Beaten for $43

0:00 Speaker 1: The summer air in Colorado Springs hung heavy over the

0:03 Speaker 1: South Hancock apartments, warm and still beneath the fading orange

0:07 Speaker 1: glow of the August sky. Children laughed somewhere in the distance.

0:11 Speaker 1: Radios hummed through open apartment windows. It looked like any

0:15 Speaker 1: other quiet evening in nineteen eighty five, But before sunrise,

0:20 Speaker 1: a decorated American war hero would be dead, and Detective

0:23 Speaker 1: Joe Kenda would find himself chasing one of the strangest

0:26 Speaker 1: murder weapons he had ever encountered. At exactly nine PM,

0:31 Speaker 1: an eighteen wheeler rolled into the apartment complex parking lot

0:34 Speaker 1: and eased to a stop. Inside the cab sat two

0:37 Speaker 1: exhausted movers from Oklahoma, Carl Taylor and his longtime coworker

0:42 Speaker 1: Jim Sibbett. They had spent the day unloading household goods

0:46 Speaker 1: and were preparing to head back home the next morning.

0:49 Speaker 1: The truck was nearly empty now except for a few

0:51 Speaker 1: remaining boxes scheduled for delivery the next day. A local

0:55 Speaker 1: laborer named Everett Base climbed down from the cab after

0:58 Speaker 1: helping them work all afternoon. That's my place over there,

1:02 Speaker 1: Everett said, pointing toward the apartments. You guys want to

1:06 Speaker 1: crash inside. Jim shook his head. Nah, we'll sleep in

1:10 Speaker 1: the truck. We got a leave. Early truckers did it

1:14 Speaker 1: all the time, Safer than paying for a motel, Easier

1:18 Speaker 1: than unpacking. Carl climbed into the rear trailer, where a

1:21 Speaker 1: stack of moving blankets had been laid out. Jim stretched

1:25 Speaker 1: across the front cab. Within minutes, both men were asleep.

1:29 Speaker 1: The parking lot grew silent. Then, sometime around one o'clock

1:33 Speaker 1: in the morning, Jim woke suddenly to a noise. At first,

1:37 Speaker 1: he wasn't sure what had disturbed him, maybe metal clanging,

1:40 Speaker 1: maybe muffled shouting, but something felt wrong. He stepped out

1:44 Speaker 1: of the cab and walked toward the rear trailer doors.

1:48 Speaker 1: Carl he called no answer. He climbed into the dark

1:52 Speaker 1: trailer and froze. Carl Taylor lay crumpled among the moving quilts,

1:57 Speaker 1: soaked in blood. His face was barely recognizable. The walls

2:02 Speaker 1: and ceiling around him were splattered Crimson. Jim stumbled backward

2:07 Speaker 1: in horror. The man he had worked beside for years

2:10 Speaker 1: had been beaten almost beyond recognition. Across town, Detective Joe

2:14 Speaker 1: Kenda sat buried in paperwork during the overnight cocktail shift,

2:18 Speaker 1: the hours when bars emptied in violence usually followed. At

2:22 Speaker 1: one twenty am, the radio crackled possible homicide South Hancock Apartments.

2:29 Speaker 1: Kenda sighed and grabbed his coat. The South Hancock complex

2:33 Speaker 1: was already familiar territory to police. Burglaries, robberies, assaults. The

2:38 Speaker 1: area generated crime almost nightly. By the time Kenda arrived,

2:42 Speaker 1: patrol cars crowded the parking lot, while residents gathered outside

2:46 Speaker 1: in clusters, whispering nervously. The victim had already been rushed

2:51 Speaker 1: to the hospital dead on arrival. Kenda stepped into the

2:55 Speaker 1: trailer and immediately understood the savagery of the attack. Blood

2:59 Speaker 1: stained the roof, blood streaked the walls, Thick cast off

3:03 Speaker 1: patterns spread across the interior from repeated swings of a

3:06 Speaker 1: heavy object. Whoever attacked Carl Taylor hadn't struck him once.

3:11 Speaker 1: They had pummeled him violently, repeatedly, and in the middle

3:15 Speaker 1: of the blood soak trailer set a strange clue. A

3:19 Speaker 1: cardboard box and forty three dollars in cash scattered across

3:22 Speaker 1: the floor. Forty three dollars Someone had beaten a man

3:26 Speaker 1: to death and somehow forgotten to take the money. Kenda's

3:30 Speaker 1: instincts told him immediately this was not a targeted murder.

3:34 Speaker 1: This was panic, a burglary gone catastrophically wrong. Outside, Kenda

3:39 Speaker 1: spoke with Jim Sibbett, the surviving co worker. Jim explained

3:43 Speaker 1: that he and Carl had worked together for years. Carl

3:47 Speaker 1: was dependable, hard working, quiet, no drugs, no enemies, no trouble.

