00:00:05
a 40-year marriage broken up when a rich
00:00:08
man's head is turned by a younger woman
00:00:11
the age gap
00:00:13
struck me as odd
00:00:14
she was younger than him
00:00:16
she probably you know came on very
00:00:18
strongly sexually
00:00:20
she saw dollar signs and she seduced him
00:00:24
friends of charlie stevens warned him
00:00:26
everybody liked charlie and they all
00:00:27
felt that kirsten was using him
00:00:30
using him whilst he had money
00:00:33
we interviewed a casino worker who
00:00:36
overheard kirsten saying that charlie
00:00:38
was worth more to her dead than alive
00:00:42
we don't have very many women who kill
00:00:46
i think kirsten's actions were a
00:00:48
response to her wanting to continue her
00:00:51
lifestyle she wanted to be mrs kirsten
00:00:54
stevens as long as mr stevens could keep
00:00:57
her in the manner to which she would
00:00:58
become accustomed
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[Music]
00:01:20
[Music]
00:01:29
charlie stevens was almost the
00:01:30
definition of a straight-up guy
00:01:33
charlie had children with his wife
00:01:36
and they had been married
00:01:39
for quite some time
00:01:41
and then you have this relationship
00:01:44
his character is just
00:01:46
the type that
00:01:48
you know he was the type of guy to stay
00:01:50
married forever he was the type of guy
00:01:52
to
00:01:53
work a job no matter what to provide for
00:01:55
his family
00:01:56
he was the type of guy to stay at a job
00:01:58
for or a career for 40 years because
00:02:00
that's the type of person that he was
00:02:04
um he was a
00:02:06
a vietnam veteran
00:02:08
and just seemed to have a really good
00:02:10
nice stable comfortable life
00:02:13
then along came kirsten
00:02:16
a woman with a plan
00:02:18
they had met at um their place of work
00:02:22
detective chris burus of the
00:02:23
independence missouri police department
00:02:25
he was in the pest control industry
00:02:28
she's the new girl she's 17 years
00:02:31
younger
00:02:32
and kind of flirtatious
00:02:35
and she thinks charlie's a catch so she
00:02:38
really flirts and she really works it
00:02:42
although kirsten had to work really hard
00:02:44
to turn charles's head
00:02:46
she did eventually
00:02:48
i think kirsten represented excitement
00:02:50
to him maybe a second chance at life
00:02:53
maybe an adventure i think the fact that
00:02:56
kirsten had this very rambunctious
00:02:58
personality and was youthful
00:03:02
and gave him all the attention the world
00:03:03
made him feel good about himself and i
00:03:05
think she knew exactly what he was
00:03:07
looking for
00:03:09
the straight-up father the doting
00:03:11
grandfather still felt he had some life
00:03:14
in him
00:03:16
she gets charlie's attention and pretty
00:03:18
soon the two of them are having an
00:03:19
affair
00:03:21
this affair um
00:03:23
i guess you would say blossomed into a
00:03:25
full-blown relationship
00:03:27
before long it gets more and more
00:03:29
serious
00:03:30
and charlie decides to leave his wife of
00:03:34
40 years and in 2005
00:03:37
charlie marries kirsten
00:03:39
57 year old charlie stevens had left
00:03:42
sandy his wife of 40 years to make a new
00:03:45
life with his younger co-worker his
00:03:47
heartbroken sons brian and mike would
00:03:49
one day tell police that they were
00:03:50
deeply suspicious of kirsten's motives
00:03:54
i don't believe that charlie's family
00:03:56
liked kirsten probably because of how
00:03:59
the relationship started
00:04:01
it was after he married kirsten that he
00:04:04
became estranged from the family and
00:04:06
didn't have a lot of contact with him
00:04:08
the the family all believed that she was
00:04:12
kind of a parasite
00:04:13
that she had married him for his money
00:04:15
he saved his money and
00:04:18
really um put together some some nice
00:04:20
savings
00:04:22
i can imagine charles's family must have
00:04:25
thought whoa
00:04:26
who is this woman that's come into his
00:04:28
life that's taken him away from his his
00:04:30
marriage
00:04:31
while kirsten had charmed charlie his
00:04:33
friends and family doubted that the
00:04:35
woman he had married was a good person
00:04:38
with good intentions it was not just the
00:04:40
fact that she appeared to be after
00:04:42
charlie's money
00:04:43
i don't think that they liked her
00:04:45
because of the way she treated people
00:04:47
kristin's very manipulative if she
00:04:49
didn't get what she wanted from you
00:04:52
she would write you off you would be
00:04:53
dead to her
00:04:55
to look at kirsten stevens
00:04:57
um her photograph says a lot she either
00:05:00
had a very rough life or she's got a
00:05:02
very interesting story to tell about
00:05:04
where she came from it just she exudes
00:05:08
something's up she just she has this
00:05:10
image uh you know i mean she's almost
00:05:13
got a perma scowl on her face
00:05:16
um
00:05:17
she just looks hardened she looks like
00:05:19
she's had a rough life
00:05:22
motivation perhaps to take what she
00:05:24
could from wherever she could get it
00:05:28
i think kirsten has always been very
00:05:29
goal oriented
00:05:32
and when she saw this man that she could
00:05:35
probably take advantage of and lure
00:05:37
even though he was already in a marriage
00:05:39
i don't think it mattered to her
00:05:41
forensic psychologist dr judy ho
00:05:43
suspects that kirsten was always
00:05:45
motivated by her husband's new money
00:05:48
she saw dollar signs and she seduced him
00:05:52
if charlie stevens had the same
00:05:53
suspicions it didn't put him off in 2005
00:05:57
the newlyweds made a home together on
00:05:59
the outskirts of independence
00:06:02
so the city of independence is
00:06:03
approximately 120 000 uh population and
00:06:07
we neighbor uh kansas city the area
00:06:10
