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♪

♪

The body was floating in a large body of water.

So, we don't really have that traditional crime scene.

Her face was badly decomposed.

What evidence can we get, based on what we have?

Not what we wish we had, but what we have.

She had a post-mortem fracture

to the back of her skull.

But what caused this post-mortem injury?

She was a missing 16-year-old girl

from Dover, Delaware.

You follow the facts.

How does it result in her being found

3.3 nautical miles off the coast of Cape May?

♪

♪

When homicide investigators collect evidence

from a crime scene, they hold the

pieces of a puzzle.

Only by connecting those pieces back together

can they catch the killer.

♪

Cape May is about 50 minutes

from Atlantic City.

The streets are lined with old Victorian homes and

hotels that have been there forever.

So, it's beautiful.

Cape May is the town that time forgot.

A beach town with a country vibe.

It is the oldest seaside resort in America.

It's a town for surfers. It's a town for fishermen.

♪

Early in the morning Wednesday,

October the 8th of 2003,

there was a couple that were out on their boat fishing

off the coast of Cape May.

They observed something floating in the water.

Their initial thoughts were that it was

some type of debris.

As they approached the debris,

they realized that it was something more,

that it was actually a body.

♪

So they stopped their boat, and they immediately

contact the US Coast Guard.

Well, the Coast Guard arrived on scene,

and he proceeded to retrieve the body from the water and

transport that body back to the dock in Cape May.

[Sirens]

I was assigned to the Criminal Investigation Office

at the Port Norris station,

and I would respond to any kind of criminal or

major incident at any of the marine stations

in that general area.

I received a call that there was a body at

the Cape May Coast Guard station.

♪

I arrive on scene.

I walk up, and I'm looking at

what appeared to be a female body.

Long, dark hair.

It was severely decomposed.

And then I immediately noticed that

the hands and the feet are...

bound together,

what looks like some type of tape.

And then around the tape is some type of chain.

This obviously isn't an accidental type drowning.

This is something more nefarious in nature.

At a regular crime scene,

we will have a crime scene area,

which will be secured to make sure

it's unaffected by outside influences.

This case was a little bit different.

The body is our crime scene at this point.

So, we call our crime scene unit.

Detective James Thistle from the New Jersey State Police

Crime Scene unit arrives

to help us in our investigation.

When I got to the dock, they were just pulling in.

So I followed the body back to the morgue because

now we're worrying about identification.

We have nothing without identification.

♪

At the time, I only had a couple years in the

crime scene unit, but I really had

a good interest in how the human body

decomposes under different circumstances.

So, working with decomposed bodies

was nothing new to me.

I knew that she had been in the water

for a pretty good period of time.

I couldn't tell how long, however,

I knew it was probably at least a week,

only in the fact of how her skin looked,

how bloated she was.

I could tell by her body type that it was a female.

However, her face was unrecognizable.

So I'm trying to figure out how exactly

I'm gonna ID this body.

She had chains wrapped around her ankles.

There was duct tape intermixed with the chain.

I could see that there were ripped trash bags

that were within the chain.

She had jeans on,

and some sort of a T-shirt or blouse.

That was about all she had with the body.

♪

One of the things that was removed from her was

a rock crab, gnawing on the inner thigh.

So we know she sunk to the bottom of the ocean because

rock crabs are known to be bottom feeders.

During the autopsy, we found that

her hyoid bone was fractured.

It shows that there could have been strangulation.

So the hyoid bone is just a really thin bone

that's within your neck that,

it just kind of cracks really easily under force.

So, if somebody is choking you

or you're being strangled,

the hyoid bone can crack.

Also, she had a post-mortem fracture

to the back of her skull.

During the autopsy,

there's a time when the skull is exposed...

and you could actually see then any bruising,

'cause that's the body trying to heal itself.

In this case, there was definitely damage to

the back of the head.

However, there was no indication that

the body was trying to heal,

so the doctor of course said then that was post-mortem.

So, it was baffling at the time, for sure.

STEVE: There's only a couple ways that

that could have occurred.

One, it was either a hard object striking

the back of the neck, maybe a baseball bat,

a pipe, something heavy.

Or, a fall from a significant height.

Could it have been thrown over a bridge or

some type of high embankment?

Because if a body hits water from a significant height,

it's almost like hitting concrete.

So, that's something that could have

caused that type of injury.

There are almost insurmountable challenges

in investigating the murder of a Jane Doe,

or a body with no known identity.