3:53 Speaker 1: Then Kenda learned who Carl Taylor really was. Years earlier,

3:57 Speaker 1: Carl had served in the United States Air Force during

3:59 Speaker 1: the Korean War. During one catastrophic plane crash, Carl repeatedly

4:04 Speaker 1: ran back into a burning aircraft to rescue trapped crew members,

4:08 Speaker 1: dead and alive alike. For his bravery, he earned the

4:12 Speaker 1: Silver Star. He married, raised children, worked hard, and spent

4:17 Speaker 1: decades building an honest life. Now he was lying in

4:20 Speaker 1: a morgue because somebody wanted to steal from a moving truck.

4:24 Speaker 1: When Kenda questioned Everett Base, the local helper who had

4:27 Speaker 1: worked with them that day, the investigation suddenly shifted. Everett

4:31 Speaker 1: pointed directly at Jim Sibbet. They were arguing all day,

4:35 Speaker 1: he said, Apparently Jim had repeatedly yelled at Carl while

4:39 Speaker 1: unloading furniture. At one point, witnesses her Jim threaten him,

4:44 Speaker 1: I'm going to knock your lights out now. Carl Taylor

4:47 Speaker 1: was dead. Kenda immediately returned to Jim with sharper questions.

4:52 Speaker 1: Jim admitted the arguments happened, but insisted it was normal.

4:56 Speaker 1: They bickered constantly while working. Nothing physical had ever happened.

5:01 Speaker 1: Kenda studied him carefully. Then he checked Jim's clothes. No blood,

5:06 Speaker 1: no injuries, no bruised hands, nothing. A murder this brutal

5:10 Speaker 1: would have left the killer drenched in blood. Jim looked untouched.

5:15 Speaker 1: Kenda reluctantly ruled him out, which meant the killers were

5:18 Speaker 1: still out there. The detective and his officers began knocking

5:22 Speaker 1: on doors throughout the apartment complex, searching for witnesses. Most

5:27 Speaker 1: residents either claimed ignorance or refused to cooperate, but one

5:31 Speaker 1: woman stood out, apartment manager Lois Haney. Lois knew everyone

5:36 Speaker 1: in the complex, especially the troublemakers. She handed Kenda several

5:41 Speaker 1: names of local thieves and burglars who lived there, men

5:44 Speaker 1: with histories of breaking into vehicles and causing trouble one

5:49 Speaker 1: name in particular soon surfaced again through a confidential informant,

5:53 Speaker 1: Joe White. Police brought White in immediately. He was terrified

5:57 Speaker 1: from the moment He entered homicide heads, sweating, stammering, contradicting

6:03 Speaker 1: himself constantly, But fear didn't equal guilt. White agreed to

6:08 Speaker 1: take a polygraph examination and passed with flying colors. Another

6:12 Speaker 1: dead end. Frustrated Kenda attended Carl Taylor's autopsy, hoping the

6:17 Speaker 1: coroner could identify the murder weapon. That's when the case

6:21 Speaker 1: took a bizarre turn. The coroner pointed out strange ridges

6:24 Speaker 1: embedded deep into Carl's scalp wounds, perfectly symmetrical, evenly spaced, engineered,

6:31 Speaker 1: not random. Whatever had struck Carl carried a manufactured pattern.

6:36 Speaker 1: Neither the coroner nor Kenda had ever seen anything like it,

6:40 Speaker 1: So Kenda did something unconventional. He carried photographs of the

6:44 Speaker 1: wounds to a local tool manufacturing company and asked engineers

6:48 Speaker 1: to identify the object. The first engineer opened the photobinder,

6:52 Speaker 1: then nearly vomited into a trash can. The images were

6:56 Speaker 1: that horrific, but eventually the engineers focused on the wound

7:00 Speaker 1: patterns themselves. One possibility emerged repeatedly, a surveyor's transit pole.

7:07 Speaker 1: Kenda hated the answer immediately. Who walks around a dangerous

7:11 Speaker 1: apartment complex at one in the morning carrying surveying equipment?

7:15 Speaker 1: No one. He asked them to keep digging. The next

7:18 Speaker 1: day they called him back. One engineer offered another possibility,

7:23 Speaker 1: a nineteen seventy two General Motors bumper jack. Suddenly everything clicked.

7:28 Speaker 1: Unlike surveying equipment, bumper jacks were common. Every GM vehicle

7:33 Speaker 1: from that era carried one in the trunk, and the

7:36 Speaker 1: ridges matched perfectly. Now Kenda wasn't just looking for killers.

7:41 Speaker 1: He was looking for somebody driving a nineteen seventy two

7:44 Speaker 1: GM vehicle. Almost immediately, another call came from Lois Haney.

