Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: This is such an oddity that a parent would use
Speaker 2: a public arena to distract their abduction.
Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career
Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken
Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both
Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the
Speaker 1: publish details behind their stories. This is one of the
Speaker 1: most shocking unsolved missing child cases in the world. A
Speaker 1: seven year old boy named kyn Horman went missing in
Speaker 1: twenty ten in Portland, Oregon, and he's never been found.
Speaker 1: The last person to see him was his stepmother. Author
Speaker 1: Rebecca Morris details Kyene's story and the mystery of his
Speaker 1: disappearance in her book Boy Missing The Search for Kyne Horman.
Speaker 1: Where does it make sense for you to start.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm a great believer in going way back, so
Speaker 2: when I write a book like this, I've done three
Speaker 2: books about missing people, and I didn't know I was
Speaker 2: going to become kind of an expert at that, but
Speaker 2: three of my nine books are about missing people. And
Speaker 2: I go way back so that I know the childhoods
Speaker 2: of all these parents and step parents involved. I know
Speaker 2: about the earlier traffic tickets and high school antics of
Speaker 2: the person that we think took Kiren. I learn as
Speaker 2: much as I can, and you know, and I like
Speaker 2: to quote Agatha Christie. Actually she said, the crime is
Speaker 2: the end of the story. You just have to find
Speaker 2: out what came before and what led to this, What
Speaker 2: was the community that the crime happened in, you know?
Speaker 2: And this did, as she said, it affected so many
Speaker 2: people I've never seen. There's still sixty thousand people on
Speaker 2: Facebook who follow this regularly. That's a lot now. Ten
Speaker 2: years ago there were like half a million. But it's
Speaker 2: still the community's very active. We don't know what the
Speaker 2: Sheriff's office is doing, and I don't know if Kiren's mother, Desiree,
Speaker 2: even knows the searches ended years ago. She's helped gather
Speaker 2: volunteers to do you know, trained volunteers and searching to
Speaker 2: do other searches. But it's pretty much a stand still.
Speaker 2: And because of what we'll talk about it, it's a
Speaker 2: no body case when the body has not been found,
Speaker 2: prosecutors delay bringing charges because they believe that the odds
Speaker 2: of getting a successful conviction are greater if there's a body. Certainly,
Speaker 2: bodies do give you evidence, but I found an expert
Speaker 2: who says that's not necessarily the case. No body's cases
Speaker 2: can be successfully prosecuted.
Speaker 1: And we've seen that particularly the last twenty or thirty years.
Speaker 1: Where you do see prosecutors, they have to be very
Speaker 1: confident about the evidence. I think what and correct me
Speaker 1: if you think I'm wrong here. I feel like though,
Speaker 1: the no body cases that I've read about have been
Speaker 1: people who have very well documented lives. They have credit cards,
Speaker 1: they have child custody, they have you know, parents that
Speaker 1: they talk to every day, they have cell phone records.
Speaker 1: There's all kinds of a paper trail, and with a boy,
Speaker 1: there probably isn't much of a paper trail. Excep the
Speaker 1: last person who had real contact with him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's both an advantage and disadvantage. You're right,
Speaker 2: a seven year old doesn't have a paper trail, doesn't
Speaker 2: say where he stopped to get gas or charges he
Speaker 2: made on his credit card. But I think technology, and
Speaker 2: as far as I know, Muloma County in Portland is
Speaker 2: still looking at the suspect's phone and computer. I mean
Speaker 2: I read regularly that with new technology they're finding information
Speaker 2: they didn't have a few years ago. So I just
Speaker 2: have this suspicion. Only recently is my confidence back on
Speaker 2: this case that they will find something on a phone
Speaker 2: or a computer that will give them some insight to
Speaker 2: where he was left.
Speaker 1: Well, when you talk about having to go far back,
Speaker 1: like Agatha Christie, how far back are we talking in
Speaker 1: this case? Did you manage to go involving the parents
Speaker 1: in Kiren and his life?
Speaker 2: Well, the impetus for going back is that the best
Speaker 2: suspect in this case, the only person of interest in
Speaker 2: this case, had had some early driving arrests, and there
Speaker 2: were some stories about setting fire to her parents house
Speaker 2: when she was a teenager, and a boyfriend who said
Speaker 2: that she had somebody approach him with a gun. So
Speaker 2: trying to track down rumors are very hard. If there
Speaker 2: was no arrest if there's no you know, no law
Speaker 2: a case with no law enforcement, that's that's pretty hard.
Speaker 2: But I tried to especially track down what her history was.
Speaker 2: We're talking about a lot of marriages, a lot of divorces,
Speaker 2: a lot of step kids, and sometimes living here, sometimes
Speaker 2: living there, and that's you know, not unusual in America.
Speaker 2: You know, it's almost like it's a character in this story.
