Women Behind Bars - Season 1, Episode 10 - Roena and Connie - Full Episode | Forensic Files

on this episode of women behind bars one woman was convicted of masterminding a cruel plot to murder a
wheelchair-bound man a paramedic went over said he has a belt around his neck and he has
literally split open from the heat nine o'clock i am a detective gets down on my face and said
your fingerprints are all over his house i was his cab driver you're gonna find my fingerprints
everywhere then connie kiel tells her story she allegedly participated in the robbery
and murder of a liquor store clerk we're going down the highway all of a sudden all these cops were coming around
us and we were arrested right there the evidence clearly showed that connie was not just a
ride-along but she was there acting as a lookout she knew that a robbery was going to
take place two women two brutal crimes these are the stories of rowena ashing and connie kiel
at 2 15 a.m on august 10 1992 fire crews responded to a rapidly burning house fire in the northwest
section of town [Music] there were civilians standing on this sidewalk in a semicircle screaming
there's someone in there he's an invalid he's in a wheelchair but it was too late for 57 year old tom bauer
a disabled man whose body was discovered inside there was evidence at the scene that
this was a homicide police brought 38 year old cab driver rowena ashing in for questioning
she'd recently been accused of stealing 500 from bauer who was one of her regular customers
soon rowena her 25 year old boyfriend jeff ramsey and three others were arrested and
charged with the gruesome killing which left the working-class steel town shell shocked was rowena ashing the
mastermind behind a cool-blooded murder or was she unfairly implicated by her boyfriend and his cohorts
i was born in granite city illinois i was the oldest child of my mother and father's marriage
rowena grew up in a family of five kids as she remembers her childhood she did not have a good relationship
with her mother who was on her second marriage i'm not gonna be one of these people
that blames all their background on their mother okay but my mother was extremely abusive
individual and some of the scars i care today are from my mother rowena felt that she was the focus of
her mother's rage because rowena was one of her father's favorites maybe she felt threatened by the fact
that i got along well with my father my mother was five foot tall 197 pounds she had a back
hand would have made babe ruth green within me by rowena's account as she entered high
school things at home only got worse the day for my 15th birthday she got mad at me because i was on the phone and i
said well you just can't talk to nobody around here she took the phone and wrapped around my
neck tried to choke me these claims of abuse are backed up only by her daughter loretta who says she
learned of the abuse from her mother and aunts my grandmother was very abusive especially towards my mom
my grandfather never hit my grandma but one time he did put her against the wall and let her know not to be hitting
the kids anymore because she was just that far out of it according to rowena by the
end of high school her mother became less abusive to her but nonetheless rowena was eager to
leave granite city and plan to enlist in the military as a way out yeah i had it all said i was going to go join
you uncle sam's air force well i want to take my physical to be in the air force
and they said well you're pregnant i said you're crazy the father was rowena's high school
sweetheart who also had plans to join the air force well his mother was very adamant that
he was going into service and when my father's mother found out that my mother was pregnant
he got shipped off a little faster it was really a tough thing at that time rowena was so determined she was even
willing to leave her newborn baby whom she had named loretta in the care of her mother
despite their rocky past my mother was going to actually go in the service and leave me with my grandmother
she was going to um take care of my child and i was going to go in the air force anyway but six months into her
pregnancy rowena's mother was admitted to the hospital she went for gallstones the doctor had
told her he said noni you're 197 pounds three-fourths of your heart is not good he said i can guarantee you
if you don't lose some weight when you go in there he said i'm not gonna guarantee your chances of survival
and um and um she said i'll operate on me anyway rowena's mother never made it home dying
from complications from the surgery in may of 1973 rowena gave up her dream of joining the military
when she gave birth to her daughter loretta i was born three months after my grandmother passed away
so it was very tough time emotionally for my mom i left my daughter with my dad because i
could see some of the things that i was doing with her my mother was doing with me and rather
than put her through that i told dad i said i can't do this to my child in late 1973 rowena took off with a
friend to louisiana and it was there she met tom ashing the two quickly fell in love and by may
of 1974 they were married rowena then decided to focus on raising a family i guess i was about a year old she
came back with tom which is my stepdad he raised me from the time i was a year old tom and rowena settled in louisiana
