00:00:04
[Music]
00:00:06
a young woman just landed her first big
00:00:08
modeling job a few hours later she
00:00:11
disappeared
00:00:13
the weave pattern on some fabric the
00:00:15
mixture of some concrete and a dog hair
00:00:18
were the keys to the mystery
00:00:22
[Music]
00:00:29
[Music]
00:00:47
it was a friday night in central
00:00:49
illinois around 10 p.m a motorist saw an
00:00:53
abandoned car along the side of the road
00:00:56
the driver's side door was open the
00:00:59
lights were still on the engine was
00:01:01
running
00:01:02
but there was no one inside a purse was
00:01:05
inside the car the inside of the vehicle
00:01:07
was a little bit disheveled
00:01:10
it appeared to be a little bit
00:01:11
suspicious there was no identification
00:01:13
in the purse
00:01:15
the car's license plate number was
00:01:17
registered to david swann
00:01:20
a 34 year old employee of the local
00:01:22
newspaper
00:01:23
when police called swann he said his
00:01:26
girlfriend karen slover had borrowed his
00:01:28
car that night to pick up her
00:01:30
three-year-old son christopher who had
00:01:32
spent the day with his grandparents
00:01:36
but the car was nowhere near the
00:01:38
grandparents home it was 40 miles away
00:01:42
facing in a different direction
00:01:45
at that point she's just missing
00:01:47
you know
00:01:48
at that point we're not sure if it's a
00:01:49
kidnap it assume you assume it's a
00:01:51
kidnapping
00:01:53
hijacking on highway
00:01:55
investigators asked family and friends
00:01:57
if karen might simply have run away
00:02:00
everyone said it was impossible
00:02:03
friends said karen had just gotten her
00:02:05
first professional modeling job and was
00:02:08
excited about it
00:02:09
she was an aspiring model and she had
00:02:11
received a phone call from paris
00:02:13
international indicating that they were
00:02:15
going to
00:02:16
possibly offer her some work out of
00:02:18
state
00:02:19
she was very excited about the modeling
00:02:21
job she was flitting around the office
00:02:24
with a big smile on her face and pretty
00:02:27
much letting everyone know that she was
00:02:29
excited about it
00:02:31
two days passed
00:02:33
still
00:02:34
there was no sign of her
00:02:37
then
00:02:38
40 miles away
00:02:40
some boaters on lake shelbyville
00:02:43
noticed something
00:02:45
they thought it was some garbage a
00:02:46
garbage bag that had floated up to the
00:02:48
shoreline first thing i thought of when
00:02:50
i saw that was how
00:02:53
this this is going to be bad
00:02:56
inside the bag
00:02:59
was a woman's head
00:03:02
nearby police found other garbage bags
00:03:05
with the rest of her body
00:03:07
i realized that there was a missing
00:03:10
person from the friday night before a
00:03:11
female
00:03:12
in a neighboring county
00:03:15
and
00:03:16
the thought flashed through my mind that
00:03:18
this probably is that missing female
00:03:20
from the neighboring county
00:03:23
dental records confirmed that the body
00:03:25
was karen slover she was just 23 years
00:03:29
old
00:03:30
she liked everybody everybody liked her
00:03:34
who could do such a bizarre thing
00:03:36
you don't think about that happening to
00:03:38
you until it does
00:03:41
the bags were sealed with duct tape
00:03:43
inside were chunks of cement and cinders
00:03:46
consistent with the material found on
00:03:49
the floor of the car karen was driving
00:03:53
apparently
00:03:54
the killer used the cement to keep the
00:03:56
bags under water but the body gas is
00:03:59
most likely raised them to the surface
00:04:03
analysts found six dog hairs stuck to a
00:04:06
piece of the tape but there were no
00:04:08
fingerprints found on the tape or the
00:04:10
bags
00:04:12
the lake apparently washed away all
00:04:14
other trace evidence
00:04:16
i have been in law enforcement 33 years
00:04:19
and i have seen a lot of carnage
00:04:23
this
00:04:24
affected me probably worse than anything
00:04:26
