, I received a message from an inmate at a jail in Seattle. The email read, there's a guy here who says that the state has been illegally detaining him for some six years due to his alleged DNA. You can go online and check him out. He says he's innocent. I've written about the criminal justice system for about a decade now, and I've gotten used to these types of letters. But this one was different. At the time, I just published a long magazine article about something called touch DNA. Traces of human matter so small that they could be carried third hand onto the scene of a crime. And what I'd learned writing that article was that while DNA is treated in popular culture like a truth meter, a guilt meter, in reality, DNA evidence has to be interpreted by human beings. Human beings who have biases, prejudices, human beings who make mistakes. So what if the guy in Seattle was innocent? Soon, he and I were exchanging letters. His often began with a kind of mental self evaluation rendered in looping handwriting. I've been under a lot of stress and this depression is getting the best of me, he wrote. He shared details of his life. He told me about sitting in his cell listening to his home team, the Seahawks play in the Super Bowl. He talked about other inmates, like the notorious serial killer he'd seen in the cafeteria. And he talked about his upcoming trial. As we spoke, a picture started coming into focus of a Halloween party in the town of Redmond, of the murder of one of the hosts and of the young man who had been charged with the crime. Charged almost entirely on the basis of DNA evidence that seemed contradictory at best. A few months later, I was on a flight to Seattle. I am rolling. Okay, awesome. All right, so we are walking towards the Valley View Apartments.
- [03:38]
Rachel Schout
Wait, are we being interviewed right now?
- [03:39]
Matthew Sher
Is that okay? I'm a journalist, okay? I'm working on a story about a party and a murder that happened here.
- [03:45]
Rachel Schout
A long time ago.
- [03:47]
Matthew Sher
What I'd end up finding in the months and years to come was one of those things journalists spend their lives waiting for. A story in which all the major players wanted to talk, needed to talk. Cops, prosecutors, forensic analysts, witnesses, jurors, all were still living with the events of a Single Night in 2008. All were searching for answers in a case that have provided so few. I was like, who are all these people?
- [04:14]
Chris Cutler
I was like, what are you talking about? You murdered this girl. I was like, what girl? I was like, how do you not know this stuff?
- [04:20]
Kyle Rose
They're manipulating evidence, and this is just.
- [04:23]
Matthew Sher
A microcosm of what happens on a.
- [04:25]
Kyle Rose
Daily basis in America.
- [04:27]
Rachel Schout
Who do we look at?
- [04:28]
Chris Cutler
Do we look at you?
- [04:29]
Rachel Schout
Would you do something like this?
- [04:30]
Chris Cutler
Where's the smoking? In deliberation, that's all we talked about.
- [04:35]
Matthew Sher
This case is one of those rollercoaster rides where it's like, no, he did it for sure. No, for sure he did it. You know? And we'd be divided in the detective unit.
- [04:43]
Chris Cutler
I'm telling you to come clean right now and tell the truth, because the thing you're trying to carry around with you is gonna tear you apart. You can't hold onto something like that, man.
- [04:54]
Rachel Schout
See how it's kind of falling apart.
- [04:56]
Chris Cutler
And it's like, time. You just gotta tell us what. What happened?
- [05:01]
Matthew Sher
What makes you want to talk to us about it? Isn't it, like, hard as hell to relive all of this again? I don't know. It's because it's not.
- [05:11]
Chris Cutler
Resolved.
- [05:32]
Matthew Sher
From Campside Media and Wondery, I'm Matthew Sher, and this is Suspect. And this is episode one, the Halloween Party.
- [06:02]
Rachel Schout
So we are out in the trees. The sticks, if you will. It's very hilly out here when it snows in the winter. We're stuck. We were stuck for a week and a half.
- [06:16]
Matthew Sher
Rachel Schout lives with her family in a rural town called Snohomish, about 40 minutes north of Seattle. Her home has the feel of a sanctuary, of a retreat. From the back deck, you peer out over a carpet of emerald firs and maples that extends all the way to the Cascade Mountains.
- [06:35]
Rachel Schout
On a really foggy day, fog will completely block out all the trees, and it's like we're in a cloud.