Speaker 2: Where were they, what were they doing? Who did the
Speaker 2: children live with this week? And you know, there were
Speaker 2: reasons that Chyen lived part of the time with his mother,
Speaker 2: you know, his birth mother, and part of the time
Speaker 2: with his father and stepmother because of Desiree Jung's health
Speaker 2: issues in the past, so he was back and forth
Speaker 2: the whole length of the state of Oregon. You know,
Speaker 2: his birth mother and stepfather lived in southern Oregon, his
Speaker 2: father and stepmother lived in northern Oregon. So there was
Speaker 2: a lot of shuffling around and also who had you know,
Speaker 2: when who had been married, who'd had an affair with who,
Speaker 2: And you know, it was messy, but a lot of
Speaker 2: people's lives get messy. You know, Desiree had an older son,
Speaker 2: a teenage son who lived with his father and stepmother,
Speaker 2: different father. But you know, you can't do a book
Speaker 2: like this without the help of a family. I'm a
Speaker 2: native Oregonian. I spent three chunks of my career in
Speaker 2: broadcasting print in Portland. I know Portland, I know Oregon,
Speaker 2: and I had been watching this case for a long
Speaker 2: time since he went missing, and I think other authors
Speaker 2: do that. It's not always a book, right when somebody
Speaker 2: goes missing, you kind of have to know what's going
Speaker 2: to happen. And I felt, after watching this for ten
Speaker 2: years that it was time to do a book. Even
Speaker 2: if he was not found, it was time to do
Speaker 2: a book. So I wrote to Desiree an old fashioned
Speaker 2: letter I mailed, and I told her about winning the
Speaker 2: trust of other families and other books I'd done. And
Speaker 2: she texted me right away and said I'd been praying
Speaker 2: the right author would come along. So that was an enormous,
Speaker 2: enormous thing, because you to have her confidence and trust
Speaker 2: to visit her in Medford, Oregon, to meet her parents,
Speaker 2: to meet her siblings, to meet her other son, to
Speaker 2: you know, hang out, to see her when she would
Speaker 2: fly through Seattle or something. It was a couple of
Speaker 2: years of a lot of contact and you know, being
Speaker 2: in Kirene's bedroom where things had not been touched for
Speaker 2: ten years, and then following her as she began to
Speaker 2: change his bedroom. You know, it took a lot of years,
Speaker 2: but the changes she made. So the challenge is always
Speaker 2: for an author. I'm an observer. I get to know them,
Speaker 2: the family, but I need to also be open to
Speaker 2: other conversations about his disappearance.
Speaker 1: Now, did Desiree and Kiren's father, Kane, did they have
Speaker 1: a good relationship for any of their marriage? When they
Speaker 1: did get married.
Speaker 2: They seem to have a good relationship. The first couple
Speaker 2: of years he told her he didn't want children. Oh
Speaker 2: and she already had her other son, but she got pregnant.
Speaker 2: And the story she told me is that he initially
Speaker 2: said I don't want children, I'll sign over all my
Speaker 2: rights to you, and then he spoke with his mother
Speaker 2: and she changed his mind. So he said he would
Speaker 2: be you know, a husband and father. But it was
Speaker 2: while they were still married that he met Terry Horman
Speaker 2: and began to have a relationship with her, so you know,
Speaker 2: there was some cheating going on. But then then Desiree
Speaker 2: had some health issues. Cain said he would take kyn.
Speaker 2: This is when when Chiren is quite young, take Kiren
Speaker 2: indefinitely and then he wouldn't give it back. So they
Speaker 2: worked out a compromise where half of the weekends he
Speaker 2: was in Medford and half he was in Portland, and
Speaker 2: vacations he would be in Medford with Desiree. But I
Speaker 2: think she never quite forgave herself for losing that, you know,
Speaker 2: one hundred percent custody.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about these main characters, because now we have four, right,
Speaker 1: we have Terry, we have Desiree, We've got Caine, who
Speaker 1: is Karen's father, and then of course Kien himself. You
Speaker 1: know he's seven when he disappears. Let's start with Kiren.
Speaker 1: What do you know about his personality? What kind of
Speaker 1: kid you've been in his room? What kind of kid
Speaker 1: was he up until he disappeared? Well, you can look
Speaker 1: at a photo, any photo.
Speaker 2: He looks happy, he's happy, and he's such a cute child.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know he wears glasses from the age
Speaker 2: I think of two or so, and he's just grinning.
Speaker 2: He looks very happy. I know he liked frogs, he
Speaker 2: liked baseball, he loved fishing. You know, the fifth character
Speaker 2: in This is Tony Young, who's Desiree's husband, who's a cop,
Speaker 2: a detective, and Menfred Oregan, So that is very interesting.
Speaker 2: He is an inside observer of how the search goes
Speaker 2: and the investigation and the people they're giving multiple polygraphs to.
Speaker 2: And Tony is a fabulous source. But Kyron, you know,
Speaker 2: they had a good relationship with his mother and with
Speaker 2: his stepfather. They went camping a lot, they went fishing
Speaker 2: a lot. He had this older half brother that he adored,
Speaker 2: and I think that was Kyen at his happiest is
Speaker 2: when he's with his mother and father and that family,
Speaker 2: because you know, he just always comes first when he's
Speaker 2: in Portland with his father and stepmother. And then they
Speaker 2: had a baby. There was an infant who would have
Speaker 2: been born about a year and a half before Kyron
Speaker 2: went missing, you know, And I've been thinking about this
Speaker 2: a lot recently. Kyen told his mother that his stepmother
Speaker 2: and her older son had been setting him up and
Speaker 2: scaring him and taking him up to the woods. And
Speaker 2: the one thing Kyen was most afraid of, as Rae says,
Speaker 2: was being lost. Isn't that just heartbreaking? Yeah, his greatest
Speaker 2: fear is being lost and they would take him, this
Speaker 2: older son of his stip mood, take him out to
Speaker 2: the woods, or because Caine's house was kind of in
Speaker 2: a woody area and he'd leave him there or make
Speaker 2: him go into a shit And you know, Desiree thought
Speaker 2: they were deliberately scaring Kyne from being torn back and
Speaker 2: forth between families. You know, he was a pretty well
Speaker 2: adjusted kid.
Speaker 1: What's your impression of Cain as a father? I mean,
Speaker 1: I know we said initially he didn't want kids, and
Speaker 1: then it turns into basically full time custody. What was
Speaker 1: he like? Did you get the impression that he was
Speaker 1: a patient father, a kind father, aside from his relationship
Speaker 1: with Terry and her attitude toward Kyen. What was Cain like?