7:49 Speaker 1: A local criminal named Phil Brown, known on the street

7:52 Speaker 1: as Gooki, was being mentioned around the apartment complex. Kenda

7:56 Speaker 1: hauled him in. Phil admitted he had been outside drinking

8:00 Speaker 1: that night with several friends, but became evasive when asked

8:03 Speaker 1: who they were. One of those friends was Herald Sonny Evans,

8:07 Speaker 1: another known thief. Still Kenda lacked hard evidence. Then fate

8:12 Speaker 1: intervened again. A burglar arrested on unrelated charges offered information

8:17 Speaker 1: in exchange for a deal. Kenda refused any promises, but

8:21 Speaker 1: the burglar broke anyway. He named four men involved in

8:25 Speaker 1: the truck burglary, Phil Brown, Sonny Evans, Eric Kendall, and

8:30 Speaker 1: a fourth man known as Big Rick. According to the informant,

8:35 Speaker 1: Sonny drove an old Cadillac, a nineteen seventy two Cadillac.

8:39 Speaker 1: Kenda felt electricity shoot through him. Now the pieces finally fit.

8:44 Speaker 1: Police quickly confirmed Sonny Evans owned a nineteen seventy two

8:47 Speaker 1: Cadillac and obtained a search warrant. Sonny protested furiously as

8:52 Speaker 1: officers seized the vehicle. Inside the trunk sat the bumper jack.

8:57 Speaker 1: The moment Kenda saw it, he knew the ridges were

9:00 Speaker 1: identical to the wounds in Carl Taylor's skull. At first glance,

9:04 Speaker 1: the jack appeared spotless, carefully cleaned, but inside the hollow

9:08 Speaker 1: metal shaft, investigators discovered dried blood. Then came an even

9:13 Speaker 1: smaller miracle. Caught inside one tiny groove was a human hair,

9:17 Speaker 1: barely three eighths of an inch long. The murder weapon

9:20 Speaker 1: had finally been found. Still, Kenda needed someone to talk.

9:24 Speaker 1: That someone became Eric Kendall. After fleeing to Philadelphia. Kendall

9:29 Speaker 1: was arrested and extradited back to Colorado Springs. Unlike the others,

9:34 Speaker 1: he decided to confess, and finally the horrifying truth emerged.

9:39 Speaker 1: That night, Phil Brown had gathered several friends after spotting

9:43 Speaker 1: the moving truck parked outside the apartments. They believed it

9:46 Speaker 1: might contain valuable electronics, rims, or stereo equipment. Sonny retrieved

9:52 Speaker 1: the bumper jack from his Cadillac trunk. The four men

9:56 Speaker 1: crept toward the trailer, expecting it to be locked. Instead,

10:00 Speaker 1: the rear door opened easily. Big Rick climbed inside first.

10:04 Speaker 1: Then Carl Taylor woke up. What the hell are you doing?

10:08 Speaker 1: He shouted, Panic exploded. According to Kendall, big Rick attacked

10:13 Speaker 1: Carl like a crazy man, swing after swing after swing.

10:18 Speaker 1: The others stood frozen while Carl was beaten to death.

10:21 Speaker 1: In the darkness, the thieves grabbed random boxes and fled,

10:25 Speaker 1: just as Jim Sibbett emerged from the cab to investigate

10:28 Speaker 1: all of it for a box of Christmas ornaments. Police

10:32 Speaker 1: soon tracked down the final suspect, Ricky big Rickdlon, hiding

10:36 Speaker 1: in a basement. When officers racked a shotgun during the

10:40 Speaker 1: tactical search, rick surrendered instantly. He never gave a confession,

10:45 Speaker 1: but he didn't need to. Eric Kendall, Phil Brown, and

10:49 Speaker 1: Sonny Evans all testified against him. After pleading guilty to

10:52 Speaker 1: burglary charges. Each received prison sentences of five to seven years.

10:58 Speaker 1: Ricky Dillon was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced

11:01 Speaker 1: to life in prison. For detective Joe Kenda, the case

11:05 Speaker 1: never stopped feeling tragic. Carl Taylor had survived war, he

11:09 Speaker 1: had rescued men from a burning airplane, He had spent

11:12 Speaker 1: his life serving others, and in the end, he died

11:16 Speaker 1: alone in the back of a truck at the hands

11:18 Speaker 1: of strangers who didn't even know his name. Not over revenge,

11:22 Speaker 1: not over hatred, not over millions of dollars, but over nothing,

11:27 Speaker 1: a random act of brutality fueled by greed, fear, and stupidity,

11:33 Speaker 1: a hero's life stolen for a worthless box of Christmas decorations.

11:37 Speaker 1: And to Kenda, that made the crime even harder to understand,

11:41 Speaker 1: because sometimes the worst murders aren't committed for a reason

11:44 Speaker 1: at all. Sometimes they happen simply because violence is easier

11:48 Speaker 1: for monsters than humanity,