where charles and kirsten had lived was
00:06:12
on the east part of town
00:06:14
it would be considered a small town area
00:06:16
uh the neighbors knew them some
00:06:18
it's a pretty quiet town for neighboring
00:06:22
uh to such a major city like kansas city
00:06:25
kirsten and charlie's home was a wooden
00:06:28
clad single story house on the sparsely
00:06:30
populated tree-lined south jones road
00:06:34
it's not uncommon to have the more
00:06:35
violent crime on the western side of the
00:06:38
city the eastern side you start to get
00:06:40
more uh rural countryside and you just
00:06:43
don't see those things
00:06:45
after 40 years of responsibility and
00:06:47
hard craft charlie was ready to enjoy
00:06:49
the good life
00:06:50
he's about ready to retire he's got a
00:06:52
lot of money in the bank
00:06:54
um he set himself up really well
00:06:56
when he retired
00:06:58
he had a
00:06:59
decent sized pension kirsten was happy
00:07:02
to enjoy the fruits of charlie's labor
00:07:04
too
00:07:05
she had a taste for the nightlife
00:07:09
she gambled a lot uh her and charlie
00:07:12
went to the boats uh and gambled quite a
00:07:14
bit
00:07:15
he doesn't gamble with her but he says
00:07:17
that he likes to watch her gamble i can
00:07:19
imagine she's probably very outgoing
00:07:21
when she's in her element especially if
00:07:23
she's on a winning streak
00:07:25
it was all new and exciting for charlie
00:07:27
who in his former life was more likely
00:07:29
to go hunting or fishing than spin the
00:07:31
roulette wheel but he soon discovered
00:07:33
that his new wife liked more than a
00:07:35
small wager
00:07:37
she was a heavy gambler over time it
00:07:41
becomes really clear
00:07:43
that kirsten's hobby isn't just a hobby
00:07:45
it's it's a compulsion
00:07:47
she has a serious gambling problem
00:07:51
gambling addiction is a diagnosable
00:07:53
clinical condition in the dsm-5 and
00:07:57
it's a really serious condition
00:07:59
the dsm-5 is the standard classification
00:08:02
of mental disorders used in the united
00:08:04
states
00:08:05
the individual has the same exact types
00:08:08
of addictive mechanisms as they might
00:08:10
when it's a substance abuse where they
00:08:13
basically will do anything to get to
00:08:16
their substance or process of choice
00:08:19
at the expense of other things in their
00:08:21
life at the expense of relationships
00:08:23
other important life domains
00:08:25
if charlie was unaware of kirsten's
00:08:27
problem before their marriage
00:08:29
he soon realized its extent afterwards
00:08:32
and she spent all her time at the casino
00:08:34
spending all of her new husbands money
00:08:36
and maybe in the beginning it was
00:08:37
actually exciting for him and he would
00:08:39
go with her he didn't gamble but he
00:08:41
would watch her but it was kind of this
00:08:42
new world that he'd never been a part of
00:08:44
and perhaps in the beginning it was even
00:08:46
kind of fun for him but i think pretty
00:08:49
soon he saw the depths of how bad it
00:08:51
really got for kirsten
00:08:54
he's
00:08:55
saved all this money and she's burned
00:08:57
through it at these casinos
00:08:59
i think in some ways he understood
00:09:01
especially because of their big age
00:09:03
difference that kirsten was probably
00:09:05
with him at least partly for his money i
00:09:08
think there was probably a part of him
00:09:09
that was afraid what would happen if he
00:09:11
cut her off maybe she would leave maybe
00:09:14
she would stop loving on him
00:09:16
was charlie stevens keeping tabs on
00:09:19
exactly how much his vivacious new wife
00:09:21
was spending
00:09:22
the riverboat casinos certainly were
00:09:28
the casinos here keep records
00:09:30
every win every loss every roll of the
00:09:32
dice that kirsten had made laid out in
00:09:35
stark black and white
00:09:37
we were able to go back through casino
00:09:39
records and from the period of 2006 to
00:09:42
2013 there was about a million dollars
00:09:45
that was spent at the casinos
00:09:47
this was essentially charlie savings
00:09:50
charlie's loved ones will forever wonder
00:09:52
why he didn't simply refuse to hand over
00:09:53
more money
00:09:55
she basically put up with him as long as
00:09:57
he was going to be her money bag
00:09:59
i think
00:10:00
kirsten's plan was to just carry on
00:10:03
gambling her husband probably believed
00:10:06
that
00:10:07
if he continued to give her everything
00:10:08
that she wanted then their relationship
00:10:10
would get better kirsten had won big by
00:10:12
marrying a man who could finance her
00:10:14
every risky whim but when somebody has
00:10:16
an addiction it's never enough and she
00:10:19
just needed more and more over time she
00:10:21
would have probably thought that the
00:10:22
money would have just continued to flow
00:10:25
but charlie's nest egg was all but gone
00:10:27
charlie and kirsten had met
00:10:29
married and planned to live out their
00:10:31
years in comfort would their marriage
00:10:33
survive when that dream crumbled
00:10:45
eight years into their marriage kirsten
00:10:46
and charlie were miserable now kirsten
00:10:49
had gambled away most of his money
00:10:51
charlie had taken on part-time work to
00:10:53
help make ends meet as the money dried
00:10:56
up he had to come out of retirement take
00:10:57
a job at uh hardware store but money is
00:11:01
still pretty tight and now the marriage
00:11:03
is suffering as well
00:11:06
neighbors uh frequently heard arguing
00:11:09
coming from the house
00:11:10
charlie's not happy kirsten's not happy
00:11:14
carolyn canville is an emmy
00:11:16
award-winning journalist with a special
00:11:18
interest in crime and investigation
00:11:20
they're behind on their taxes and now
00:11:22
they have no choice they have to put up
00:11:23
their house for sale in november of
00:11:25
2013.