that i've ever seen
00:04:29
[Music]
00:04:31
at karen slover's autopsy the medical
00:04:34
examiner found she was shot in the head
00:04:37
six times with a 22 caliber handgun at
00:04:41
point-blank range
00:04:43
somebody was very angry and
00:04:45
i think when the actual murder occurred
00:04:47
absolutely lost control and just
00:04:49
continued to shoot until probably the
00:04:50
gun was empty
00:04:52
the last time anyone saw karen slover
00:04:55
alive was when she left work to pick up
00:04:57
her son who was spending the day with
00:04:59
his grandparents
00:05:01
more than likely karen was killed
00:05:03
sometime between 5 8 5 pm
00:05:06
when she left
00:05:08
her job and 10 o'clock when roughly 10
00:05:11
o'clock when her car was found out on
00:05:13
the interstate
00:05:14
there was many theories involved one was
00:05:16
was she abducted by a pervert
00:05:19
serial killer type investigation
00:05:22
the first potential suspect was her
00:05:24
ex-husband michael
00:05:26
the father of her little boy
00:05:29
there was obviously some violence in
00:05:31
that relationship we talked to several
00:05:33
people who indicated that michael had
00:05:34
battered her in the past
00:05:36
i don't think it was a good relationship
00:05:39
karen wasn't very fond of michael's
00:05:41
family either
00:05:42
they were the ones babysitting karen's
00:05:44
son christopher on the day of her murder
00:05:48
karen had a tough time with her
00:05:50
ex-in-laws they're the ones who watched
00:05:53
her son
00:05:54
and it was frequently stressful
00:05:57
when she
00:05:58
either would go to drop him off
00:06:00
or to pick him up
00:06:02
but karen's former husband michael
00:06:04
slover had an alibi for the time of
00:06:07
karen's disappearance he was working as
00:06:09
a security guard at cub foods
00:06:12
he had made an arrest that afternoon at
00:06:14
cub foods the police had been there
00:06:17
since michael had an alibi
00:06:19
investigators turned their attention to
00:06:21
karen's current boyfriend
00:06:24
david swann
00:06:26
he'd had some run-ins with law
00:06:28
enforcement he'd been put on probation
00:06:29
in the past
00:06:31
he had pretended to be
00:06:33
or impersonate a law enforcement officer
00:06:36
in the past he'd spent time in a mental
00:06:39
ward at a hospital
00:06:42
34 year old david swann had been dating
00:06:44
karen for only a short time
00:06:46
a background check revealed
00:06:49
a disturbing incident he had been
00:06:52
involved in killing a deer and then had
00:06:56
put the deer over a swimming pool
00:06:58
and had used a chainsaw or like
00:07:00
instrument to
00:07:02
clean the deer
00:07:05
and
00:07:05
due to the fact karen had been
00:07:06
dismembered and we weren't exactly sure
00:07:08
what the means of dismemberment were we
00:07:10
were interested in information like that
00:07:13
and david's alibi was shaky on the night
00:07:16
of the murder he was attending a
00:07:18
friend's wedding rehearsal and witnesses
00:07:20
said he was 45 minutes late for the
00:07:23
rehearsal dinner that followed
00:07:26
this created a 45-minute window that
00:07:29
could not be accounted for
00:07:32
we were concerned that david swann
00:07:34
was free for a period of time and could
00:07:36
have possibly committed the crime during
00:07:38
that time period
00:07:39
i felt like he very very possibly could
00:07:42
have been the one i remember telling the
00:07:44
sheriff that i think i've got the guy
00:07:46
[Music]
00:07:48
karen told french he dreamt of moving to
00:07:51
georgia to pursue her modeling career
00:07:54
was it possible that david grew angry
00:07:57
over her plans to leave
00:07:59
investigators brought in a profiler to
00:08:02
study david's past
00:08:04
the fbi profiler
00:08:06
indicated that david did match the
00:08:08
profile of the type of person that could
00:08:10
be responsible for this type of crime
00:08:13
but investigators had no hard evidence
00:08:16
against him and without it
00:08:18