and eventually went on to have two more children to support the family rowena worked odd
jobs while tom drove trucks and took on seasonal work on offshore oil rigs being raised in the midwest i dreamed of
the little white picket house you know the whole nine yards the husband should go to work and the mom
stays home and keeps house and blah blah blah and of course that didn't happen but the
reality of it is he really really really really really liked other women i mean i'm not gorgeous
enough but i'm not a bad looking woman these women he run around with her oh my god the stringy hair the buck teeth
you know they just were not gorgeous so i was like okay and i figured there had to be something
i could do there was nothing i could do to change him in 1991 after 17 years of marriage
rowena and tom filed for divorce the single mother moved back to granite city illinois renting an apartment with
her eight-year-old son and sixteen-year-old daughter nona loretta was 18 and living on her own to make ends meet
rowena landed a job as a cab driver i got to meet some strange people but i got me a lot of nice ones too
and it was just it was great i enjoyed the intermingling with people one of her regular customers was tom
bauer bauer was confined to a walker and a wheelchair tom was uh he was a local person i
believe he was 57 years old he had some drinking problems could not get around he had to rely on other people to help
him and people that helped clean his house and he relied a lot on the local cab company to go in
and pick things up for him and take him places take him to go get his medication i take
him to go pay bills i take him wherever he needs to go i did his shopping for him he'd make me a list
give me the money i'd bring his stuff back tom bower hadn't always been so dependent on others
in the mid-1980s he was struck by a mysterious illness thomas bauer had been married for some
time and began to exhibit a number of illness symptoms they finally determined that he had been poisoned
over a fairly long period of time by his wife who was spiking his iced tea with arsenic it was an attempt for her to get
him to stop drinking it crippled him it left him largely confined to a wheelchair it was
just one of those tragic stories that you know that when you're covered as a reporter you just keep looking at
it and going why why do these things happen well he needed somebody to talk to sometimes and
he made me talk to him he told me about how unhappy he'd been with his first wife and
how come she came to do what she did to him rowena's job with the cab company had
also put her in touch with jeff ramsey a 25 year old cab driver who'd already had a number of scrapes with the law
since he went awol from the army the charges included assault battery and armed robbery i didn't know
too much about him but you know he said all the right things that i wanted to hear i mean the man's a
really you know nice looking young man you know so of course i took up with him for a
while he made her feel younger he catered to my mom's needs and made her feel special
he was a player type of guy that tell you exactly what it is you want to hear and
just to get you to do whatever it is he needs you to do at that time before long jeff quit his job at the cab
stand and moved in with rowena according to rowena he relied on her to pay the bills
he also began to surround himself with a group of young guys who appeared to look up to him i think
he was just trying to start up his own gang type of thing so kind of like godfather
type mentality jeff ramsey's crew consisted of john mcintyre bob killer russell and richie loftus
they thought jeff was this big guy because he did have a record you know at the same time they were
scared of him because he had a record and jeff made sure they knew you know that about the violent past
on august 9 1992 rowena revealed to jeff that one of her most loyal customers tom bauer had accused her of stealing
500 he called me at the cab stand and he said uh oh he was just all out of bed been out
of shape you uh took my money i'm gonna put you in jail when women behind bars continues rowena
indicated to him that she wanted tommy bauer taken out i believe it was even mentioned to burn
him out in august of 1992 rowena ashing was working as a cab driver in granite city
illinois to support her two youngest children her oldest daughter loretta now 18 was
living on her own one of her regular customers 57 year old tom bauer had accused rowena of stealing 500 and
had even filed a report with the granite city police department just after 2 am on august 10 neighbors
on illinois avenue in granite city reported seeing smoke and flames coming from inside the house of tom bower
the fire department arrived on the scene there were civilians standing on this sidewalk in a
semicircle screaming there's someone in there he's an invalid he's in a wheelchair we know that he's
in there as the smoke rose we found the victim he was dead her paramedic went over said he has a
belt around his neck and he has literally split open from the heat we knew that this wasn't a fire
victim because he had been strangulated investigators from the granite city police department were called to the
scene water is dripping on you everything's burnt we i walked over and saw the deceased on
