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Cold Case Podcast Narrator

This episode contains stories involving violence against children. Listener discretion is advised. There are over 100,000 cold cases in America. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. It's November 15, 1990, in Concordia, Missouri, and Sandy Blankenship heads into town for work. Along the way, she drops her two young children at the home of their babysitter, 28 year old Tawny Gunter. Sandy's youngest, 2 year old Billy, doesn't want his mother to leave.

Sandy Blankenship

I remember him looking at me that morning with he was about ready to start crying and Tawny was holding him so I could get out the door and I wanted to turn around and go back and I didn't.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

At work, Sandy's day unfolds like any other until lunchtime when she receives a call.

Sandy Blankenship

The secretary there was a good friend of mine and she told me that there had been an Accident that Billy had fallen down some stairs and they were taking him to Warrensburg Hospital.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Sandy and her husband arrive at the hospital as doctors are preparing to airlift Billie to the Children's Hospital in Kansas City. Billy is unconscious and critical.

Sandy Blankenship

I pulled his eyes up just to look at his eyes, because he was just laying there like he was sleeping and his eyes were real gray. And the lady told me, go ahead and talk to him because he can hear you. So I was talking to Billy on the way to the helicopter, told him we'd be right behind him, you know, we would be there.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

At Children's Mercy, doctors give Billy a CAT scan and tell the Blankenships his skull is fractured. 24 hours later, he is pronounced brain dead. The Blankenships are urged to donate their son's organs and say goodbye.

Sandy Blankenship

I got to hold him for just a little bit. And we talked to the doctor again and discussed organ donations, signed the papers and stuff. And then they told us they would let us know when it was all over. And that's pretty much the way it went.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Sandy Blankenship looks to her babysitter to make sense of the tragedy. Tawny Gunter explains she had taken Billy into the basement and told him to stay there. Gunter then walked upstairs to make lunch and Billy apparently tried to follow, making it partway up the flight of stairs before falling back down and hitting his head. Five days after the fall, two year old Billy Blankenship is laid to rest. His death believed to be a tragic accident. It will be eight years before anyone has reason to believe otherwise. Eight years later in Concordia, Missouri, Amy Yountz is a working mom in need of a babysitter for her three month old daughter, Mariah Siscoe. Amy, however, has a bad feeling about the only available choice. A sitter named Tawny Gunter.

Sandy Blankenship

As far as anybody that I knew, she was the only person left that I could send her to to watch her. And I wasn't really scared that something would happen. I just knew that there was an accident. I just really didn't want to take her there.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

On the morning of August 3rd, Amy drops Mariah off at Gunter's daycare. A few hours later, she gets a phone call.

Sandy Blankenship

My secretary come and told me that, you know, they brought the baby to the hospital and so my sister took me to Warrensburg and then, you know, nobody really told us anything other than couldn't get her to breathe on her own.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Doctors at Western Missouri Medical center decide to airlift Mariah to Children's Mercy in Kansas City. Mariah survives the life flight but dies that night I touched her and she

Sandy Blankenship

was real cold and, you know, the nurses and everybody was crying, and I just told her to wake up and she wouldn't.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Kansas City's medical examiner conducts an autopsy but is unable to determine an official cause of death. He declines to classify it as an accident, noting that the babysitter in this case has had at least one other child die in her career. Eight years after Billy Blankenship is buried, Mariah Sisco is laid to rest. The memory of her death, however, does not fade 10 days later along the streets of Concordia, Missouri. News of Mariah Sisko's death travels fast. On August 13, Billy Blankenship's aunt, Terri Holtkamp, arrives for a scheduled visit with her local doctor. Holtkamp, however, gets more than just a checkup.

Terri Holtkamp

He just nonchalantly made the comment something along the lines of, well, that's really terrible that that baby died with that same babysitter as Billy. And I just about fell over.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

I was literally sick. For eight years, Holtkamp has suspected her nephew's fall down the stairs was more than an accident, but kept her suspicions to herself. Now she wonders if it's time to say something.