You need to know who this person is and

where they came from in order to begin

any semblance of a real investigation.

At this point, the investigative team

has only a narrow range of evidence

to answer some critical questions:

Who was this young woman?

Where did she come from?

And who killed her?

Her face is non-existent.

So we don't have facial features that an artist

could make a rendition of.

We could see her teeth.

There was no real clear, visible dental work.

That didn't look like that was going to be a

potential option to identify her.

RESHMI: With no other means of identification,

investigators hope to somehow run prints on the

deceased female's shriveled fingertips.

MICHAEL: The challenges in trying to recover a

fingerprint from fingers in this state

is that they just don't yield the type of

what we call ridge detail.

The skin is not taut and tight enough to recover

the type of ridge pattern necessary in order to

render a definitive identification.

I had read about another method where I can inject

some saline solution underneath the first

finger pad, and basically

blow it up like a balloon.

And then roll her finger, itself.

KARL: It's very painstaking work for him to be able to

secure that skin to the point where he can get

an inked impression that would match up

with an inked fingerprint.

JAMES: It took me about two or three attempts,

but I started getting an identifiable fingerprint.

STEVE: We have a system which is called APHIS,

which anybody that's been fingerprinted

goes into this APHIS system.

And when you submit prints,

it does a check against those prints.

♪

So, the prints come back to Kimberly Holton.

She was a missing 16-year-old girl

from Dover, Delaware.

RESHMI: At this stage, all detectives know about

Kimberly Holton is she's a Caucasian girl with

brown eyes and brown hair, who was reported missing

by a family member in Dover, Delaware,

130 miles northwest from Cape May, New Jersey.

JAMES: That was shocking, to say the least,

and I felt a lot more pressure because I have

a daughter that's right around that age.

So, it was a little tough at first when I first heard

that she was 16 years old.

♪

KARL: Typically juveniles aren't fingerprinted.

But there were three instances that she came

into contact with the Delaware State Police.

It wasn't serious offenses, but it was offenses that

required them in Delaware to obtain fingerprints.

♪

I placed a call to the Delaware State Police

Homicide Unit, and I explained exactly what we had.

STEVE: Kimberly was reported missing from

Dover, Delaware by her foster mother,

Elena Kingsley, on September 30th.

RESHMI: As a matter of protocol,

family notification is typically done in person.

So New Jersey State Police travel to meet with

Kimberly's foster mother in Dover, Delaware.

STEVE: Dover Delaware is a quiet town.

And where Kimberly was residing with the Kingsleys

was a mobile home park.

♪

So, we speak to Miss Kingsley.

We notified her that we recovered Kimberly's body

and she was unfortunately deceased.

She was obviously emotionally upset,

crying, very distraught.

KARL: We learn that Kimberly didn't have

a typical home life.

Her biological mother had her own challenges in life.

She wasn't able to care for Kimberly.

STEVE: Elena Kingsley was, at this point,

we believe the last person to see her alive,

so we're trying to develop a timeline.

What Elena tells us is that she goes in to check on

Kimberly about nine o'clock

on the 29th of September, 2003.

She sees Kimberly asleep,

and she goes about her business.

♪

♪

STEVE: She doesn't realize till the following day,

on September 30, 2003,

that Kimberly is not inside the house.

She had called around the neighborhood,

and some family, and people in the area

to see if anybody had seen her,

and no one did, so she decided to

report her missing.

KARL: We asked her questions about why she may go missing

and who may have wanted to harm her.

STEVE: Elena tells us that she has another daughter

by the name of Nora,

and that Kimberly and Nora do not always get along.

There's some tension there.

It's important, but it's not earth-shattering information

because they're two teenagers

living in the same house.

That's pretty consistent behavior.

But as we were interviewing her,

she did reveal to us that her husband,

Gavin Kingsley, was accused of...

sexually assaulting Kimberly.

♪

So that was kind of a shock to us.

That was kind of like a mic drop, at that point.

This causes a rift, obviously,

in the marriage between Elena and Gavin and,

Elena tells him he has to leave.

So he's staying in another location.

The police are contacted, they investigate,

they charge Gavin with a crime.

The family is obviously upset.

Kimberly's upset, Nora is upset.

It causes a lot of strain on the family.

KARL: Kimberly reported the sexual assault

on the16th of September.

Her foster father, Gavin, was arrested

on the 19th of September.

We knew he was scheduled to appear on the 30th

of September for an arraignment hearing.

