Stephanie Slifer
Appearances
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
It was largely due to Ben's death there, but there was a lot of issues that were identified at that daycare throughout the investigation. Wow.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
And before Melissa filed for clemency, she had what's called a habeas corpus petition pending in federal court. Now, that was filed in 2019. It sat there with no ruling for five years. due to a backlog, we think, partly due to COVID possibly. So Melissa's defense attorney decided to withdraw that petition and go after clemency instead.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
Now, if the clemency does not work out, they'll have to go back and refile in federal court.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
Yeah, so Melissa's father has really been consumed by this case. You know, he's really dedicated his entire life to trying to free his daughter. And, you know, Crystal, Melissa's sister, tells us in the episode how her parents had to sell a lot of their belongings. We know that her father had a bait and tackle shop. He sold that years ago in an effort to help Melissa.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
But then the problem with that is now we know all these years later that Ben Kingan may not have sustained a skull fracture because these clear x-rays were found years after the trial and the defense hired a pediatric neuroradiologist who looked at those clear x-rays and said, there's no skull fracture here. And if a skull fracture existed, I would see it in these clear x-rays.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
Aaron interviewed... a false confession expert, Dr. Saul Kasson, and he pointed out to us that if in fact Ben didn't sustain a skull fracture, that's what he refers to as a false fact that could have tainted this entire confession.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
We don't know. Right, because recently the defense hired a psychologist and psychiatrist from Yale who evaluated Melissa, and she scored at a 4.8 grade level in sentence comprehension. So that really raises questions as to whether she even knew what was going on or that she had the right to leave or to ask for an attorney.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
The assistant coroner, his name's Paul Foreman. He's the one that actually took the x-rays. And he says that they were clear when he took them. So there's some speculation that maybe he's the one that made the anonymous call. We don't know for sure.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
I just want to say it's interesting the fact that this information came to light through an anonymous call to begin with, because that means somebody knew that these x-rays had been withheld. Now, the prosecutors have questioned whether Paul Kaluzinski, Melissa's father, really did receive an anonymous call. They tried to look into his phone records. They said they couldn't find proof of it.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
But Paul Kaluzinski maintains today that he got that anonymous call. And that's how all of this came to light.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
And frankly, whether there can still be confidence in the verdict from trial is a question for the Illinois governor, J.B. Pritzker, to think about, as well as the Lake County State's attorney, Eric Reinhart. You'll remember from our broadcast that Reinhart recommended to Melissa's defense attorney to hire these forensic computer experts to get to the bottom of the discrepancy between the x-rays.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
And these experts found that the x-rays were manipulated using a software tool used to view x-rays. And their analysis showed that this manipulation was done on the coroner's office computer. Therefore, they put in a report that they believe the state was responsible for manipulating the x-rays. The state meaning either somebody from the prosecutor's office or somebody from the coroner's office.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
Thank you. Yeah, it's an important case. So we definitely wanted to be here to talk about it.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
You had to be in the coroner's office to get access to this, according to those experts. So we know that those experts presented these findings to Eric Reinhart in a meeting And what has happened since then? We don't know everything that's gone on behind the scenes, but we do know that after that, Eric Reinhart wrote a letter to the governor's prisoner review board opposing Melissa's clemency.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
Well, it's a crazy story, Anne-Marie. I think it started with me just going down a rabbit hole one day trying to find this Brenda. And I found a couple of different Brendas with that same last name. I started calling. I think I called the wrong Brenda multiple times. This woman was like, please stop. It's not me. But finally, I thought I found the right one. But she was not calling me back.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
And I decided to run her name through like the criminal court case lookup in the county where I knew she lived. And it came up that she was supposed to appear for a traffic ticket hearing. And the traffic ticket hearing happens to be during the week that we were scheduled to go there already. We were going to conduct other interviews on the case.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
So it was kind of like the stars were aligning and we decided we're going to just try to go to the traffic ticket hearing. I mean, we were obviously catching her totally off guard there.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
