Original subtitles

It's not the same without Karen.

It's not the same when every bike ride is me alone.

She was murdered, but...

W-Why?

We found out that we had video that actually captured

this homicide take place.

When I turned the corner,

I saw somebody had just jumped the fence in the backyard.

We're definitely suspicious at this point.

It's very important to get into the background of the victim,

who her enemies might be.

When we got a DNA hit,

obviously that gets you excited,

hoping that this may be something good for US.

First responders are dispatched

to the location of the incident,

a food-processing plant in the center of town.

Upon arrival, officers activate their body camera.

When this call came over,

it came over as an injured and sick person.

You never know what that call's gonna be.

Upon arrival, I observed that the Milwaukee fire department

was performing cpr on the victim.

And I observed her laying there

with an injury coming from her head.

We determined it was a gunshot wound.

Officers learn the victim

had originally been found on the street,

but she was moved inside

by the fire department for medical treatment.

About five minutes into me being there,

they advised me that she was deceased.

Upon looking at the body,

you could see that she did have a gunshot wound to her face.

Now the homicide investigation begins.

Detectives arrive and start

by interviewing the medics at the scene

to get a better picture of how the body was found.

Where this incident occurred,

which was right outside the business door,

there was a small pool of blood with eyeglasses,

which were determined to belong to the victim.

There was also a fired .40-caliber cartridge casing

left at the scene, which is indicative

of a semiautomatic pistol being fired.

A projectile had fallen out of her clothing onto the ground,

and that was recovered also.

And that would be a copper jacketing

and a lead-core bullet.

We were able to identify the victim based on coworkers

as Karen simek.

Karen had such a infectious laugh.

You almost had to laugh along with her, too,

regardless of what you were doing.

She worked in food service.

Not surprising that she did that.

She would come over or have US over to her house,

make wonderful meals.

One of the things that we enjoyed

as a family together --

we'd throw everyone in the station wagon,

and we would go camping.

We loved the outdoors.

The one place that really captured

both of US was the Grand Canyon.

We found out that you could actually hike all the way

to the bottom and hike back out the next day

about 9 miles into the 10-mile hike out,

Karen had really worn herself down.

She sat down in a rock,

and she said, "I can't go any farther."

She sat there for a while, had a good cry,

and then picked herself up

and made it that last mile out.

And afterwards, she said that that was

the greatest accomplishment of her life.

Became a real bonding experience for US.

When I found out...

Devastation.

How -- how -- how and why?

I just -- why?

I couldn't talk, I was crying so badly.

Back at the crime scene,

detectives continue the investigation.

They speak with the 911 caller,

a security guard at the facility.

Video became an important role

in the investigation

to recover as much video as we could depicting the incident

and/or the suspect before and after the incident.

Investigators collect this video footage

and back at the station make a startling discovery.

We found out that we had video that actually captured

this homicide take place.

Police in Milwaukee have located

surveillance footage showing the murder of Karen simek.

You could see the suspect moving at a rapid pace towards her.

There's a very brief confrontation,

and you can see on the video what appears to be

a firearm that's being fired.

And that's just prior to seeing

the suspect running away from the scene.

At this point, we had a lot more than we normally do.

We have video of the suspect.

Investigators next review

additional security cameras from the area

to track the killer's movements after Karen's murder.

Keep capturing little bits of the suspect running away.

We were able to determine

he was a male in his early to mid-20s.

The unique thing we were concentrated on was his pants.

They were dark in color, according to the video.

But they had some sort of reflective design

or some sort of reflective stripe near the knees.

Eventually, he comes to a point

where there is no more surveillance footage.

There's no video in the area that capture him any further.

So we had a limited idea of his flight path

from the homicide scene, but we did know

at least a direction in which he went.

So investigators next review the surveillance video

from the hour before the murder.

Before the incident occurred,

he may not have his guard up as much,

so we can get a good image of him.

Investigators review the footage from around 5:23 A.M.,

about 17 minutes before the murder

and discover the suspect near the scene.

He's hanging out there for a good period of time

across the street.

And then you see the victim's car pull in off the main street.

You start to wonder, was this particular victim

targeted more so than just a robbery?

They also notice the man in the video is smoking.

That led detectives to go back and retrieve cigarettes

from the area in hopes of obtaining DNA.

However, this does take quite a bit of time.

Meanwhile, Karen's family lays her to rest.

We were supposed to get together,

and the weekend of her funeral was the weekend we planned.

And...

We got together in the worst way possible.

I didn't know where we were going to put her.