That same day, Kimberly's foster mother reported her

missing to the Delaware State Police.

STEVE: So we immediately believe Gavin

to be a possible suspect.

It could be something where he is so mad and upset

that he just wants her out of the picture,

and is just in rage against her,

and he, in fit of rage, killed her.

So, there's definitely motive there.

There's a credible motive there.

We need to figure out if he was

involved in the death of Kimberly.

that Kimberly Holton's foster father,

Gavin Kingsley, could be responsible for strangling

his 16-year-old foster daughter and

dumping her body into the Atlantic Ocean.

At the autopsy, it was fairly obvious that

there was a fracture of the hyoid bone.

The hyoid bone is a very delicate bone in the throat.

And when there's enough pounds per inch,

can be crushed.

And for that reason, it's commonly associated

with manual strangulation.

Gavin Kingsley is our prime suspect.

He's our only suspect at this point.

♪

So we bring Gavin into the state police office

for an interview.

He was staying with an ex-girlfriend.

Gavin Kinsgley was a security guard.

He tried to portray himself almost as if he was

a member of law enforcement.

He was a bit of an authoritarian.

STEVE: He had already known that Kimberly

was found deceased.

He is adamant that he had nothing to do

with Kimberly's death, and he's also adamant

that he was not involved in any type

of sexual assault of Kimberly.

♪

KARL: So, how is it the relationship between

her foster father and her, result in her being found

3.3 nautical miles off the coast of Cape May?

RESHMI: Given that the victim's body was found

floating in the ocean, investigators ask

Gavin Kingsley if he has access to a boat.

KARL: We can't connect him to Cape May.

He doesn't have a boat.

He doesn't have friends with boats.

He's not a boating person.

STEVE: So, we ask him where he was on the night that

Kimberly was reported missing, September 30th.

He tells us that he was at home with the friend

that he was staying with.

Gives us a time, her name, all her information.

So while he's still in our interview room...

we send detectives over to interview this friend.

She gives us the same exact story that Gavin does,

that he was there this specific time

to this specific time,

which matches up exactly what he said so,

if that is in fact true, he wouldn't have been

in the area where Kimberly was at that time.

KARL: The team of detectives came away from that interview

with a feeling that he certainly wasn't necessarily

the person we should be looking at.

♪

STEVE: So we're thinking at this point,

maybe it was a boyfriend who could have

caused that type of injury.

We received some information that Kimberly actually had

a boyfriend by the name of Logan Ashford.

She was dating him for a period of time.

Logan had made some statements to some friends

and different people that if Kimberly ever

broke up with him, he would kill her.

♪

These statements are pretty incriminating,

and we have to determine if Logan

was involved in this crime.

♪

We bring Logan in and

we interview him about these statements.

He's very forthright.

He tells us that, "I did say those things.

I didn't mean it. I was upset because

she had threatened to break up with me."

So we asked Logan where he was

when Kimberly was reported missing.

Logan tells us that when Kimberly

was reported missing, he was actually away,

which was also confirmed by his mom,

just pretty solid alibi.

So, we're just dealing with a sixteen-year-old

emotional kid that is in love with a young lady,

and is worried about them breaking up and makes

probably not the smartest comments in the world.

We strike him off the list.

♪

So, as part of our investigation,

we go out to the mobile home park where Kimberly resided,

and we begin a neighborhood canvass.

As we're walking, a young lady is approaching us.

We introduce ourselves,

begin asking her questions about Kimberly.

She said, "Yeah, I know Kimberly.

Maybe it was a jealous girl's boyfriend

that did this to Kimberly."

So I thought that's just a weird thing

for somebody to say.

We asked who she was.

Then she tells us that she's actually Nora...

Kimberly's foster sister.

Which made that comment concerning.

♪

So, Nora is brought in for questioning,

and we begin to ask her about

her relationship with Kimberly.

She basically paints a picture that

they were best friends.

She does not indicate to us that there's

any type of conflict, or any type of...

problems between the two of them.

Eventually, as we're interviewing her,

she describes that she was upset with Kimberly

over a sweater.

♪

She asked Kimberly if she took it,

and Kimberly denies taking the sweater.

Nora later on finds out that Kimberly had taken it.

And they actually get into an argument over that,

and she said she was always causing issues like that,

"Taking my things,

borrowing things without asking."

So, she does kind of loosen up and kind of

give some more information that it wasn't

this perfect relationship.

