Deadly Divas True Crime Podcast
We are Tina & Sarah, two DIVAS obsessed with deadly true crime stories...
On our first trip away together, we found ourselves listening to true crime stories, watching documentaries and constantly talking about it, so this seemed the next logical step!
Join us for weekly episodes on everything true crime, and feel free to email us suggestions and questions to contact@deadlydivaspodcastcom. Be Divas... Not Deadly!
Deadly Divas True Crime Podcast
BONUS July 4th Episode: The Kunz Family Murders
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Sarah leads this episode about the unsettling events that occurred in Athens, Wisconsin on July 4th, 1987. Five members of the Kunz family tragically lost their lives on what should have been a holiday filled with wholesome celebration, fireworks, & BBQ's.
The twists, turns, and shocking details on this one are NOT to be missed, y'all, so tune in now!
Don't forget to send us your feedback and ideas for future episode content at contact@deadlydivaspodcast.com!
Hey Division Dudes, I'm Sarah. Welcome back to Deadly Divis, your favorite true crime podcast.
SPEAKER_02And I'm Tina, and thank you for joining us this week. If you're new here, welcome. We break down a new true crime case for you every Friday.
SPEAKER_00And this episode is about a case that happened on the 4th of July in 1987. And it has so many elements to it. Are you ready? I think I'm ready. Five murders, one kidnapping, hoarding, drugs, guns, rape, burglary, double jeopardy, incest, and even a prisoner who turned down parole. It's a wild one that remains officially unresolved. Although many believe the case to be concluded, but we can discuss the speculation and what we think happened at the end of the show.
SPEAKER_02You guys can't see my mouth. My mouth is wide open right now at all that.
SPEAKER_00I didn't let Tina know anything about this story because I wanted to blow her mind.
SPEAKER_02I mean, you told me it was wild. I was ready for everything, but not incest.
SPEAKER_00Everything. Literally everything. Okay. All right. So let's go back to the 4th of July 1987 and the home of Clarence, Marie, Irene, Randy, Helen, and Kenneth Kunz. And they live in Athens, Wisconsin. So Helen, Clarence, Marie, and Irene are all siblings in their 70s and 80s. And Randy and Kenny are Helen's sons. And they all live together in the home which was left to Clarence, the oldest sibling, by his parents when they passed. They lived a very reclusive life on this 108-acre farm. And considering this was 1987, it was also unusual that the house had no running water or plumbing. The family used an outhouse for a bathroom and cooked on a wood burning stove. They were also hoarders and the house was in quite terrible condition. So Kenny was the only family member to have a job, and he lived a somewhat independent life in a trailer beside the house on the property, and he worked at a local cheese factory. The rest of the family lived off Social Security. So Helen had given birth to Kenny when she was only 15 years old, claiming that a neighbor had raped her, and that neighbor was sent to jail.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Now, on the evening of July 4th, 1987, Helen and Randy go to watch fireworks. They return home around 10 PM. Everyone else is home except Kenneth. So he had gone out for the night drinking and socializing, and he didn't return home till 5 AM the next morning. Because remember he's the only one that really has a life outside. Right. That's great. Apparently he was with co-workers from the cheese factory. He had slept in his car and he returned to the farm quietly so as not to wake anyone up. But on arrival, he realizes that Randy's car isn't there and that there's music coming from the house, which is unusual. So instead of going directly to his trailer, he walks over to the house to see what's going on. He first encounters his Aunt Marie, shot to death on the front porch steps. Oh dear. Then he enters the house and sees his brother Randy, shot to death in the kitchen. Oh God. Next he sees his uncle Clarence and Aunt Irina dead too. He looks around for his mother Helen, but she is nowhere to be found.
SPEAKER_02Ooh. She did it, y'all.
SPEAKER_00Just wait. Okay. So Kenny calls the police who arrive on site to find the house with four dead bodies, massive amounts of pornography, and stacks and stacks of cash just laying all over this overcrowded border house. Oh Tina's face right now.
