Forensic Files - Season 4, Episode 11 - Haunting Vision - Full Episode | Forensic Files

on September 17th 1966 Diane kaidel met a boyfriend for a drink at a local night
spot 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 K 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 day where she met
a bachelor from town Jean kaidel Jean 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 uh woo her the couple dated for a year fell in love and
eventually married they moved to Phoenix Arizona where Jean found work in the growing
construction industry together Jean and Diane had three more children Greg Kelly and
Sor my siblings and I were really close yeah it was a lot of great childhood memories over time Diane and Jean
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 Jean 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 finally got
him out of the house a few hours later Jean kaidel 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 Jean said he found
his wife's car in the driveway but there was no sign of her Jean 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 person's investigators couldn't understand why Diane would have
left town without her children her neighbors her mother and her brother all indicated that Mrs kaidel 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 it was tough Bob Marlin suffered a heart attack and died the day after his date with
Diane what ever Marlon might have known about Diane's disappearance went with him to his
grave two days after Diane kael's mysterious disappearance Jean kaidel 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 um sudden disappearance was that my mother had run off with with a
boyfriend Jean 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 kaidel children adjusted to life without their mother although they all hoped that
someday she would return but 4 months later tragedy struck once again around 9:00 at night while
Jean was at a nearby laundromat a fire broke out in the kael's home The Blaze quickly engulfed the
entire house and the four children were trapped in their bedrooms Lor Lor come on come on wake up
wake up Lor come on come on there's up Susie the oldest led the others around the
Flames I forgot my I but Lori ran back into her bedroom for her Winnie the Poo stuffed animal
I fell on the floor I was burnt I was crying I wanted my mother and my older sister Susie came in
the house was a blaze around us and so she laid on top of me she said they're coming for us now Lord they'll help us
uh she said I love you and she said I'll never ever leave you I love you and I'll
never ever let you go I promise and at that point we died and she held me 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 try 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 Jean kaidel arrived at the seen just as firemen were pulling the
children from The Blaze investigators found a melted pot on the stove top 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 one year
later there was an incident that helped Lori realize the ter 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 in a very large fet 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 secret
of my mother but it took another 27 years for Lori to reveal the deep dark Family
secret she had been harboring [Music] in 1993 after Diane kaidel 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 quiet 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 hall 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 only sleeping only after she went to her friend's funeral did she realize that her mother would never wake
up detective Ed Reynolds at first wasn't sure what to think I've been lied to by
some pretty good liars and have been fooled by a lot of people and when that happens you tell yourself 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 pike 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 nonprofit agency in Colorado called necro search
which brings applied sciences to law enforcement in this case necro search 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 the proof 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 romanic 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 Grizzly Discovery a piece of human skull within hours they uncovered the rest of the remains in the shallow twoot
grave they also discovered a bra and a girdle around the skeleton's neck were women
stockings Lori romanic was not at all surprised now 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 malberry tree that had grown through the skull the root was sent to Dr Thomas
Haren a dendr chronologist at the University of Arizona by studying the age of the tree root and the manner in
which it penetrated the skull Harland 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 [Music] 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 F Genetti analyzed the skeletal remains and determined it was a CO Asian woman
between 5'4 and 5'5 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 kaidel dental X-rays are commonly used
for identification unfortunately Diane kael'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 F janetti 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 on to the
skull of the person that you think it might have been Dr F janetti photographed the skull in the same
position and size as the photograph of Diane kaidel taken shortly before she disappeared a canine tooth that was
slightly a jar it's it just stuck out slightly from her mouth and 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 Jean kaidel and
charged him with murder Lori romanc was now ready to tell a judge and jury what really happened on the night her mother
disappeared for years Jean kaidel told family and friends that his wife Diane abandoned
her children and ran off with a boyfriend but lri romanc 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 bye after dinner Diane drove Jean home
to his apartment later Witnesses saw Diane at the Amber Inn having drinks with a boyfriend is that right around
11: p.m. Jean 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 where have you been when Diane returned home around midnight the couple fought waking 5-year-old Lori and
her oldest sister Susie the two girls went to investigate will stop it go away just get out of
this house right now I own this house I'll stay here 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] Jean saw the girls run from the hallway and they hid in the [Music] closet 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
[Music] backyard the next day Jean kaidel 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 DET tals of her mother's death this was something that Lori says that she never forgot and she would 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 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 Jean kaidel 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 my father's punishment I'm sorry that causes me the grief that I feel today for him
[Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

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.

Forensic Files is the longest-running true crime series in television history. Evidence and interviews with experts help solve real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world.

Brief Summary

Diane Kaidel's murder by her husband is revealed 27 years later through her daughter's testimony.

Key points

The Mysterious Disappearance. Diane Kaidel vanishes after a dinner meeting with her husband, leaving behind unanswered questions.
A Tragic Fire. A fire engulfs the Kaidel home, leading to the tragic loss of two children.
The Dark Family Secret Revealed. Lori reveals the horrifying truth about her mother's death 27 years later.
The Conviction. Jean Kaidel is convicted of murdering his wife based on his daughter's testimony.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I was valuable enough to die for.

Lori reflects on her sister's sacrifice during the fire.

6:40WatchNov 4, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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