The Forever Home (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

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[2] On the night of January 16, 1984, 9 -year -old Annie Swartz woke up suddenly to the sound of voices coming from somewhere outside of her door.

[3] When she got out of bed and walked into the hallway, she realized those voices were coming from downstairs and they weren't people talking, they were people screaming at each other.

[4] However, just as quickly as the yelling started, it stopped and the house went quiet.

[5] Annie was still curious what was going on, so she tiptoed her way down the stairs, but when she got to the bottom, she didn't see anyone and the house was still quiet.

[6] Then from somewhere outside the house, she heard a sound.

[7] When she turned around to see what it was, what she saw scared her so badly that she instantly sprinted back upstairs, leapt into her bed, and pulled the covers up over her head.

[8] Annie would eventually fall asleep after convincing herself that what she had seen was just a bad dream.

[9] But as she would learn the next morning, that was no dream, and her real -life nightmare was only just beginning.

[10] But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

[11] So, if that's of interest to you, please put an almost negligible amount, of fox urine in the Amazon Music Follow buttons morning coffee.

[12] Okay, let's get into today's story.

[13] I'm Dan Tiberski.

[14] In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York.

[15] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[16] What's the answer?

[17] And what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

[18] Hysterical.

[19] A new podcast from Wondry and Pineapple Street Studios.

[20] Binge all episodes of Hesterical early and ad -free on Wondery Plus.

[21] On January 16th, 1984, 43 -year -old Kay Swartz sat down to dinner with her 51 -year -old husband Bob and their kids, Larry, and Annie.

[22] The kitchen of their split -level home had a window that looked out into the backyard and they could all see snow falling outside.

[23] The Swartz's neighborhood in Cape St. Clair, Maryland, a suburb of Annapolis, was quiet and secluded, but the snow made it feel even quieter and further away from the rest of the world than usual.

[24] And Bob worried that if the weather got any worse, he might have trouble driving into work the following day.

[25] But then he heard Kay starting to pray, so he looked away from the window and bowed his head.

[26] Kay finished her short prayer and then the rest of the family said amen, and then they all started eating.

[27] Dinner time with the family was always Kay's favorite part of the day.

[28] Ever since she was young, she dreamed of having a close -knit family that sat down together every night to share a meal and talk about how their days had gone.

[29] And now, Kay's dream had come true.

[30] She watched as her 17 -year -old son Larry and her nine -year -old daughter Annie dug into their dinner, and she looked over at Bob and smiled.

[31] Bob took a drink and then smiled back.

[32] Dinner with the family was his favorite time too, because just like Kay, he'd always wanted to have a house full of kids.

[33] In fact, it was Kay and Bob's shared love of family that had first drawn them to each other when they met in graduate school at the University of Maryland 16 years earlier.

[34] At least that's what they told all of their friends.

[35] The truth was, the first thing that had drawn Bob to Kay was her looks.

[36] The first time he saw her in one of the campus parking lots, he couldn't stop staring.

[37] Kay was five foot, ten inches tall, with long legs and a long neck.

[38] Her brown hair was cropped short, and she had a perfect smile.

[39] Bob thought she looked like a model.

[40] And Bob, generally speaking, did not have the confidence to talk to women who looked like models.

[41] He was short and stocky, and he'd lost most of his hair in his early.

[42] 20s, which had always made him a little insecure, but once he'd seen Kay, he couldn't stop thinking about her.

[43] So when he saw her again eating lunch in the university cafeteria, he took a deep breath, walked right up to her, and started a conversation.

[44] And Bob would always be happy that he'd taken that risk, because he and Kay had hit it off immediately and discovered they had a lot in common.

[45] They were both devoutly religious, they believed education was the key to success, and they put their love of family above all else.

[46] And so soon after that first meeting, they were spending as much time together as they could.

[47] And within a few months, they were already planning their future together.

[48] But not long after they'd gotten married, Kay learned that she was not capable of having children of her own.

[49] This made her feel like a failure, like she was letting Bob down, and that their dream of having a big happy family would now never come true.

[50] But after Kay and Bob spent time talking and praying together, they started to look at this seemingly bad news as a sort of gift.

[51] They decided that if they couldn't have kids of their own, they would adopt and provide a loving home for children who had never been fortunate enough to have families of their own.