they couldn't obtain a search warrant
00:08:20
despite repeated interrogations he
00:08:23
denied having anything to do with
00:08:25
karen's murder
00:08:27
if david swann was the killer
00:08:30
he might have committed
00:08:32
the perfect crime
00:08:36
[Music]
00:08:39
police were convinced david swann was
00:08:41
involved in karen slover's murder
00:08:45
he had an alibi for the night of her
00:08:47
murder except for a 45-minute period he
00:08:50
said he was running some errands
00:08:53
but no one could corroborate that
00:08:55
[Music]
00:08:56
after six months
00:08:58
police decided to interrogate david one
00:09:01
last time hoping he'd incriminate
00:09:04
himself
00:09:06
we all held hands and prayed that lord
00:09:09
if this is your will that this if david
00:09:11
swan is in fact the one involved
00:09:14
you know let us get a confession if he
00:09:16
is not if he's not involved give us a
00:09:18
sign we can go elsewhere
00:09:20
in this last interrogation
00:09:23
police continued to ask where he was on
00:09:26
the night of the murder during the time
00:09:28
he couldn't account for
00:09:30
the pressure paid off
00:09:32
but not the way police expected we had
00:09:35
him in there over four hours and
00:09:38
right at the very end i mean we pushed
00:09:40
and pushed and pushed him and right at
00:09:42
the very end he tells us about this atm
00:09:45
thing
00:09:45
[Music]
00:09:46
david said that the reason he was late
00:09:49
to the rehearsal dinner was that he went
00:09:51
to the bank
00:09:53
investigators went to that bank and
00:09:56
checked the atm surveillance video
00:09:59
it showed david swann
00:10:02
just as he said it would
00:10:04
we were able to verify
00:10:06
through the atm tapes david swan did not
00:10:09
have a window of opportunity
00:10:11
to
00:10:12
commit this crime
00:10:14
with david swan cleared there were no
00:10:17
other suspects
00:10:18
investigators feared that karen slover's
00:10:21
murder
00:10:22
might never be solved i took it
00:10:25
personally i
00:10:26
spent a lot of sleepless nights thinking
00:10:28
about this case wondering what i was
00:10:29
missing what we weren't doing what we
00:10:31
needed to do to actually come up with
00:10:33
the killer in this case
00:10:35
as a last resort police looked one more
00:10:38
time at the crime scene
00:10:41
it was clear there had to be another car
00:10:45
at the scene
00:10:46
there had to be more than one person
00:10:48
involved with this you couldn't leave a
00:10:50
vehicle along the interstate and walk
00:10:52
back to wherever you you left from
00:10:54
someone had to drive there and pick you
00:10:57
up and take you back
00:10:58
so who would have had the motive and
00:11:02
the opportunity to commit this crime
00:11:06
karen's ex-husband michael had an alibi
00:11:08
for the night of the murder but
00:11:10
his parents did not they were the ones
00:11:13
watching karen's son christopher on the
00:11:15
day of the murder michael slover senior
00:11:18
he works at a
00:11:20
power plant up in the decatur area
00:11:23
and once he clocked out he has no alibi
00:11:25
after that time he's not slower who
00:11:28
wasn't employed or anything she had no
00:11:31
alibi or anybody to collaborate
00:11:33
their alibi
00:11:34
51 year old jeanette slover detested her
00:11:37
ex-daughter-in-law karen
00:11:40
and everyone knew
00:11:41
how much she loved her three-year-old
00:11:43
grandson christopher
00:11:46
i think the relationship between
00:11:48
jeannette and the boy was not normal
00:11:51
that
00:11:53
jeannette treated the boy as her own and
00:11:56
actually believed it was her own son
00:11:59
in fact
00:12:00
she told friends that after christopher
00:12:02
was born
00:12:04
she began breastfeeding him
00:12:08
investigators checked telephone records
00:12:10
and discovered that michael jr called
00:12:13
his parents 12 times on the weekend of
00:12:16
the murder
00:12:18
also suspicious the slovers owned a used
00:12:21
