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On September 17th, 1966, Diane Kiddell met a boyfriend for a drink at a local nightspot.
After leaving the bar, she disappeared. Officials weren't sure whether she ran away from the responsibilities facing a
single mother with four young children or perhaps had been the victim of foul play.
That question was answered 27 years later when her daughter came forward with a fantastic tale of something she
saw when she was 5 years old. [Music] In 1956, 21-year-old Diane Kiddell went to work
in her father's grocery store in Peoria, Illinois. She needed the money since she was
recently divorced and was raising her 2-year-old daughter Susie. And it was in that store one day where she met a
bachelor from town, Gene Kiddell. Gene wasn't the best-looking guy in the world, but he is a good talker. He's a
very good talker and he was able to woo her. The couple dated for a year, fell in love, and eventually married.
They moved to Phoenix, Arizona where Gene found work in the growing construction industry.
Together, Gene and Diane had three more children, Greg, Kelly, and Lori. My siblings and I were really close,
yeah. It was a lot of great childhood memories. Over time, Diane and Gene decided that it was best for all
concerned if they divorced. On September 17th, the couple met for dinner at a nearby restaurant to discuss
the final details of the property settlement and visitation. By all accounts, the meeting went well.
Afterwards, Diane dropped Gene off at his apartment. From there, Diane drove to the Amber Inn
where she met Bob Marlin, a man she had been casually dating since her separation.
A few hours later, Gene Kiddell called Diane at the house and when the children said she still wasn't home, he went over
to babysit and fell asleep on the sofa. The next morning, Gene said he found his
wife's car in the driveway, but there was no sign of her. Gene called the police department and reported her
missing. I know she arrived home. Her car was there. Her purse was in the house. Her
keys were in the house on the table in the kitchen. Diane did not take any clothes with her that we learned of and
there was no reason for her to run away. There was no no motive there. Missing persons investigators couldn't
understand why Diane would have left town without her children. Her neighbors, her mother, and her
brother all indicated that Mrs. Kiddell would never leave her children for any length of time. They described her as an
excellent mother. Very concerned about her children. When police went to interview Bob
Marlin, the man Diane was with at the bar, they were told an incredible piece of news.
Bob Marlin suffered a heart attack and died the day after his date with Diane. Whatever Marlin might have known about
Diane's disappearance went with him to his grave. [Music] Two days after Diane Kiddell's
mysterious disappearance, Gene Kiddell moved back into the family home to look after the four children.
My father's explanation to not only his children, but to neighbors and anybody that that would inquire about my
mother's sudden disappearance was that my mother had run off with with a boyfriend.
Gene provided police with a list of men he said Diane had been dating since the separation, but they all were dead ends.
Over time, the Kiddell children adjusted to life without their mother. Although they all hoped that someday she would
return. [Music] But 4 months later, tragedy struck once again. Around 9:00 at night, while Gene
was at a nearby laundromat, a fire broke out in the Kiddell's home. The blaze quickly engulfed the entire
house and the four children were trapped in their bedrooms. [Music] Susie, the oldest, led the others around
the flames. [Music] But Lori ran back into her bedroom for her Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal.
I fell on the floor. I was burned. I was crying. I wanted my mother. And my older sister Susie came in. The
house was ablaze around us and so she laid on top of me. She said that they're coming for us now,
Lori. They'll help us. Uh she said I love you. And she said I'll never ever leave you.
[Music] And at that point we died and she held me. [Music] Susie gave her life protecting Lori from
the flames. Although Lori suffered third-degree burns over 50% of her body. I was
continually loved by my sister as she held me and died protecting me. The trauma,
the nightmares, the horror of it, that doesn't go away. I just tried to overcome that with
knowing that I was loved, that I was valuable enough to die for. What can you say? I mean, when you see
that, it takes your breath away. I mean, you you you realize that that person made the ultimate sacrifice.
8-year-old Kelly also died in the fire. 9-year-old Greg survived. Gene Kiddell arrived at the scene just
as firemen were pulling the children from the blaze. Investigators found a melted pot on the
stovetop burner. The knob was in the on position. As a result, the fire was ruled
accidental. After spending 4 months in a hospital burn unit, Lori went back to live in the
family home her father had rebuilt after the fire. But 1 year later, there was an incident
that helped Lori realize the terrible truth of what happened to her mother. It happened when Lori and her father
went to a friend's funeral. His name was Michael, a boy from the neighborhood who