Speaker 2: Well? I spoke with Cain once. He didn't want to
Speaker 2: be included in the book. But from everything, of course,
Speaker 2: I've researched everything I can about him. He was I
Speaker 2: think a better boyfriend than a husband. He created, you know,
Speaker 2: opportunities for Kyen, praised him when it was important. I
Speaker 2: don't think that he knew what was going on in
Speaker 2: that house. I don't think he knew about Terry and
Speaker 2: her son scaring Kyen. Then they had this, you know,
Speaker 2: a baby girl. I think Caine avoided kind of looking
Speaker 2: at what was going on. Desiree would contact him or
Speaker 2: email him about, you know, things that Kyen was saying,
Speaker 2: and of course he was kind of in a spot
Speaker 2: in the in the middle of things. He didn't want children,
Speaker 2: but then he and he and Terry had this infant girl.
Speaker 2: I think he left the child raising a lot of
Speaker 2: it to the women, and he worked at Intel and
Speaker 2: was busy. Since Kyen's disappeared. He has his own kind
Speaker 2: of fundraising event every fall, which is like an old
Speaker 2: car show. I'm not sure how he uses donations, but
Speaker 2: I know Desiree buys posters, has posters made bys you
Speaker 2: know bracelets. You know. Kin is a little bit of
Speaker 2: an unknown entity in this. I'll tell you he was
Speaker 2: pretty darn surprised to find out who he was married to.
Speaker 2: As far as Kyrin and stepmother.
Speaker 1: Tell me about Terry, they meet and he is still
Speaker 1: married to Desiree. It sounds like, and they have an
Speaker 1: affair and then there's a divorce and then they become married.
Speaker 1: What did you learn about Terry that is really relevant
Speaker 1: I think to this case. Sort of as this unfolds
Speaker 1: for the audience here.
Speaker 2: Well, Carrie Horman Kin was her third marriage. She's now
Speaker 2: remarried in California and married for the fourth time. She
Speaker 2: grew up in Roseberg as the only child adopted child
Speaker 2: of parents that were teachers, and one of the stories
Speaker 2: that's followed her around is that she deliberately set a
Speaker 2: fire once in her parents' house. I don't know. I
Speaker 2: never found any way to either confirm that or deny that.
Speaker 2: And she, you know, I think had some behavior up
Speaker 2: and downs. I think she had a problem with alcohol
Speaker 2: as a young adult. She was stopped for driving drunk
Speaker 2: with her older son in the back seat when he
Speaker 2: was young, and that's very serious to be driving drunk
Speaker 2: with a child in the car. So she lost her
Speaker 2: license for a year. And I think that's before she
Speaker 2: married Kine. But there are always these little little incidents.
Speaker 2: The women who run the Facebook page and the organization
Speaker 2: keep an eye on her in California. But it made
Speaker 2: news when she moved to California after the divorce. She
Speaker 2: was arrested for threatening somebody with a knife. She stole
Speaker 2: a roommate's gun and was carrying it when they found her.
Speaker 2: I just keep thinking one of these issues going to
Speaker 2: do something else that will really shed some light. You know,
Speaker 2: if people have a history of doing crazy or illegal things,
Speaker 2: they don't stop it suddenly.
Speaker 1: Is there a CPS, A CPS ever involved before all
Speaker 1: this stuff happens.
Speaker 2: No, okay, And that's of course one of the things
Speaker 2: that Portland Sheriff's Office was starting from scratch. They didn't
Speaker 2: know who these people were. You know, sometimes they've been
Speaker 2: called to the home, or police have been called to
Speaker 2: a home with domestic violence, or CPS had been involved,
Speaker 2: and none of that had happened here.
Speaker 1: Now I know that Desiree struggled with I think it
Speaker 1: was kidney issues. Did you have a lot of opportunities
Speaker 1: to see Terry in person, and if so, what is
Speaker 1: the sense you got of their interactions between the two
Speaker 1: of them, because they obviously have a very troubled history.
Speaker 1: All around Cain.
Speaker 2: They would see each other if she was picking up
Speaker 2: or deliver bring Kiren. And one time I just was
Speaker 2: looking at the book again last night, and there was
Speaker 2: an incident when Cain and Terry drive Kiraen to Medford
Speaker 2: and it's Mother's Day or something, and they're dropping him
Speaker 2: at Desiree's mother's house and our mother invites them to
Speaker 2: stay for brunch and they do okay, And it's Terry
Speaker 2: who jumps up when Kien needs to go down the
Speaker 2: hall to the bathroom, and so I think it's you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of couples do that. They just you do
Speaker 2: what you have to do, m m, you know, for
Speaker 2: the children's sake, and get past that holiday. They didn't
Speaker 2: meet up a lot for an event for Kirn. They
Speaker 2: pick and choose what was Desiree going to go to?
Speaker 2: What Cain and Terry going to go to?
Speaker 1: So everything seems to be okay. We know that Terry
Speaker 1: has a troubled history with little bits and pieces of
Speaker 1: criminal activity, but clearly between these four people, between Desray
Speaker 1: and her husband the detective, and then Cain and Terry
Speaker 1: seems sort of the most un stable or the most mysterious.
Speaker 1: But right now, is before his disappearance, is sort of
Speaker 1: the only grievance against Terry that she and her older
Speaker 1: son are scaring Kiren. Is there anything else that gets flagged?
Speaker 2: Yes, there are some other things that Desiree's concerned about.
Speaker 2: Because when Kiren, you know, goes to Medford for the
Speaker 2: weekend or summer. He tells his mother, Desiree about other things,
Speaker 2: like there's some kind of color system that Terry uses
Speaker 2: to discipline him by, just something of her own kind
Speaker 2: of device. There are some other things that Chiren shares
Speaker 2: with Desiree that Terry is doing. I never read or
Speaker 2: was told that she struck him or hit him, but
Speaker 2: he would be kind of mind games. I'd say, I'd
Speaker 2: classify it as mind games. So did get shared, and
Speaker 2: then of course Desiree would talk to Caine about it,
Speaker 2: And we don't know what his discussions were with Terry
Speaker 2: about the mind games, or maybe he didn't believe it,
Speaker 2: maybe he did.