KARL: She denied any involvement.

It's one of those interviews where you don't believe

you're getting the full story,

but you can't call her out on it.

STEVE: We additionally asked her:

"Was there anybody else that you could think of

that would have been involved in this,

or anybody else that she was having problems with?"

And she said, "No."

At this point, we're back to square one.

♪

Fortunately for us, we have a team of detectives

back in New Jersey,

working on the forensics part of the investigation.

JAMES: At the time, I'm trying to rack my brain

as to what this trash bag, chain, and duct tape,

what purpose they all served.

I understand the chain weighing down the body.

I understand duct tape,

maybe to hold the trash bags in place,

but I don't understand why there were trash bags,

and I really don't understand why there's such

a length of chain that's just dangling there.

♪

So, I put down the paper that we use in case any piece of

trace evidence might have fallen off of it,

and I put the chain out onto that.

And then I started taking just a wet rag and

wiping pieces of the links of chain.

♪

So, as I'm cleaning the chain,

I started noticing a stamp on each of the links of the

chain that was an "M4," and as I kept cleaning them,

I kept seeing the same stamp.

I didn't find any pieces of trace evidence on it,

so the stamp is now what we have to go with.

KARL: So we asked detectives, as part of assignments,

to research the chain.

They were able to determine who the manufacturer was,

and where those chains were distributed.

Those chains were actually distributed to Lowe's,

Home Depot, Tractor Supply,

and Dover Hardware in the Dover area.

And one of our detectives was able to confirm with the

Lowe's hardware store in Dover, Delaware,

which is very close to where Kimberly lived,

that the day that she was reported missing,

someone purchased 14 or 15 feet of chain,

six to eight Quick Links, and some duct tape,

and two cinder blocks.

RESHMI: Kimberly Holton was last seen by her mom

on September 29th at 9 PM.

The following day, September 30th,

her mother reports Kimberly missing,

and then in the afternoon of that same day,

September 30th, someone buys the lock,

chain, and duct tape at Lowe's that are

subsequently found wrapped around

Kimberly's body.

KARL: So Kimberly, she's found on

the 8th of October.

And by the 10th of October, we knew what store

sold that combination of chains.

And we were able to send detectives to that store

on the 10th to look at their

surveillance video of that purchase.

♪

STEVE: We actually see two males at the

checkout counter purchasing that chain,

the cinder blocks, the clamps,

and the duct tape.

We weren't able to...

positively identify them through this video.

We couldn't see their faces.

But, they look like two younger males,

probably somewhere early to mid 20s.

Dressed normally, nothing out of the ordinary.

KARL: It was not her foster father,

and it didn't appear to be Logan Ashford.

STEVE: We, of course, were hoping that they

used some type of credit card, which they didn't.

They paid in cash.

Still, I'm excited, you know, I'm excited

because we have tangible evidence now,

showing that these two may have, in fact,

been involved in Kimberly's death.

KARL: Who are these guys,

and why are they buying the exact components

that were found on Kimberly Holton's body?

♪

♪

remains wrapped in chains and duct tape

off the coast of Cape May, New Jersey,

detectives need to identify two young men

recorded buying those chains and duct tape

at a Dover, Delaware Lowe's.

KARL: We were able to view the store video and

get good still images from that store video.

About a week after we had the photograph

and had been attempting to try to

identify these people,

we made a decision to release that

surveillance video to the public.

The problem with this method for police is that

you're going to get dozens if not hundreds of...

false leads.

Some are well-intentioned.

You know, people calling in,

and they've misidentified somebody.

In other cases, it's people just looking to

maybe cash in on a possible reward or

just create mischief, for that matter.

Either way, it's gonna eat up a lot of their bandwidth.

STEVE: So, we begin to receive a lot of tips

and information.

Initially, none of them are really viable or panning out.

But then we receive a call...

from a young man who says that,

"I'm one of the people in this video."

KARL: So, Caleb Fenton says, "I don't know what

you're looking for, but that's me in the video."

And he agrees to come in and talk to the detectives.

♪

STEVE: As soon as I see him, I'm like,

this is the guy that was one of the people at the

Lowe's home improvement store.

So, we know that he's being honest,

that he was in that video.

He is visibly shaking, breathing heavy.

♪

So, Caleb tells us that he receives a phone call

from a gentleman by the name of Jacob Jones,

who's a friend of his.