Yes, you're absolutely right that she's never been charged with harming Ben accidentally or intentionally. But we felt it was important to talk to her because it was a lingering question in the case. You know, we knew that her name had been brought up in connection to this prior injury that Ben sustained. The defense has long argued that that prior injury caused his death.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
So we just wanted to see what we could find out about it. See if Brenda remembered anything about Ben bumping his head in her car.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
So there was several daycare workers that were interviewed by police in the wake of Ben's death. And as part of our new report during the research phase, we were going through a lot of those police reports. And there was something that stuck out. There was a daycare worker who told police that at one point she witnessed another child, not Ben, fall off a changing table at the daycare.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
And that the child's parents were lied to about the incident and told he fell over while seated on the floor. And the reason that stuck out is because, you know, in interviews with Aaron, Melissa's defense attorney has suggested that the daycare was not honest with Ben's parents about that old injury months before his death.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
It was largely due to Ben's death there, but there was a lot of issues that were identified at that daycare throughout the investigation. Wow.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
And before Melissa filed for clemency, she had what's called a habeas corpus petition pending in federal court. Now, that was filed in 2019. It sat there with no ruling for five years. due to a backlog, we think, partly due to COVID possibly. So Melissa's defense attorney decided to withdraw that petition and go after clemency instead.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Now, if the clemency does not work out, they'll have to go back and refile in federal court.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Yeah, so Melissa's father has really been consumed by this case. He's really dedicated his entire life to trying to free his daughter. And Crystal, Melissa's sister, tells us in the episode how her parents had to sell a lot of their belongings. We know that her father had a bait and tackle shop. He sold that years ago in an effort to help Melissa. So it's just a sad case all around.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
But then the problem with that is now we know all these years later that Ben Kingan may not have sustained a skull fracture because these clear x-rays were found years after the trial and the defense hired a pediatric neuroradiologist who looked at those clear x-rays and said, there's no skull fracture here. And if a skull fracture existed, I would see it in these clear x-rays.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Aaron interviewed... false confession expert, Dr. Saul Kasson, and he points it out to us that if in fact Ben didn't sustain a skull fracture, that's what he refers to as a false fact that could have tainted this entire confession.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
We don't know. Right, because recently the defense hired a psychologist and psychiatrist from Yale who evaluated Melissa, and she scored at a 4.8 grade level in sentence comprehension. So that really raises questions as to whether she even knew what was going on or that she had the right to leave or to ask for an attorney.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
The assistant coroner, his name's Paul Foreman. He's the one that actually took the x-rays. And he says that they were clear when he took them. So there's some speculation that maybe he's the one that made the anonymous call. We don't know for sure.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
I just want to say it's interesting the fact that this information came to light through an anonymous call to begin with. Because That means somebody knew that these x-rays had been withheld. Now, the prosecutors have questioned whether Paul Kaluzinski, Melissa's father, really did receive an anonymous call. They tried to look into his phone records. They said they couldn't find proof of it.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
But Paul Kaluzinski maintains today that he got that anonymous call. And that's how all of this came to light.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
And frankly, whether there can still be confidence in the verdict from trial is a question for the Illinois governor, J.B. Pritzker, to think about, as well as the Lake County state's attorney, Eric Reinhart. You'll remember from our broadcast that Reinhart recommended to Melissa's defense attorney to hire these forensic computer experts to get to the bottom of the discrepancy between the X-rays.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
And these experts found that the x-rays were manipulated using a software tool used to view x-rays. And their analysis showed that this manipulation was done on the coroner's office computer. Therefore, they put in a report that they believe the state was responsible for manipulating the x-rays.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Thank you. Yeah, it's an important case. So we definitely wanted to be here to talk about it.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
The state meaning either, you know, somebody from the prosecutor's office or somebody from the coroner's office. You had to be in the coroner's office to get access to this, according to those experts. So we know that those experts presented these findings to Eric Reinhart in a meeting and And what has happened since then?