Speaker 1: Did you think that Cain and Terry seemed to have
Speaker 1: a pretty good relationship and once they got married, it
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like there were any sort of police reports
Speaker 1: or you know, reports of domestic violence incidences or anything.
Speaker 1: They seemed to have an okay, stable relationship.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know that I would say that, because
Speaker 2: things came out when the disappearance of Kyraen was being investigated,
Speaker 2: including things about Terry. So this is documented by the
Speaker 2: Sheriff's office that just a few months before Kiren disappeared,
Speaker 2: Terrie asked somebody who was working on their lawn if
Speaker 2: he knew how she could hire a hitman. Oh, and
Speaker 2: she apparently had plans to have Cain killed.
Speaker 1: She went to somebody who was cutting her yard and said,
Speaker 1: can you help me kill my husband?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yes, Wow.
Speaker 2: Police believed it so much that they put a wire
Speaker 2: on the guy and had him, you know, go back
Speaker 2: and approached Herry and hoped that she would bring it
Speaker 2: up again. And you know, she wasn't done. She didn't
Speaker 2: ask again, but you know, it's part of the police case.
Speaker 2: In fact, they took it so seriously that they told
Speaker 2: Cain that day, we believe that Carry was going to
Speaker 2: have you killed. He and the infant daughter got out
Speaker 2: of there. Well, they went and they checked into a
Speaker 2: hotel down downtown. The police arranged for them and got
Speaker 2: them out of the house because they were taking it
Speaker 2: seriously that they didn't know what Carry was capable of.
Speaker 2: And I believe within minutester hours, Caine was filing for divorce,
Speaker 2: finally filing for custody of the kids. And he never
Speaker 2: went back to his house as long as she was there.
Speaker 1: So she tried to do this after Kyene disappeared, before
Speaker 1: Oh Okay, So when did the police tell Caine.
Speaker 2: It was during the investigation into where's Kiren? The groundskeeper
Speaker 2: came to police and said, this woman talked to me
Speaker 2: about this. So Kirene's missing and Kane grabs the baby
Speaker 2: and they get out of the house.
Speaker 1: Is there some sort of not inciting incident for this
Speaker 1: case doesn't seem right, But is it just a normal
Speaker 1: day when he has taken to school for this science fair.
Speaker 2: Well, Carrie planned this and it was premeditated because she
Speaker 2: planned today when as we were talking about, there were
Speaker 2: three or four hundred extra people at the school. There'd
Speaker 2: be no security, the doors would be wide open. She
Speaker 2: knew it was going to be an unusual day at
Speaker 2: the school, and she also planned She told the school
Speaker 2: in Kirene's teacher that he had a doctor appointment, so
Speaker 2: she took him to school in time to look at
Speaker 2: all the science exhibits. They left his jacket and backpack
Speaker 2: in his classroom. The teacher believed he had a doctor's appointment.
Speaker 2: She says she stood and waved at Kyroen as he
Speaker 2: entered his classroom and never saw him again. What wasn't
Speaker 2: said for a few weeks after Kien went missing. Is
Speaker 2: that there were eyewitnesses that saw her leave the school
Speaker 2: with him. So his bus driver who knew him well,
Speaker 2: and a student and a grandmother saw her leave with him,
Speaker 2: so there were eyewitnesses. The other way that she had
Speaker 2: set this up is she had a little red sports
Speaker 2: car that she'd gotten Cain to buy her. Well, that's
Speaker 2: a rather noticeable obvious thing. She told Cain that morning
Speaker 2: she needed his white truck that she needed to put
Speaker 2: the science exhibit in it later. But the science exhibits
Speaker 2: weren't going home that day. There was another school and
Speaker 2: they were going to be staying at the school. But
Speaker 2: she got Caine's white truck pickup open bit in the back,
Speaker 2: a back seat that has two children's car seats, and
Speaker 2: that she just said she needed that that day. Well,
Speaker 2: they found, of course a million white pickup trucks in
Speaker 2: north Portland, you know when they went looking for where
Speaker 2: was hers that day? So you know, there's the truck
Speaker 2: and not the red car. There's taking his photo in
Speaker 2: front of his red frog exhibit. She says she waved
Speaker 2: to him. Eyewitnesses see her leave with him, and then
Speaker 2: she is off the grid for a few hours and
Speaker 2: she lies to the police about where she's been. They
Speaker 2: know that she stopped at two fred Meers, which are
Speaker 2: a drug store chains in Portland, and she was looking
Speaker 2: for cold medicine, she said, for the baby. And they
Speaker 2: have cameras of her in the in the stores and
Speaker 2: she buys something. And you know, my theory is she
Speaker 2: sedated Kyen gave them both, probably gave this gold medicine
Speaker 2: to both the baby and Kiren. And then her phone
Speaker 2: is turned off and she is at least two and
Speaker 2: a half hours off the grid. She has a good
Speaker 2: friend whose name is Dede Spicer, who works at a
Speaker 2: nursery ape not the children's kind, of the other kind. Yeah,
Speaker 2: not far from the school where Kiren goes to school,
Speaker 2: near the road also where Cain and Terry live. We
Speaker 2: believe she picks up Dedi and has her with her
Speaker 2: in the pickup. When the next couple of hours happened,
Speaker 2: the owner of the nursery where Dedie worked said they
Speaker 2: always had lunch together and they looked for her, you know,
Speaker 2: all afternoon. They couldn't find her. Her car was there,
Speaker 2: but they couldn't find Dede. DP says she was just
Speaker 2: working in some obscure part of the nursery, but it's
Speaker 2: thought that Terry picked her up and so she was
Speaker 2: maybe she was along to take care of the baby
Speaker 2: with whatever was going to happen. There were some sightings,
Speaker 2: you know, supposedly of Terry in her red sports car
Speaker 2: driving one of the back roads in that area the
Speaker 2: week before, standing around looking kind of at the woods.