[52] So in 1973, they adopted Larry when he was six years old, and when Larry arrived, he felt like he was the luckiest kid in the world.

[53] He had spent his childhood in and out of foster care and never felt like he had parents, but now Kay and Bob had taken him in and he was sure he had found his forever home.

[54] And Larry was everything Kay and Bob could have hoped for in a son.

[55] He was sweet, polite, fun to be around, and he even enjoyed going to church with his parents.

[56] Larry's adoption was such a success that pretty much right away, Kay and Bob began talking about adopting more children.

[57] And six years after Larry joined the family, Kay and Bob adopted Annie from South Korea when she was four years old.

[58] Annie, like Larry, was just incredible to be around from the moment she arrived at their home.

[59] Her smile was infectious, and she was smart, curious, and always happy.

[60] Bob and Kay adored Annie, and Larry made it his mission to be the best big brother he could possibly be to his new sister.

[61] So, back in the present in 1984, while Kay ate her dinner with her family that night, she was very happy with how her life as a mother had gone so far.

[62] But, deep down, she couldn't help but feel a sense of loss, because there was one empty chair at the dinner table where Kay and Bob's third adopted child used to sit.

[63] Less than two years after Kay and Bob had adopted Larry, and about four years before they adopted Annie, they adopted another boy named Michael.

[64] At the time, Michael was eight years old, about six months older than Larry, and Kay and Bob hoped the two boys would become fast friends and soon grow into devoted brothers.

[65] But Michael struggled to adapt to his new life.

[66] His birth parents had abandoned him when he was an infant, and by the time he was adopted by Kay and Bob, he'd already lived in six different foster homes and developed a serious distrust of authority figures.

[67] And as a result, Michael clashed with his adoptive father, Bob, right away, mainly because Bob could be strict, especially when it came to school.

[68] And when Michael struggled in school, Bob would yell at him and ground him, and this would cause Michael to act out.

[69] And while Kay wasn't as strict as Bob, she was still a high school teacher, and she took education very seriously.

[70] So she couldn't understand why Michael didn't even seem to care about his grades.

[71] But when she tried to talk to him about it, he would get frustrated with her, and before long, they'd be shouting at each other.

[72] From the beginning, things between Michael and his new parents just didn't seem to be working out.

[73] And when Annie joined the family, in late 1978, the Michael situation got much worse.

[74] Michael accused Bob and Kay of loving Annie more than they loved.

[75] loved him, and Michael just seemed to go out of his way to start arguments with his parents, which made life very challenging for everyone in that house, especially Larry, because all Larry wanted was for everyone to be happy and to get along.

[76] And so, when Michael fought with Kay and Bob, Larry would try to talk Michael down and keep the peace, but Larry, who was sweet and soft -spoken, rarely had any luck calming Michael down, or getting his parents to go easier on Michael.

[77] It was like both sides were unwilling to compromise on any issue.

[78] As Michael got older, the arguments between him and his parents became more frequent and more heated.

[79] And when Michael became a teenager, he started getting in trouble at school for fighting, and when he got home from school, he would yell and scream at his parents almost every day.

[80] Around this time, Kay and Bob started to feel like they had totally lost control of their second son.

[81] Then, on a night in 1980, when Michael was 14 years old, the tension between he and his parents reached a breaking point.

[82] That night, Michael had asked Kay and Bob if he could go hang out with some of his friends, but they had told him no, that he needed to stay home and do his schoolwork.

[83] Michael was furious, and after screaming at his parents, he just snuck out of the house and met up with his friends.

[84] But when he got home later that night, Kay and Bob were waiting for him by the front door, and they told him that they had had enough of his bad behavior and that he was not allowed to come back inside.

[85] And they didn't just mean for that night.

[86] They meant forever.

[87] They were disowning him.

[88] The following day, Kay and Bob contacted social services and Michael was taken away and sent to a reform school, which is an institution where youth offenders are sent as an alternative to prison.

[89] Kay felt absolutely terrible about this decision, but with Michael now gone, at least Larry and Annie would hopefully have a happier, healthier, and less disruptive home.