Terri Holtkamp

It was August 17, 1998. I had made my decision. I had to be a voice for him. I had to stop her from babysitting. I had to stop her from babysitting.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Under a new Missouri law, a fatality review panel is convened to inquire into the circumstances surrounding Mariah Sisco's unexplained death. Holtkamp reaches out to Paige Bellamy, a panel member as well as prosecutor for Lafayette County.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

I remember thinking that lightning was striking just too many times at one household. And as we discussed the case amongst ourselves, everybody was suspicious that too many kids are getting hurt and too much is going on in one babysitter's home.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

On September 10, 1998, one month after Mariah Siscoe's death, a team of investigators pays a visit to Tawny Gunter's home. Gus Colillis leads the team. His job is to record a reenactment of Mariah Sisco's death.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

What we're trying to do is to get a commitment from the person involved to lock them in to their version of how the event occurred.

Tawny Gunter

I laid her down like this. I had another receiving blanket that I kind of threw over. I stepped right outside the door.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Tawny leads investigators through Mariah's last day alive. She puts the infant down to sleep on the bedroom floor and leaves the room. When she returns, Gunter sees something is

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

wrong

Tawny Gunter

and they were real white. And I thought there was something wrong with the baby. So I ran over here, picked up like this, turned her over real fast. I could see her lips were blue, her feet were really, really white. She was kind of a light white color. I picked her up real quick and I. Mariah. Mariah started trying to get her. She was kind of limp that I couldn't tell she was out unconscious or asleep.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Gunter's reenactment is consistent with the medical examiner's report and points to a possible SIDS related death. With no other evidence to consider, investigators turn their attention to the second case involving Gunter, Billy Blankenship's fall down a flight of stairs eight years earlier.

Terri Holtkamp

To me, it was shockingly clear that this was not the mechanism of injury.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Dr. Laurie Fraser is an expert in the study of child abuse. Investigators ask her to review ER notes as well as a CAT scan taken of Blakenship's skull eight years earlier. When Fraser reviews the X rays, she finds a massive fracture.

Terri Holtkamp

You could see it in a kid who fell from a building two or three stories and landed with their head on concrete. You could see fractures of children who were hit by cars and thrown. You could see it maybe in a child who was an unrestrained passenger in a motor vehicle accident, something that has some force or velocity to it where the child's impacted forcefully.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Fraser believes Blankenship's death to be suspicious, suggesting that his injuries resulted not from an accidental fall as Gunter described, but more likely from a direct blow to the head, a classic case of child abuse. With Fraser's findings in hand, investigators returned to Tawney Gunter's house a second time. This time to recreate the accident that claimed 2 year old Billy's life. On December 17th, investigators record Tawny Gunter walking them through the death of Billy Blankenship.

Tawny Gunter

I remember walking over to the refrigerator. I took something out of it, went to the microwave.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Gunter tells investigators she was making lunch in the kitchen and Billy was in the cellar when Gunter heard two thumps.

Tawny Gunter

Shortly after I turned the microwave on, I heard like a thump and then another thump.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Gunter rushes to the top of the stairs to find Billy lying at the

Tawny Gunter

bottom, down the steps, looked over at the other kids who were still playing, hadn't had their attention. Over here Billy was, was whimpering just for a little, just a couple minutes. I thought I'd just knock the air out of him. I picked him up like this and I asked Billy, what are you doing something in that back? And he was quite. He was a little bigger than this doll, so. And we bring him upstairs. I'm probably about this point, he kind of started going limp on me. I thought maybe he was trying to go to sleep on me.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

As Billy begins to lose consciousness, Gunter calls for help.

Tawny Gunter

I remember Billy, wake up. Wake up. Saying, wake, Billy. My telephone was on the wall here at the time I picked it up. I had the emergency numbers up here. I called for the ambulance, told him I had a two year old that had just fallen down the steps. At that point, I kept saying, wake up, Billy. Billy, stay awake. So I kept trying to get him to stay awake.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Investigators are suspicious of Gunter's story, but like the previous reenactment, they can find no obvious holes. Prosecutor Paige Bellamy decides to bring in state investigator Jim Ripley as a fresh set of eyes to review the case.

