Episode opens up with a whole new thread of the story concerning Bear Brook case. Eunsoon and her “new boyfriend”, mysterious man named “Larry Vaner” (scruffy looking person) visits her cousins Elaine’s New Year’s party. The van they came in was dirty, just a whole weird/strange situation that puzzled Elaine and Eunsoon’s family in attendance. Larry aggressively told Elaine to never ask him again about his past, narrative made him out to be crazy when all she was trying to do was get to know him. Eunsoon wanted to separate from her family because they constantly worried about her and her relationship with Larry. Rose was Eunsoon’s best friend, she explains they were supposed to go on a trip together but Eunsoon never made it, and when she called numerous times to follow up, Larry picked up giving a different excuse every time as to why Eunsoon was gone and couldn’t be reached. Rose gave Vaner an ultimatum, and when he failed to meet her demand of hearing Eunsoon’s voice, she called the police to their residence to investigate. Roxanne, homicide detective assigned to this case. When Vaner came in to be questioned he “played a cat and mouse” game with police, was dodging questions not being very cooperative. He, Vaner, did not have valid ID and so they fingerprinted him and got his identity figured out. Podcast is making this guy out blatantly to be the villain/murderer of the bear brook murders as well, though interestingly enough, this episode does not yet mention bear brook until the very end of the episode. Why is this? Anyways, his identity is revealed, and it turns out he has various aliases. His real name is Curtis Kimball. So then, Roxanne is able to search his home and they discover in a bottom floor of Eunsoon’s and Kimball’s residence, a huge pile of cat litter. They find a bunch of tools, saw, small hatchet, mysterious green bottles. Forensics team comes in, and immediately finds a human foot in the pile. She was dismembered and disposed of in that area by Vaner. Inclusion of Elaine’s emotional response to the finding of Eunsoon’s body is important in the narrative (because at this point Eunsoon had been disconnected from her family, so the fateful result that many family members had been concerned of, unfortunately came to be). Roxanne did an excellent job finding “dirt” on Vaner, finding his recent criminal history (child abandonment), and his whereabouts before the suspected murder had taken place. It’s important to note that when “Eunsoon” had allegedly sent family members emails demanding that they leave her alone, it was evidently clear that at this point she had been murdered and it was Vaner who sent them. The narrative sets this point up in an interesting way, where we know that this Vaner guy is just way too sketchy of a person already, and the fact that Eunsoon had been close to her family and subsequently to meeting Vaner she had become “more distant” just didn’t add up. In trial, during the second day Kimball himself pleaded guilty for murder because he knew that Roxanne was getting so much information on him that he figured taking this route he would serve less time. Roxane did not let up, thankfully, and continued to prosecute Kimball. She further investigated Kimball’s child abandonment case. Child supposedly Kimball’s daughter, Lisa, was in fact NOT his daughter and her reported name Lisa, was also false. Episode ends with this cliff hanger, where is Lisa now, who is she to Kimball? The ending of the episode includes some new ending music.
At this point the podcast utilizes the same background music consistently since episode 1 during transitions and when Jason Moon is about to reveal a crucial and interesting development. With that, the episodes are all pretty identical in the way they are produced and delivered, in that the format is the same. For obvious reasons, this is to not confuse audiences by distracting them with different music/narrative choices, I think by being consistent the overall storyline is more grounded. I’ve noticed that this podcast also explains some legal “common” knowledge, how police have legal right to go through someone’s property once they have violated certain laws. Little inclusions of such information I think further extends the effectiveness of any podcast, not only are you delivering an interesting story that is captivating and important, but you are also informing your audience about things that are factual and relatable.
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