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
We don't know everything that's gone on behind the scenes, but we do know that after that, Eric Reinhart wrote a letter to the governor's prisoner review board opposing Melissa's clemency.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Well, it's a crazy story, Anne-Marie. I think it started with me just going down a rabbit hole one day trying to find this Brenda. And I found a couple of different Brendas with that same last name. I started calling. I think I called the wrong Brenda multiple times. This woman was like, please stop. It's not me. But finally, I thought I found the right one. But she was not calling me back.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
And I decided to run her name through the criminal court case lookup in the county where I knew she lived. And it came up that she was supposed to appear for a traffic ticket hearing. And the traffic ticket hearing happens to be during the week that we were scheduled to go there already. We were going to conduct other interviews on the case. So it was kind of like the stars were aligning.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
And we decided we're going to just try to go to the traffic ticket hearing. I mean, we were obviously catching her totally off guard there.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Yes, you're absolutely right that she's never been charged with harming Ben accidentally or intentionally. But we felt it was important to talk to her because it was a lingering question in the case. You know, we knew that her name had been brought up in connection to this prior injury that Ben sustained. The defense has long argued that that prior injury caused his death.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
So we just wanted to see what we could find out about it, see if Brenda remembered anything. about Ben bumping his head in her car.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
So there was several daycare workers that were interviewed by police in the wake of Ben's death. And as part of our new report during the research phase, we were going through a lot of those police reports. And there was something that stuck out. There was a daycare worker who told police that at one point she witnessed another child, not Ben, fall off a changing table at the daycare.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
And that the child's parents were lied to about the incident and told he fell over while seated on the floor. And the reason that stuck out is because, you know, in interviews with Aaron, Melissa's defense attorney has suggested that the daycare was not honest with Ben's parents about that old injury months before his death.
48 Hours
Trained to Kill: The Dog Trainer, the Heiress and the Bodyguard
something was going on over there, and I wanted to get some more sleep, and I was going to have words with Mark.
48 Hours
Trained to Kill: The Dog Trainer, the Heiress and the Bodyguard
And I'm on the phone leaving a message with him and he's in the driveway. The car is in the driveway, parked up by the house. And I'm thinking, wow, that's weird, because he really, he's probably going to be, you know, a little antsy because he would have rather been gone by now.
48 Hours
Trained to Kill: The Dog Trainer, the Heiress and the Bodyguard
I saw who I thought was Mark. going into the house, coming out of the house, putting stuff in the back of the hatch.
48 Hours
Trained to Kill: The Dog Trainer, the Heiress and the Bodyguard
Because it was his hat and his jacket. He opened the door to the car, looked at the front windshield, grabbed something off the front, and then just tore, like literally tore down the driveway.
48 Hours
Trained to Kill: The Dog Trainer, the Heiress and the Bodyguard
I explained it away that Ding must have ripped her stitches out, out here.
48 Hours
Trained to Kill: The Dog Trainer, the Heiress and the Bodyguard
I could smell the bleach before I even opened the door.
48 Hours
Trained to Kill: The Dog Trainer, the Heiress and the Bodyguard
It was blood. It was red, dark, dark red.
48 Hours
Trained to Kill: The Dog Trainer, the Heiress and the Bodyguard
She was on all fours and she was growling. Something had happened to her. Maybe she had had a stroke. It was obvious one eye was in a horrible mess. We couldn't find Mark. I was calling him. I left a message, Mark, we're really concerned. Where are you? You know, why is Ding here?
48 Hours
Trained to Kill: The Dog Trainer, the Heiress and the Bodyguard
I can only describe it as evil. Something horrible, something terrible. I knew something bad had taken place.