Jim Ripley (Investigator)

They wanted someone from the outside to come in and kind of try to take a look at the case as much as you could from a distance before you got in the middle of it.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Ripley and Lt. Kyle Marquardt review the taped reenactment of Blankenship's death, paying particularly close attention to Tawny Gunter's language, searching for any inconsistencies in her story.

Jim Ripley (Investigator)

Sergeant Kyle Marquardt was right next to me, and I said, you know, why don't you look at this tape? And he looked at the tape and he said, did you see this?

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

I noticed that when she said that she heard the child fall down the steps. And then she said, I thought I just knocked the wind out of him.

Tawny Gunter

Billy was whimpering just for a little, just a couple minutes. I thought I'd just knock the air out of him. I picked him up like this.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

I thought I had just knocked the air out of him. Ripley and Marquart believe these words might provide the inconsistency that reveals the lie. Earlier in the reenactment, Gunter had claimed she never saw Billy fall down the stairs, but just heard two thumps. Now, however, she puts herself at the scene when Billy fell.

Jim Ripley (Investigator)

She goes to the bottom of the stairs and says, I thought I'd just knock the air out of him, which is not at all consistent with what she's telling you is an unwitnessed fall. And now suddenly, as she's recreating it, she's put herself in the position of being the person responsible.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Lt. Ripley calls Paige Bellamy with the inconsistent statement, which in his mind solidifies his case for her to make an

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

admission, placing her there with Billy at the time. He's basically been injured was an admission of guilt as far as I was concerned.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Then Paige Bellamy makes one of the most difficult decisions of his career to exhume the body of two year old Billy Blankenship. Our listeners know healthcare professionals play a huge role in closing out the cases we look at on this show. Whether they're medical examiners, forensic pathologists, nurses, morgue technicians or crime lab specialists. No matter their field or specialty, these experts deserve a uniform that works as hard as they do. That's where FIGS comes in. They make scrubs that are lightweight, breathable, durable and designed to help healthcare professionals take on every challenge of their day. They feature four way stretch technology, moisture wicking fabric that keeps you comfortable through long hours and thoughtful details like secure pockets exactly where you need them.

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Cold Case Podcast Narrator

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Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Join the millions of happy renters and visit apartments.com the place to find a

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Cold Case Podcast Narrator

On March 11, 1999, cold case detectives prepare to exhume Billy Blankenship's body, hoping to unearth a cold case of murder. Even for a seasoned investigator, the exhumation is difficult.

Jim Ripley (Investigator)

I've been in law enforcement for 25 years, and when we opened up that casket and that little boy's body was there with his little blanket and ninja turtle and it just took the air out of that room.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Over the course of eight years, the child's body has decomposed, making the job of medical examiner Jay Dix that much more difficult.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

Well, the body was intact. However, the skin and the tissues had degenerated considerably.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

One saving grace is that Billy's skull is pristine. It's here that Dr. Dix finds a telling fracture.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

As soon as I saw the fracture, I thought this child didn't receive the injury from falling down the stairs. This was at least a 4 inch break in this child's skull.

Jim Ripley (Investigator)

Skull is kind of divided up by suture lines. And he had this significant fracture to the back of his head that went across the suture lines, which would be, I guess, comparing it to if you cracked a window and then you put a second crack in the window, it would jump across the first crack, which is significant. You know, it would take a lot of impact to do that.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

The medical examiner's findings are unequivocal. Billy Blankenship did not die from an accidental fall.

Jim Ripley (Investigator)

He said, go back and tell the lady the facts don't fit the story. She has to come up with a different Story because these facts don't fit her story. It didn't happen that way.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

At that point, we had no doubt that this was more than what Tawney Gunter was telling us. And then we had to take that information and confront Mrs. Gunter, see where that would go for us.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Two weeks after the exhumation, cold case detectives Jim Ripley and Kyle Marquardt travel to Concordia, Missouri. Their goal is to get a confession from Tawny Gunter. They meet Gunter at the local Days Inn and begin to lay out the evidence against her. The inconsistencies in her taped statements, the significant injuries shown on Billy Blankenship's CAT scan, and finally, the exhumation and the medical examiner's examination of the skull itself, all are inconsistent with Tawni Gunter's story of an accidental fall down the stairs. Tawny, however, sticks to her version of events.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

Lack of better terms. She was very stubborn.