SPEAKER_02My oh God. Anyway.
SPEAKER_00So they can tell there's been no forced entry, so they believe that the attackers were let in willingly by the Kunces. And forensic evidence shows that the family would have been murdered around 10 p.m. when Helen and Randy got home. Now at first they suspect Kenny, but they actually soon realize that he's quite mentally challenged and probably not capable of committing such a crime. Right. The possibility of it being a burglary seemed unlikely as so much cash had been left sitting around. All in all, twenty-two thousand dollars in cash.
SPEAKER_02Wow. And no running water?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Wow. Right? Mysterious, huh? So all in all, the whole scene is just a baffling bookbath. No one had any idea where all this money came from, because all on Social Security, right? Um Helen's missing. They have to wonder, is she responsible for the murders? Had she fleeed the scene? At this point, no one knows, and there are just so many questions and no answers. Now they find Randy's truck in a freshly tilled area of the farm, where they would never usually park, and around it there are many tire tracks, and one set of tracks not belonging to any of the family's vehicles. So first piece of evidence. So the local community come together to help search the hundred and eight acres to try to find Helen, who is now officially a missing person, but no trace of her can be found. There's concern for her safety. This is a woman in her seventies. She is missing, her family have been found murdered, but there is also some suspicion that she may know something about the crimes. So they start looking into Helen's background and her recent movements. They find out that she had recently bought twenty-two caliber shells, which she said was to shoot blackbirds, but also happen to match the murder weapon.
SPEAKER_02Is a twenty-two a shotgun? Yes. Why do you need a shotgun for blackbirds? That doesn't seem efficient either.
SPEAKER_00It also comes to light that Helen and Clarence, who remember a brother and sister, also had a sexual relationship. And when the police are questioning Kenny about the murders, he refers to Clarence as his uncle and father. Which at first the police think he's just confused. Remember, they'd already established that he wasn't the smartest. But it turns out that there are rumors around town that this is actually a well-known fact. Which also means that somebody went to jail for something they didn't do.
SPEAKER_02Well, no wonder he was like intellectually challenged.
SPEAKER_00Jesus Christ. So also the person who ran the local hardware store says how Helen mentioned that she was just getting so angry and frustrated with her family. Quote, all they do is lay around and watch pornography and I just want to kill them. So did Helen just snap and use her twenty two to put an end to her frustration.
SPEAKER_02Sounds like it to me, y'all.
SPEAKER_00There's also talk in the town that Randy was dealing drugs out of the house. So that's Kenny's brother. And that's why there are large amounts of cash lying around everywhere. Well, months go by, Helen is still missing, but police come across a man named Chris Jacobs III, who had recently purchased a vehicle from the Kuntz family, and they wonder if maybe he has some insight into what he saw at the house. When he was there dealing with them, did he notice anything unusual? Was there anyone strange there? He doesn't seem to have any information of value, so police just release him from questioning. Then they come across a neighbor from the Kuntz farm, Alice. She drove past the farm on the night of the fourth of July and saw a car waiting at the entrance to the farm. She couldn't make anything else out because a spotlight was shone directly in her eyes, and then mysteriously the car follows her for a while until she is way past the farm.
SPEAKER_01Hmm.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Just gets weirder and weirder. Yeah. So in March 1988, so this is a good like nine months later.
SPEAKER_0288, the year of my birth.
SPEAKER_00Two boys go fishing and discover a body. And it is the body of Helen. Mm-hmm. Months after the original incident. Didn't see that coming, did ya?
SPEAKER_02No, I did not.
SPEAKER_00Now it appears that Helen is also a victim. So police turn their attention back to Chris Jacobs III and they decide that now they're gonna search his residence. And in his bedroom they find shell casings that match the ones at the scene. And in his car they find a spotlight similar to the one that Alice had described as being shone into her eyes the night she drove past. Ooh. Yeah, but like one, why didn't they search any of this originally? And two, he still has all this month's he's gonna be a hoarder too, I guess. So with all this evidence, they decide to charge Chris Jacobs III with the murders. The prosecution paint the picture that when Chris buys the car, he goes inside the house to complete the transaction, sees all the cash and the general state of the house, and so he gets together with some buddies to go back and rob the house on July 4th. They only mean to hold the family up at gunpoint, take the cash, but things go wrong and they end up shooting the residents of the house and leaving with less money than they planned. So that's what the prosecutioner saying their theory is of what happened. But what happened to Helen? Why take her with them and not kill her too?