the bed and it was pretty obvious what it was a homicide well this is the murder weapon which is
the key a very key part of evidence and it's believed that this was his belt that he wore around his pants and the
suspects took off of the pants and then wrapped it around his neck one of the main key elements of this crime was a
frying pan that the perpetrators used to hit him in the head with and pieces of this firing pan
was even underneath his body this ended up being the bottom of a frying skillet and it
used such a force that it actually broke the bottom of the skillet out there was also a rug that was placed
over the body that's uncharacteristic for someone sleeping to have a rug over them and through the investigation it
was later determined that was actually used in the crime it's troublesome to a police department
and to a community when you have someone like mr bauer who is unable to get around for someone to
come in and use these means to take his life police began to look at anyone who may
have had a recent dispute with tom bower and discovered that he'd recently accused rowena ashing of stealing from
him although he relied on her as a cab driver and a friend she was also the one person who had
access to his home he made an accusation through a police report that he had sent her to the bank to withdraw
some money that money never made its way to him i believe it was it was 500 that is a huge red flag to an
investigator police brought rowena in for questioning first asking her about the theft
and then the homicide nine o'clock am detective in granite city hauls me in and took me to jail and he's telling
about this house fire on 2106 illinois i'm like oh crap and he comes in and he goes you know thomas bauer got killed i
said no i didn't know that and he gets down on my face and said your fingerprints are all over his house
i was his cab driver you're going to find my fingerprints everywhere a background check revealed that rowena
had been arrested a year earlier for stealing 2 500 from another elderly cab customer
investigators asked rowena to take a lie detector test about the 500 theft and to see if she knew anything
about bower's death first she said no then she went on and said yeah i'll take it
after she failed to be truthful on the polygraph indicates to us that we got somewhere to
start now on this crime she had nothing to hide why was she being deceitful at that point did we know that she was
involved beyond any shadow doubt no but it gives you an avenue as an investigator to travel on to try to
determine if she knows more about this than she's leading us to believe according to police although the results
showed rowena was being deceitful police had no evidence linking her to the murder
but they did have enough to arrest and charge her with theft still with no solid leads police turned
to her boyfriend 25 year old jeff ramsey who denied knowing anything about the killing
then according to reports jeff's 23 year old brother steven came forward he'd heard something on the news and
became suspicious that his older brother was somehow involved steve ramsey had spoke with his brother and came out
and told the investigators you need to talk to him further there's more people involved
the biggest break came from the youngest member of jeff ramsey's crew 18 year old john mcintyre who'd been
brought in for questioning he told investigators a story of how rowena approached jeff
with a plan to keep tom bauer from going to the police as an incentive rowena promised that
they would find money once they entered the house she indicated to him that she wanted
tommy bauer taken out i believe it was even mentioned to burn him out rowena told
him that there was going to be 1500 a tv vcr go in there rough the guy up take him
out and you can find the money the equipment and they would split that it's our belief that rowena's
sole purpose in any of this was to have tommy bauer killed so he couldn't testify against her on
this theft case so her whole motive was to use somebody else to take out what she perceived as her
problem they got together at the pool hall sometime after midnight they had to go
by the gas station get 60 cents worth of gas in a clear plastic jug the four gentlemen
parked down the street about two blocks away carrying the container of gasoline went to tommy's house peeled open a
screen crawled in through the back window and while they were walking through the
kitchen one of them picked up a large frying kitchen skillet they also had a rug tom bauer only knew
one of them jeff ramsey and they wanted to cover the face of tom virus so he wouldn't see jeff
ramsey jeff ramsey asked mcintyre to find out where the money was at that time tom
barr says i don't have any money i spent it all on bills he was then struck in the head twice with the
skillet so hard that it busted the bottom of the skillet out they then take the belt off of him wrap
it around his neck and strangle him the whole time with the whole intent of killing him
according to mcintyre he went through the house looking for additional money and couldn't find anything after they
couldn't find the money they decided to burn the place which time john mcintyre took
the gas can sprinkling gas over the body of tom byer along with his bed and the walls