Jim Ripley (Investigator)

She was very difficult. I mean, we interviewed her for a long time, and the truth is, she got up to use the restroom, I think maybe to wipe her eyes or something. And Sergeant Marquardt says she's not going to tell us.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Tawny Gunter returns from the bathroom and sits down in a moment, and without warning, the babysitter changes her story entirely.

Tawny Gunter

I went to the basement steps to tell the kids to pick up the toys that lunch was in the microwave getting heated. As I got around the corner of the steps, Billy was at the top of the steps. I think we both scared each other. When I saw him and he saw

Jim Ripley (Investigator)

me, she sat down and said, I saw him go down the stairs. That was a revelation because after that point, her story was, she's at the microwave and she hears thump, thump.

Tawny Gunter

I kind of took him and I turned him around and told him to go back downstairs and pick up the toys before lunch. At which point he fell down the steps. And I said, and gone down the steps. I went down the steps after him. He met a face up at the bottom of my steps, and I went to pick him up. I didn't think he'd be hurt.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Gunter's story has gone from a fall she didn't see to an accident she saw but did not cause. With one more question, Tawny Gunter takes the final step.

Kent Hill

When Billy got to the top of

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

the stairs, you were directing him to go back downstairs to help pick up the.

Kent Hill

Is that what you told us? And during the interview, you.

Jim Ripley (Investigator)

You said you kind of spun him

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

around and that's when he went down

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

the stairs, Is that right?

Tawny Gunter

Yeah, I kind of taken him by the top of the shoulders to turn him around. And I didn't realize that maybe I turned him around faster than what I thought I did.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Gunter admits to spinning Blankenship around and causing his fall down the stairs. With police cameras turned off, she goes even further.

Jim Ripley (Investigator)

She's crying. And I just looked at her and I said, tawny, you pushed him, didn't you? And she just nodded her head, yes, I did. She didn't say I did, but she nodded her head.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Cold case detectives deliver Gunter's taped statement to Paige Bellamy, who begins preparation for a trial that never happens. Gunter is charged with murder in the second degree 11 years to the day of Billy Blankenship's death. However, she pleads guilty to voluntary manslaughter. As for Mariah Sisco, who died in her care, cold case detectives are unable to develop evidence proving that Gunter was responsible for her death. To this day, her death remains a mystery. On January 10, 2002, in a crowded courtroom in Missouri, Tawny Gunter awaits sentencing. Billy Blankenship's mother, Sandy, reads a statement to the court about the woman who stole her son.

Sandy Blankenship

Tawny Gunner took from us something that can never be replaced or forgotten. The grief we have endured has been a parent's worst nightmare and impossible for us to come to terms with. It has been the most horrifying experience of our lives. We trusted her with the care and safety of our most precious son, and now we deal with the constant pain of his death.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

The courtroom also watches a video of Billy as he was 12 years earlier. When the tape is finished, the judge passes sentence on Tawny Gunter.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

With respect to count one, the court

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

sentences and commits the defendant to the

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

custody of the Missouri Department of Corrections for a period of 15 years.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Gunter receives the maximum sentence of 15. The courtroom empties, and nothing is left but the echoes of a cell door slamming and the life never fully lived. In July of 1986, Frank Ross says goodbye to his relatives. After a weekend visit in Claremore, Oklahoma, Ross takes off on Route 66, headed home to nearby Stillwell, Oklahoma. Two days later, Ross's sister Pam Charles gets a phone call.

Terri Holtkamp

My brother in Stillwell, Teddy, he had called and asked, you know, where's Frank? And I said, well, isn't he there? And he said, no, that he never showed up.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

The next day, Frank Ross is still missing. Then his sister spots Frank's car, apparently abandoned in a Claremore parking lot.

