Mother-Son Duo Faces Day in L.A. Court

The unmade bed caught Linda Kazdin by surprise. Her father, David, had been trying to sell his house and was keeping it tidy for potential buyers. Then she noticed the blinking light on the answering machine, with more than 10 unheard messages.

When she learned a short time later that her father had been killed, she didn’t hesitate to tell detectives where they should begin their investigation: Sante and Kenneth Kimes.

The Kimeses were captured in New York four months later, on the same day an elderly widow disappeared from her home. They became the most notorious mother and son duo in the nation when they were convicted of killing socialite Irene Silverman in a plot to swindle her out of a multimillion-dollar mansion. Now, two years later, the Kimeses are facing trial in Los Angeles in connection with the Kazdin slaying, in a case that prosecutors say involves an intricate scheme of forgery, arson and fraudulent loans.

The Los Angeles County Grand Jury indicted the Kimeses last month on charges of murdering Kazdin, 63, who ran a photocopying business out of his home. Both Kenneth Kimes, 27, and Sante Kimes, 67, have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to return to court today for a pretrial hearing. If convicted, they could face the death penalty.

Recently unveiled grand jury transcripts describe in detail the March 13, 1998, slaying and the Kimeses’ alleged motive. Much of that detail comes from a witness who told grand jurors that he and Kenneth Kimes had wrapped the body in plastic bags, put it in the trunk of Kazdin’s Jaguar and discarded it in a trash bin.

Prosecutors say the Kimeses killed Kazdin because he discovered that they had taken out a $280,000 loan in his name and he had reported the fraud to bank officials. They allege that Kenneth Kimes pulled the trigger, while his mother orchestrated the murder.

According to the transcripts, Kenneth drove to Kazdin’s house in Granada Hills with Shawn Little, who had been hired by the Kimeses to work on their cars. Little testified that he waited outside while Kenneth entered the house. Then Little said he heard a popping sound, “like a gun going off.” Kimes waved him inside, where Little said he saw a man lying on the floor and gasping for air. Kimes was holding a small automatic gun and said he had shot the man, the transcripts say.

“He told me to help him with this body, to help him clean up and help him put this body in bags,” Little said.

Little, who has received immunity for his testimony, said Kimes wiped down the counters and ordered Little to look for checkbooks and bank statements. Little said he then left in the Jaguar and Kimes drove away in a Lincoln Continental. They bought new pants and watched part of a movie before dropping Kazdin’s body in a trash bin and the dismantled gun in a storm drain, Little said. Finally, he said, they abandoned the Jaguar, stopped to buy a $100 bouquet of flowers for Sante Kimes and returned to the Bel-Air house where they were staying.

Body in Trash Bin

Kazdin’s body was discovered the next day in a trash bin near Los Angeles International Airport. He had been shot once in the back of the head with a 22-caliber bullet. Sante Kimes, who has two sons, has a criminal history dating back to the 1960s that includes convictions for petty larceny, credit card fraud and stealing a mink coat from a piano bar. She was also convicted in 1986 on slaveholding charges after treating her maids like indentured servants. Her then-husband, Kenneth Kimes Sr., who built luxury hotels, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge

After her husband’s death in 1994, Sante Kimes’ crimes took a more violent turn, authorities say. “They’ve been deemed these grifters or drifters,” LAPD Det. Dennis English said of Sante and Kenneth Jr. “But a true grifter is in it for the con, not for the kill. What makes somebody jump from just fraud to murder I don’t know.”

Sante Kimes is also suspected of being involved in the disappearance of a bank official in the Cayman Islands and of a man who told federal agents that he had burned one of the Kimeses’ houses for them.

Greedy and Vicious

Jeanne King, who wrote a book about the pair, said Sante is a greedy, vicious woman who manipulated others into helping with her deceitful schemes. “She has this knack of getting people to do things for her that they wouldn’t normally do,” said King, author of “Dead End.”

Sante’s older son, Kent Walker, said that at his mother’s request, he had begun shoplifting and breaking into houses by the time he was 10 years old. After years of fighting, he finally escaped her grasp and his younger brother then assumed the role of his mother’s accomplice, he said.

“They became two peas in a pod,” said Walker, who wrote a book about his life, “Son of a Grifter.” “Beating the system was no problem. Mom was a magician at that. He fell right into it.”

The young Kenneth Kimes attended UC Santa Barbara, but dropped out in 1996 and was arrested on suspicion of robbery and assault in Florida the next year. His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Regina Laughney, said she hopes that jurors will be able to separate her client’s case from that of his mother, who is representing herself.