Speaker 2: So a couple of hours pass, detti Is dropped back
Speaker 2: at the nursery says she was there all the time.
Speaker 1: I was wondering about the truck. There's no GPS on
Speaker 1: the truck at all that they're able to trace.
Speaker 2: No, there's no GPS on the truck. Actually, her phone
Speaker 2: pinged on a cell phone tower. So this area which
Speaker 2: is just north of Portland, and but it's in court,
Speaker 2: it's still in the county, but it's not the city
Speaker 2: of Portland. But it pinged on a tower near an
Speaker 2: area called Sawvi Island. So we're talking hundreds and hundreds
Speaker 2: of thousands of woods and then saw The Island which
Speaker 2: has ponds and is a wetland. It's a kind of
Speaker 2: across the road from the woods work Kirroen. But she
Speaker 2: might have driven onto this island where all these ponds are,
Speaker 2: so they did drag some of these waters to look
Speaker 2: for Kien. It's actually one of the things I learned
Speaker 2: knowing this is that it's much harder to find a
Speaker 2: body in water than it is on land.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, because this is an important point.
Speaker 1: Do you at this point you believe, I mean, it
Speaker 1: sounds like you absolutely believe that Terry is responsible for
Speaker 1: Kyroen's disappearance, and it sounds like.
Speaker 2: Murder, it does. She also, after wherever she's been driving,
Speaker 2: she drops in at a gym that she belongs to,
Speaker 2: and I believe she's got the baby with her and
Speaker 2: mostly just to be seen for five minutes. So she
Speaker 2: was seen, and then she goes home and she puts
Speaker 2: the picture of Kyroen on her Facebook page, and you know,
Speaker 2: a couple hours later, Cain comes home and just to
Speaker 2: finish that afternoon, they don't know Kyron hasn't been at
Speaker 2: school all day, at least Kane doesn't know. Desiree doesn't know.
Speaker 2: They walk down the baby and Terry and Kine walk
Speaker 2: to meet the school bus, and the school bus driver says,
Speaker 2: you know, no, I haven't seen Kyroen. They go to
Speaker 2: the school and they find out nobody's seen him since
Speaker 2: nine am. It's funny and weird, but also frightening that
Speaker 2: when Desrae gets a call from the school and drives up,
Speaker 2: neither Kin or Terry ever called her to tell her
Speaker 2: Karen's smissing. So she talked to the school secretary. She
Speaker 2: and Tony drive up, being the cop. He says, we've
Speaker 2: got to go to the house. The school parking lot
Speaker 2: has become this media center. I mean, just in a
Speaker 2: couple of hours, hundreds of reporters and cameras and they
Speaker 2: So they go to Caine's house, and I mean, I'll
Speaker 2: never forget Desiree saying Terry opened the door to Hi,
Speaker 2: come on in. We've got some food over here people
Speaker 2: have brought. You know, is if it's an open house
Speaker 2: or for the July party or just really weird behavior.
Speaker 1: Now I come to something that I've wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you for this whole time. But I want to know
Speaker 1: what is the motive? What do you think the motive
Speaker 1: would have been? If Terry is responsible.
Speaker 2: I think she wanted to be free, and that meant
Speaker 2: both Kan and kyn. I think if Kate had been killed,
Speaker 2: she could have given Kyen back to Desiree, and Desiree
Speaker 2: had said for years, you know, let me have him
Speaker 2: more often, and Kin was the one resisting. Terry wanted
Speaker 2: Kiren to leave. In fact, Terry actually called Desiree a
Speaker 2: time or two and said, I'd like for you to
Speaker 2: take Kyen, and Kan wouldn't let that happen. They found
Speaker 2: after Kyraen missing that Terry was she was sexting. Kyen
Speaker 2: had just gone missing, and she was sexting with somebody.
Speaker 2: So I think she liked life better when she was free.
Speaker 2: And if it wasn't going to be King who died,
Speaker 2: and then she'd give back Kyron, she would get rid
Speaker 2: of Kiren. It doesn't sound like enough motive to have
Speaker 2: a child taken.
Speaker 1: Oh listen. I mean, I think you and I both
Speaker 1: have read and research stories where there is far less
Speaker 1: motive than that for people to be killed. And it
Speaker 1: doesn't surprise me one little bit that somebody poll holes.
Speaker 1: You know, and I host another podcast, Buried Bones, and
Speaker 1: he and I often talk about, you know, things that
Speaker 1: sound stupid to us. It's all about the perception of
Speaker 1: the killer and what we think is gosh, that's on.
Speaker 1: A motive is absolutely a motive for somebody who you know,
Speaker 1: in their own head says, I've got to get out
Speaker 1: of the situation, right, I cannot spend one more moment
Speaker 1: in this situation, and that's when they react.
Speaker 2: Oh. One of the other things that had tipped I
Speaker 2: think Terry into this dangerous area is that her teenage
Speaker 2: son often lived with her and Kane, and Kane sent
Speaker 2: him back to his grandparents in Roseberg. And I don't
Speaker 2: know whether he knew, whether he took seriously the stories
Speaker 2: about him frightening Kiren, but the teenage son had to leave,
Speaker 2: so that I think I think Terry was mad about that.
Speaker 2: But I agree there are lots of motives with a child,
Speaker 2: it's just so much harder. I mean, it's just so
Speaker 2: much harder to understand. But I think I've been thinking,
Speaker 2: I still think about this all the time. I think
Speaker 2: maybe something else that happened that maybe we don't know about.