SPEAKER_02There's no way that you shoot four people or however many people and don't just quickly grab all the cash. Because you've shot people now.
SPEAKER_00Right, you may as well get paid. Right. And those tire tracks that didn't match any of the fancy's cars matched Chris's car. Now, the autopsy on Helen proves that she did actually die the same time as her other murdered family members. Right? And the swampy area that she was found in is also an area that Chris had been known to throw away car parts from cars that he had illegally stripped. But of course, Chris Jacobs' legal teams spell a different story. They claim that the shell cases are only a possible match, and if it was a robbery, why was so much money left there? And the tire tracks are there from when he purchased the car. So they suggest that one of Randy's drug deals went wrong, and they bring out a witness who claims to have purchased drugs from Randy and Kenny. But the question still persists. Why would they take Helen to a different location to kill her and leave the body?
SPEAKER_02I mean it has to be somebody from the house that's responsible for this because why else would the money have been left?
SPEAKER_00So the defense witness actually falls flat, as it turns out, he was in jail when he claimed that he supposedly bought drugs from Kenny and Randy. And police officers testified that although large amounts of cash were found in the house, no drugs, traces of drugs, or drug paraphernalia were ever found at the residence. But the trial, however, was made up purely of circumstantial evidence, and as such, Chris Jacobs III is found not guilty of the Kent's family murders on July 4th. Okay. So police have no other suspects or leads to pursue, so no further arrests made. But two years later, Chris Jacobs' girlfriend at the time of the murders comes forward to say that Chris confessed to her that he committed the murders. He told her that he took Helen in order to rape her before killing her to prove his manhood and lose his virginity.
SPEAKER_02That makes no fucking sense.
SPEAKER_00In addition to this, a receipt for the tires Chris purchased shows that the tire tracks matching Chris's car were from tires that he put on the car after purchasing it, so tires could not be from the day of purchase, but from a time when he must have returned to the farm. However, due to double jeopardy laws, Chris cannot be tried for the murders a second time. So police charge him with the kidnapping of Helen Kuntz one day before the statute of limitations runs out.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00And he is found guilty and sentenced to thirty-one years in jail.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00His legal team appeal multiple times, but all appeals are denied. So some believe that Chris is innocent of the murders, as found by a jury at the first trial. Some believe the correct perpetrator is behind bars, but it officially remains an open case, as only one person was ever charged with the murders and he was acquitted and no other suspects have been identified.
SPEAKER_02Well, it kind of hinged on what that girlfriend said, right? But her story doesn't make any sense to me.
SPEAKER_00And she was also under arrest when she made she'd been arrested for something else. And she was like, Oh, I have some information if that helps my tense.
SPEAKER_02Or the cops could have propositioned her and said, Hey, if you help us put this guy away, you know, we'll be leaning in on you.
SPEAKER_00So in February of 2020, Chris Jacobs was released on parole, but later returned to prison at his own request. The Marathon County Jail Administrator explains that Jacobs made it clear to the Department of Corrections that he was not interested in participating in parole. He refused to sign or acknowledge the rules, and he didn't want to meet with his probation representative and said that instead he wished to return to prison to serve out the rest of the remainder of his time in jail. And according to the Federal Bureau of Prisoners inmate locator, he remains in prison to this day. That's insane.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that is insane.
SPEAKER_00Right. We're already 15 minutes in, and that's the entire story, but there's so much to unpack, you know. So what do you think of that?
SPEAKER_02I think that that family was just beyond fucked up. This was where was this?
SPEAKER_00Athens, Wisconsin.