It was up to me to make that choice for her.

And so...That was the most difficult part,

was just to know, what was the right thing to do?

What would she really want me to do?

On Friday was the wake, and it was extraordinary,

the amount of people that came.

They had done enough to her one side of the face

and tilted her a little so you couldn't see it.

But we really wanted to so we could say goodbye.

It's hard to say goodbye to someone

when you're not really sure what really even happened.

She was murdered, but...

W-Why?

Now detectives hope the DNA results

from the cigarette butts

will lead them to Karen's killer.

Not only are we hoping that we're gonna get

the suspect's DNA on one of the cigarette butts,

but we may get DNA from might be a potential witness

that was in the neighborhood, so that can be important, too.

When we got a DNA hit,

obviously that gets you excited,

hoping that this may be something good for US.

The DNA is linked to a man named Ralph algo.

Police locate Ralph and bring him in for questioning.

They start by asking him about his DNA at the scene.

Okay.

Yeah.

When we're starting the interview,

we don't know if we're dealing with the suspect.

We're gauging the nervousness.

We're starting the interview off to see where we're gonna go.

We're definitely suspicious at this point.

We begin to learn about the person's prior drug history.

We begin to wonder if this person

may have committed a robbery that went bad.

Milwaukee police are questioning Ralph algo

for the murder of Karen simek.

Police ask Ralph where he was during the time of the killing.

As the interview went on

and the subject was forthcoming with where he had been,

we had tracked down his partner,

and we were able to confirm his alibi.

This individual who's interviewed with the potential

of not only being a possible suspect,

but also being a potential witness.

And in this particular instance, he was neither.

The person was not considered a suspect.

And we move on to the next viable lead on a case.

Out of leads, detectives turn back

to Karen's husband, Kevin sasse, for help.

So in a case like this, it's very important

to get into the background of the victim,

who her enemies might be.

Who out there may have a reason to harm her?

We really couldn't find a viable motive that would indicate

somebody wanted Karen hurt or murdered.

And there's no really link or connection with the suspect.

That's when I started to be concerned that

if they hadn't found something useful now,

that maybe it wouldn't happen.

Kevin then tells detectives he believes

a bag was taken from Karen during the homicide.

Well, he was able to give US a detailed description

of the bags, which we appreciated.

And we in turn end up releasing the description out to the media

in an effort to try to identify a suspect.

Police believe that Karen simek was carrying a bag

just like this one from duluth trading company.

This is where she works, and she was on her way

to work last week when she was shot.

And police believe that the suspect

may have taken that bag.

Milwaukee police hope her bag can shed new light on her death.

Three days after police put the word out

about Karen's missing bag, they receive a tip from a woman

claiming to recognize it from the news.

She believed that she observed her grandson with the bag.

We looked him up in our files and found his physicals

and his height and weight,

and it seemed to be close enough with our suspect.

Detectives followed up on it.

When the police went there, we located no such bag.

Now, five months into the investigation

and with no real leads,

detectives have no choice but to let the homicide go cold.

I was certainly frustrated, tense.

There's a definite stress level that never went away.

If Karen could speak to me, then she would be saying,

"Kevin, you have to --

you have to pull your weight here, too.

You have to help to find this person."

Kevin appears on television

to get the word out about Karen's murder.

Sasse has no expectations

that his wife's killer will be found.

But he does have hope.

If it was me, then my conscience

would be bothering me about it right now.

Where is this gun?

Does it turn up someplace?

Do they arrest somebody for something else,

and then they confess?

After Kevin's media appearance, a local inmate

named David mclaurin reaches out to detectives.

He was in custody for something else.

People that are in custody will say things

that may be true, may be not true,

just so that they have an opportunity to try

and be released with that information.

So we always take it with a grain of salt.

Mclaurin tells investigators

that he believes his former roommate,

a man named Carl knight, is behind Karen's murder.

There are some skepticism when he has a stake in it

that he wants to get out,

and he's looking for a way to get himself out of trouble.

And that's taken into consideration.

Mclaurin tells detectives

that Carl's girlfriend, Samantha gustafson,

knew about the murder as well.

You don't blindly trust what he says.

But that interview kind of rejuvenated the case.

Our big thing was to find out where Carl was.

Months into investigating the murder of Karen simek

detectives are focusing on a man named Carl knight

after getting a tip from his former roommate.

Whenever we receive a tip, we're gonna do our homework

on that person before going out and talking to that individual.

Carl was changing his address a lot.

That kind of made it hard for US to track him down.

We thought we would try the girlfriend's first

and see what they said.