Speaker 2: That's something something else that put this bug in Terry.
Speaker 2: That maybe it wasn't just her son being sent away,
Speaker 2: or problems with Kin, or the fact she liked to
Speaker 2: be you know, she liked chaos. And then I do
Speaker 2: think it's premeditated that she set up, you know, school
Speaker 2: fair people won't notice, you know, if a child is
Speaker 2: taken away.
Speaker 1: Have you thought about maybe Kyne saw something or read
Speaker 1: or heard something. I wonder if that's a motive it.
Speaker 1: It just seems so like, I know, she approached the
Speaker 1: gardener to kill Cain, and I'm assuming the gardener said no,
Speaker 1: thank you. She could have gone to someone else, She
Speaker 1: could have tried other people and gotten him. I just
Speaker 1: it's so odd and upsetting that he's you know, now
Speaker 1: she's moved over to Kiren.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think Kyn very likely saw or heard something
Speaker 2: or read something on you know, if her computer was
Speaker 2: left open. I think Kyen had noticed something that was
Speaker 2: going to be serious for Terry.
Speaker 1: So the media comes out and droves because the police
Speaker 1: of course immediately, you know, is it an amber alert?
Speaker 1: It's twenty ten, I don't remember if that's when we
Speaker 1: had Amber alerts.
Speaker 3: Yep, there has to be a car involved, okay, so
Speaker 3: just a missing child alert basically, you know, I've studied
Speaker 3: and studied. I mean, I find no fault with the
Speaker 3: police or the sheriff's office in the county. I know
Speaker 3: from Desiree.
Speaker 2: And of course she is you know, sometimes criticized as
Speaker 2: being pro cop because her husband was a detective. But
Speaker 2: it was a massive, massive search.
Speaker 1: Did they end up bringing the Oregon State Police in
Speaker 1: or any federal agencies or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Yes, and the FBI and just pretty much everybody you
Speaker 2: can imagine.
Speaker 1: I feel like sometimes when we hear that criticism of
Speaker 1: cases in not Portland's large, but you know, in maybe
Speaker 1: even a smaller area. To me, it tends sometimes to
Speaker 1: be because the police, the local police are reticent to
Speaker 1: work with state or federal So if they immediately reached
Speaker 1: out are pretty close to immediately, then that obviously is
Speaker 1: a big check mark in their favor, so that that's nice.
Speaker 1: That's one thing we can take out of this is
Speaker 1: police incompetence. It sounds like, yeah, this is.
Speaker 2: A very interesting side note. Desiree and friends and Facebook.
Speaker 2: They're backing somebody who's going to be in an election
Speaker 2: with the DA who was the DA in twenty ten
Speaker 2: because he won't bring charges. Mike Schmid is the current
Speaker 2: DA and the candidate is ap prosecutor in the office,
Speaker 2: so he's challenging his boss, and they're backing this fellow.
Speaker 2: I don't I think. I think Desiree has met with
Speaker 2: him and Desiree has tried over the years to continue
Speaker 2: meeting with the DA in Portland to find out, well,
Speaker 2: what would they have to know to be able to
Speaker 2: make an arrest to bring charges, and Desiree is said,
Speaker 2: they're not going to bring charges until they find Kirn's body.
Speaker 2: I'll do it, I'll find him. I think the disappointment
Speaker 2: in the community is with the DA's office. Of course,
Speaker 2: that's where the buck stops, and not with the police,
Speaker 2: because it's a DA who decides.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, but I guess you could at the flip
Speaker 1: side of as you could also say, well, the police
Speaker 1: need to work harder to get evidence. And I'm assuming
Speaker 1: that's what the DA will say, is well, keep doing,
Speaker 1: keep going. If you want me to file these charges,
Speaker 1: you've got to keep going and figure out a connection.
Speaker 2: Well, I know grand Jury has continued to meet off
Speaker 2: and on for years without bringing an indictment. Desiree tried.
Speaker 2: You know, I always thought this was a good idea
Speaker 2: if she filed the civil suit a year after Kyra
Speaker 2: went missing. Yeah, and you know, you hear about families
Speaker 2: like in the og Simpson case, Ronald Goldman's family after
Speaker 2: OJ Simpson was found on guilty. You know, they file
Speaker 2: a civil suit and they win. They may not collect,
Speaker 2: but they win. She and her attorney needed the police
Speaker 2: report to continue with the civil suit, and they couldn't
Speaker 2: get it. That was it would have been about twenty eleven,
Speaker 2: a year after Kiro disappeared. The police weren't ready to,
Speaker 2: you know, because they'd be showing Kerry Horman everything they
Speaker 2: had on her.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they had to drop the civil suit. I
Speaker 2: would think that might still be some day a possibility, Yeah,
Speaker 2: to charge her civilly well, civil suits, even if there's
Speaker 2: no conviction. It's such an excellent way to get information
Speaker 2: and potentially get her on the stand to defend herself
Speaker 2: or you know, you really that's a good way, and
Speaker 2: I think a really effective way, which is I think
Speaker 2: a lot of the motivation for a lot of families,
Speaker 2: not necessarily you know, a monetary gain, but you know,
Speaker 2: and even a convention, but to just get that information.
Speaker 2: Have you talked to Desiree at all about if she's
Speaker 2: going to be interested in in refiling. I don't think
Speaker 2: we've talked about that in a few years, but that
Speaker 2: is something I would ask her about.