and then lit it part of john mcintyre's confession was backed up by a second member of ramsey's
crew twenty-six-year-old richie loftis who'd acted as the driver but these statements alone weren't proof
that rowena ashing ordered a hit on tom bauer as rowena awaited transfer to county
jail on theft charges she requested to speak with police one more time according to roena she wanted to get it
off her chest she just couldn't go to county jail knowing that we didn't know the truth
she had nothing to do with it according to rowena she was just a girlfriend of one of the people that was
involved in the crime rowena says trouble began when her boyfriend jeff ramsey discovered that
bauer had accused her of theft i told him what went on that he had accused me of stealing his money i said
jeff i'll take care of it now here's the thing he wanted to be mr macho i'm going to take care of my
woman thing i said jeff i can handle this i will take care of it rowena also claims to have had no idea
jeff would take matters into his own hands i would think jeff thought he was doing
something for me because i took care of him you know i supported him i fed him my body's
clothes a little bit so he didn't want anything to happen to that he wanted me to be protected
when women behind bars continues so i'm sitting there in the um holding cell you know just sitting there
all of a sudden i'm all over the tv i'm all over the newspapers mastermind in murder and later on this
episode of women behind bars connie kiel is accused of participating in the robbery and murder of a liquor
store clerk we're going down the highway all of a sudden all these cops were coming around
us and we were arrested right there in august of 1992 as news of the gruesome murder of tom bower made local
headlines people in the community of granite city illinois were left wondering how such a tragedy could have happened
the facts around this case not only were very grisly but it was a particularly nasty case because of mr
bauer's background he'd been poisoned by his wife he was left crippled mostly confined to a wheelchair and then
to find out that he had been attacked so brutally like this was was really beyond what we're what we're
used to seeing the granite city police department's lead suspect was 38-year-old cab driver
rowena ashing who was already in jail on theft charges so i'm sitting there in the um
holding so you know just sitting there all said i'm all over the tv i'm all over the newspapers
mastermind in murder also in the news was rowena's youngest daughter nona who was tracked down by a local reporter
nona just 16 years old defended her mom [Music] no no you were just questioned by police
your mother was charged with murder and theft how are you feeling about all this are you surprised
yeah about the murder i am i mean i just i can't believe they did it i think she gave the orders to strangle
bauer and to to burn his house down that's the kind of mother you have but that's what everybody's saying
but i don't think i mean i don't think she really did it on august 17 1992 rowena ashing was
charged along with jeff ramsey john mcintyre bill russell and richie loftus with the murder of 57 year old tom bower
in the state of illinois there's a part that's called accountability if you're accountable for someone others
someone else's actions you could face and will face criminal sanctions against you
had it not been for her they would not have been there according to police the corroborating
statements made by the members of jeff ramsey's crew were enough to charge rowena with murder
she ended up pleading guilty to um the murder basically the mastermind of the murder
only because her lawyer told her that if it went to trial that there was no way that they would
find her anything but guilty and they would seek the death penalty she would get a life without parole and
she would never get out and never see her children or son again i think that rohena is a killer if
you're innocent to me you're not going to plead guilty to murder you're going to take it to
trial and had she been innocent she would have chose to take that that avenue but it was obvious that she's guilty of
this crime i was in total disbelief i turned around i said how can you call yourself a judge a learned counsel
and give me 40 years when you know i didn't do this my son [Music] my son was there and he said jesus
mother i'll be 48 when you get out of prison i say son done chill come on now and he was crying and everything you
know [Music] after 16 years behind bars time served has been especially hard on her oldest
daughter 35 year old loretta not having my mom that would be the hardest my mom wasn't um
she wasn't uh you know the lovey-dovey type warm loving mom my kids every day a thousand times a day
they say i love you we say i love you and you know my mom missing out on what that
life is like rowena ashing has served most of her sentence at a maximum security prison
for women in illinois i write poems i write stories i write books i try to be a mentor to the younger
women i try to tell them look you didn't they didn't put you here you do what they tell you
that's the bottom line improve yourself you don't sit here and feel sorry for yourself because that makes your time
just go drag due to state sentencing reforms her 40-year sentence was reduced to 20.
