Solved By: a golf club cover
POLICE WERE CONVINCED AN ARIZONA MAN HAD KILLED HIS EX – BUT THEY NEEDED PROOF
In July 2008, Carol Kennedy was on the phone to her mother Ruth when the call was abruptly cut off. Just before the line went dead, Ruth heard her daughter utter two words: “Oh no”.
These would turn out to be the final words Carol would speak to anyone outside of her killer. Her body was found in her home in Prescott, Arizona, after her mother called the police. She had been brutally beaten, and her skull shattered.
Investigators deduced that the extensive wounds had been inflicted by a golf club – specifically, a 7-wood.
After ruling out Carol’s partner, who had been picking up his son at the time of the murder, suspicion fell on Steven Democker, Carol’s ex-husband. As well as having intimate knowledge of Carol’s routines, he was heavily in debt and struggling to keep paying
Carol $6,000 a month in alimony.
It was also believed that he still stood to benefit from her $750k life insurance policy.
Four months after her murder, Democker was arrested. It was alleged he had plotted to carry out the crime when he knew she would be at home alone, before attempting to stage the scene – the search history on his computer showed results for “how to make a homicide look like an accident”. But while the police were certain they’d got their man, the case against him was almost exclusively circumstantial.
CLUES ADD UP
Despite the bloody nature of the crime, none of Democker’s DNA was found at the scene. However, DNA from several other people was found beneath Carol’s fingernails. Painstaking searches of Democker’s car, home and office turned up no other forensic evidence connecting him to his ex-wife’s murder. There were also no eyewitnesses to the crime.
The lack of physical and forensic evidence,
on top of Democker’s repeated assertions that he was innocent, made it difficult for investigators – although there was plenty of suspicious activity. Democker had been out of phone contact for hours after the attack, which was highly unusual for him. Ruth had attempted to call him after she got cut off while talking to her daughter, but was unable to reach him. Shoe prints matching ones belonging to Democker were found near the house, as well as tyre tracks matching a bike he rode at the time. He was also alleged to have arranged for his daughter Charlotte to send an anonymous email to police, claiming Phoenix gang members had killed Carol.
Democker was also known to have been unfaithful during their marriage – the Dean at Prescott College, he was said to have slept with two students who worked as nannies for the family. But while he was found to have scratches all over his body after the crime – which police believed were inflicted by Carol while fighting for her life – Democker maintained he got them during a bike ride through the woods. What the investigators needed was a killer piece of evidence.
And that came back to the golf club.
THE MISSING PIECE
Democker was a keen golfer, and a search of his home showed he had a complete collection of clubs – but one was now missing. What the police did find was a club cover for a 7-wood, which exactly matched the suspected murder weapon. It was also discovered Democker had stashed money and clothes at a course near his home. It was their bingo moment.
In June 2013, Democker, then 60, finally went on trial. He maintained his innocence throughout and pleaded not guilty. But although the actual murder weapon was never recovered, the cover provided the prosecuting team with just enough ammunition to obtain a conviction. He was found guilty by a jury and given a life sentence, as well as 20 additional years for six other charges. He remains incarcerated to this day, despite appealing, and looks likely to spend the remainder of his life behind bars. Carol’s brother
John said, “He murdered a beautiful woman, and he did it for the lowest of reasons – for money.”