00:11:27
cash reserves very soon no home
00:11:31
charlie's usefulness to kirsten was
00:11:33
running out
00:11:35
financial problems are so difficult for
00:11:37
any couple to contend with even couples
00:11:39
who seem very happy in the first place
00:11:41
because it is a practical issue that
00:11:43
affects how you live your life every
00:11:45
single day and for kirsten it certainly
00:11:47
got in the way of her being able to
00:11:48
gamble the way that she wanted and have
00:11:50
fun the way that she wanted so i can
00:11:52
imagine a lot of conflict over that a
00:11:54
lot of fights over it perhaps her even
00:11:56
freezing him out until he was able to
00:11:57
give her more money
00:12:00
as the money had dwindled so did
00:12:02
kirsten's commitment to her marriage
00:12:04
there's no money left he doesn't have
00:12:06
anything
00:12:07
so she sets her sights on someone new we
00:12:10
found out that she had had other lovers
00:12:13
during her marriage was charlie
00:12:15
their home on south jones road on the
00:12:16
brink of being sold kirsten started
00:12:19
packing up their belongings but as she
00:12:21
did she made a discovery that changed
00:12:24
everything
00:12:26
while they were moving kirsten came
00:12:27
across the life insurance policy where
00:12:29
she was found to be the beneficiary and
00:12:31
this kind of got her motivated
00:12:34
you know here's a solution criminologist
00:12:37
brian frederick believes that kirsten
00:12:38
stevens shows all of the hallmarks of
00:12:41
having a severe personality disorder
00:12:43
female psychopaths are actually more
00:12:45
interested in money and finances and
00:12:47
funding their lifestyle when kirsten
00:12:49
stevens found charlie's life insurance
00:12:51
policy the path out of her financial
00:12:53
troubles suddenly seemed clear he would
00:12:56
need to die for her to collect on that
00:12:58
life insurance policy he's named her as
00:13:00
the beneficiary bless him he's got to go
00:13:06
people often think that psychopaths are
00:13:08
clever and cunning this is not the case
00:13:10
with with kirsten we believe that this
00:13:12
is what really pushed her to the point
00:13:14
where charlie was worth more to her you
00:13:17
know dead than a lot
00:13:21
kirsten may have made a plan but could
00:13:23
she execute it if she was to do so she
00:13:26
would have to learn to do something she
00:13:27
had so far found tough
00:13:30
being discreet
00:13:32
we interviewed a casino worker who
00:13:34
overheard kirsten saying that charlie
00:13:36
was worth more to her dead than alive
00:13:40
none of the people she said this to
00:13:42
really took it too serious and after
00:13:45
the events took place people thought oh
00:13:47
yeah these were red flags
00:13:50
at this point
00:13:52
the the only way for her to get more
00:13:54
money to fund her lifestyle
00:13:57
is if he dies
00:13:58
well she's not going to ask him to die
00:14:00
she has to do it herself
00:14:05
written off by those who heard her as
00:14:06
the brash words of a frustrated wife was
00:14:09
she really at the beginning of a plot to
00:14:12
kill charlie stevens
00:14:13
being forced out of their home became a
00:14:16
turning point
00:14:18
on the 7th of march 2014 they're just
00:14:20
about to hand over the keys to their
00:14:22
house around 8 o'clock in the morning
00:14:25
kirsten gets the call from the buyer
00:14:27
he wants to come and take a look at the
00:14:29
place
00:14:30
so the new owner of the house knocked on
00:14:32
the door that morning introduced himself
00:14:35
said hey i own the house
00:14:37
as she's giving a tour of the house to
00:14:39
the new owner he looks into the master
00:14:40
bedroom and sees a man lying in bed and
00:14:44
she describes him as
00:14:46
that being her father so they don't go
00:14:48
in that room i think she was just trying
00:14:50
to
00:14:51
identify him as an uninvolved party with
00:14:54
the house
00:14:55
it was not kirsten's father but her
00:14:57
husband charlie
00:15:00
we're actually believed that he was
00:15:02
still alive at that time but actually
00:15:04
asleep in the bed because it was fairly
00:15:06
early in the morning when this man came
00:15:08
to look at the house
00:15:09
later that day kirsten went out for a
00:15:12
while when she returned a dramatic scene
00:15:14
unfolded at 816 south jones road about a
00:15:18
little after seven that evening
00:15:21
kirsten returns home moments later she
00:15:24
stumbled out onto the street kirsten was
00:15:26
hysterically screaming they killed him
00:15:28
and she seemed to be inconsolable
00:15:30
kirsten goes running to the neighbors
00:15:32
help me help me the phone call that came
00:15:35
in to our 911 operator was a call that
00:15:39
described a home invasion and that the
00:15:43
one of the residents was possibly
00:15:44
deceased inside
00:15:47
within minutes first responders were on
00:15:49
the scene
00:15:50
meanwhile kirsten is just in hysterics
00:15:52
and you know the neighbors are all
00:15:54
around her and she's saying oh my god oh
00:15:55
my god you know she says i was gone all
00:15:58
day and i came home and and he's dead
00:16:01
i was sent to the scene after the
00:16:03
initial patrol officers responded taking
00:16:06
the lead on a murder investigation was a
00:16:08
relatively new experience for detective
00:16:10
chris burus
00:16:11
obviously any type of death homicide is
00:16:14
tragic
00:16:16
however i was