Jacob asks him to help him buy some chains,

cinder blocks, duct tape, and these clamps

to make equipment in the backyard

to use for working out, lifting weights.

KARL: He provided a scenario

where they broke the blocks up at his house

to create homemade workout equipment,

where they were gonna use a broomstick and suspend

cinder blocks from chains on each side of the broomstick

to create a weight bar with weights on it.

They broke the blocks up at his house,

and it didn't work.

They weren't able to break the blocks up the right way.

And then, Jacob Jones

left with the chain and the links.

STEVE: So while we still have Caleb in custody,

we send detectives to his residence to try and

verify the story that he's giving us.

If you break a cinder block apart,

there should be some remnants on the ground

where it was done.

The detectives go out there and there was none of that.

They find no indication of anything remotely related

to what we were looking for.

So, we knew that Caleb's story was not truthful.

We confront him with that information,

and he knows that we know he's lying.

But then he gives us the information that

Jacob Jones is Nora's boyfriend...

♪

Who is Kimberly's foster sister,

which is shocking news.

Now we know that there's a direct connection between

Jacob Jones and Kimberly, herself.

So, this could be motive 'cause we're going back to

some type of animosity between Nora and Kimberly.

Then it all starts to paint a picture that

maybe Jacob did this because of

a conflict between Kimberly and Nora.

KARL: Based on the interview of Caleb Fenton,

we didn't find any information that allowed us

to hold him or charge him for any offenses.

They had to release him.

♪

STEVE: So, we bring Nora in for more questioning.

♪

Now we want to know why she didn't tell us that

Jacob Jones was her boyfriend or

she even had a boyfriend.

She tells us that he is a student

at Delaware State University.

We show her pictures in the video at the Lowe's store,

and she's trying to tell us, "Well,

I don't know if that's really him or not."

STEVE: We are questioning her further.

She begins to express that she was actually upset with

Kimberly for causing a lot of the issues that were

occurring within that family household.

KARL: At this point, she's very forthcoming

about that she doesn't like Kimberly.

Her involvement couldn't be ruled out,

but they didn't get anything from her that clearly

suggested she was involved in this.

STEVE: At this point, we had nothing to hold her on,

but we knew that we had to find Jacob and bring him in.

KARL: We knew that he was a student.

STEVE: As we look into Delaware State University,

we find out that he is in the aeronautics program...

and very bright.

He seems to be doing very well for himself so,

it's confusing to us why he would be

involved in this situation.

So then we learned that he actually is

a flight instructor.

♪

KARL: The fact that he was a pilot certainly changes

the dynamic of what we're looking at.

Prior to that, we were looking at people that

possibly had a boat.

We found no connections to a boat,

but now you introduce this issue of a plane.

♪

STEVE: Because of his status as a flight instructor,

he has access to go and rent and obtain planes

for his own pleasure, or teaching lessons.

Once we realized that he has access to planes,

basically as he pleases, somebody brings it up:

"What if he threw her out of a plane?"

♪

And we're kind of like, "Well, is that even possible?"

♪

it all made perfect sense to me.

Post-mortem, we have a basal skull fracture,

most likely from a high altitude.

And we're thinking, it's starting to make

a little more sense now.

If Kimberly was killed,

thrown out of a plane over the ocean,

and that's what caused that fracture.

As crazy as it sounds,

it's starting to kind of make sense.

A team of detectives went out.

They were able to locate Jacob Jones...

and he agreed to come back to the State Police

Headquarters of Delaware to be interviewed.

STEVE: Jacob Jones comes in.

He is in almost a defensive posture.

He's slumped over,

staring directly down at the floor,

not making any eye contact.

No emotion whatsoever.

STEVE: Jacob gives us the same version of the story

that Caleb gave us earlier about using the items that

they had purchased at Lowe's for workout equipment.

STEVE: We ask him about his relationship with Kimberly,

his relationship with Nora.

And he knows that he can't answer these questions...

without implicating himself in this crime.

STEVE: And we're like, "You're not under arrest.

We're just trying to have a conversation here."

KARL: He terminated the interview by asking for

legal counsel.

STEVE: At this point in the investigation,

we don't have enough to hold Jacob Jones.

We don't have enough to charge him.

So, unfortunately, we have to let him go,

and it's...

very, very frustrating.

KARL: In answer to our question as to

how did Kimberly end up in the water,

certainly Jacob Jones is the prime suspect now.

We were looking at people that possibly had a boat.

We then focused our attention on him and

his use of airplanes.