[90] Now sitting at the kitchen table, staring at Michael's empty seat, Kay tried to remind herself that that decision she and her husband had made a few years earlier had been the only decision they could have made.

[91] After all, they had recently learned from social services that Michael, who was now 17, had to be moved from the Reform School to a mental institution because of his erratic behavior.

[92] And so, at least to Kay and Bob, this only seemed to prove that Michael would not have worked out long term in their family.

[93] But deep down, whenever Kay thought about Michael, she couldn't help but feel like a failure.

[94] That night after dinner, Bob got up from the table and headed to his home office that he'd set up in a small room located in the basement.

[95] Bob had gotten in on the ground floor of the growing computer industry, and he enjoyed the work and the money it brought in for him and his family.

[96] But the job sometimes required him to do work from home late into the night.

[97] And Kay knew that once Bob disappeared into his basement office, there was a good chance the rest of the family would not see him until the following morning.

[98] So Kay cleared the kitchen table with Larry's help, and then she and Annie headed upstairs.

[99] As Kay helped Annie get ready for bed, Larry came into Annie's bedroom and said good night to her before he walked back into the hall and headed for his own room.

[100] Kay gave Annie a kiss, said good night, and headed out into the hall just a moment after Larry had.

[101] Annie heard the sound of her brother's bedroom door shutting, and she heard her mother walking down the stairs.

[102] And soon after that, Annie's eyes got heavy, and she fell asleep.

[103] But then, a couple of hours later, at around 11 .30 p .m., Annie suddenly woke up because she heard what she thought were the sound of voices in the hall right outside her room.

[104] So Annie rubbed her eyes, climbed out of bed, and stumbled to her door still half asleep, But when she opened her door, she realized the voices were not coming from the hallway, they were coming from downstairs.

[105] And the voices she heard were not people talking, but rather people screaming.

[106] Annie took a step into the hall and instantly the screaming stopped.

[107] But Annie was still very worried and wanted to know what was going on, so she slowly walked downstairs, but when she got down there, the first floor was quiet and deserted.

[108] And as she stood there looking around in the dark, she suddenly thought she heard something outside the house.

[109] So she walked through the living room to a sliding glass door that looked out into the backyard where she heard the sound and the moonlight it was bouncing off the snow and created just enough light for Annie to get a good look at the backyard.

[110] And what she saw out there terrified her.

[111] In fact, Annie, after seeing it, she would turn and run back upstairs, dive into her bed and pull the covers up over her head.

[112] And as she lay there, she told herself that this could not be real.

[113] that this had to be a bad dream.

[114] The following morning, Annie woke up and the house felt cold and quiet.

[115] She thought about what she'd seen the night before, but she was sure now that it really must have just been a nightmare.

[116] Because if it hadn't been, if it had been real, wouldn't her brother or parents have come and got her and told her what was going on?

[117] Feeling somewhat reassured by this thought, Annie got out of bed and walked into the hall.

[118] She called out for her parents, but no one answered, so Annie walked downstairs to see what where people were.

[119] But when she didn't see or hear anyone on the first floor, she started to get scared.

[120] So Annie ran back up the stairs to Larry's room.

[121] She opened the door and she found him asleep in his bed.

[122] She shook him awake and when he rolled over, she told him that she couldn't find their parents.

[123] Larry could tell that Annie was definitely scared and so immediately became the big brother and tried to calm her down by telling her everything was okay and that their parents likely had just gone outside for a minute and they'd be back soon.

[124] Then he climbed out of his bed, took his little sister's hand, and together they walked downstairs.

[125] But when they got downstairs, Larry happened to look out the kitchen window into the backyard, and when he did, he stopped moving.

[126] He pressed his face against the glass and squinted to get a clear view of the yard, and when he did, his eyes went wide, and he instinctively reached over and covered Annie's eyes with his hand, so she couldn't see what he was seeing.

[127] Then he picked his sister up, and he ran to the phone to call 911.

[128] And as he ran, neither he, nor Annie seemed to notice the red drops all over everything.

[129] A 31 -year -old detective from the Anne of Arundel County Police, named Gary Barr, arrived at the neat little home in the quiet suburban neighborhood, and right away, the officers who'd already responded to Larry's frantic 911 call led the detective into the family's backyard.