car lot just one mile from their house
00:12:25
the lot patrolled by two junkyard dogs
00:12:28
was always dirty and in disrepair
00:12:32
just after karen disappeared neighbors
00:12:34
said the lot got a makeover
00:12:38
michael jr and michael senior were seen
00:12:40
by the neighbors out of miracle motors
00:12:42
out cleaning up the lot cutting brush
00:12:45
cutting weeds burning items and the
00:12:47
neighbors would told us that you know
00:12:50
this place was a junk heap they'd never
00:12:52
been out there to clean it up
00:12:54
was it possible they were trying to
00:12:56
remove something connected to karen's
00:12:59
murder
00:13:00
to find out
00:13:01
investigators contacted richard monroe a
00:13:04
well-known forensic geologist
00:13:07
concrete and cinders were found with
00:13:09
karen's body could he tell if they came
00:13:13
from the slover's car lot
00:13:16
both samples were placed in a scanning
00:13:19
electron microscope and hit with high
00:13:22
energy radiation
00:13:24
in a vacuum in the sem the darkness
00:13:27
that's in the little chamber there is no
00:13:29
light source the only light puts in is
00:13:31
the x-rays
00:13:32
this enables the images of the samples
00:13:34
to be magnified up to 5 000 times their
00:13:38
actual size
00:13:39
visually
00:13:41
the samples looked similar
00:13:43
monroe then
00:13:45
ground the samples into a powder and
00:13:48
bombarded it with x-rays
00:13:50
to identify the chemical makeup of the
00:13:53
samples
00:13:54
monroe concluded that the material found
00:13:57
in the bag with karen's body
00:14:00
and the material from the car lot
00:14:02
were similar enough to raise suspicions
00:14:06
it wasn't a direct physical match where
00:14:08
it was exactly from a certain piece but
00:14:12
all the elements fit together to say you
00:14:14
have a high level of consistency
00:14:17
but investigators needed more than that
00:14:20
and to get it
00:14:21
they turned to an unlikely source
00:14:24
the united states army
00:14:28
[Music]
00:14:30
more than two years after karen slover's
00:14:32
murder
00:14:34
investigators now suspected that her
00:14:37
ex-in-laws were involved
00:14:40
the motive
00:14:41
karen's former mother-in-law jeannette
00:14:43
wanted sole custody of her
00:14:45
three-year-old grandson
00:14:48
i think jeanette slover is filled with
00:14:49
rage i think that the relationship
00:14:52
between jeanette and karen was not good
00:14:55
i think that
00:14:57
jeannette felt like the boy was her own
00:15:00
that karen was a threat to take the boy
00:15:02
from her and she had to eliminate the
00:15:04
threat
00:15:06
investigators found
00:15:08
no forensic evidence inside the slover's
00:15:10
house but
00:15:12
concrete from their used car lot was
00:15:15
consistent with concrete found in the
00:15:17
garbage bags with karen's body
00:15:21
investigators wanted more proof
00:15:23
and went to unusual lengths to get it
00:15:27
they called in the army to help them
00:15:29
remove all the top soil from the
00:15:32
slover's 5 000 square foot car lot
00:15:35
during the late winter snowstorm
00:15:39
five gallon buckets were filled with
00:15:42
material
00:15:44
for six painstaking months
00:15:46
teams of investigators sifted through
00:15:49
the debris
00:15:52
finally
00:15:53
they found a potential clue
00:15:55
a button that read
00:15:58
authentic paris sports club
00:16:01
the jeans karen was found in
00:16:04
had the exact same buttons
00:16:07
i get goosebumps thinking about it right
00:16:08
now i'm not kidding you i mean i've got
00:16:10
goosebumps just think i mean it was so
00:16:12
exciting because we had worked so long
00:16:14
so hard on this and really had not come
00:16:16
up with anything that was the first
00:16:18
piece of evidence we felt like we had
00:16:20
that was going to lead us to the
00:16:21
direction of the killers
00:16:23
further sifting revealed some rivets
00:16:26
which were also consistent with karen's
00:16:29
jeans
00:16:31
then