SPEAKER_02Okay. I guess was it a rural area? Yes. They had 108 acres, so it must have been.
SPEAKER_00It sounds like they had 108 acres, but they didn't like do anything or use it. They just basically stayed in this house laying around, dealing traps, watching pornography.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it sounds like none of them make any sense.
SPEAKER_00Um except maybe Kenny was getting it. He had a job and didn't live inside the house.
SPEAKER_02He worked at the local cheese factory.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I didn't know cheese factory.
SPEAKER_02That would not be a job that I could do. I'm not a cheese person. You're a cheese person. Yeah. Sounds um, I mean, you hear about a lot of families like that, just in rural areas in the Appalachian area, um, that are like incest and they have this way of living, they're completely sheltered, and it's very sad. Um, but unfortunately, it opens the door for stuff like this to happen. Like you don't have any contact with the outside world and kind of live a miserable existence. Um it's sad, but I don't know if they got the right guy.
SPEAKER_00So apparently they they lived like it was still the 1930s. They even dressed that way. Wow. Yeah. And they very rarely went into town and Helen couldn't drive, like Randy was always driving her everywhere. Um very eccentric family for sure.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But obviously had something go they weren't just living on social security and living in their hoarder house and just being happy and reclusive. With all that money and everything, something was going on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I mean 108 acres, I don't know how property taxes work in Wisconsin, but maybe they don't have property taxes. But if you're paying taxes on 108 acres every year, that's gonna be a significant amount of money. So What if they just turn up the cash at the tax commission? Yeah, so if they were paying property taxes, they would have had to have been doing something. Social Security wasn't gonna pay in. But they found no drugs and no drug paraphernalia. No.
SPEAKER_00The whole thing is like still a mystery. Maybe because you immediately think Helen, but then when her body's found and then you find out she died the same day, obviously it's not Helen.
SPEAKER_02That's a little bit strange to me, too, that she died the same day, but they didn't find her until eight months later. And I mean, I'm sure that like her decomposition probably told them, like, yeah, she's been playing here eight months, but I wonder if somebody moved her there or if she really had been there. Because that's weird.
SPEAKER_00So so even if Chris Jacobs III didn't do it, if that's the area that he's dumping illegal goods in, chances are the people are too. Right. It's just one of those areas, right? Where people don't go, don't search. It was a sweepy area. Um, I don't think those parents should be letting those boys fish there. Definitely so like a dodgy area. So I don't know. I mean, it sounds like Chris is the only likely suspect.
SPEAKER_02He's the only suspect that we know of, I guess. But what was his motive if he didn't make off with $22,000 for that?
SPEAKER_00So they found $22,000 after. They may have been $122,000 before, right? We know.
SPEAKER_02Maybe, maybe.
SPEAKER_00They don't really show it so much in movies, but you need like a lot of bags and a lot of manpower to carry a lot of cash.
SPEAKER_02Right. So who survived of the family? Nobody? Kenny survived. So did he not make a statement or or something and say, like, all of my valuables are accounted for? We don't care about.
SPEAKER_00Kenny's the one that wasn't very smart that they're gonna be able to do it. Oh, right, right, right.
SPEAKER_02Right. Do you think Kenny did it?
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_02No, not at all.
SPEAKER_00No. One thing they said was that when he first reported it, he said that three people had been murdered because he hadn't even found his Aunt Irene yet. And the police basically from that moment said it can't be him because if he was gonna kill four people and then turn up and be like, oh my goodness, somebody's killed four people, he would have gotten them right.
SPEAKER_02Uh I don't know. I'm not entirely convinced that it's not him. Like you can be not that bright and still be a murderer. I mean, I'm not saying that I I do think that it's him for sure, but I can't discount the possibility.
SPEAKER_00He's the only one that seemed to have motive. He was the only person that was looking to lead a regular life, right? Um, he would have ended up with the farm, the money, everything, and not had to deal with the hoarders that were lazy and wouldn't go to work. And I say lazy, I mean they're in the 70s and 80s, and really they were tired, but it doesn't sound like they ever went to work.