00:16:18
looking forward to
00:16:20
digging in deep
00:16:21
and finding out what was going on
00:16:25
so it was dark
00:16:27
when we got there
00:16:28
um
00:16:29
this this scene had been
00:16:31
roped off with crime scene tape
00:16:33
we had officers doing scene security
00:16:37
inside the home a grizzly spectacle
00:16:39
awaited
00:16:40
that charlie was lying in bed he was
00:16:42
covered up and it and it looks like he
00:16:45
was shot when he was sleeping
00:16:48
and he still actually still holding on
00:16:50
to his sheets
00:16:53
he was shot in the chin
00:16:55
in the chest and the abdomen there were
00:16:57
five shots that were fired in the room
00:17:00
two of them went into the wall and the
00:17:02
other three went into charlie
00:17:04
65 year old husband father and
00:17:06
grandfather charlie stevens lay dead in
00:17:08
his bed
00:17:09
former homicide detective rod demery
00:17:11
knows the subtle clues that burus and
00:17:13
his team would have been looking for
00:17:16
they would look for
00:17:18
signs of a struggle maybe there was a
00:17:20
fight something knocked over
00:17:22
they looked for bruises or defensive
00:17:25
wounds to see if there was some sort of
00:17:26
struggle or was this a complete surprise
00:17:29
ambush there were no defensive wounds it
00:17:32
looked as though charlie had been shot
00:17:34
as he lay sleeping
00:17:35
this struck investigators as surprising
00:17:39
mrs stevens had told the police
00:17:41
that it was a robbery that what she
00:17:43
believed
00:17:44
i guess the first part of
00:17:46
some of our suspicions were that charlie
00:17:49
was lying in bed he was covered up
00:17:52
if this was a
00:17:53
home invasion he posed no threat to the
00:17:56
said burglar
00:17:58
why
00:18:00
would you kill him
00:18:02
could charlie stevens really have been
00:18:04
killed in a robbery gone wrong
00:18:06
a few things are kind of in disarray
00:18:08
maybe a lamp knocked over here and you
00:18:10
know something out of place there but
00:18:13
when they ask her what has been taken
00:18:16
she can't really pinpoint anything one
00:18:18
of the the first things you're going to
00:18:19
look for is
00:18:21
how someone got inside the house so from
00:18:24
the moment they walk into the house
00:18:25
you're going to be looking for signs of
00:18:26
fourth century then they're gonna look
00:18:28
for signs of fourth century into the
00:18:29
bedroom
00:18:31
it looks like a staged robbery
00:18:33
nothing has been taken there's no sign
00:18:36
of forced entry uh the the locks on the
00:18:39
doors and the outer gates are not
00:18:41
disturbed police didn't really believe
00:18:43
that it didn't look like a robbery
00:18:45
jackson county prosecutor michael j hunt
00:18:48
worked with police on the case from day
00:18:50
one
00:18:51
uh they investigate enough robberies to
00:18:53
know what a robbery looks like and that
00:18:54
didn't look like one
00:18:56
so
00:18:57
right from the back they're looking at
00:18:59
this as as pretty suspicious
00:19:01
while assessing the scene cops were also
00:19:04
trying to read kirsten stephens reaction
00:19:06
to the sudden death of her husband on
00:19:08
the phone to emergency services she had
00:19:10
been hysterical
00:19:12
while there's no true way that everyone
00:19:14
grieves and grieving is different for
00:19:16
everyone it does appear that her
00:19:19
reactions in the aftermath of her
00:19:20
husband's death was a bit histrionic it
00:19:22
was a bit over the top
00:19:24
but just minutes later kirsten seemed
00:19:27
eerily calm
00:19:29
when the police first arrived that was
00:19:31
one of the first things they noticed
00:19:33
that she wasn't acting like a woman
00:19:36
who's had her husband murdered in his
00:19:38
bed she wasn't crying
00:19:41
like crazy
00:19:42
she just wasn't exhibiting the emotions
00:19:45
that you would expect from somebody who
00:19:47
is in that situation
00:19:49
i think it was easy for her to
00:19:51
compartmentalize her needs and to kind
00:19:53
of set aside who she really was on the
00:19:55
inside to present a a front that would
00:19:58
get her what she wants from the very
00:20:00
beginning of detective burus's
00:20:01
investigation he suspected that nothing
00:20:03
about the crime was as it seemed the
00:20:06
night of uh things were not adding up
00:20:10
the police didn't really believe her
00:20:12
from the get-go
00:20:14
[Music]
00:20:27
late on march 7 2014 kirsten accompanied
00:20:31
police to the station in downtown
00:20:33
independence it would be a long night
00:20:36
treading carefully detective buress
00:20:38
probed the couple's background their
00:20:40
lifestyle and the events of the last 12
00:20:43
hours
00:20:45
it's always difficult too because when
00:20:48
you have the spouse of somebody that's
00:20:50
just been killed
00:20:51
do you want to
00:20:54
accuse them of things that you're not
00:20:56
sure of yet
00:20:58
kirsten was ready with a plausible
00:21:00
answer for every question
00:21:03
she gave us
00:21:04
a
00:21:05
statement about her
00:21:07
being out a majority of the day
00:21:10
that she had been to the mall that she
00:21:12
had been to the casinos
00:21:14
everywhere but home honestly
00:21:16
she said that she came home found her
00:21:19
husband in bed bleeding and then ran
00:21:21
across the street and called 9-1-1
00:21:24
she talked about the guns that were in
00:21:26
the house they had recovered at that