- [06:42]
Matthew Sher
There's a hummingbird all around the house, so the place is practically bright. Bristling with them are these little red feeders filled with sugar water. And sometimes Rachel just sits and watches the hummingbirds draw nearer and nearer until she can hear the whir of their wings.
- [06:59]
Rachel Schout
Some have this bright, beautiful, like a burnt orange, but when they puff up, it turns hot pink. That's why I have so many feeders to bring them.
- [07:13]
Matthew Sher
Rachel's decision to acquire all these feeders wasn't random. It was part of a healing process that began more than a decade ago, a healing process that's still very much underway.
- [07:25]
Rachel Schout
I've heard that sometimes when people pass, they come to you in different aspects of, like, an animal or bird or something. And I just noticed that everywhere I went, there's hummingbirds around. And so I just felt like that was my little sign that that's them. It just makes me feel like they're there.
- [07:49]
Matthew Sher
Before she moved to Snohomish, Rachel lived for a time in the city, in the Seattle area. This was in 2008. She was in her 20s then, a single mom of a young daughter. She was dating a guy named Sean, who would later become her husband. But it was early in their relationship, and both of them were still feeling.
- [08:08]
Rachel Schout
Things out and starting a new life that wasn't single momhood and learning how to share parenting with somebody else. When you've done it by yourself for four years, you know, but still young. Liked to party and have fun with friends, too. Cutting loose A lot of that cutting.
- [08:26]
Matthew Sher
Loose was done at an apartment complex called the Valley View in Redmond, where two of Rachel and Sean's closest friends lived. Redmond sits just east of Seattle, between the same two mountain ranges, the Olympics and the Cascades. On clear days, both are visible from the downtown area, where Microsoft and Nintendo keep offices. It's a quiet city, relatively wealthy, full of bistros, coffee shops, bike shops. The Valley View is one of several apartment complexes built into the hills overlooking the downtown. Rent was cheap, especially for the area. Less than 800 bucks a month for a one bedroom.
- [09:05]
Chris Cutler
We loved it there. It was great. I mean, right behind the movie theater, right in walking distance to downtown. Everybody was friendly. You know, there wasn't really any red flags of anything weird.
- [09:14]
Matthew Sher
Chris Cutler was living at the valley view in 2008 with his then girlfriend, now his wife.
- [09:20]
Chris Cutler
You know, the places were okay, they were dated, you know, a lot of old linoleum and, you know, ants in the apartments and paint that probably needed redone, stuff like that. But, you know, by and large, there wasn't anything that was unlivable.
- [09:31]
Matthew Sher
Each level had six or seven units, with the upper levels connected to the parking lot out back via a small footbridge, almost like a roadside motel. The residents were mostly in their 20s. They worked in construction in the service industry. A few were employed by local tech firms. Arpana Janaga was part of this last group. The first time Rachel met Arpana was one afternoon when Arpana came peeling into the Valley View astride a motorcycle, her long black hair cascading out from under her helmet.
- [10:03]
Rachel Schout
Like, how can you handle that thing? Like, here you are, just this badass chick just riding around on her motorcycle. And oh, she was just so vivacious.
- [10:14]
Matthew Sher
Arpana explained that she'd grown up in Hyderabad in India. She'd moved to Redmond to take a programming job in the spring. Rachel listened in astonishment as Arpana told her how she'd gotten into riding a motorcycle in the first place.
- [10:27]
Rachel Schout
She was standing on the corner waiting to cross the street and she saw a woman drive by on a motorcycle. And she goes, I want to do that. And so she called her dad and said, if I take lessons and get a license, can I have one? And he said, yes. And she said, I couldn't believe it. So I went right out and I took my course and I bought a motorcycle and joined a motorcycle club. And everything she did, she did it 100%.
- [10:55]
Matthew Sher
That fall, Arpin and a handful of other residents at the Valley View started throwing around the idea of having a big Halloween party at the complex.
- [11:03]
Chris Cutler
While we were out smoking one day, they were mentioning it and talking about it and they put up flyers all over the building. And yeah, they wanted it to be a whole building party.