SPEAKER_02Right. So do you think maybe there was some collusion between Chris and Kenneth, maybe?
SPEAKER_00Uh well, I never that that didn't occur to me.
SPEAKER_02But maybe maybe if he was, you know, perhaps naive and not that bright, you know, maybe Chris told him, Oh, hey, you know, let's let's do this and we'll be rich and you won't have to worry about your shitty family anymore, you know.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I th I think that nobody's ever gonna really know. I am convinced that it was not a drug deal that went wrong because drug dealers, I believe, would have taken all the money.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's just the nature, right?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, there would have been drug paraphernalia, there would have at least been traces of drugs or something. And I believe somebody committing armed robbery um who doesn't actually mean to kill anybody and it all goes wrong and they end up killing four people, I could see amateur um burglars being freaked out and leaving without the money. I don't see drug dealers. And maybe that's just a generalization, but I just see drug dealers as being like they would care less about the dead bodies and they'd be out to get all the money.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's another thing. If this is just a burglary, how much of a threat are a few 70 and 80-year-olds? Like, you know, you would tie them up or sequester them at them in a room, or even just hold a gun to them and say, Hey, I'm taking your money, don't do anything, or I'll blow your head off and then take the money and go. Because what are these 70 and 80-year-olds gonna do?
SPEAKER_00So they do believe that Randy, who was the younger um person, did stand up to somebody because he wasn't just shot in the head, he'd actually got a bond post trauma to the head as well. And they believe that Maureen was shot first as they came in because she was on the board. And that Randy heard the shot, and then you know how forensics can be like, oh, it looks like it happened in this order. And then they think that Randy was in the kitchen because he was coming towards the door to see, and that he was the one that was actually trying to fight back, and that he got hit with something. They said possibly even like an axe or something. Oh god, like something big hit him in the middle of the head before he was shot.
SPEAKER_02Well, and that's another thing, I guess, is if you're a burglar and your sole motivation is to burgle still, like, why would you choose a house where you've got somebody on the porch and multiple people in the house? Like, that's not an easy target. A burglar would think, Oh, this is not worth the juice is not worth the squeeze. Let's go find an abandoned But like you said, there are elderly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I'm assuming with no running water and no plumbing, um, that they probably had. No phones.
SPEAKER_02Right. Oh, they almost certainly didn't have phones.
SPEAKER_00So again, that's appealing to a burglar. They can't call the police.
SPEAKER_02But you would have to know them too to know that. So I guess that does.
SPEAKER_00They do believe it was somebody that knew them.
SPEAKER_02Right. So that would kind of point to Chris, right? Because he kind of knew.
SPEAKER_00Right. And not many other people had been out to the house.
SPEAKER_02Right. Huh.
SPEAKER_00Isn't that a crazy one?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I just wonder if they colluded, if it was Chris and Kenneth.
SPEAKER_00I didn't look up to see what happened with Kenneth, like what he did after or where he is today.
SPEAKER_02Hmm. The incest of it all. Ugh. Telen and Clarence. And they she gave birth to two sons. One was Kenneth.
SPEAKER_00Kenneth and Randy.
SPEAKER_02But she had someone put in jail for sexually assaulting her. But apparently that didn't even happen because she was fucking her brother.
SPEAKER_00So I mean, obviously incest is wrong. Yeah. Um, but people are gonna do what they're gonna do. But having somebody else thrown in jail for getting you pregnant because you were committing incest to me is the lowest of the Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like in a way, you do you, but at the same time, like, what the I wonder if it was somebody that she had a bone to pick with, or I wonder if there was just so much shame there that she felt an obligation to. But I mean, either way, it's wrong. I just I'm trying to get a grasp on what kind of person.
SPEAKER_00I want to know how pretty much everybody in the town knew through the rumor mail that it was Clarence's son and not the result of a rape. Like, how did that get out?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Kenny obviously knew because he to the police he referred to Clarence as his uncle and father. So he obviously knew.