[130] And when Detective Barr got out there and saw the scene, he just stopped and stared.

[131] Like Larry, the detective had a hard time processing.

[132] what was in front of him.

[133] Detective Barr was a former Marine, and he'd seen some gruesome things during his time in the military, but he'd never seen anything like this.

[134] The ground in front of him, about 10 feet away from the sliding glass door at the back of the house, was covered in a dark red slush, from where massive amounts of blood had mixed with the snow overnight.

[135] And just beyond the bloody slush, a few feet ahead of him, he saw a dead body partially covered in fresh snow.

[136] The detective took a deep breath of cold air, then slowly circled around the blood -soaked part of the yard and approached the body.

[137] The body belonged to Kaye Swartz.

[138] She was lying face down in the snow, her neck was covered in blood, and she was completely naked except for having a sock on one of her feet.

[139] Barr directed a few members of his team to remain in the backyard to take photos of Kay's body and to further investigate the area.

[140] Then he walked through the backyard to the open sliding glass door that led into the house.

[141] And on that glass door, Detective Barr saw part of a bloody palm print that the officers who'd first arrived on the scene had discovered as well.

[142] Barr knew the print was a significant clue, but at the time, in order to learn anything from the print, the police would have to send samples to the FBI forensics lab in Washington, D .C., because the FBI had the technology to run the appropriate tests.

[143] Detective Barr spoke with other officers nearby to confirm that the samples would be sent off quickly to D .C. but Barr knew, even if they got sent today, it would be weeks before they would hear anything from the FBI.

[144] And so Barr was not willing to pin the hopes of the entire investigation on this palm print that could even turn out to belong to the victim and not the killer.

[145] And so Detective Barr stepped through the door into the house to begin looking for more clues, but once again, as soon as he was inside, he had to just stop and stare at what was in front of him.

[146] There were pools and streaks of dried blood on the floor leading from the back door where he was to the living room.

[147] And when Barr stepped into the living room, he saw blood spatter all over the walls.

[148] He still had no idea what had happened, but he knew whoever had done this had been filled with rage during the attack.

[149] And the blood didn't stop in the living room.

[150] Barr found more splatter on the steps nearby that led down into the basement.

[151] So Barr followed that path of blood and eventually wound up in the small room in the basement, Bob's office.

[152] And once inside, he saw blood everywhere, and in the corner on the floor was Bob.

[153] He was deceased and had obvious cuts on his hands, chest, and neck.

[154] I'm Dan Tversky.

[155] In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

[156] I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad.

[157] I'm like, stop fucking around.

[158] She's like, I can't.

[159] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast.

[160] It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls.

[161] With a diagnosis, the state tried.

[162] tried to keep on the down low.

[163] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[164] Well, you were holding something back.

[165] Intentionally.

[166] Yeah, well, yeah.

[167] No, it's hysteria.

[168] It's all in your head.

[169] It's not physical.

[170] Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating.

[171] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the witches of Salem?

[172] Or is it something else entirely?

[173] Something's wrong here.

[174] Something's not right.

[175] Leroy was the new date line and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

[176] A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios.

[177] Hysterical.

[178] Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[179] You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus.

[180] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

[181] She had been under the influence that she left him there.

[182] In January 2022, local woman Karen Reid was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O 'Keefe.

[183] It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover quarrel en route to the next location.

[184] What happens next?

[185] Depends on who you ask.

[186] Was it a crime of passion?

[187] If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling.

[188] This was clearly an intentional act.

[189] And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia.

[190] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

[191] If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover -up to prevent one of their own from going down.

[192] Everyone had an opinion.

[193] And after the 10 -week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision.

[194] To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is.

[195] Law and crime presents the most in -depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

[196] You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus.

[197] Join Wondery Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

[198] As members of the investigation team, photographed and saw, searched Bob's office, Detective Barr wandered back through the house and then walked out the front door.

[199] He hoped the cold air outside would help clear his head.

[200] He was in shock at what he'd seen inside the house because things like this just didn't happen in safe, quiet neighborhoods in Cape St. Clair.

[201] Barr stood there just breathing in the fresh air for a minute, and then he walked across the street towards one of the Swartz's neighbors' houses.