- [11:12]
Matthew Sher
Basically, the idea was simple. Four different apartments, multiple themes. Partygoers could wander between the apartments via the exterior balconies and stairs. There'd be a 60s lounge, a winter wonderland with lots of snowflakes and fake icicles. There'd be a pirate themed room. Arpana's apartment on the third floor would be the Haunted Forest. She had her Little Red Riding Hood costume all planned out. A hood, fishnet stockings, plastic axe, flowing cape.
- [11:45]
Rachel Schout
I remember talking about it for weeks before because Arpana was just so excited. It was her first Halloween, and it was like watching a kid just. Just so excited.
- [11:58]
Matthew Sher
Halloween that year fell on a Friday. Rachel got to the Valley View a little early, most of her costume packed into a bag. She was going to be a cop. Her boyfriend Sean, who was arriving late, he was going to be a bank robber. A few hours before the party was set to start, Rachel and Arpana and a third friend, Nicole, went across the street to run an errand.
- [12:21]
Rachel Schout
We went to Lovers Package, such a classy joint, to buy pantyhose for a really classy outfit.
- [12:31]
Matthew Sher
When they got back, the sky was getting darker. It had rained earlier in the day, but now it was dry and warm, and partygoers were starting to filter into the Valley View. Everyone in costume. Indiana Jones was there, so was Batman. And a pirate queen. Chris Cutler hadn't wasted much time thinking about his costume. All it took was one look in the mirror.
- [12:55]
Chris Cutler
I've had a beard for a long time, and at that point I had quite a. Quite a long beard. And we got joking about that. It was kind of like a Moses beard or a Jesus beard, that kind of thing. So I got the idea that, hey, I'm Jesus. I ended up going out and getting what looked quite a lot like a crown of thorns. So kind of offensive to some people, maybe, but it was pretty funny at the time, so. And then had some beer that I'd written water on the outside of it because Jesus turned water into wine. So, yeah.
- [13:24]
Matthew Sher
Attendees gathered in the living rooms of the host's apartments, but also outside under the glare of the parking lot lights and the spaces in between units.
- [13:33]
Chris Cutler
And then there was, you know, walkways that were built along the outside of the building, and they were covered walkways, so they decorated those with, you know, spiderwebs, things like that.
- [13:42]
Matthew Sher
At one point, Rachel found herself on one of the walkways talking to a guy named Emmanuel Fair, who'd come out for a cigarette. Emmanuel said he'd been invited by one of the residents on the first floor. He was wearing a construction worker outfit with a hard hat, utility belt, and knee pads.
- [14:00]
Rachel Schout
And then conversation starts, and you just talk and talk and talk and talk and talk, and it keeps going. I remember he was sitting and I was standing, like, against the rail.
- [14:10]
Matthew Sher
Emanuel told Rachel that he'd been raised in the Central District Of Seattle, mostly by his grandmother, who he'd loved deeply. She'd suffered a stroke when Emanuel was a small child, and he'd been her live in caretaker.
- [14:23]
Rachel Schout
And I just remember feeling so bad for him. I'm a very empathetic person, and I like to make people feel like they're important and that they matter. So I think he just felt very comfortable talking to me. And so I'm just like, where are you now in your life?
- [14:38]
Matthew Sher
Trying to find a regular job, he replied. A regular paycheck.
- [14:42]
Rachel Schout
I was like, well, good for you, man. That's awesome. Don't let your past define who you are.
- [14:48]
Matthew Sher
Rachel and Emmanuel headed back inside. Party was in full swing now. Valley view was practically vibrating with footsteps, music, talking and shouting.
- [14:58]
Rachel Schout
Everybody was drinking different stuff, and then they'd forget where that cup was, so they'd go make a new one and. And then there's just drinks everywhere. You know, typical younger 20s party.
- [15:08]
Chris Cutler
Yeah, everybody was drunk. Everybody was drunk. Some people were getting high, smoking weed. If there was anything else, I didn't see it. But normal party for the northwest, I guess.
- [15:19]
Matthew Sher
Throughout the night, one of the residents, an amateur photographer, was wandering through the Valley View Taking pictures of the partygoers. One of the images shows Rachel in her cop outfit, pressed against her boyfriend Sean, who's dressed in a black hoodie. He's got a nylon stocking over his head and a toy gun in his hand, the barrel pointed in Rachel's direction towards her face.
- [15:43]
Rachel Schout
They're just the most embarrassing pictures ever. Just posing and taking pictures and thinking that we're just hot stuff.