was killed in the Vietnam War. Daddy, when is he going to wake up? He's not. He's dead. They're going to bury
him today. Wake him up! Wake him up! And I began to cry and I threw a very large distraction, a very
large fit trying to make people understand that we needed to wake Michael up, that I wasn't
going to permit them to bury Michael in the ground. I was the only living person that now knew the
But it took another 27 years for Lori to reveal the deep, dark family secret she
had been harboring. [Music] In 1993, after Diane Kiddell had been missing for 27 years, her only surviving daughter
Lori walked into the Phoenix Police Department with a written statement. It described a terrible secret she had been
too afraid to reveal. To whom it may concern, I need to convey to authorities what I witnessed as a
child. First, I must greatly impress the fear I have of my father's violent retaliation.
I was often told when I was a child by my father, I brought you into this world, I can take you out.
The letter went on to say that as a 5-year-old child, Lori saw her father beat her mother to death
and then bury her in the backyard. At first, Lori thought her mother was sleeping as hibernating animals do. She
said she once asked her father if she could dig a hole in the backyard to feed her mother.
As a 5-year-old, I thought my mother was sleeping. I thought that my father made
my mother go to sleep. And I thought he buried my sleeping mother in the hole in the backyard.
I wasn't confused on where she was. I wasn't confused on who did it. I was confused between sleeping and death.
She's only sleeping. Only after she went to her friend's funeral did she realize
that her mother would never wake up. [Music] Detective Ed Reynolds at first wasn't
sure what to think. I've been lied to by some pretty good liars and I've been fooled by a lot of people and when that
happens you tell yourself, well, I'm not going to let that happen again. I'm not
going to fall hook, line, and sinker for every story that comes down the pipe. And in this case though, she did seem
very believable, very truthful, very sincere in what she said, but I still I wanted more than just a story. I I
wanted proof. Lori said that her father poured a concrete patio over her mother's grave
the day after he buried her. The home had long since been sold by her father, who was now remarried and living
across town. Reynolds was hesitant to ask the new owners for permission to dig up their
concrete patio without more evidence than a 27-year recollection. I became very frustrated.
I became angry. I thought that possibly the officials didn't believe me. I was terrified that my father would
find out that I had confessed. Reynolds looked all over the country for the technology that could look
underneath the concrete patio without damaging it. The search took almost a year and led to
a non-profit agency in Colorado called NecroSearch, which brings applied sciences to law
enforcement. In this case, NecroSearch recommended a ground penetrating radar system.
To take a look within the ground and to see if it's disturbed. That's what we do
in geophysics. Just because we find a disturbance could be could be caused by many things.
The proof and the substantiation is going to have to be a careful excavation. When the radar was pulled across the
cement decking, it revealed a ground disturbance 6 ft long by 2 ft wide in the corner of the patio.
The very spot on the concrete where Lori Romaneck had taken me to earlier when we
had walked through the backyard, where she suspected the body of her mother was buried.
When police removed the concrete, they had to dig only 10 in before making a grisly discovery.
A piece of human skull. Within hours, they uncovered the rest of the remains in the shallow 2-ft grave.
They also discovered a bra and a girdle. Around the skeleton's neck were women's
stockings. Lori Romaneck was not at all surprised. No, I I don't need any medical
detectives to prove to me that that's my mother. There was no identification on the
remains and bacteria in the shallow grave eliminated the possibility of DNA testing.
Even the teeth were too badly damaged by bacteria to analyze the tooth pulp, usually a rich, protected source of DNA.
So, detectives had to use other means to identify the skeleton. The first clue was a tree root from a
neighbor's mulberry tree that had grown through the skull. The root was sent to Dr. Thomas Harlan, a dendrochronologist
at the University of Arizona. By studying the age of the tree root and the manner in which it penetrated the
skull, Harlan was convinced that the body was placed in the ground before the tree root.
Since the root was 15 years old, the body was placed in the grave before 1978. This will tell us the age of the tree
root growing over the body means that the body had to be there before the tree root was there.
Otherwise, it would have been cut, disturbed, would not have gone across. Um, this gives a minimum age for the body to
be in that position. Forensic anthropologist Dr. Laura Fulginiti analyzed the skeletal remains
and determined it was a Caucasian woman between 5 ft 4 and 5 ft 5 in in height. The pelvic bones indicated that the
woman had given birth to at least two children and was between 20 and 40 years of age. All were consistent with Diane
Kyddell. Dental X-rays are commonly used for identification. Unfortunately, Diane