[202] When Barr had arrived at the crime scene, he'd told one of his officers to take Larry and Annie to this neighbor's house and to wait for him there.

[203] And so when Barr walked inside that neighbor's house, the officer was there with the two kids.

[204] Larry was wearing a pajama shirt, jeans, and high -top sneakers, and Annie was in a long night shirt.

[205] As Barr approached the children, he saw Larry holding Annie's hand, gently consoling her.

[206] Larry was a relatively small and skinny kid, but it was clear to Barr that Larry was trying to act big and strong for his sister's sake.

[207] Bar walked up to the kids and he first turned to Larry and in a calm voice he asked the child if he had noticed anything unusual the night before.

[208] Larry apologized and said he couldn't be much health.

[209] He told the detective that he'd gone to his room not long after dinner, looked at some notes from his Spanish class and then went to bed.

[210] He didn't hear or see anything until the following morning when he and his sister had gone downstairs together to look for their parents, and that's when Larry had looked out the window and seen his mother in the snow and dialed 911.

[211] Then, without Barr asking, Annie suddenly lifted up her head and said that she had seen something the night before.

[212] Barr immediately crouched down to get to Annie's eye level and then asked her what she had seen.

[213] Annie told him that she'd woken up in the middle of the night because she thought people were talking outside of her room.

[214] But then when she went into the hall, she heard screaming coming from downstairs.

[215] When the screaming suddenly stopped, went downstairs to see what was going on, but when she got there, it was all quiet.

[216] Then she told the detective that she thought she had heard something outside, so she whipped around and looked out the door that opened into the backyard, and that was when she saw the terrifying thing that sent her running back up to her room and under her covers.

[217] Annie said she'd seen a very tall man with dark curly hair slowly walking away from their house.

[218] As she said this, Barr noticed Larry's eyes go wide, and then the boy started shaking his head.

[219] When Barr asked him what was wrong, Larry told him that the man Annie said she'd seen outside fit the description of their estranged brother, Michael, who was six foot four inches tall and had dark curly hair.

[220] Detective Barr didn't know what to say.

[221] These poor kids who had finally found a safe and loving home with their adoptive parents had just lost that family and their new lives in a single day.

[222] Barr smiled at Annie and Larry and thanked them for their help, Then, leaving them there with the neighbors and the other officer who had brought them there, Detective Barr walked back outside and headed back across the street to the Swartz's house.

[223] As he walked, he knew one of his next moves would be to investigate his new primary suspect, Michael.

[224] Other than the bloody palm print, police had very little physical evidence from the scene of the crime.

[225] So Barr and the other investigators began to question the Swartz's friends, families, and other associates to learn everything they could about the family.

[226] And through those conversations, Barr would learn that not long before Michael had left the house for good four years earlier, his outbursts with Bob had gone from just screaming fights to physical fights.

[227] And some of the neighbors were willing to admit that they thought Bob had most likely hit Michael on several occasions.

[228] And Barr also learned from a family friend that Michael had threatened to kill Kay and Bob and that he had allegedly said that all he'd have to do was, grab a knife and stab them.

[229] Barr knew that the threat of murder made Michael, who was already the prime suspect, look even more guilty, but Barr quickly discovered a major problem with the theory that Michael was the killer, because Michael, who resided in a state mental hospital for psychiatric evaluation, had apparently been at the hospital on the night of the murders, at least according to hospital records.

[230] But Barr wasn't willing to take those records at face value.

[231] He Michael simply had too many red flags to ignore.

[232] And so, days after the murder, Detective Barr drove out to pay Michael a visit at the mental hospital, which was a little over 10 miles away from the Swartz's house.

[233] When Barr arrived, a staff member from the hospital led him through the building, and Barr was horrified by the conditions he found.

[234] Screams from patients echoed from a large open room, packed with beds, the floors and walls looked like they hadn't been cleaned in months, and Barr couldn't tell who, if anyone, was in charge of the place.

[235] He was also taken aback by how little security there seemed to be in the hospital.

[236] In fact, by the time he stepped into the room where he was supposed to meet Michael, he was convinced Michael could have easily slipped out of the hospital, made the relatively short trip to the Swartz's house, carried out the murders, and made it back to the hospital without anyone on staff ever noticing.