STEVE: We go to the airport and we spoke to

his supervisor, who explained that

over the past several weeks,

Jacob's demeanor had changed.

He normally was very particular on time,

methodical in everything that he did.

Well, all of a sudden,

he stopped showing up for work.

When he was there,

he was very agitated, distracted,

which is indicative of somebody that has something

going on in their personal lives that's

distracting them from what they're doing.

We begin to look into his flight records,

and we find that on the night that Kimberly was

reported missing, at approximately 11 PM,

Jacob signs out a plane from the airport.

It was one of those small engine Cessna type planes

where it has the sliding...

door opens.

And, takes off from that airport, and returns back

maybe one or two in the morning.

That's during the time period of when

Kimberly was reported missing.

So from there, we begin to try and paint a picture of

where that plane actually went.

We had contacted the local airport, the Air Force,

trying to see if that plane was captured

on radar somewhere.

Several of the detectives make contact with a

Air Force base out west,

and are able to determine that

Jacob Jones' plane

was captured on radar.

♪

It takes off from the airport in Dover Delaware.

It flies over the Atlantic Ocean,

does several circles in the Atlantic Ocean,

and then returns back to the airport and lands.

So, once we learned that,

we had asked the Coast Guard

to give us patterns of currents.

We took the area where the radar showed that

he circled in the plane several times.

If the body were dropped into the ocean from the plane...

the body would have been taken by the current and

would have been located where it was found 3.3 miles

off the coast of Cape May.

JAMES: In my mind, I knew that this

is how this happened.

The injury to the back of her skull absolutely was

being dropped out of an airplane.

Also, the fact that they had bought not only the chains,

the duct tape,

but they had bought these cinder blocks.

Now I know the cinder blocks were probably

attached with the chains so the body

would sink to the bottom.

♪

STEVE: We present all these facts to the

district attorney's office, and they authorize

charges for murder against Jacob Jones.

[Sirens]

So, we're going to arrest him on these charges.

And then we receive a call from the

Delaware troopers that...

were dispatched to Jacob Jones' house.

[Gunshot]

♪

Jacob committed suicide inside the house.

♪

I don't even remember what I said.

I, I think I was in shock.

I couldn't believe it. So, we go there.

Jacob was in his room, deceased.

And Jacob's parents tell us that

he had admitted to killing Kimberly.

That he was, in fact, the person on that

video surveillance buying those items,

and he bought those items with the intention of

killing Kimberly.

Even with this confession prefacing his suicide,

police can't independently corroborate that confession,

and that's in large part because that they have

no idea what the possible motive could have been.

They have no idea why Jacob Jones might've

wanted to murder Kimberly Holton.

STEVE: Jacob told his parents that there were

several issues that Kimberly was causing

between himself and Nora.

But, whatever the final actual motive is,

they don't know.

He goes in his room,

and the parents are kind of in shock.

Short time later, they hear a gunshot.

[Gunshot]

Go into the room and find that Jacob committed suicide.

Rather than go to jail,

Jacob Jones took his own life.

But even if Jacob Jones was responsible

for killing Kimberly,

and throwing her body from a plane,

there's another question detectives need to solve:

Could he have pulled off this crime alone?

STEVE: Jacob wasn't a big guy, maybe...

medium height, 140 pounds,

so he wasn't a large stature person.

To lift and carry basically a full grown person,

wrapped in chains, would take some strength.

Fortunately, we were lucky in some ways

because Jacob Jones did tell his parents

some very important information.

He admits that he had help

in killing Kimberly Holton.

We need to identify who this person is.

a friend of his by the name of Michael Keyser.

So, we do a little background on Michael Keyser.

We find out that he's a young man,

local to the area.

No criminal history, no prior acts of violence.

Nothing that would indicate

that he would be involved in a crime like this.

♪

We didn't know at that point where Michael Keyser was,

so we had Jacob Jones' father

put a call into Michael, and give him the news

that Jacob had committed suicide,

and that he had left a suicide note

implicating Michael as being involved assisting with

the murder of Kimberly Holton.

♪

Michael comes into the station.

He's very nervous, shaking.

Just scared to death, basically.

We begin to question him about his role.

STEVE: He admits that he received a call

from Jacob Jones.

Jacob asked him to meet him.

And, they were going to pick up Kimberly

at the mobile home park.

♪

Then they went to a motel not far from there,

which is typically used by college kids to party.

They rented a room.