And that prompted US to try to go and locate Samantha

and bring her in for questioning.

Detectives start off the interview

by trying to verify the information

given to them by Carl's former roommate.

It did come up in our conversation about the last time

she had seen Carl, and to our surprise,

she said she had talked to him on the phone,

and that's of interest for US.

But Samantha tells investigators

she left her phone at home.

So after our interview concluded with her,

we drove her back to her house

for the purpose of getting her phone.

I stood by the front door facing the street.

She knocked on the door and was led in by my partner.

Meanwhile, a neighbor observed somebody

fleeing out of the window towards the back of the house.

When I turned the corner,

I saw somebody had just jumped the fence in the backyard.

Believing this mystery man could be Carl,

detectives bring Samantha back to the station

for more questions.

But then detectives imply they have enough

to charge her as well.

Now she was willing to talk.

She was concerned about being charged

with harboring a fugitive.

We confirmed that he was there

and she had knowledge of the homicide.

She did tell US about the fact

that he may have robbed a donut shop.

When you start looking back at his history

and things that he was involved in,

clearly he was using whatever means necessary

to supply his needs to get money.

And so with that, I wouldn't put doing a homicide

or anything like that above him.

Milwaukee police put out an a.P.B. For Carl knight.

At this point, the number-one priority,

especially for me now, is that we wanted to find Carl.

Several days later, there's a hit on the a.P.B.

U.s. Marshals track Carl's phone and pick him up.

Milwaukee detectives travel to Chicago to speak with him.

Carl knight saying, "I didn't Rob any old white lady" --

that was a clue because he shouldn't know those details.

We didn't mention them to him.

Makes the -- you know, your little detective hairs stand up.

We can't assume that it's just a lucky guess.

Carl knight's girlfriend also implicated Carl knight

in a robbery of a donut shop.

Typically, we'll bring those crimes up to the suspect

just to Gauge his level of truthfulness.

We were all kind of caught off guard

that Carl did jump the fence and take off.

When Carl jumped out the window,

it's possible that he didn't even know

that we were looking for him for the homicide.

Carl had not reported to his probation agent in over a year,

and he had been hiding from her.

After having in-depth conversation with him,

now we're thinking that maybe he wasn't involved in this.

Now back in Milwaukee, detectives continue

to press prime suspect Carl knight and confront him

about what his former roommate David mclaurin

revealed about the murder.

It can be very frustrating talking to someone

who continuously lies in an interview.

After that, Carl asked for a lawyer.

If somebody asks for a lawyer

during an interview, we're not talking to them again.

The interview's over.

We didn't have a lot

where you could show it to a jury,

and a jury would be able to look at it and say,

"yeah, that's Carl knight."

So at the point that he asked for a lawyer,

things were looking pretty grim.

Officers end the interview

and prep Carl for transport to the jail.

But to their surprise,

Carl asks once again to speak with detectives.

I figure that he just wanted to

stretch his legs and get a break from his cell.

But I could tell immediately after entering the room

that he wanted to talk.

He eventually kind of broke it open,

and he just blurted out how it happened.

Carl brought a loaded gun

to that robbery of Karen simek,

but when you raise a gun to someone's head,

you have to realize

that you might be the one that gets scared,

and you might be the one that flinches,

and you might pull that trigger.

Carl knight pleads guilty

to one count of felony murder

and one count of possession of a firearm

by a person convicted of a felony.

He's sentenced to 31 years in prison.

Samantha gustafson pleads guilty to one count

of harboring and aiding a felon as party to a crime

and sentenced to a year of probation.

We worked very hard on this case.

I was proud of the unit.

I was proud of the detectives that were able

to get those interviews

and give the family closure.

The awful part of this

is that Karen didn't do anything wrong.

Karen showed up to work that day and was just parking her car

and going into work like she did every day she worked.

That's the real tragedy.

I was relieved once he was put in jail.

Yeah.

That's the closure. That's the closure you need.

Her godchild got married last year,

and she didn't get to see it.

Yeah, so...

He took that away from US.

It's not the same without Karen.

It's not the same when every bike ride is me alone.

Whee!

I did go back and do the Grand Canyon hike again myself.

And...i found that rock that she sat down on,

and I just sat on the rock for a little while

and had a moment there,

you know, remembering that great trip,

that triumphant moment.

This is my little moment with Karen.

But the car's really dusty from our foray

down the gravel road yesterday,

looking for the... Waterfalls.

...waterfalls that don't exist.

Okey-dokey. Okay. Buh-bye.