Kyddell's dentist was no longer in practice and her dental X-rays had been destroyed.
As a last-ditch effort to identify the remains, Dr. Fulginiti decided to try a technique called skull photograph
superimposition. What you basically are doing is taking a picture of the person in life and
superimposing it onto the skull of the person that you think it might have been.
Dr. Fulginiti photographed the skull in the same position and size as the photograph of Diane Kyddell taken
shortly before she disappeared. A canine tooth that was slightly ajar. It's it just stuck out slightly from her
mouth. We were able to line that tooth up with the tooth in the photograph. I have no questions. I'm sure that it's
her. Police immediately arrested 61-year-old Gene Kyddell and charged him with murder.
Lori Romaneck was now ready to tell a judge and jury what really happened on the night her mother disappeared.
For years, Gene Kyddell told family and friends that his wife Diane abandoned her children and ran off with a
boyfriend. But Lori Romaneck told a very different story about what happened to her mother
on the night of September 17th, 1966. Lori said her mother was wearing her blue double-breasted dress when she left
to meet her father for dinner at a local restaurant. After dinner, Diane drove Gene home to
his apartment. Later, witnesses saw Diane at the Amber Inn having drinks with a boyfriend.
Around 11:00 p.m., Gene called the house to speak with Diane and when he learned
that she wasn't there, went over to the house to wait for her. When Diane returned home around
midnight, the couple fought, waking 5-year-old Lori and her older sister Susie. The two girls went to investigate.
When she saw her children, she took her defense down and it was at that point that my father delivered her last blow
and she whipped back and hit her head and slid to the floor. [Music] Gene saw the girls run from the hallway
and they hid in the closet. [Music] When the children eventually came out of hiding,
they saw their mother's lifeless body on the pool deck and they saw their father
digging a hole in the backyard. [Music] The next day, Gene Kyddell poured a fresh layer of concrete over his wife's
grave for what he thought would be an eternity. Lori describes her father as an alcoholic, cruel, and violent. We're
talking about the fact that my father would beat my mother. Violently. My father would attempt to beat his
children, my siblings and I. And when my mother was alive, she would intervene. And she would not permit my father to
beat his children. She was very strong on that issue. Lori also says that her father
threatened to kill her if she ever revealed the tales of her mother's death. This was something that Lori says that
she never forgot. And she had just been terrified for her whole childhood and then adult life of
her of her father, even after she got married and left the house and they barely had a relationship at some
points. It was she remembered the thing the whole way through and somehow, I mean, I don't think there's anyone that
really could exactly describe what was going on in that head of hers all those years.
In 1995, Gene Kyddell was convicted for the murder of his wife Diane and was sentenced to life in prison.
I think it says that the memory of a 5-year-old, even though it's some 29 years later, is sufficient to convict.
But again, remember the one unanswerable question was if what she saw wasn't what
she saw, how could she have led us to the body? And she did. My father single-handedly murdered my
mother, murdered my two siblings, and attempted a murder on me, and a murder on my
brother. I think that my father will more meet his calling upon his death. I I pray for my father.
I think that this judicial system will have nothing in the comparison of the wrath of God.
And that I'm sorry for. My father will have to answer and be held accountable. What does a man tell
our creator God when God says, "What did you do to that beautiful wife and lovely children I
gave you?" And my father will reply, "I beat them. I murdered them. I burned them up in a horrible fire."
What will be my father's punishment? I'm sorry. That causes me the grief that I feel today for him.
[Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Season 4 Episode 11 | Fire engulfs the home where Lori Keidel and her siblings were left alone while their father went to the laundromat. Years after her mother's disappearance, Lori tells police she witnessed her mother's death.

Brief Summary

Lori Kiddell reveals her father murdered her mother Diane after 27 years of silence, leading to his conviction.

Key points

The Disappearance of Diane Kiddell. On September 17th, 1966, Diane Kiddell vanished after a night out, leaving her family in turmoil.
A Tragic Fire. Four months after Diane's disappearance, a fire claimed the lives of two of her children.
The Dark Family Secret. 27 years later, Lori revealed she witnessed her father's violent act against her mother.
The Conviction of Gene Kiddell. In 1995, Gene Kiddell was convicted of murdering his wife, based on Lori's testimony.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Whatever Marlin might have known about Diane's disappearance went with him to his grave.

On the mysterious disappearance of Diane Kiddell.

3:46WatchOct 16, 2025

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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