- [15:51]
Matthew Sher
At the time, it felt like good fun.
- [15:54]
Rachel Schout
I remember being down at Leslie's apartment, and Arpana came out to her deck with a glass of red wine, and she goes, rachel, come up and hang out with me. I miss you. And just her huge smile and just the way she talked, and I was like, okay, I'll be right up. And went back up to hang out with her. And that is the happy moment. So I just try to stick with that.
- [16:27]
Matthew Sher
Parties have emotional lives of their own. Sounds weird to say that out loud, but I'm also guessing you kind of know what I mean. There are parties that are full of warmth, of happiness, Parties where it feels like everyone is on the same wavelength. And then there are parties that have a bad mood to them, where you can feel something. Anger, jealousy, barely concealed violence under the surface. That Halloween party in 2008, the Valley View apartments had started the first way and ended up the second. A lot of the Problems at the party originated with a guy named Neil Marshall, who had been brought over to the Valley View by his stepbrother Chris Cutler.
- [17:11]
Chris Cutler
It was kind of our thing to get like an 18 pack and just kill an 18 together and than play video games all night and smoke a bunch of weed and hang out. And so I figured, hey, let's just do that again. But with the Halloween party involved. So he came over and we were gonna have a good time.
- [17:27]
Matthew Sher
But Neil drank a lot that night, even more than usual.
- [17:31]
Chris Cutler
Yeah, he's definitely. He definitely had some challenges. You know, he drank excessively and, you know, I mean, I did too, but excessively. Neil could go from seeming sober to, like, leg in the tub in the bathroom, drunk with one beer, you know, he was still in control. Well, in control, you know what I mean? Like, he was still coherent.
- [17:56]
Matthew Sher
Neil managed to put partygoers like Rachel shout on edge.
- [18:00]
Rachel Schout
There are those people that you instantly don't like when you meet them and people that you like when you meet them, so you just try to avoid the people that you don't like. There was really only one person that stuck out in my mind. Neil. What a douche. Pardon my French.
- [18:18]
Matthew Sher
Neil positioned himself at a table in one of the units and challenged each passerby to an arm wrestling contest. Want a shot at the title? He'd ask. At one point, he and Emmanuel Fair, the guy in the construction worker outfit, went outside to compare boxing moves. Neil considered himself to be a natural. He jabbed Emmanuel on the lip hard enough to draw blood. Emanuel laughed it off. But Neil was not done making trouble.
- [18:47]
Rachel Schout
Later in the night, I went to Nicole's room to fix something on my outfit or do something, and I shut the door behind me, and Neil came in and tried to close the door behind him with only me and him in the bedroom. And I said, you need to get out of here. And I walked past him and opened the door and walked out.
- [19:08]
Matthew Sher
Rachel made it clear that she was there with her boyfriend.
- [19:11]
Rachel Schout
And then he's like, hey, do you think Arpana would hook up with me? And I'm like, not in a million years, bud. Not in a. Don't even talk to her. Just stay away from Arpana. And he's like, well, geez, you don't have to be rude. And I'm like, just get away.
- [19:25]
Matthew Sher
From that point on, Rachel lost track of Neil. The party for everyone. It's getting a little blurry.
- [19:32]
Rachel Schout
Just a whirlwind of a night. Just a lot, a lot happened in those, you know, Four hours of partying.
- [19:42]
Chris Cutler
I have a snapshot memory of somebody smoking a cigarette on the top of one of the stairwells when I was up there late at night trying to get Neil to come back to our apartment. Just little snapshot memories of the night, I guess, is what I. What I still remember of it.
- [19:59]
Matthew Sher
Around midnight, Arpana invited everyone up to her place to eat a bunch of ready to bake pizzas. Emmanuel came along, as did Chris Cutler, his girlfriend, and his stepbrother Neil. And later, a guy named Cameron Johnson showed up too.
- [20:15]
Rachel Schout
Just quiet guy, sitting on the counter with his baseball hat and his sweatshirt and not drunk like everybody else.