00:21:28
point two shotguns and he clearly wasn't
00:21:31
shot with a shotgun
00:21:33
i always got those feelings when and
00:21:35
talking to her that just something was
00:21:37
not right i couldn't necessarily put my
00:21:39
finger on it um i guess you would call
00:21:41
it a gut reaction gut instinct
00:21:44
kirsten's account was confident coherent
00:21:47
but how much of it was true when you're
00:21:49
talking to somebody you can kind of just
00:21:52
tell that they're not being forthcoming
00:21:54
with you or they have something that's
00:21:56
weighing heavily on their mind
00:21:59
there were plenty of other voices that
00:22:01
night echoing detective beerus's doubts
00:22:03
about kirsten
00:22:05
we spoke with kirsten we spoke with her
00:22:08
son
00:22:09
charlie's stepson
00:22:11
we spoke with
00:22:13
her son-in-law and her daughter
00:22:16
and then they started branching out
00:22:17
talking to the neighbors they started
00:22:19
talking to all the acquaintances that
00:22:21
the stevens knew
00:22:23
i think it's fair to say that on
00:22:24
charlie's side of the family they they
00:22:26
had their suspicions that kirsten was
00:22:28
involved
00:22:30
in kirsten's detailed responses to cops
00:22:32
she had left out some crucial facts that
00:22:35
she and charlie were stressed constantly
00:22:38
arguing that they were facing financial
00:22:40
ruin
00:22:41
only as investigators interviewed
00:22:43
friends and family did that information
00:22:45
emerge
00:22:46
the couple's fighting a lot they're
00:22:48
screaming the neighbors can sometimes
00:22:50
hear them fighting
00:22:52
they found out that the house itself had
00:22:54
been sold
00:22:56
for back taxes uh
00:22:59
the end of the year before
00:23:02
but the couple is really in dire straits
00:23:04
so of course she became my person of
00:23:07
interest at that point
00:23:09
if anyone had a motive to kill charlie
00:23:11
stevens it was his wife but at this
00:23:13
stage there were too many questions
00:23:15
unanswered
00:23:17
early on in these homicide
00:23:19
investigations we always try to keep an
00:23:20
open mind because we don't want to miss
00:23:22
anything i recall thinking that we have
00:23:25
to look at this from all angles
00:23:27
we have to look at this like a home
00:23:29
invasion we have to look at this
00:23:31
as an intimate
00:23:32
partner killing
00:23:34
we have to look at all those options
00:23:37
police didn't wait long for a
00:23:38
breakthrough the very next day march 8
00:23:41
2014 charlie stevens autopsy confirmed
00:23:44
that he had been shot with a 22 caliber
00:23:47
rifle
00:23:48
shell casings found in his bedroom floor
00:23:50
from the same kind of firearm in her
00:23:53
first interview kirsten had failed to
00:23:55
tell detectives that she and charlie
00:23:57
owned just such a gun
00:24:02
there was a 22 caliber rifle that she
00:24:04
made no mention of
00:24:06
when they questioned her further uh then
00:24:09
she made mention that she had forgotten
00:24:10
about the long gun police still hadn't
00:24:12
found the long gun when they were
00:24:14
talking to her on the seventh in the
00:24:15
very early morning hours of the eighth
00:24:18
the
00:24:19
rifle
00:24:20
was the rosetta stone of this case
00:24:22
um
00:24:24
had that not been found
00:24:26
i don't think we're where we're at today
00:24:29
i think maybe potentially we have an
00:24:30
unsolved homicide
00:24:32
on the 8th of march armed with a warrant
00:24:35
officers returned to kirsten and
00:24:37
charlie's home
00:24:38
investigators go back to the scene and
00:24:40
they search further
00:24:42
and during that search they find a 22
00:24:44
caliber rifle hid beneath this jacuzzi
00:24:48
the person that found that
00:24:51
detective sergeant jason young had been
00:24:53
a former narcotics investigator and when
00:24:56
he did searches he did searches
00:24:59
in the main bathroom of the stephen's
00:25:00
home the luxury bathtub was concealing
00:25:03
what would turn out to be as good as a
00:25:05
smoking gun
00:25:07
uh he found the access panel
00:25:09
and our minds are blown they opened up
00:25:11
the panel and here is this long gun this
00:25:15
long 22 rifle
00:25:16
hidden away inside this jacuzzi tub
00:25:20
we're like what is a rifle doing in
00:25:22
there we take the rifle as evidence
00:25:25
have it tested
00:25:27
they swabbed it for dna
00:25:29
and they also did ballistic tests on it
00:25:32
detectives had a tense seven-week wait
00:25:34
for the results of those tests in the
00:25:36
meantime kirsten's alibi was being
00:25:38
checked out
00:25:40
she gave a detailed explanation of where
00:25:42
she had been that day and where she had
00:25:44
gone she'd gone to the mall that day
00:25:48
she had gone to the casinos that
00:25:49
required
00:25:50
you know the review of video
00:25:52
surveillance
00:25:54
tapes
00:25:55
review of records
00:25:57
review of cell phone records
00:25:59
her phone did not you know give them the
00:26:02
gps coordinates of where she said she
00:26:05
was she said she was at a sears door the
00:26:07
video at the sears store was collected
00:26:09
they watched every minute of that and
00:26:11
she was never on it she said she went to
00:26:14
a
00:26:15
a casino and as we all know casinos have
00:26:18
very good video
00:26:19
they didn't have her on it
00:26:21
she was a well-known gambler there
00:26:24
her card was not used at this casino