[237] Barr took a seat in a metal chair across a metal table from Michael.

[238] The room they were in was cramped, and the fluorescent light overhead cast a sickly glow on the dirty white walls.

[239] But Barr didn't notice any of that, because from the moment he sat down, he was fixated on Michael's neck.

[240] There were several red marks on one side of Michael's long, muscular neck, and so Barr asked Michael if he had gotten those marks in a fight.

[241] But Michael just grinned and told the detective the marks were actually hickies that he'd gotten while making out with a girl he knew.

[242] Barr smiled back and then proceeded to tell Michael about what happened to his former adoptive parents.

[243] And Michael didn't seem remotely phased by this horrible news.

[244] He just sat there, calm as can be.

[245] But Detective Barr was experienced enough to know that Michael's reaction to what he was told was not necessarily proof of guilt or innocence.

[246] And so Barr began asking basic questions, starting with, where was Michael on the night Bob and Kay were killed, January 16th?

[247] and Michael's answer, which was delivered just as calmly as his reaction to the news about his former parents, was simple.

[248] He'd been right here in the hospital where the state of Maryland had put him.

[249] But Barr wasn't convinced Michael was being honest, so he leaned across the table, looked Michael right in the eyes, and pushed him to talk about his troubled relationship with his adoptive parents and the threats of violence he'd made against them in the past.

[250] Barr had hoped this approach might kind of rattle Michael and maybe get him to actually accidentally give something away, but this didn't happen.

[251] Michael stayed calm and stuck to his story.

[252] He had been at the hospital when they were killed, period.

[253] By the time Barr left the hospital, he was very frustrated.

[254] Between the hospitals obviously lacks security and Michael's bizarre, nonchalant reaction and answers that he gave, it just seemed like Michael had to be lying, that he really had to be the killer.

[255] But without physical evidence from the crime scene or any kind of confession from Michael, Barr knew he was going to have to keep working to prove this theory.

[256] And not long after this initial meeting with Michael, Detective Barr's job got even harder.

[257] Because right after Barr left the mental hospital, Michael contacted a defense attorney who advised him not to speak with anyone from law enforcement about the murders of Kay and Bob Swartz.

[258] And so, a couple of days later, when Barr tried to set up another meeting with Michael at the hospital, he was refused.

[259] Now, Barr felt like he was running out of options, because in addition to not being able to speak to his primary suspect, he was still waiting to hear back from the FBI with the results of the test they'd run on the bloody palm print.

[260] So, feeling like he was at a dead end, Barr went back to the drawing board and tried to find any other leads that might help him discover exactly what had happened to Kay and Bob.

[261] While investigators had been questioning people who were close to Kay and Bob, they discovered that, like Barr, Most of these people thought Michael was probably the killer.

[262] But there was one person who investigators spoke to that offered a tip that sent Barr's investigation in an entirely new direction.

[263] A friend of the family informed Barr that Bob had been a staunch anti -abortion activist and that he had spent significant amounts of time publicly protesting an abortion clinic in the area.

[264] And it turned out that Bob's protests had often turned aggressive and he'd possibly made some enemies in the process.

[265] So Detective Barr did his job and tracked down people who worked at the clinic and some of Bob's fellow protesters, but as the days went by, he felt like this was all just a big distraction, and he didn't think this line of questioning was getting him any closer to solving the case, because Detective Barr was sure that Michael must have at least been involved in the murders.

[266] So Barr abandoned the abortion clinic theory and decided to just, basically wait for the FBI to send back the test results from the bloody print that had been found on the sliding glass door at the murder scene.

[267] And finally, in March of 1984, almost two months after Bob and Kay were murdered, the results arrived.

[268] And as Detective Barr expected, these test results would break the case wide open.

[269] However, the results would lead Detective bar down a path he had not even considered during his initial investigation.

[270] Based on the test results from the FBI, evidence found at the scene of the crime, and interviews conducted throughout the investigation, here is a reconstruction of what police believed took place at the Swartz home on the night Kay and Bob died, January 16, 1984.

[271] At around 11 .30 p .m. on January 16th, snow was on the ground outside the Swartz home and the temperature was well below freezing, but sweat dripped down the killer's forehead as they walked through the Swartz's house towards the living room.