- [20:24]
Matthew Sher
Cameron had just come from a night out with friends, and at first he wasn't wearing a costume, but later he got more into the spirit of things. He pulled on a bright red devil mask and invited everyone to his apartment for vodka shots. Cameron and Arpana were neighbors. Cameron's living room and Arpana's living room shared a wall. But they were also friends of a sort, close enough that that same August, they'd attended a Lady Gaga listening party in Seattle and posed for a photo together with the singer.
- [20:52]
Chris Cutler
There was joking around, going back and forth between him and Arpana. They were giving each other a hard time about being able to hear each other through the wall. Whenever they would have somebody, you know, over having sex, that kind of thing, they could hear each other through the wall. So they were flirting, like they were interested at some level. But I couldn't tell if they had any history or not.
- [21:13]
Rachel Schout
Oh, I think Arpina told us he had a thing for her. I'm sure a lot of people did. I don't know. He just. He was just really quiet.
- [21:23]
Matthew Sher
Arpana, I've since found out, referred to Cameron as her orphan. Kind of weird turn of phrase. I later asked some of Arpana's family about it, and they told me that that's the kind of person she was. She took people in under her wing. She had a soft spot for lost people. Arpana's apartment was now very crowded. Photos from that point in the night show everyone pressed into the kitchen, other people spilling out onto the balconies. There were Christmas lights on the wall and handles of alcohol on the table. Emanuel and Cameron greeted each other chicanes. They were both music fans. Emanuel had played drums and was in the church choir, one of the few constants in a turbulent childhood. Cameron was into electronica, worked at a home theater installation company. He told Emanuel to come out to his car. He Had a CD out there he wanted to play for him. After about 20 minutes, Emmanuel later recalled, they returned to the apartments. Meanwhile, that tension that had been lurking there for hours, starting with Neil Marshall, it was now breaking open. First, one of the attendees started popping balloons in a downstairs apartment, which infuriated the owner of the unit to the point she asked the guy to leave. Later, Rachel watched as her boyfriend Sean and an old friend of his started jawing at each other.
- [22:46]
Rachel Schout
And I don't even remember what it was over. They've never argued, like they were really good friends. So it was just, you guys, knock it off. Separate, you know, all the mama bears in there, that's enough.
- [22:59]
Chris Cutler
You know, I didn't ever actually find out what the disagreement was really about. They ended up going into the storage area, which was on the bottom floor, and looking back at the police report, it sounds like it was like three in the morning or something that they went in there. I honestly was drunk enough. I don't remember the timing of some of those things, but they went into there and I guess settled their shit.
- [23:20]
Rachel Schout
It's just a bunch of drunk idiot guys trying to have a pissing contest.
- [23:24]
Chris Cutler
That was part of why Michelle and I were like, all right, all right, we're done. Because, you know, there just started being drama.
- [23:29]
Matthew Sher
Chris Cutler went back to his apartment, as did most of the rest of the partygoers. It was time to sleep off the drunkenness, to peel off the costumes.
- [23:39]
Rachel Schout
At the end of the night, we walked down to an apartment on the first floor, and I think Neil came by and I think we gave him money to get out of there.
- [23:50]
Matthew Sher
The party was entering its last stage. You know, this one too, where the acquaintances and friends of friends have all departed and only the core group is left. Rachel and her boyfriend Sean Arpana, plus a few others, they sat around reminiscing, hugging.
- [24:08]
Rachel Schout
There's a lot I don't remember, and then there's certain things that are just ingrained in my brain forever. Arpana came with. She brought her keys. I remember the sound of her keys in her hand. We were all having conversation. This is one of the conversations that makes me cry, so bear with me. Arpana was telling us how lucky we are to be women in the United States because it was so hard growing up in India as a woman. And I had said, well, it wasn't always easy for women here either. We had to fight really hard. And she just started sobbing, and she said, you have no idea. You have no idea. And it just broke my Heart, especially how her life ended. And that. That was her last conversation. And she said, I have to go. Then she grabbed her keys and she left. And I never saw her again. I just wish I would have walked her up. I can't believe we. We just didn't.
- [26:20]
Chris Cutler
One sec here, guys.
- [26:22]
Matthew Sher
Good to go. All right. All right. So we are walking towards the Valley View Apartments. Cameron's unit, Arpana's unit, Kyle's unit. He's still in the same unit. I think he is, yeah. Thirteen years after that party, almost all the old residents at the Valley View are gone. But a guy named Kyle Rose, he still lives there. Hey, Kyle.