Speaker 1: Well, let's pick it back up with you know, there's
Speaker 1: this media circus, there's this boy who's missing. At what
Speaker 1: point do the police, I know, they're looking at everybody,
Speaker 1: the husband who's a cop, who you know, had the
Speaker 1: I'm sure the knowledge to hide a body, the mother,
Speaker 1: the biological mother, the stepmother or the father, and they
Speaker 1: start digging through all this information. What is the big
Speaker 1: red flag for the police to say about Terry, This
Speaker 1: woman's capable. Not that there are witnesses floating around who
Speaker 1: say this and that, but when did they start becoming
Speaker 1: very alarmed or is it the witnesses.
Speaker 2: I'd say the evening of the day Kiren disappeared. Because
Speaker 2: all the parents were kept in Caine's house for like
Speaker 2: forty hours. I didn't know that this could happen. They
Speaker 2: were all kept there, and of course the baby's there,
Speaker 2: and Desiree had picked up her other son who maybe
Speaker 2: was ten at the time, or ten or fourteen. So
Speaker 2: the police are right there with them and they can see,
Speaker 2: you know, Terry's quirky, that's putting it nicely, behavior about
Speaker 2: you know, food and all of this. And I know
Speaker 2: for a fact that right then Desiree and Kin and
Speaker 2: Tony were very suspicious of Terry right away, even Cain
Speaker 2: her husband.
Speaker 1: Yes, and he didn't even know yet that she had
Speaker 1: tried to put a hit out on him.
Speaker 2: No, he didn't know. He didn't know that yet. Terry
Speaker 2: is actually putting Kiren's things away in storage and taking
Speaker 2: photos down from his room. And within two days the
Speaker 2: police gave Terry Horman her first polygraph and quickly followed
Speaker 2: by two others. She failed two polygraphs, and she walked
Speaker 2: out on the third one.
Speaker 1: I would have two, to be honest, I hate polographs.
Speaker 1: Were they doing that to intimidate her? I mean they
Speaker 1: had to have known that they're not going to get
Speaker 1: any real confirmation of anything.
Speaker 2: I think they get a psychological reading just from their behavior.
Speaker 2: Take the test, don't you think.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I would scare me to death. Yes, absolutely so.
Speaker 2: Then after a few days in this house together, Tony
Speaker 2: and does Ray go to a hotel About ten days
Speaker 2: after Kiren disappears, and you should if you haven't seen
Speaker 2: this video on YouTube, it's really interesting. About ten days
Speaker 2: after Irons disappeared is the first news conference with the
Speaker 2: parents present and with the police, and it's held at
Speaker 2: the old church across the road from where Kiren's school
Speaker 2: is and the church has also become kind of a
Speaker 2: media center. And the four parents are there together and
Speaker 2: it looks like, you know, if you're just looking at
Speaker 2: it looks like, oh, there's some unity between the parents
Speaker 2: and the step parents. Well, Carrie leans on Desiree and
Speaker 2: tries to hugger. Terry is the only one crying. Terry's
Speaker 2: actions are so odd, and Desiree says she didn't want Terry.
Speaker 2: They've never been close ever. They were not good friends
Speaker 2: as some of Terry's friends said they were. They were
Speaker 2: not friends. And here is the stepmother leaning on her, crying,
Speaker 2: and the video is just pretty fascinating. And then what
Speaker 2: they did is the men's the father and stepfather both
Speaker 2: spoke briefly and the Sheriff's department, and it's not long
Speaker 2: after that when they find out about the hitman and
Speaker 2: Caine moves out of the house. As far as I mean,
Speaker 2: I think the really interesting question is where is Kyroen?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean did she have time to dig a hole
Speaker 2: in the woods. Incidentally, De d was deposed by the
Speaker 2: Grand by attorneys and pled the Fifth Amendment. I think
Speaker 2: it was one hundred and sixty one times or something.
Speaker 2: So we didn't get anything from her, but she's left
Speaker 2: the city. You know, they both they both left the city.
Speaker 2: Terry went home to her parents in Roseberg, and Dedi
Speaker 2: went back to Climbate Falls. Those were both in southern Oregon.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's very common to hand off a child.
Speaker 2: I don't think Terry had looked around for somebody to
Speaker 2: give Kiren to. I don't know. There are people that
Speaker 2: like to think that that, you know, one day he's
Speaker 2: going to knock on the door when he's thirty years old,
Speaker 2: and you know, he's just remembered who he is or something.
Speaker 2: I can't think of anything besides the Madeline McCann's story
Speaker 2: in Portugal.
Speaker 4: Yeah it's possible. I guess that they think she was
Speaker 4: taken to give away. Yeah, yeah, I don't know where
Speaker 4: he is. She was on the road for a couple
Speaker 4: of hours.
Speaker 2: Not a lot of my leech on her. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't think they knew what or a dometer was
Speaker 2: when she set out that date. But she didn't go far.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I think is interesting. I feel
Speaker 1: like you're very I know this is all based on
Speaker 1: your research. You're very bold to essentially accuse somebody of
Speaker 1: murder who hasn't been convicted or arrested, who is, you know,
Speaker 1: living her life in California. Do you not ever get
Speaker 1: scared of your own civil lawsuit launched by Terry.
Speaker 2: Well I just a few minutes ago. I thought about it.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, you know, but the book has been out,
Speaker 2: you know, a few years now. Yeah. Of course they're
Speaker 2: the Facebook pages. They take pictures of her house and
Speaker 2: put them on one.
Speaker 1: Oh man. And she's never made a statement, right, I
Speaker 1: mean except to say I have no I have no
Speaker 1: idea what happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and uh, the woman who basically is behind the
Speaker 2: Facebook page, she's been kicked off with tiber too, and
Speaker 2: then she's back. You know. So many people have said,
Speaker 2: we think it was Terry Horman. Yeah, I don't think
Speaker 2: I'm sticking out as the one person saying this. Desiree
Speaker 2: has said it very publicly. Desiree and Cain went on
Speaker 2: doctor Phil. Terry went on doctor Phil. Terry got her
Speaker 2: own two statements.