48 Hours
Trained to Kill: The Dog Trainer, the Heiress and the Bodyguard
I remember being woken up early in the morning by a hellacious barking.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
I, of course, internet stalked him immediately and came to find out that he's like the man that never retires.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
I was at home. My dad came home and told my mom, and I could hear him telling her that Dani was gone. And she said, I know. They're going to look again in the morning. As soon as it's light, they'll be back out there looking for her. They're going to find her. They're going to find her. And he said, no, honey. They found her. She's gone.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
Tom got to work. Tom worked on Danny's case every day. He went through and reexamined all of the evidence.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
Not a day since I was 12 years old have I not thought about my sister, Dani. That day in September of 1996, Dani disappeared. My name is Stephanie. Dani was my older sister. Dani was 15 years old, the kind of older sister that every little sister looks up to. Nice stuff.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
We've found Danny's killer, and he is alive, and we are going to make a case against him.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
It was the moment at which I knew that everything I had put into my fight for my sister had been worth it.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
No. Paul Hutchinson was a stranger to Danny. There's no way that she would have known him.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
I was preparing myself for the next three to five years of a court battle to staring him down to being present every day in that courtroom.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
When I finally saw the exact spot where her body was found, and I sat there and imagined that about her last moments and how it went from peaceful rustling of leaves and the sounds of squirrels running through the forest and the birds chirping to suddenly turning to this awful and violating and terrifying experience.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
And then that realization that she must have had when he was holding her face down in the mud that she was gonna die right there. And I am so sorry for her that she had to experience that moment.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
I promised myself. I promised my sister. I'm coming for you, Danny. I never would have guessed how this ended.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
I think that anyone who is able to Rape and murder a young girl and then get away with it for almost 28 years had plenty of chances to do it again.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
On the table, I have what was in Dani's pocket when she died, and then her driver's license, which she was really proud of having.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
We spread half of Dani's ashes on top of the tallest mountain on the Bridger Range, Sacagawea Peak.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
Love you, Danny. I think the biggest thing has been, after so many years of begging and pleading for people to pay attention to my sister, for people to believe that she mattered. I'm feeling so often like I was screaming into an echo chamber. Now suddenly she matters to everyone all over again.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
That morning, we had kind of a family spat. Stephanie Mollett was Danny's little sister. And so she got 15-year-old mad about it and needed some space and some time, and she had her driver's license.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
In the state of Montana in 1996, you actually got your driver's license at 15. She was a very proud driver.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
She was upset with my parents and needed some space to herself. Danielle had gone out to Cameron Bridge.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
She loved science. She was so interested in the way that the world worked. And she had a sense of humor, right? Uh, yeah. Dani, that is really nice. Isn't she lovely? Look at your lovely daughter here. She was witty, and she was funny, and everyone loved her.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
Absolutely. Danny didn't return home. The mother grew deeply concerned. And so she and one of her friends drove out to Cameron Bridge to see what was going on. My mom and her friend walked around calling Danny's name and called the Sheriff's Department and reported her missing. And a search party was being pulled together.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
I tried to be strong. Danny died on a Saturday, and I tried to go back to school on Monday.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
They told us that she drowned and they told us that it really could have been an accident.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
Traumatizing. It was having a big wound in your life and this big gap that was unexplainable. And you somehow had to find a way to heal without answers, to live without resolution, to hope with no reason to hope.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
I had been calling the sheriff's department, trying to get someone to talk to me about Danny's case.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
I was so angry at the people who lied to my family and let my sister's murder go unsolved but uninvestigated for all of these years. I learned that rather than drowning on just water, Danny's head had been held down in the mud. She had mud all the way down into her lungs and into her stomach. There was subcutaneous bruising on the back of her neck. Someone had held her head down forcefully.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
There was vaginal injuries. There was semen in her underwear. She had fought and scratched.
48 Hours
It’s About Danni
I remember asking them, so you mean to tell me that in fact my sister was raped? And they said, yes, we believe she was raped. I remember not being able to breathe. I remember feeling like I needed to puke.