- [26:53]
Kyle Rose
How are you guys?
- [26:53]
Matthew Sher
Nice to meet you.
- [26:54]
Kyle Rose
Nice to meet you.
- [26:55]
Matthew Sher
So I'm Matt, this is Natalia and this is Kyle.
- [26:57]
Kyle Rose
Natalia, Kyle. That's easy.
- [26:59]
Matthew Sher
Yeah, right. This past summer, he agreed to show me and one of my co reporters, Natalia Winkleman, around his apartment, trying to.
- [27:08]
Kyle Rose
Go through some stuff. Yeah, I need a bigger place.
- [27:10]
Matthew Sher
Is that James Dean?
- [27:12]
Kyle Rose
Yeah, James Dean. James Byron Dean. He was born the same day as me. Well, February 8th, so it's kind of cool.
- [27:18]
Matthew Sher
And that's him too?
- [27:19]
Kyle Rose
That's him too, yeah. Kind of a big fan.
- [27:22]
Matthew Sher
Where should we sit? Where are you?
- [27:23]
Kyle Rose
Wherever you sit out here is, if that's okay. I don't know where you want to sit.
- [27:27]
Matthew Sher
Kyle's apartment is. Well, it's full, cluttered, stuff piled on every available surface. It's next door to Arpana's old place on the third floor of the Valley View. They'd shared a bedroom wall when I met her.
- [27:40]
Kyle Rose
I had a friend over visiting and I heard a loud noise one morning and I looked out and I could see barely someone on the ground trying to get up. And it was her under her bike. And I yelled if she was okay. She said, yeah, but I still thought I better go out. So I went out and I think that's when we met for the first time. She asked me to pick up her motorcycle.
- [28:01]
Matthew Sher
In October of 2008, Kyle was working at a local target. The hours were long. Kyle actually had the night of the Halloween party off, but he considered himself to be a relatively private person. Didn't really want to go.
- [28:16]
Kyle Rose
I was kind of hiding out, as funny as that sounds. I just didn't really want to go to the party. But I also didn't want to be the party pooper. It was Halloween night, so I tried to get a scary movie down at the video store. I couldn't find the movie I was looking for, so I had a Few beers and I was like, maybe I'll go. But it was still not quite started yet. So I was like, I don't want to just like be down there lingering while they're setting up. And so then I never, never did get up the energy to go. But during that night, they kept coming to my door a few times, trying to. Trying to see if I was home and knock on the door. And as they were getting more, you know, and it was very nice, I. I really appreciated it, but I was just like, I didn't want to open the door and tell them I don't want to come because I figured the pressure would come out. Plus, they did want costumes. And I was trying to think, well, I could dig this out of my closet or that. But I. I just like, I don't really have a costume, so. Yeah.
- [29:07]
Matthew Sher
So you just stayed home?
- [29:08]
Kyle Rose
I just stayed home.
- [29:09]
Matthew Sher
It must have been noisy as hell.
- [29:12]
Kyle Rose
It was very noisy, yeah. They would kind of wander up to Arpana's place here and there. And at some point, I think I heard him out on the deck.
- [29:21]
Matthew Sher
The voices. He heard at least one of the voices. He's pretty sure it belonged to Arpana, which is something he later told police.
- [29:30]
Kyle Rose
Well, what I told them, and I don't know that I heard accurately, was kind of an odd conversation. I heard. It was Arpana and she was out there with somebody because I did have my window open and I heard Art Pana out there talking to somebody, never knew who. And I was kind of almost worried. The conversation almost sounded like they were talking about doing drugs or something because she's like. She was kind of like amazed by what the guy was saying, and he's like, oh, you can see the devil, or something like that. And I'm pretty sure it was her.
- [30:01]
Matthew Sher
The first time I heard Kyle say this, I had to have him repeat it. You can see the devil. The truth is, he still doesn't know what it means. Anyway, by 3 or 4am the noise had died down. The music went quiet. An hour or so later, Kyle went to sleep. But around 8am he sat up straight.