Michael Keyser indicated that they both

had sex with Kimberly.

STEVE: I always thought that there was some type of

sexual act that happened,

whether it was a forced sexual assault

or consensual.

Unfortunately, we will never have that confirmed by

the forensics part of the investigation.

At some point, Kimberly says that

she has to use the restroom.

She goes into the bathroom, and then Jacob

tells Michael that he wants to kill her,

and he needs his help.

Jacob Jones wanted to kill Kimberly because of the

turmoil she was causing to his girlfriend.

STEVE: He says that Jacob threatens to kill him as well.

So then, all of a sudden,

he decides to agree to help him.

When she comes out of the bathroom,

Jacob knocks her to the ground.

Michael Keyser indicates that he held her feet.

She began struggling.

Jacob used the phone cord,

wrapped it around her neck,

and began to strangle her.

Then used the pillow to put it over her face

to muffle some of the noise.

And, she struggles for a while.

After a certain period of time,

she just stops moving.

And then Jacob checks her pulse.

She had no heartbeat.

KARL: He did deny participating in the

disposal of her body.

But he confessed he participated in her murder.

STEVE: Michael Keyser stated that Kimberly

was killed sometime after 2 AM.

They put the body into the back of Jacob's car,

and at that point he claims that he had

nothing else to do with it.

He leaves and goes home.

RESHMI: About 12 hours later,

in the afternoon of September 30th,

Jacob goes shopping at Lowe's

with his friend Caleb Fenton.

Caleb Fenton claims to have no knowledge of

what happened the night before.

STEVE: Then Jacob went to the airport.

He rented a plane around 11 PM.

Took the plane out over the ocean...

♪

Discarded the body.

And landed back between 1 and 2 AM.

Michael Keyser is adamant that

he wasn't involved in that part of it,

but I really think that he probably was involved in

loading the body into the plane

and maybe even on the plane, discarding it.

Michael Keyser's admission and

statement to us helps us

put all the evidence and pieces together as to what

happened to Kimberly and how the body was discarded.

What we believe happened was

Kimberly was bound with the duct tape,

the chains over top of the duct tape,

the chains were looped through the cinder blocks,

and then clamped back together,

holding the cinder blocks onto the chain.

And, when the body was dumped out,

what Jacob Jones believed would happen was

the cinder blocks will cause her to sink to the bottom of

the ocean and hold the body down there.

JAMES: But when the body hit the water,

the cinder blocks shattered upon impact.

They probably ripped the bag upon impact also.

And just the cinder blocks are strewn about

the ocean floor about 3.3 miles out.

Having a rock crab gnawing on her

means to us that she was definitely

at the bottom for a period of time.

But, as part of the decomposition,

your body produce gases.

And when you are in submerged in water

and there's nowhere for these gases to release,

it's just going to continue to expand inside the body

until there's some type of release.

I don't care if you're 3000 feet in the water

or 10 feet in the water,

if the body starts filling with gases,

no matter what weight it has,

it's going to come floating up.

The investigators in Delaware

did a search of the hotel room,

but probably eight days later, at least.

So, you know, I don't know how many times that room

may or may not have been cleaned.

So, nothing was found in that room that

would have tied it into this crime.

STEVE: We'll never know the exact motive

as to why Jacob did this.

♪

One of the theories was there was some type of

sexual relationship between Kimberly and Jacob,

and at some point, Kimberly was going to

expose that relationship to Jacob's girlfriend, Nora.

So that would be a huge motive for him

to want to keep her quiet.

And another theory was that Kimberly's foster sister,

Nora, went to Jacob and...

she wanted Jacob to

help her get rid of Kimberly.

And Jacob obliged.

We could never prove that.

Nora was never charged with a crime.

♪

♪

STEVE: Caleb Fenton, who helped Jacob Jones

buy the supplies, was never charged.

JAMES: There would not have been a case without the

evidence that was her and with her.

To me, the evidence, as few as it was with her,

and as contaminated as it was from being in the water,

just became everything to

the success of this case.

♪

♪

KARL: With a case like this, you have your initial

feelings of seeing a victim that's just,

you know, thrown in the trash, basically,

and your responsibility to speak for that victim.

I can only hope that her family and friends have

taken some solace in the fact that

her killers were identified,

and one of them is still serving a sentence

for that murder.

JAMES: 21 years later.

Now, I still can't drive into Cape May without

thinking of Kimberly Holton.

♪

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