00:26:27
those were things that she didn't count
00:26:28
on us doing
00:26:31
they were able to with gps tracking of
00:26:34
her phone
00:26:35
and video
00:26:37
they could prove that she was nowhere
00:26:38
near where she said she was
00:26:41
what investigators did discover when
00:26:43
they visited those casinos was how much
00:26:45
money kirsten had blown on gambling
00:26:47
during the course of her marriage to
00:26:49
charlie
00:26:50
it's very unusual you're talking in
00:26:52
excess of a hundred thousand dollars a
00:26:54
year spent at the casinos through that
00:26:56
time period
00:26:57
she had a gambling problem and she had
00:27:00
essentially had gambled all of charlie's
00:27:02
money away
00:27:03
step by step investigators were building
00:27:06
a picture of a desperate woman addicted
00:27:08
to gambling with a husband who no longer
00:27:10
had the cash to feed her habit a husband
00:27:13
who was also no longer of any use to her
00:27:16
i think kirsten's primary motivation as
00:27:19
it had been from day one
00:27:21
was financial and i don't really think
00:27:23
she saw him as a person in fact she had
00:27:25
been heard saying that he was worth more
00:27:28
to her dead than alive
00:27:31
it was apparent that she was with
00:27:33
charlie
00:27:34
for only one thing and that was his
00:27:36
money
00:27:38
it was a theory
00:27:41
but could the evidence be found to prove
00:27:42
it
00:27:44
part of the investigation we conducted
00:27:47
searches of the computers in the home
00:27:49
on kirsten's ipad investigators find
00:27:52
some interesting searches they find that
00:27:55
she has searched for
00:27:57
how to kill your spouse
00:28:00
huge red flags obviously
00:28:03
there were searches for
00:28:05
how to cut break lines
00:28:08
how to stay in a sexless marriage
00:28:12
and she's pulled up kelly blue book
00:28:15
values and has listed in there
00:28:19
the two vehicles that charlie and she
00:28:22
own
00:28:24
clever individuals would probably delete
00:28:27
their browsing histories she didn't her
00:28:29
skills at planning were very
00:28:31
underdeveloped if this were a motion
00:28:33
picture we'd be why did you just do that
00:28:36
you know but this is the person that
00:28:38
kirsten stevens is
00:28:40
now police have collected quite a bit of
00:28:43
evidence all of it pointing to kirsten
00:28:47
a month later they call her in for
00:28:49
questioning again
00:28:50
presented with all of this kirsten
00:28:52
stevens continued to deny having
00:28:54
anything to do with her husband's death
00:28:57
she insisted that he had died in a
00:28:59
botched robbery
00:29:02
she gives some more statements and they
00:29:05
contradict her earlier statements so
00:29:07
clearly the case is building against her
00:29:11
i remember talking with the prosecutor
00:29:13
several times i'm like when are we going
00:29:16
to
00:29:17
charge her this is what you would call a
00:29:19
circumstantial case
00:29:21
there was a lot of police work that had
00:29:23
to be done before we believed we had
00:29:25
enough to charge her with uh charlie's
00:29:26
murder
00:29:28
i would say that
00:29:30
when you take a case to a jury you have
00:29:33
to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt to
00:29:35
12 jurors in that room
00:29:37
i think
00:29:38
in any case
00:29:40
the discovery of evidence is is key but
00:29:43
in in this case it was
00:29:46
ultra important
00:29:48
detectives got one step closer to
00:29:50
proving their case in may 2014 when
00:29:53
results arrived from the forensic
00:29:55
ballistics lab about the 22-caliber gun
00:29:58
found hidden in kirsten's bathroom
00:30:01
the ballistic test came back first
00:30:03
saying that this in fact was the murder
00:30:05
weapon the shell casings that were
00:30:07
recovered in charlie's bedroom were
00:30:09
fired from the 22 long rifle
00:30:11
the bullets that had killed charlie
00:30:13
stevens were fired from the 22 caliber
00:30:16
rifle
00:30:17
it was a remarkable breakthrough
00:30:19
followed by another weight this time for
00:30:22
the kansas city police crime lab which
00:30:24
was processing the swab taken from the
00:30:26
rifle
00:30:28
it wasn't until later
00:30:30
that the dna came back the dna came back
00:30:32
to christian stevens
00:30:35
kirsten's dna
00:30:37
and there is no other dna on that only
00:30:40
kerstins
00:30:43
so the circle is narrowing here she
00:30:46
thought she was clever and that's why
00:30:47
she left it under the jacuzzi tub behind
00:30:50
an access panel
00:30:51
thinking that we would come to the scene
00:30:54
do our investigation and be done with it
00:30:57
and say oh it's a home invasion we don't
00:30:59
have any suspects we'll go about our
00:31:01
merit wait but that's not how we do
00:31:02
things
00:31:03
you know that that was in june when the
00:31:05
dna results came back the balance was
00:31:08
tipping from circumstantial evidence to
00:31:10
hard proof
00:31:12
all the signs were pointing to the fact
00:31:13
that kirsten stevens had killed her
00:31:15
husband but kirsten stevens was not
00:31:18
prepared to give up the fight just yet
00:31:21
she had actually kept in contact with
00:31:24
the police
00:31:25
she even called in at one point trying
00:31:28
to give them another suspect
00:31:41
in june 2014 police and prosecutors
00:31:43
decided it was time to bring charges in
00:31:45
the death of charlie stevens
00:31:47