- [30:22]
Kyle Rose
I was awoken to hearing what sounded like Arpana getting sick or having sex. I wasn't sure, but. But sound like she was choking and throwing up maybe. And then I heard a thud on the floor after. But it went on for like 20 seconds as noise. And it was, it was. I was just like, well, I mean, I just wouldn't think something like that would happen, you know, I just. I wish I Would have, but I just wasn't thinking that she was in dire need of help. And I heard this. You know, it's like she was. She was. I thought she finally threw up and passed out.
- [30:59]
Matthew Sher
The sun had just risen, and outside the clouds were beginning to glow. What did the thud sound like?
- [31:07]
Kyle Rose
It just kind of sound. It sounded like she fell out of bed. Just kind of like something falling on the floor.
- [31:14]
Matthew Sher
You could not hear another voice, right?
- [31:16]
Kyle Rose
I didn't hear any other voice. I didn't even really hear her. I just heard her, like, growling. Like she was, like, growling. And. And then, like, I thought she's just really trying to heave to throw up. I thought she definitely had too much to drink. That's what I thought. And, yeah, that's. Then I heard just a slip, this slight thud. And then I can't remember if I woke up at that exact time or not. But later on in the morning, I heard, because you can hear, our bathrooms are connected, you know, kind of the same wall. And I could hear water running. So I said, oh, she's okay. Water's running. That's a good sign.
- [31:53]
Matthew Sher
At this point in our conversation, Kyle, and he is not the sort of person you'd think would do this. His eyes got all shiny with tears. He clasped his hands together and stared down at the ground.
- [32:05]
Rachel Schout
Knowing what you know now about what you probably heard that morning, has it changed your behavior at all, the way you act around different people?
- [32:13]
Kyle Rose
I mean, I'd like to say no, but I think it probably has. I definitely am kind of a different person just because of it. I mean, the cruelty of people and what they can do. I don't even know why they would have did it to her, of all people. She was so nice and just a good person. So, I mean, yeah, sometimes, I guess it probably has changed me a little bit.
- [32:41]
Matthew Sher
I'd probably put it a little differently. Kyle is more than changed. His apartment is filled with forensics textbooks, books on policing, a big stack of newspaper clippings that he's saved from over the years. He hasn't really been able to let it go. And that's true, at least it seems to me. Of everyone involved with this case, no one has really waved goodbye to it. Everyone has suspicions, theories, and if I thought I had a lot of questions, they had more. I've never actually seen this.
- [33:17]
Rachel Schout
Yes, we're looking at these cutouts. And let's see, what's the date on this? This one's from January 10, 2009.
- [33:26]
Matthew Sher
So you saved these when they came out.
- [33:29]
Kyle Rose
These are clippings from the Redmond reporter and different news. What would you call them? News reports. Suspects among guests at Halloween party. DNA evidence links man to savagely brutal crime.
- [33:42]
Matthew Sher
That's on the next episode of Suspect.
- [33:47]
Kyle Rose
See this one is slain. Please have no firm suspects in murder case. Investigators working hard to find Redmond woman's killer. See what else? Oh, this. You know what? I'm trying to remember how I got him because I don't buy a newspaper. I think people have got him.
- [34:28]
Matthew Sher
From campsite and Wondery. This is episode, episode one of nine of Suspect. Suspect was reported by Eric Benson, Natalia Winkelman and me, Matthew Scher. Eric and I are producers. David Waters is the executive producer. Our editor is Pashley Ann Krigbaum. Field production by Kyle Norris. Aliyah Papes and Callie Hitchcock are assistant producers. Fact checking by Matthew Giles. Original music by Doug Slaywin and Netta Hadari. Consulting producers are Laura Ricciardi and Josie Duffy Rice. Our engineer is Jackie Sagiko. Mixing by Jackie Sagiko, Mark McAdam and Garrett Tiedemann. Additional production assistance from Rod Sherwood. Studio engineer is Jud Caswell at Frog Hollow Studio in Topsom, Maine at Campside. The executive producer producers are me, Vanessa Gregoriadis, Josh Dean and Adam Hoff. For Wondery, Chris Siegel is the producer. Production assistants from Fiona Pastana. Managing producer is Lata Pandya. Executive producers are George Lavender, Marshall Louie and Jen Sargent.