she's expected to be released in the year 2012 and will be 58 years old for the police officer who helped put
rowena ashing away her release is an unsettling notion five people were taken off the street
and i believe that that that's the best that the state could do it's troublesome to the police
department that any murderer is walking the streets i'll leave at that that's troublesome
as for regrets rowena has a few it's got to do with the fact that i use poor judgment and the people i ran with
that's the bottom line and then i started running around with jeff because he was you know young and
exciting and all this good stuff you know and i was bedazzled by it as it were and the regret of it is that the man
died next up on this episode of women behind bars a woman is arrested for the robbery
and murder of a liquor store clerk we went into that parking lot with the intentions to get some cigarettes from
that liquor store for more information about women behind bars go to www.wetv.com
on february 26 1980 in northern california 41 year old frank gummer a liquor store
clerk was found shot to death at his place of work gummer a family man worked at the liquor
store part-time at his second job the killing would be linked to connie keel who according to court documents
had sat in the getaway car waiting for her husband ricky keel and his cousin jeffrey taylor
to exit the liquor store it was a very cold-blooded murder connie would claim she had no prior knowledge of the
robbery the evidence clearly showed that her presence there was not just a ride-along
but she was there acting as a lookout she knew that a robbery was going to take place
did connie keel knowingly participate in the robbery and murder of frank gummer or was she an innocent bystander
i grew up in santa monica california i am the second to the oldest my mother and father have four children
then my father and his wife have four children connie was real young she was a she was a beautiful kid but at three
years old connie's childhood innocence came to an abrupt end when she claimed she was molested by a
distant relative i had a lot of sexual abuse when i was a child the things that happened to those
girls sexually unbelievable connie had no one to turn to when the alleged abuse began
my mom had her own things going on with her own life her and my father were getting a divorce
i was pretty much alone i wish i would have had a courage enough to tell somebody
back then that it wasn't something you did in 1965 connie's parents divorced connie's mother won custody of the four
children because connie says her father could not afford to fight in court connie's father eventually
remarried but still stayed in touch with connie and her siblings but her life at home
with her mother who was on welfare was still a struggle i didn't have friends i was um adventurous because i didn't
like being at home i used to jump trains and ride the trains with the bums um all the way to la and
back she started doing things that i wouldn't allow her to do she's on the street too much at 15
connie met a friend of her older brother ricky keel who was also 15 years old according to connie ricky's family was
in the restaurant business when i first met him we were young kids and i thought he was
arrogant and had everything he wanted flaunted it in the beginning of our relationship he was really
quite nice to me his family owned restaurants you know and we'd go to his family's restaurant he whined and
dined me and that's when i fell in love with him he gave me the things i didn't have but
there was another side to ricky keel he was still a little rebel he just was more manipulative about the things that
he did he hid it well i'd met ricky a few times i knew there was trouble because the way
he talked and the people they ran with the things they said i knew there was going to be
trouble for connie the trouble was just beginning as soon as he got me where he knew
i cared about him he started drinking a lot and he started getting high at 16 connie became pregnant with her daughter
alicia in january 1979 ricky and connie were married shortly after they had another child a
boy they named ricky she was a good mom she played with them she was a kid with them you know we'd go
outside and play and kick it but life for the young couple was not easy ricky and connie's marriage was
pretty rocky ricky loved the ladies connie put up with a lot of crap in that area his brutality increased
he started becoming very mean to other people around me if he thought somebody was looking at me
he would approach them very violently he scared me a lot ricky and connie used to get in some
pretty good fights connie would be upset vocally and ricky would be upset physically i was always
worried about connie he was kind of a crazy guy whatever he wanted to do that's what they did
he made all the decisions and believe me they weren't good decisions connie claims that as her husband's
behavior became more violent she attempted to leave the marriage several times he would want to slap me around
punching me in the face and telling me i wasn't going there pulling my hair connie claims ricky and his cousin
jeffrey became more involved in drugs and according to court documents ricky was involved in criminal activity
including armed robbery connie feared for her children's safety they had been robbing liquor stores i
asked him to stop doing it not to bring it around our family but less than a year into the marriage a
fearful connie left ricky took her kids and stayed at a relative's house he was doing things that
i didn't agree with and that's why i did leave him for a while because i didn't want to