we had the evidence from the gun we had
00:31:49
the dna on the gun we believe we had the
00:31:52
motive uh for her crime we believe we
00:31:55
had enough uh there was a arrest warrant
00:31:58
that was issued for her kirsten made a
00:32:00
last-ditch attempt to stay out of jail
00:32:03
once the police started coming up to the
00:32:05
house
00:32:06
to actually arrest her she took off
00:32:07
running
00:32:09
at the time she was out at her
00:32:11
daughter's house
00:32:13
and the police went out to that
00:32:15
residence
00:32:16
they sat up on it
00:32:17
kind of half believing that she might
00:32:19
run and in fact she did she didn't get
00:32:21
very far
00:32:22
they tricked her down and took her into
00:32:24
custody
00:32:25
kirsten stevens had tried everything to
00:32:28
evade justice
00:32:29
lies deception even escape was justice
00:32:33
finally about to catch up with her
00:32:35
on the 6th of june
00:32:37
now we're talking three months after
00:32:39
charlie was
00:32:40
murdered kirsten is arrested and charged
00:32:44
with her husband's murder
00:32:46
when she was arrested on the warrant she
00:32:48
didn't talk uh we got no further
00:32:50
statements from her at that point she
00:32:52
exercised her rights and didn't speak to
00:32:54
the
00:32:54
police if mr hunt was hoping for a
00:32:57
confession at this point he was to be
00:32:59
disappointed
00:33:00
she pleads not guilty
00:33:02
she knows the evidence is stacked
00:33:04
against her but
00:33:06
kristin's a gambler so what the heck
00:33:10
it appeared she was kind of nervous but
00:33:12
uh i don't think she was uh worried too
00:33:14
much i think she thought she could talk
00:33:16
her way out of this
00:33:17
kirsten was charged with first-degree
00:33:19
murder and armed criminal action on
00:33:22
october 1st 2016 in the dying days of a
00:33:25
hot humid kansas summer she stood up in
00:33:28
the jackson county courthouse to
00:33:29
proclaim her innocence
00:33:31
it was the prosecutor's task to prove to
00:33:33
the jury that kirsten was lying we went
00:33:36
into the case thinking that it was going
00:33:37
to be a whodunit that we were going to
00:33:39
have to prove our case as a
00:33:40
circumstantial case whenever you close a
00:33:42
case like this and it's charged and
00:33:44
you're waiting for your day in court you
00:33:46
always have questions about yourself as
00:33:48
an investigator did i do this did i not
00:33:50
do this should i have done this better
00:33:53
you know we didn't have a confession we
00:33:55
had a gun we had a lot of good
00:33:56
circumstantial evidence
00:33:58
but
00:33:59
it was not a case that you would say
00:34:01
this is a slam dunk case uh
00:34:04
not to mention the fact that you've got
00:34:06
a female defendant who juries tend to
00:34:08
give the benefit of the doubt to
00:34:11
but as the trial got underway kirsten's
00:34:13
defense team dropped a bombshell she was
00:34:16
no longer claiming that her husband had
00:34:18
been the victim of a trigger-happy
00:34:19
burglar
00:34:21
it was a date that she testified on her
00:34:23
behalf in court where she admitted that
00:34:26
she shot charlie
00:34:28
yes she had shot him but she was arguing
00:34:31
now that she had to she was in fear for
00:34:34
her life
00:34:36
she got on the stand and she said it was
00:34:38
self-defense she said that you know
00:34:40
charlie had abused her had beaten her uh
00:34:44
she made the claim that the gun was
00:34:46
underneath the bed and that charlie was
00:34:48
beating her and you know she got the gun
00:34:52
and was pointing it up
00:34:54
and shooting charlie as he stood on the
00:34:56
bed over her
00:34:57
and he fell to the bed
00:34:59
suddenly prosecutor michael j hunt's job
00:35:02
had become much tougher we knew we had
00:35:05
one issue
00:35:06
that was going to be
00:35:08
proving deliberation which is cool
00:35:10
reflection upon the matter for any
00:35:11
length of time no matter how brief
00:35:14
that was what we had to do to get a jury
00:35:16
to convict her of murder in the first
00:35:18
degree
00:35:19
and that was my biggest you know worry
00:35:21
that i wasn't going to be able to
00:35:22
overcome that
00:35:24
if kirsten could persuade the jury that
00:35:26
she had acted in the heat of the moment
00:35:28
to protect herself they would clear her
00:35:30
of first degree murder but mr hunt had
00:35:33
cold hard evidence on his side and a
00:35:36
defendant nobody in the courtroom seemed
00:35:38
to find credible
00:35:40
she gave a depiction of how the crime
00:35:43
occurred that just didn't match the
00:35:45
physical evidence
00:35:46
my first thought was i was going to be
00:35:48
very nice with her and i didn't want the
00:35:50
jury to think i was beating up on her
00:35:52
because i'm about
00:35:54
a foot taller than her and you tend to
00:35:57
you know worry the juries are going to
00:35:58
think well here's this big guy beating
00:36:00
up on her
00:36:01
well that changed
00:36:03
kirsten claimed that she had shot
00:36:05
charlie as he stood over her and that
00:36:07
then he had fallen onto the bed you know
00:36:09
i put up a couple of pictures of him
00:36:11
laying in bed
00:36:12
trying to show the jury how ridiculous
00:36:15
what she said
00:36:16
it looked like he had been in bed asleep
00:36:18
when he was shot
00:36:20
the covers were up and he was clenching
00:36:22
the sheets
00:36:24
we started off very calm and i was just
00:36:26