Terri Holtkamp

And then that's when we really started getting. We knew that something was wrong.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Detective John Cummings of the Claremore Police department picks up the missing persons case. Cummings learns that the night Frank Ross disappeared, he spent time at Claremore's Tack Room Lounge.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

Some of the witnesses were able to place him back in the area of the bar where they were playing pool with a gentleman named Kent Hill. James Kent Hill. Apparently Mr. Ross had some cash on him and was buying a lot of drinks and apparently had bragged that he had a large sum of money on him. Pretty typical, you know, two guys at a bar playing pool and bragging about who's the best.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

The man Frank Ross was last seen with, James Kent Hill, is a familiar face to Claremore police with a record of several run ins with the law. Witnesses tell police that the two men left the pool hall together around 2:20am and drove off in Hill's Plymouth Duster. Detective Cummings drops by Hill's house to check out his story.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

Mr. Hill at first basically denied knowing who Mr. Ross was. Then he remembered, oh yeah, I did play pool with a guy fits that description. Oh yeah, I did give him a ride, but I gave him a ride straight to a convenience store to buy a six pack of beer. Then I dropped him back off at his car and that's the last I saw of him.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

After just a few interviews, investigators begin to find holes in Kent Hill's story. A local woman tells them Ross and Hill came by her house together around 3:10 in the morning, almost 40 minutes after Hill claims he he last saw Frank Ross. Bob Powell works the case for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.

Jim Ripley (Investigator)

So we knew he was lying to us about that. Kent was certainly a strong suspect. There wasn't any indication that there was anybody else involved in this.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

During their first interview with Hill, investigators noticed that his Plymouth Duster was banged up, the back bumper dented and the side mirror fallen off.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

He told us that about two weeks previous to that night that had been in rural Rogers county somewhere playing what he described as Dukes of Hazzard and lost control of his car and hit a tree and caused that damage.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Witnesses from the Tack Room Lounge offer a different story, telling police that Hill's car was in perfect condition when he left the Tack Room Lounge with Frank Ross.

Jim Ripley (Investigator)

It's a very insignificant thing taken by itself, but when you combine it with the other facts of the case, it becomes a point that we want to clarify and also becomes a point that we're going to use later on.

Kent Hill

In an interview.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Police believe they know who killed Frank Ross. Two lies, however, do not make a case for murder. Detectives need something more substantial, something like a Body. Claremore's biggest lake is known for its fishing. But this is no ordinary day on the lake. Four months later, in a twist of a fate unrelated to the search for Frank Ross, a local woman, Lynelle Collins, has hired a professional diving crew to search for an antique car. Before going off to war, her older brother and a friend had taken their beloved Model T Ford, nicknamed the Red Robin, and pushed it into Claremore Lake.

Terri Holtkamp

You have to understand that Claremore Lake is a place where teenagers for probably decades have partied around Claremore. And so I'm sure that this plot was hatched over some alcohol. But at any rate, they decided they were going to shove their car off into the lake, and that way no one would ever get the Red Robin.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

On a cold November morning, John Belding suits up and dives beneath the surface in search of the Red Robin. After just five minutes underwater, Belding makes a discovery.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

I was kind of walking along and stumbled into the bones, and I. I told the command station up here, I

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

believe I found some bones up on shore. The command station reminds Belding that they were hired to find a car. The bones are probably nothing more than a cow carcass.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

I finally asked them, does cows around this part of the country wear blue jeans? Because these bones are in blue jeans and cowboy boots.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Suddenly, the search for the Red Robin has become a crime scene. In a second stroke of luck, Detective John Cummings is there to take charge. He has come to the lake knowing that divers often find something useful to police, like a stolen car. When he sees the body, Cummings immediately thinks of Frank Ross.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

As soon as we got it up on shore, I went back to my car and pulled Mr. Ross's file out of my backseat and had a photograph the family had given me, and the photograph the family had. Had given me had the exact picture of the shirt that was on the body. Identical.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

An autopsy shows that the body dredge from the lake was about the same height, weight and age as Frank Ross in 1986. However, DNA is unavailable to confirm the identity.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

It's frustrating as an investigator because I really thought that was our guy. And I was positive at this point that Mr. Hill had some involvement in his.