Speaker 1: I read about that. Can you summarize what happened with
Speaker 1: doctor Phil from what Terry said about all of this?
Speaker 2: She's never deviated from her story of that morning I
Speaker 2: don't think she's ever deviated at all. You know, doctor
Speaker 2: Phil was famous for saying, what were you thinking? You
Speaker 2: know back then? And I haven't watched it in a while,
Speaker 2: but I should, and it has mentioned the book. I
Speaker 2: don't think he believed her at all. Desiree and came.
Speaker 2: We're also on Oprah and so every you know, everybody
Speaker 2: has said we think it was terry. So it doesn't
Speaker 2: necessarily come from me.
Speaker 1: You know, It's interesting. I was thinking of like, how
Speaker 1: would this work? And I know we talk about technology
Speaker 1: and is there a way, is there anything that could
Speaker 1: be improved, you know, to crack this case? Seems to
Speaker 1: me like the thing that could crack it is like
Speaker 1: d D or somebody who knows something getting into some
Speaker 1: pretty real trouble and getting out of it by giving
Speaker 1: over some information, which is what often happens. But I
Speaker 1: know this is kind of a different demographic then we're
Speaker 1: a lot of times, I think we talk about petty
Speaker 1: criminals and drug dealers. I'm not sure if DD's going
Speaker 1: to be getting into any kind of trouble.
Speaker 2: Like that, I don't think so. I don't know much
Speaker 2: about d D's current life, but her you know, history
Speaker 2: as far as I knew, it wasn't as troublesome as
Speaker 2: as Terry's. I think you're right that sometimes people squeal
Speaker 2: because they can get something out of it. But I'm
Speaker 2: not sure there's anybody else besides the two of them
Speaker 2: that knows what happened. And maybe Deee doesn't even know.
Speaker 2: Maybe she got in the truck. I've always thought maybe
Speaker 2: Terry left her with the baby getting a cup of
Speaker 2: coffee so that she wasn't really there.
Speaker 1: To wrap this up? Where are Desiree and Kane? Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, I know we've talked about they both kind
Speaker 1: of do their own fundraising. They both kind of have events.
Speaker 1: They're trying to keep this going and I'm sure your
Speaker 1: book you know, in twenty twenty, really helped. Are they
Speaker 1: both living lives as well as they can of two
Speaker 1: people who lost a child?
Speaker 2: Well, Cain is still in that house in north Portland
Speaker 2: as far as I know, he said full custody of
Speaker 2: what was the baby at the time. Because of Terry's
Speaker 2: past history, Terry could see that child if she caught
Speaker 2: up with all these years of child support that she
Speaker 2: hasn't done that, so she hasn't seen her little girl
Speaker 2: in fourteen years, Wow came and last I I don't
Speaker 2: know exactly what he's doing. I think he stood until
Speaker 2: maybe and he has this fundraiser for Kiren. And course
Speaker 2: Desiree is never far away from her, you know, and
Speaker 2: she's doing something which I think is amazing. She speaks
Speaker 2: at a lot of gatherings and this kind of evolved
Speaker 2: over the last few years at you know, true crime
Speaker 2: festivals where they have people speak and often you know, parents,
Speaker 2: missy children. But she also and of course she her
Speaker 2: husband was a detective. She speaks to police agencies. She
Speaker 2: speaks to law enforcement. There's something called KURT Training, which
Speaker 2: is Child Abduction sponse Team, and it brings together it's
Speaker 2: three days. It's held all over the country and it
Speaker 2: brings together teams of local police, FBI, social workers, first responders,
Speaker 2: fire search and rescue people for specialized training all the
Speaker 2: roles that you have people playing when there's a child missing.
Speaker 2: And Desiree speaks to KURT Training, and I just think
Speaker 2: that's amazing for them to hear from a parent who
Speaker 2: really went through this. Yeah, and I've never I don't
Speaker 2: think I've ever heard Desiree say they didn't do this
Speaker 2: or they didn't do that. I will say, you know,
Speaker 2: the case is open. You never close. Police never close
Speaker 2: a case of a missing child. So the case is open.
Speaker 2: And she's been told that, you know a lot of
Speaker 2: times with police departments, and I've written about again missing
Speaker 2: other missing people. Once every year or two they'll assign,
Speaker 2: you know, somebody with fresh eyes to a case and
Speaker 2: they'll take a look at it, and it usually goes nowhere.
Speaker 2: But you know, I'm sure, I'm sure that the Molamba
Speaker 2: County Sharff's office does that and takes another look at
Speaker 2: things Desiree has helped find, and the fundraising has financed
Speaker 2: news searches of areas that she thinks need another search.
Speaker 1: So really, you know, at the end of this story,
Speaker 1: we're back to Kiren, who is missing, and that is
Speaker 1: the hope that ultimately, you know, in one way or
Speaker 1: the other, his body will be recovered, he will be found,
Speaker 1: and then somebody will be brought to justice, if that's
Speaker 1: Terry or whomever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I don't always believe in what the media
Speaker 2: calls closure. The paint does not end when they find
Speaker 2: the remains, but I do think it puts you a
Speaker 2: step closer. I think it puts families in a kind
Speaker 2: of a new position, and of course often leads to
Speaker 2: then some kind of criminal charges being brought. If they
Speaker 2: can find you know the body, they'll know a lot
Speaker 2: more about who did what.
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Speaker 1: Is Wicked, and American Sherlock and Don't Forget. There are
Speaker 1: twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast, Tenfold More
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Speaker 1: been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis M. Morosi.
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode was mixed
Speaker 1: by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer. Artwork by
Speaker 1: Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hartstark, Karen Kilgarriff and
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