endanger my kid's life ricky's family found out where she was staying and asked her to come back
connie reluctantly returned a month later on february 26 1980 connie and ricky went out for the
night while his parents watched their kids the whole reason we were out that night
was because his parents didn't want me to um they wanted me to try to work on the relationship
and so they encouraged us to go out that night according to court documents connie ricky and his cousin jeffrey
taylor ended the night by going to a local liquor store in campbell california we went into that parking lot with the
intentions to get some cigarettes from that liquor store my husband's cousin jeff he wanted to
rob the liquor store my husband said no he didn't want to do it he wasn't prepared to rob a liquor store
jeffrey kept egging on my husband ricky um asking him to just come on cuz don't be a punk we could do
this and i'll take the first shot cause i pleaded with them and there was they were just going to do what they were
going to do maybe if i would have kept my mouth shut maybe ricky wouldn't have agreed to it
he said i'm the one with the gun you just shut up and stay here and i did and i just watched them walk out
get out of the car and walk in the liquor store i can't even tell you why i sat there i could have left the keys
were in the car the car was running i could have just got in the driver's seat and took off
but i didn't at 11 30 p.m ricky keel and jeffrey taylor went into the liquor store with
firearms while connie waited in the car according to the prosecution connie's role was more than just an
innocent bystander sometime around midnight the two male defendants came into the store armed with firearms
and made the victim turn over the money from the cash register of the 210 ricky and jeffrey took during
the robbery some were bills that had been marked garden city liquors these marked bills also known as bait
money were meant to help identify cash taken in the event of a robbery ricky and jeffrey did not realize they
had taken the marked money ricky and jeffrey shot part-time liquor store clerk frank gummer four times with
two different weapons he died at the scene they filled him full of lead from their guns
both of them shot him and killed him and they both left there could be no other reason
besides just being a monster to have shot and kill him because he complied with him 100 percent
connie kiel sat in the car she was aiding and abetting the commission of a robbery which also turned out to be a
murder connie claimed she was appalled when she heard the gunshots coming from the liquor store
well i sit in that car all i could think about was how can i get out of here how can i get out of here and get my
kids according to connie she became even more frightened of ricky because of his
cold-blooded behavior they didn't run back to the car they walked back to the car
they were like joking with each other they kept making fun of me because i was so
upset over what they did once we got to my house ricky wouldn't let me leave his side
everywhere i went he had his eye on me he didn't trust him an eyewitness would later id
jeffrey taylor and ricky keel but could not identify connie in the car [Music] when women behind bars continues ricky
and connie are arrested for the murder of frank gummer we're going down the highway and all of
a sudden all these cops were coming around us and we were arrested right there [Music]
in february 1980 ricky keel and his cousin jeffrey taylor committed a robbery that turned into a brutal murder
the entire incident was caught on a surveillance camera but ricky's wife connie keel who was in
the getaway car denied any participation in the crime the photos were a series of 35
millimeter photographs had been taken by a hidden camera in the liquor store that showed not only the robbery but the
homicide it showed ricky keel holding a bag while the clerk put the money from the tail into
the bag the next photo showed ricky shooting the clerk there was a lot of evidence for the for
the investigators to go on they had photographs which showed the defendants they had description of the vehicle the
police took the surveillance photos to local liquor stores in an attempt to id the killers
ricky kiel's uncle who also owned a liquor store and ricky's father were there when the police arrived to show them the
photos the detectives came and were showing those photographs of the murder and my co-defendant's father identified
him and told him where we lived it was connie's father-in-law who identified his son ricky in the photo
and told police where the couple lived however according to court documents ricky's father also phoned ahead to warn
the couple that the police were on their way after attaining a search warrant the
police headed to the keele's home my father-in-law sent my brother down to our house to tell us that the
police were coming before authorities arrived on february 28 1980 ricky and connie left their two
kids with a family member and drove off hoping to elude the police but they didn't get far shortly after
they left their home they were stopped by the police we're going down the highway all of a
sudden all these cops were coming around us we affected a routine felony car stop
which includes drawn weapons and commands to the occupants to to come out of the car one at a time
when the defendants including connie kiel were arrested some of the bait money was found in her
purse all three defendants were charged with first-degree murder and armed robbery although connie did not