David Kazdin met and became friendly with Kenneth Kimes Sr. in the 1970s. Years later, Kazdin agreed to let the Kimeses put his name on the deed for their Las Vegas house. Then in 1997, Sante Kimes took out a $280,000 loan on that house without Kazdin’s permission. She directed a notary, Nanette Wetkowski, to forge Kazdin’s name to the application, according to the grand jury testimony.

The loan was granted, and Sante Kimes had most of the money wired to Wetkowski’s Las Vegas bank account and eventually to the Cayman Islands, prosecutors said. She directed the bank not to send any loan paperwork to Kazdin’s Los Angeles address, they said.

The plans stalled when Kazdin accidentally received a payment book in January 1998, telling him that he owed money on his loan. He called the bank, saying that the loan was fraudulent and that he had not signed any application, according to grand jury testimony. The bank froze Wetkowski’s account and began an investigation.

Meanwhile, Sante Kimes transferred the house into the name of Robert McCarren, a homeless man who was living with the pair and doing some cleaning and cooking. Sante and Kenneth had McCarren apply for a $500,000 homeowner insurance policy, prosecutors said, then tried another scam. They moved furniture and valuables out of the Las Vegas house just days before it was gutted by fire, according to the grand jury testimony.

Sante Kimes ordered McCarren to try to claim the insurance money for them, prosecutors said. But the firm wouldn’t release the money because the fire appeared to have been intentionally set and the bank was investigating the loan.

“It became known to Sante Kimes and Kenneth Kimes that David Kazdin was standing in their way for half a million dollars,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Eleanor Hunter told the grand jury.

Desperate Letters

Sante Kimes started sending desperate letters, signed by McCarren, urging the bank to stop the investigation, prosecutors said, and directed Wetkowski to call Kazdin, who became nervous and a little frightened. The Kimeses traveled from Las Vegas to Los Angeles in February 1998, sending Wetkowski to Kazdin’s door one day to persuade him to tell the bank that he had authorized the loan, prosecutors said.

Phillip Eaton, Kazdin’s attorney and a close friend, said in an interview that Kazdin had asked for his help in dealing with the Kimeses and the loan. “He was annoyed and just didn’t want anything to do with her,” Eaton said. In one phone call, Kazdin said of Sante Kimes, “This woman is crazy. She will do anything,” according to Eaton.

Linda Kazdin told the grand jury about the Kimeses’ attempts to reach her father and reported a frightening comment he had made to her just days before his death: “Don’t worry. Nothing will happen while you’re here.”

After Kazdin’s death, the Kimeses left Los Angeles. LAPD detectives followed, trying to track them down as they traveled to Nevada, Florida and Louisiana. Detectives nearly caught them in Baton Rouge, where they allegedly used a false name to buy a motor home. But by the time the police arrived, the Kimeses had departed.

“We always seemed to be a day or two, if not a week, behind them,” English said. “It became very frustrating.”

At the beginning of July 1998, Los Angeles police detectives learned that the Kimeses were in New York. The mother and son had reportedly called a Las Vegas friend, Stan Patterson, and asked him to travel to New York to manage an apartment building for them. Patterson informed police, who were waiting when the meeting took place at the New York Hilton on July 5--six hours later than planned.

Police arrested the Kimeses on a Utah warrant charging them with writing a bad check to buy a luxury car and soon began investigating their connection with Silverman, an 82-year-old widow and their landlady. The Kimeses had Silverman’s keys, passport and checks at the time of their arrest.

Guilty of Murder

After a sensational three-month trial, a New York jury found the Kimeses guilty in May 2000 of murdering Silverman, even though her body was never found. Mother and son were also convicted of robbery, burglary, conspiracy and forgery, and each was sentenced to more than 120 years in prison. They were extradited to Los Angeles last year.

Mel A. Sachs, who represented Sante Kimes in New York, said both the conviction and the publicity could have a “devastating impact” on the Los Angeles case.

In the coming trial, prosecutors are expected to present numerous witnesses and show jurors lists, letters and notes written by the Kimeses that the prosecution says point to their guilt. Sante Kimes wrote in one letter to Wetkowski after the Los Angeles murder, “It’s urgent not to talk, period” and “You did nothing wrong. David Kazdin always authorized it.”

Prosecutors say another entry in one of the notebooks seized from the Kimeses’ car in New York read: “Kill D.K.”