Kent Hill

His.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

In his homicide and his disappearance.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Without a positive id, investigators must bury the remains in a John Doe grave. And the Frank Ross investigation falls into the cold files once again, where it stays for six more years until a broken heart helps to unseal a coffin and identify a killer.

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A few years ago, I almost didn't start my podcast because I kept telling myself. I'll do it when things calm down. But life never really slows down, right? There's always something. Work, deadlines, trips, family stuff. And what I eventually realized is if you wait for the perfect moment, you

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

usually end up waiting forever and losing

Grainger and Other Ads Narrator

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Cold Case Podcast Narrator

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Cold Case Podcast Narrator

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Cold Case Podcast Narrator

In February of 1992, a woman in Claremore, Oklahoma named Liz Humphrey has just broken up with her live in boyfriend, Kent Hill. For six years, Hill has been the number one suspect in the disappearance of Frank Ross, a man who police believe was killed and dumped in Claremore Lake. Now Kent Hill's ex girlfriend says she knows the truth about Frank Ross and is prepared to tell it all.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

She walked right in the front door and asked to see me and came in my office and said she wanted to tell me about Kent killing the man from the tack room.

Liz Humphrey

When he gets home, he starts telling me that he met this guy Frank Ross at the bar. They went and bought beer, went out, driving around out in the boonies, out where Joey, his brother, lives. This man put his hand on Kent's leg like, you know, I guess he was.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Humphrey says Kent Hill was shocked by the move. He slammed on the brakes and pulled over.

Liz Humphrey

He had that red duster at the time and he always kept one of those long knives in between his seats. He grabbed that, ran around the car, stabbed him twice because he was scared that he was going to hurt him. But, you know, I mean, you don't have to kill somebody to keep them from hurting.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Humphrey says that after stabbing Ross, Kent Hill dragged his body into the nearby woods. Several weeks later, feeling the pressure from police questioning, Hill decided the woods may not be the best hiding place.

Liz Humphrey

He felt like he needed to move that body where it was. Well, he got real messed up on some. Don't know what he took just to get up enough nerve to go do this.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

According to his ex girlfriend, Kent Hill took the corpse rotting in the heat to Claremore Lake and sent it to the bottom. Detective Cummings believes Hill killed Ross as Humphrey describes, but not because Frank Ross had made a pass at him. The real motive, Cummings believes, was the wad of cash Ross was flashing around the tack room pool hall. Cummings takes his case to Ray Hasselman, a Rogers county assistant district attorney, as he Reviews the case. Hasselman sees one problem. He believes Kent Hill and Liz Humphrey are common law husband and wife.

Jim Ripley (Investigator)

Well, you have a problem with, as is common in most states, that if you are married to an individual and that person tells you something in the privacy of the marriage, that that information is usually not allowable in criminal proceedings or even in civil proceedings.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Without Humphrey's statement, the state declines to file the case and the investigation once again goes cold. Detectives, however, might have one more angle. The body pulled out of Claremore Lake four months after the murder and now resting in a John Doe grave. Cold case detectives hope that science can someday give their John Doe a name and that the name turns out to be Frank Ross. On December 1, 1993, two men with shovels begin to unearth what cold case detectives hope will be the clue to solving a murder. A few yards of dirt later, a shovel hits the edge of John Doe's coffin. The body is removed from the coffin and a DNA sample is extracted from its bones. Scientists use mitochondrial DNA testing to compare John Doe's DNA to samples taken from Frank Ross surviving family members. The result confirms what most have suspected. All the body pulled from Claremore Lake seven years earlier was Pam Charles brother Frank Ross.

Terri Holtkamp

In our hearts we knew it was Frank. But just to finally say for sure, yes, it was a better feeling, you know, a more comforting feeling, I guess.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

At the Claremore cemetery, the John Doe marker is replaced by one reading Frank Leslie Ross. With a death certificate in hand, Detective Cummings once again takes the case to the Rogers County District Attorney. Ray Hasselman agrees this time that all the pieces add up to murder.