SPEAKER_02That's not uncle daddy. Yeah, no, literally, I was watching True Blood last night, and have you seen True Blood? Do you watch True Blood if not you immediately immediately? Um, but anyway, there's this I don't even want to say it because it'll spoil it for you, but they were talking about there's this incest family and Appalachia, kind of like this family, and because they're like, Oh, go talk to your Uncle Daddy, just like so serious, and I'm like, What the f have you seen Claws? No.
SPEAKER_00It's um it's about some women that run a male salon, but it's like a cover for a drug thing. But the guy behind all the drug stuff, he they call him Uncle Daddy, but it's because he adopted his brother's children when his brother died, so he was their uncle and then their daddy. So it's but it's it's fun. It's actually really good. You should watch it.
SPEAKER_02This is a movie or a series?
SPEAKER_00No, it's a series. Okay, I'll watch this. It's a crime series, but it's very funny time-in-cheek crime series, and you'll recognize a few people in it.
SPEAKER_02I mean, that's sweet, and I can relate to that that he kind of took custody, but I would not have them calling me Uncle Daddy. It would just not happen.
SPEAKER_00No, but it but the series is very sort of that kind of humor. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00I think you'd like it. Alright, so I mean, it's still an open case insofar as nobody was ever tried for the murders, but it seemed like they tried him for the kidnapping because they couldn't retry him for the murders, and that they seem to think that he's the one that did it and it didn't look for anybody else.
SPEAKER_02That I don't know. I can't say one way or the other. I mean, I guess I do think they probably work together. That would be the best conclusion I could come to based on what we know. I mean, back in 1987, obviously evidence, DNA, forensics, blah, blah, blah, are nothing like what they are now. So maybe if they took another look into it, maybe they would find something more compelling.
SPEAKER_00But when I was looking for a 4th of July episode, there were so many cases that tie into the 4th of July, just like there are when we do a Friday the 13th. But as soon as I came across this one, I was like, this is a must-do. This is everything.
SPEAKER_02Everything. Everything. The house with the no-plumbing and the stacks of pornography and cash, like it boggles the mind.
SPEAKER_00Hmm. I don't even want to think about the stacks of pornography when they were all family members living there together. And Clarence and um Marie, I think, slept in the living room in a bed together. Like it was all like, because they're hoarders and it was all they were all crammed in one house. So it's not like anybody had privacy to go watch pornography somewhere if they were into that. It was literally stacks of it in every room, and these people shared these rooms and all slept in the rooms together. And yeah, I mean, you can envision.
SPEAKER_02It was It's a no for me.
SPEAKER_00It's a hard no.
SPEAKER_02But we hope that you enjoyed this murder incest Fourth of July tale.
SPEAKER_00It's definitely a little different than some of the ones that we do.
SPEAKER_02It's it's hardcore, y'all.
SPEAKER_00I can't believe neither of us had ever come across it before.
SPEAKER_02Never.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Never, never.
SPEAKER_00If you guys do want to watch it, I believe it was on Heartland Homicide on Prime.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Heartland.
SPEAKER_02Heartland. Sorry, my accent.
SPEAKER_00Heartland.
SPEAKER_02Heartland. Heartland.
SPEAKER_00Heartland Homicide on Prime. And I think it was actually season one, episode one. Wow. What a way to start. It's one of those real cheesy ones. Do you know what I mean by the cheesy um commentary? Where it's like, it's not like date line where they take it seriously. Like it was one of those. You have to watch it.
SPEAKER_02I kind of like those.
SPEAKER_00Because it kind of added to the whole vibe. All right. We're laughing, but there's all kinds of hideous crimes in this one. So we hope you enjoyed it. We hope that we blew your mind like our blue scene is. And we will see you next week for oh, depraved heart. Depraved Heart.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's gonna be a good one too. Really good one, really sad one.
SPEAKER_00All right, guys. We hope you had a happy fourth. Um but yeah, there's a little full digital line one for you, and we will see you next week with depraved heart. Until then.