kind of pointing out the inconsistencies
00:36:29
in her story
00:36:30
and then it just became obvious that we
00:36:32
were going to have a knock down drag out
00:36:34
you know brawl here right there in the
00:36:36
courtroom and we did
00:36:38
we were going back very hot and heavy i
00:36:40
even got i was laying down on the floor
00:36:43
with the gun holding it up showing how
00:36:45
ridiculous it was what she was saying
00:36:49
the way charlie's body was positioned
00:36:51
and the location of the gunshot wounds
00:36:53
suggested kirsten's version of events
00:36:55
was a complete fabrication
00:36:57
in fact over several months of
00:36:59
questioning by detectives she had had
00:37:01
ample opportunity to claim that her late
00:37:04
husband was abusive one of the things
00:37:06
that we do
00:37:07
in cases like this is we we ask
00:37:10
are you the victim of abuse when we key
00:37:12
in on domestic violence related issues
00:37:15
we ask those questions because i think
00:37:17
it's pertinent to the case we asked her
00:37:19
are you
00:37:21
a victim of abuse was charlie doing
00:37:23
anything to you
00:37:26
and she never took the bait um she never
00:37:29
she never once said that he was abusive
00:37:31
towards her
00:37:33
the one thing about charlie is that you
00:37:35
know everybody who spoke of him just
00:37:37
talked about him being just a nice guy
00:37:40
uh who would just do anything for you
00:37:43
you could
00:37:44
and ms stevens tried to paint him as
00:37:46
this ogre who was just
00:37:49
a horrible person to her
00:37:51
would yell at her and scream at her and
00:37:54
just
00:37:55
that was not the charlie that anybody
00:37:57
else knew
00:37:59
that was more like what kristen stevens
00:38:01
was
00:38:02
kirsten stevens struggled to convince
00:38:04
the court that she was an innocent
00:38:05
victim
00:38:06
the jury just hated her they really did
00:38:09
when she got on the stand you know she
00:38:12
made us so many mistakes
00:38:14
that it just really pretty much handed
00:38:16
the case to us kirsten's motive had
00:38:18
always been financial
00:38:20
it was apparent that she was with
00:38:22
charlie
00:38:23
for only one thing and that was his
00:38:25
money
00:38:26
and once his money was gone that was why
00:38:30
she killed him once the money started to
00:38:33
dry up she realized that the only way
00:38:35
that she could continue to make her
00:38:37
lifestyle happen was to dip in on his
00:38:39
accounts and perhaps life insurance and
00:38:41
anything else that would be an asset
00:38:43
only after his death yeah she had a lot
00:38:45
to gain
00:38:47
she believed that that was the last part
00:38:49
that she was going to be able to get
00:38:51
from charlie was his insurance after she
00:38:53
was arrested and put in jail she fought
00:38:57
hard to get that insurance money she's
00:39:00
trying to get the insurance money
00:39:01
knowing good and well that she killed
00:39:03
him
00:39:04
it is a scenario that forensic
00:39:05
psychologists like judy howe have come
00:39:07
across countless times
00:39:09
particularly when they murder their
00:39:11
loved ones female murderers
00:39:13
generally have a financial motive more
00:39:16
often than male murderers
00:39:19
i don't think she saw a person there
00:39:20
when she saw him several times i think
00:39:22
she just saw the dollar signs just like
00:39:24
she did when she first met him
00:39:26
motive established self-defense claims
00:39:29
debunked it was now down to the jury to
00:39:32
decide if they trusted kirsten stevens
00:39:35
when when the jury went out yeah we i
00:39:37
was pretty confident that we had a
00:39:38
conviction you're never sure if you've
00:39:40
got murder 1 or murder in the second
00:39:42
degree
00:39:43
the deliberation is always the tricky
00:39:45
part
00:39:46
but we felt pretty good about it
00:39:49
much better than what we did when we
00:39:50
first started the trial before she
00:39:51
testified
00:39:53
on october 5th 2016 kirsten stevens is
00:39:57
found guilty in the murder of her
00:39:59
husband
00:40:00
guilty of first-degree murder and armed
00:40:04
criminal action
00:40:07
once the jury comes back with the guilty
00:40:08
verdict on both the murder and the armed
00:40:10
criminal action uh it was a good feeling
00:40:14
and i think that was
00:40:16
the best vindication not for myself not
00:40:19
for my team
00:40:20
but for charlie and charlie's family
00:40:25
she was sentenced to life in prison
00:40:26
without the possibility of parole
00:40:28
life without parole for murder plus 50
00:40:31
years for armed criminal action
00:40:34
with the murder in the first degree
00:40:35
there's only one punishment and that's
00:40:37
life in prison without parole
00:40:39
but the jury at the point of sentencing
00:40:42
for the armed criminal action
00:40:44
that kind of tells us a little bit of
00:40:45
what they feel about mrs stevens it is a
00:40:48
little unusual for them to send someone
00:40:50
to 50 years that's a long time and i
00:40:53
think they were making a statement with
00:40:54
it uh i think they didn't like her you
00:40:56
know
00:40:57
it's ironic because
00:41:00
kirsten was the gambler right
00:41:03
but charlie
00:41:05
he's the one who bet it all
00:41:07
and he lost
00:41:08
he lost his stable marriage
00:41:11
he lost his savings
00:41:14
he lost his house
00:41:16
and eventually he lost his life
00:41:19
[Music]
00:41:41
[Music]
00:42:11
you