[272] The killer felt lightheaded, and they could still feel the slight burn in their stomach from the shots of rum they'd drunk only a few minutes earlier.

[273] The killer stopped a few feet from the living room, hidden in the shadows, and listened to the sound of the television.

[274] Then they poked their head around the corner and saw, in the glow of the TV, there was a woman wearing blue flannel pajamas, Kay, sitting in a black vinyl chair, watching the TV.

[275] In front of her was a small table with the remains of what looked like her late -night snack, an empty plate, a fork, and a sharp steak knife.

[276] The killer was not actually carrying a weapon.

[277] In reality, they had not fully mapped out how this attack would go, but the steak knife on Kay's table seemed like the perfect solution.

[278] So the killer took a few steps into the living room, but then suddenly stopped.

[279] And as they looked at Kay sitting there peacefully watching TV, they started to have second thoughts about what they were about to do.

[280] But then the killer took a long, deep breath and told themselves, this was the right move.

[281] And then they continued to walk through the living room towards Kay.

[282] The killer's footsteps caused the wooden floors to creak as they moved.

[283] Kay heard those creaks and quickly looked up from the TV to see who was there.

[284] And when she saw, she was startled, but mostly she was angry, and she yelled something at the killer.

[285] And the killer shouted something right back.

[286] And then before Kay could possibly understand what was happening, the killer rushed forward, grabbed Kay's steak knife, and slashed the side of Kay's neck.

[287] Kay screamed, and the killer just froze, like they were stunned by what they'd just done.

[288] In that moment of hesitation, Kay put a hand to her neck to try to stop the bleeding, pulling herself out of her chair, and then she tried to run out of her chair.

[289] of the room.

[290] But the killer, filled with rage, rushed after Kay and managed to slash her neck six more times.

[291] The killer watched her fall to the floor.

[292] Kay struggled to pull herself up onto her hands and knees, but she was now bleeding profusely and her breath was quiet and shallow.

[293] The killer stood over her, raised the knife again, and was about to bring it back down for one final blow, when suddenly they heard a sound coming from the steps that led to the basement.

[294] The killer stopped what they were doing and rushed over to the top of the steps and looked down to see what the noise was and what the killer saw at the foot of the stairs was Bob standing in the doorway of his basement office.

[295] And when Bob saw the killer standing there with the steak knife in hand, he screamed for help.

[296] But there was no help coming and Bob had nowhere to go.

[297] He was trapped in the basement.

[298] Without hesitation, the killer walked down the stairs and tried to slash at Bob's face.

[299] But Bob, who was trying to back up, managed to throw his hands up to protect himself, and so the knife only cut into his hands.

[300] Bob managed to stumble back into his office, but the killer pursued, lunging at him again once inside, and stabbing wildly at his neck.

[301] The strike started to land, and before long Bob had fallen to the ground, at which point the killer stabbed him several more times in the chest before finally stopping and standing up.

[302] In total, Bob was stabbed 17 times, including blows that severed his left and right carotid arteries in his neck, which supply blood to the brain.

[303] Bob lay motionless on the floor of his office, with blood pooling all around him as he died.

[304] The killer stood there for a minute in a daze, gasping for breath and staring down at Bob's now dead body.

[305] But then the killer snapped out of it and remembered Kay might still be alive upstairs.

[306] So the killer ran out of Bob's office, back upstairs into the living room, and saw K was now gone.

[307] But the killer saw a path of blood on the floor that led out of the living room to the open sliding glass door that led to the backyard.

[308] Following the path of blood, the killer ran to the back of the house where they slammed their hand on that glass door, which is how the bloody print was left, and then the killer stepped outside.

[309] The killer could see their own breath in the cold night air, and they could feel the snow crunch under their shoes, but the adrenaline made their face and hands feel flushed and hot.

[310] Then, in the moonlight, the killer saw Kay slowly staggering through the yard, desperately trying to get away.

[311] Blood dripped from her neck and left dark red pools behind her in the snow.

[312] Kay tried to scream for help, but the cuts from the killer's knife had damaged her neck and throat, and so she couldn't make enough sound to be heard.

[313] As the killer watched Kay moving through the yard, the urge to cause her as much pain as possible suddenly took over.