actually enter the liquor store or pulled the trigger her presence in the car at the time of
the robbery and murder made it possible for the police to charge her as well as her co-defendants
[Music] connie was tried along with her two co-defendants her husband ricky and his
cousin jeffrey taylor al bender was the primary prosecuting attorney for the case
this was a fairly complicated case actually involved three defendants one of which is connie keel her
defense essentially was let's see if there's enough evidence to prove that i was there and that i had an intent
to facilitate the commission of the crimes the other two defendants their defense was one
which we used to refer to as diminished capacity which means okay i did it but i was so high on drugs that i could not
form the intent to commit the underlying crime there's not much in that trial that's about me
except that we got arrested together two days later i had marked bills from that liquor store in
my purse when we would go to court and connie would be sitting up there you know that she didn't belong there
honey was guilty for a lot of things like stupidity but nothing like the degree of the charges that they were
charging her for as the prosecution presented their case the evidence unfolded as a part of the investigation a search
warrant was authorized at the place where the keel family lived they went back dug up the area they
found the weapons used in the robbery murder the evidence with reference to connie
keel was on the thin side to start with but got better during the trial the defense attorney for ricky's cousin
jeffrey taylor made an opening statement that even surprised the prosecution i'll never forget it the attorney for
taylor said that a witness the uncle of ricky keel had seen connie kiel the night before
with a gun in her purge and said we're gonna do a 211 tomorrow the prosecution believed that now they had the proof
that connie had prior knowledge of the robbery also known as a 211 but on the stand
ricky's uncle changed his story and denied ever seeing connie with a gun in the end connie did not testify at all
even in her own defense the reason i didn't put a defense on in my trial is because i believed that
the case spoke for itself they had pictures of the crime i wasn't in the pictures
i didn't participate in the crime i believed in the justice system on may 14 1981 the jury reached a
verdict every defendant was found guilty of murder in the first degree which is the
law when you commit a murder during the course of a robbery the evidence clearly showed and the jury
agreed actually that connie was not just a ride-along but she was there acting as
a lookout and clearly that she knew that a robbery was going to take place i was shocked
when the verdict came back guilty for me i thought that they would find me not guilty because i didn't
participate in the crime that my co-defendants actually did the crime when she got
convicted of first degree murder that was worse than a nightmare i'm gratified that our system of justice
prevails because it was a very cold-blooded murder [Music] i think her sentence was very harsh
because um you know she did try to stop them she's not the one that actually pulled the trigger or committed the
murder connie and ricky divorced while in prison connie's two children were raised
by ricky's parents connie was taken to a maximum security prison an hour east of los angeles to
serve out her sentence ricky keel and jeffrey taylor were sent to a men's correctional facility
in california in the beginning of my prison term i was very angry i was angry at the
system i was angry at my co-defendant i was just mad at everybody i went through a lot of therapy here i
went to a survivor of sexual molestation therapy here and i did it for six years
and that's the best thing i ever did for myself for a long time i've been in a lot of
pain paid for what happened [Music] in this crime paid for what it did to my family
my children had to grow up without a mother and a father connie kiel has been incarcerated for 27
years she will be up for parole soon she still thinks about the day frank gummer was
murdered i wish i would have left that scene of that crime even after all these years it's horrible
you know to sit there and listen to those shots go off makes me sad he didn't do anything
you know for them to take his life i want to go home i want to go be with my children i
have grandchildren and i um [Music] have parents that are all elderly now it's time for me to give back

Brief Summary

Rowena Ashing and Connie Kiel committed brutal murders, revealing their troubled pasts and the consequences of their actions.

Key points

A Troubled Past. Rowena Ashing's abusive childhood and tumultuous relationships shape her story leading to murder.
A Gruesome Discovery. Firefighters discover Tom Bauer's body in a burning house, raising suspicions of foul play.
Mastermind Behind Murder?. Rowena Ashing is accused of orchestrating the murder of Tom Bauer, a disabled man.
Rowena Ashing Charged with Murder. Rowena Ashing is charged with the murder of Tom Bauer, alongside several accomplices.
Connie Kiel's Involvement in Murder. Connie Kiel's presence during a robbery leads to her being charged with murder.
The Verdict. Connie Kiel is found guilty of first-degree murder, shocking her and her supporters.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I was his cab driver, you're gonna find my fingerprints everywhere.

Rowena Ashing's defense during interrogation.

1:27WatchJan 12, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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