00:16:32
investigators found a different type of
00:16:35
button it was cloth covered plastic the
00:16:38
type used on shirts and blouses
00:16:41
i called the investigator and i asked
00:16:44
where's the white sleeve that was on
00:16:46
karen's body he goes wet sleeve and i
00:16:48
said i can see here in the crime scene
00:16:51
photos that there's a cloth covered
00:16:53
button on that sleeve i want that sleeve
00:16:56
scientists took a fiber from the button
00:16:58
on karen's blouse and placed it
00:17:01
under a comparison microscope
00:17:04
both buttons were composed of a cotton
00:17:07
polyester mix
00:17:09
the next thing was to identify the weave
00:17:12
patterns on both buttons
00:17:14
in this case we had a simple one by one
00:17:17
weave pattern
00:17:19
and that was consistent both with the
00:17:21
button that was found at miracle motors
00:17:23
in the button that came from the sleeve
00:17:26
of karen slover
00:17:28
both buttons were the same size made of
00:17:31
the same material covered with the same
00:17:34
fabric with an identical weave pattern
00:17:38
finally
00:17:40
the slovas had two dogs and scientists
00:17:42
wondered if the hair on the duct tape
00:17:44
came
00:17:45
from one of them
00:17:47
the analysis of animal dna for forensic
00:17:50
applications is unusual in that there
00:17:53
are probably only three or four labs in
00:17:55
the country that do it
00:17:57
only one of the six dog hairs from the
00:18:00
duct tape provided enough dna for an
00:18:03
analysis
00:18:05
we concluded that there was a dna match
00:18:08
between the hair on the duct tape
00:18:11
and the reference dog
00:18:13
and that therefore the chances were very
00:18:15
high
00:18:16
that the hairs came from the same dog
00:18:18
jeanette and michael slover senior and
00:18:21
their son michael jr were all charged
00:18:24
with first degree murder
00:18:27
michael jr was charged because
00:18:30
he aided his parents in the planning and
00:18:32
commission of the crime
00:18:38
the motive the slovers were afraid karen
00:18:41
would move out of state
00:18:44
depriving them of time with christopher
00:18:49
based on the forensic evidence
00:18:51
prosecutors believe karen went to the
00:18:53
slover's car lot to pick up her son
00:18:58
[Music]
00:19:06
[Applause]
00:19:07
[Music]
00:19:08
during the dismemberment
00:19:11
buttons from her blouse and jeans fell
00:19:13
on the ground
00:19:16
and they used cement and cinders from
00:19:19
their lot to give weight to the plastic
00:19:21
bags containing karen's body
00:19:26
some of the dog hair stuck to the tape
00:19:28
they used to close the garbage bags
00:19:31
and its dna
00:19:33
matched the slover's dog
00:19:42
they dumped karen's body into lake
00:19:44
shelbyville and abandoned her car
00:19:47
along a deserted highway
00:19:50
[Music]
00:19:55
but the forensic evidence
00:19:57
linked the slovers to the murder in
00:19:59
every imaginable way
00:20:02
obviously this was a highly
00:20:03
circumstantial case but the forensic
00:20:05
evidence we had
00:20:06
was was pretty clear-cut
00:20:09
although michael jr was working at the
00:20:11
time of the murder
00:20:12
he called his parents 12 times that
00:20:15
weekend and helped clean up the crime
00:20:18
scene afterwards prosecutors were
00:20:21
convinced he was actively involved in
00:20:24
planning the murder and cover-up
00:20:28
the three slovers were all convicted of
00:20:31
first-degree murder
00:20:33
and sentenced to 60 years in prison
00:20:37
we were delighted that it was finally
00:20:39
over
00:20:41
and the fact that all three of them were
00:20:43
found guilty
00:20:45
was even a major blessing because we
00:20:48
felt all three of them were
00:20:50
were involved
00:20:52
i think the lord had some intervention
00:20:54
in this and put us down the right path
00:20:56
so that's just my little
00:20:58
evangelizing to you
00:21:01
for what it's worth
00:21:03
[Music]
00:21:13
[Music]
00:21:32
[Music]
00:21:41
you