Jim Ripley (Investigator)

If you can put it together by this person was here, this person was here, this person said this little bit of information. The body was found where they said it would be. And you put all that together a lot of times jurors I think will find the case is a much stronger case.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

The assistant DA issues a warrant for Kent Hill's arrest on the charge of five first degree murder. On December 18, 1995, Kent Hill is driving through Claremore when a squad car lights up his rearview mirror. It's John Cummings, Claremore pd.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

Kent had been questioned several times over the years about this case, never deviated from his story as far as he didn't have anything to do with it.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

This time, Hill takes a different Tack. After just 15 minutes of questioning, he drops the story he's been holding on to for nine years, that he took Frank Ross to get a six pack, then dropped him off at his car alive and well, now Hill echoes his ex girlfriend's testimony that he and Frank Ross went for a drive in Hill's Duster.

Kent Hill

I pulled up out in the country to go to the bathroom and the next thing I know this big gorilla like man got all the,

Liz Humphrey

and he's

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

trying to get my ear pains off. Hill claims he grabbed Ross by the throat and strangled him in self defense. Across the table, Cummings listens and considers all he's learned in nine years about Kent Hill's character.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

His history tells me he's a pretty violent, aggressive individual. Mr. Ross's background, the best we can tell is a very passive, no criminal Hill history wouldn't be the type of guy you would think would, would pull a knife on somebody and try to assault them.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Cummings wants to test Hill's new story. So he takes him for a drive in the country and asks him to find the spot where Hill fought for his life. According to Hill, he pulled over at a specific hairpin curve to go to the bathroom and was attacked. As detective and suspect walk the scene, Cummings notices something that effectively guts Hill's claim of self defense. Hill's brother's house is no more than a half mile from where Hill claims he was attacked. If Hill needed to use the bathroom, why not head there if he was afraid of him?

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

Why would you stop a half a mile from your brother's house to use a restroom on the side of a county road when you can see the house, you can see his brother's house from that location? Didn't make any sense to me.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Hill is brought back to the station where cold case detectives tell him his story doesn't add up. Under pressure, Hill's account changes once again, but only in the way he killed Ross. Instead of using his hands, Hill now claims he used a knife.

Kent Hill

He just kept moving toward me and that's when I pulled the knife out and I stuck him right in the rib cage and he just gasped and went down and that was it, it was over.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Cummings does not believe either version offered by Hill and bets that a jury won't either. He books Hill for murder in the first degree. Standing before a judge at his first hearing, Hill decides to make a deal. He pleads guilty to a charge of manslaughter. And on April 26, Kent Hill is sentenced to 20 years. In 2001, Kent Hill is living in the Hamilton Correctional center in Hodgin, Oklahoma. In July of that year, he sits down with cold case files. Hill sticks to his story of self defense. Now, however, Ross wasn't killed By a knife or by strangulation. Now, according to Kent Hill, it was a one punch knockout.

Kent Hill

He meets me at the back of the car and grabs me by the shoulders. If I didn't have my cuffs on, I could show you. He grabs me by the shoulders and I look up and he says, I'm gonna. I'm gonna kill you. And I said, bam. That was all she wrote. And he's laying on the ground and I'm screaming, get up, you queer piece of. I'm gonna kick your ass. Because I did, I wanted to whoop him bad.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

Underpinning Hill's story is the assumption that Frank Ross is gay. An idea that, according to police, isn't supported by facts.

Paige Bellamy (Prosecutor)

We have at least three barmaids that said he asked them out on dates. I think that was just a poor temptation by Mr. Hill to come up with some kind of a story to cover what he did. Which is all the evidence, we think points to nothing but a robbery.

Kent Hill

I had no idea if he had any money at all. I know he was buying everybody drinks. Talking about how much money he had wasn't what I was thinking. Far from it.

Cold Case Podcast Narrator

The Model T known as the Red Robin is probably still in Claremore Lake. But the search for it yielded something much more valuable. The answer to a murder and a small measure of justice for Frank Ross family.

Terri Holtkamp

We were just ready for him to be behind bars. And whether it was no matter how long it was, it did make us feel better that they did finally catch him. And he did admit to it.

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