[314] The killer looked around the yard and spotted a wood splitting mall, which is like a sledgehammer with a sharp axe head, leaning against a pile of firewood.

[315] Then the killer slipped the knife into their jeans pocket, walked over and grabbed the mall with both hands, and then ran over to Kay.

[316] When the killer reached her, she was barely able to stand.

[317] The killer raised the wood splitting mall and slammed it into the back of Kay's head.

[318] Her skull cracked, and then she crumpled to the ground.

[319] Even though Kay was now dead, the killer was not done with her.

[320] They wanted to humiliate her.

[321] So the killer stripped Kay naked except for one sock.

[322] But after the killer tossed Kay's pajamas to the ground, they suddenly started to panic.

[323] It was like, for the first time, they realized what they had just done.

[324] The killer's hands were shaking, and they saw that their clothes were covered in blood, but they knew they had to get rid of the weapon.

[325] so they walked through the yard away from the house, they wiped down the handles of the mall and the knife with a clean part of their shirt, and then threw them into the woods that surrounded the Swartz's backyard.

[326] Then the killer walked back through the yard past Kay's body and went inside the Swartz's house.

[327] Once inside, the killer walked through the house to the laundry room where they stripped off their clothes, piled them into the washing machine, and then hit start.

[328] At this point, the killer's head was pounding, their arms and back ached.

[329] and they felt exhausted, so they walked upstairs, headed down the hall past Annie's room, and glanced at the door that led to Michael's old room.

[330] Then the killer stepped past that door to his own door that led to his bedroom, and he climbed into his own bed and went to sleep.

[331] Larry Swartz, who everybody thought was the quiet, sweet, perfect son, was in fact the killer.

[332] The results of the FBI tests made it clear that the bloody palm print on the sliding glass door belonged to Larry and not to Michael, like so many people had thought.

[333] And when Detective Barr learned the palm print was Larry's, he thought back to the beginning of his investigation when he first spoke to Larry and Annie right after he had arrived at the crime scene.

[334] And he would come to understand that little Annie thought of her five -foot -nine -inch brother, Larry, as being a quote, very tall person, because pretty much everyone who was over five -foot -five seemed very tall to her.

[335] But Larry, thinking on his feet, had immediately used her description of the very tall man in the backyard, the likely killer, to his advantage, pointing out that his former brother, Michael, was in fact very tall, six foot four inches to be exact, which is considered very tall by basically all adults.

[336] Michael did this, of course, to deflect suspicion away from himself.

[337] Police arrested Larry, and while in custody, he would confess to killing his parents.

[338] Larry claimed he had killed Kay in the house and had not chased her down and killed her in the yard like the police said.

[339] But Larry's memory of the night was fuzzy and Detective Barr didn't think Larry's version of events fit with the evidence found in the backyard and in the house.

[340] But Barr did take Larry at his word when Larry explained why he had killed his parents.

[341] Larry said that once Michael had been kicked out of the house, he, Larry, became the target of Kay and Bob's very strict disciplinary tactics.

[342] They would yell at Larry constantly about his bad grades, ground him for weeks at a time, and keep him from going out on dates with the girl he liked.

[343] Larry grew very angry at his parents, and he felt like they enjoyed humiliating him.

[344] And then, on January 16, 1984, Larry snapped.

[345] That night, after Annie had gone to bed, he and Kay got into a shouting match when he told her he had failed his Spanish exam.

[346] And Kay said that knowing Larry, he would probably fail all of his other exams too.

[347] So Larry stormed upstairs to his bedroom, slammed his door, reached under his bed, and grabbed a soda bottle that was actually filled with rum.

[348] And as he drank the rum, he got angrier at his parents, and he convinced himself that they were going to kick him out of the house like they'd done to Michael, and he'd never get to see his little sister Annie again.

[349] So Larry decided the only solution was to kill Kay and Bob.

[350] So he went downstairs and did just that.

[351] Larry ultimately pleaded guilty to second -degree murder.

[352] He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but after serving nine years, he was granted parole.

[353] Larry would move to Florida, where he would die from a heart attack in 2004 at the age of 38.

[354] Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast.

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[357] more stories on there, many of which are not available on this podcast.

[358] So that's going to do it.

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[360] Until next time, see you.

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