Kemberly Ramer (6 of Clubs, Florida)

In 1997, 17-year-old Kimberly had big goals of getting out of her small town.

She made great grades, was a star athlete, and was well-liked by her peers.

Heading into her senior year, she already had plans to go to college to become a physical

therapist.

And there was no question, she had the brains and the talent to do just that.

It would take a thief, a monster in the middle of the night, to take that away from her.

And that's exactly what happened one August evening.

And her mother thinks she knows the true identity of this, so far, untraceable culprit.

I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck.

Kenny Raymer hadn't seen his daughter, Kimberly, who goes by Kem, all weekend.

But that wasn't too weird.

It was summertime, school was out, Kem was a teenager heading into her senior year at

Opp High School in Alabama.

She was independent and responsible enough to just do her own thing.

Plus, Kenny would often spend the night over at his girlfriend's place.

But usually, their paths would cross at least once around the house.

But that hadn't happened this particular weekend.

After sleeping over at his girlfriend's, he had gone back to the house at some point Saturday,

August 16th, to grab his golf clubs before heading out to play.

Kem's car was there, but she was nowhere to be found.

Then, it hit him.

She was supposed to sell magazines for a school fundraiser with her friend.

That friend had probably scooped Kem up, and they were out and about doing that.

So Kenny left a note on the table and went about his day, not thinking much of it.

But when he returned home later that night,

the note was right there where he'd left it.

No explanation scribbled back in return.

And Kem's car was still in the driveway.

If she wasn't home yet, she probably decided to sleep over with that friend.

Or maybe she ended up back over at her mom's house for the night.

See, Kenny was divorced, but they had an amicable relationship.

Their two daughters would go back and forth and stay wherever was most convenient.

Kenny lived in Opp, Alabama, and

Sue had moved 30 minutes away across the state line in Defuniac Springs, Florida.

They didn't want Kem to have to transfer school since she was doing so well, so

she would mostly stay with her dad in Opp during the academic year,

visiting her mom on, like, evenings, weekends, and breaks.

So Kenny gave Sue a quick call that night to try and check, see if Kem was there.

But he got no answer, so

he just went to sleep, thinking all of this would be cleared up by morning.

But when the sun rose, there was still no Kem.

Instead of simply peeking into her bedroom and

calling out to her as he had done before,

something compelled him to take a closer look at everything.

And when he did, he immediately knew something wasn't right.

All of Kem's stuff was there, her purse, her shoes, and

something she wouldn't, more like couldn't, go without, her contact lenses.

They were in their case, and her glasses were on the nightstand.

And Kem was nearly blind without them.

But that wasn't even the most troublesome part.

on the other side of the wall, which was the hallway, and they were down.

And then there was a pillow behind her headboard.

And I thought, somebody had to have been thrown into the wall or

something for all these pictures to be off the wall like that.

You know, some kind of force.

Early on the morning of Sunday, August 17th,

Kenny tried calling Sue again.

And he tried to convince himself of all the ways this could end up being fine.

Maybe Kem had just put in a pair of new contacts.

Maybe she didn't need her purse.

So he called Sue again.

And this time when he rang, she picked up.

And I said, well, no, she's supposed to be with you.

And he says, well, she's not here and we can't find her.

I said, what do you mean you can't find her?

I said, I'm coming up there.

And so I got my stuff and went on up there.

Kristen, rushed to off to help Kenny try and sort all of this out.

Her dad had been frantically calling all of Kem's friends in the meantime to make

sure she wasn't just hanging out with one of them.

But none of them had been with her since Friday night.

With it seeming like the worst case scenario was now their terrifying

reality, the family notified the op police department that Sunday to report

Kem missing.

Despite the strange scene in her bedroom,

it didn't seem like law enforcement suspected foul play,

at least not right off the bat.

Maybe because there was no obvious signs of forced entry,

nothing stolen from the house and nothing else seemed off upon initial inspection.

So local police started trying to pinpoint all of Kem's movements that weekend.

Here's investigator Steve Sunday.

He's retired now, but like a lot of detectives we interview for this show,

he came back on on a part-time basis to work cold cases at the Walton County,

Florida Sheriff's Office.

and she played in this ballgame.

And I believe around 10, 10.30 or so, the ballgame ended.

And Kem stayed around with her friends a little bit, but then she went home.

Her father was there.

He was getting ready to go out.

Kem had asked about going with some of her friends.

He gave her about 11.30 curfew and said, be home by that time.

And Kem ultimately got dressed and left.

he didn't think twice about it.

Kem had never been in trouble for breaking curfew before.

Actually, she had never really been in big trouble with her parents at all.

She was responsible, but, you know, at the same time, she's a teenage girl

and she has her own mind of things that she wants to do.

He never asked and Kem never specified.

His last interaction with her, however, was vivid in his mind.

According to reporting in the Dothan Eagle, that Friday night after the game,

but before she left to go hang out with friends,

Kem had put her arms around his neck, kissed him on the cheek,

and said, I love you, Dad.

At this stage, her family had made contact with Kem's friends,

who confirmed that she had never showed up to participate

in that school fundraiser on Saturday.

The friend she had made plans with had even stopped by her house to pick her up,

but she gave up when no one answered the door.

Call after call, as some of Kem's closest girlfriends

began to realize she was missing, they gathered at Kenny's house,

trying to help her parents figure out where she was.

Now everyone was on edge.

This was a scary situation.

But actually, this one friend in particular seemed off when she got there,

almost uncomfortable, knowing this was serious.

I mean, the police were now involved.

She told Sue that there was something she needed to come clean about,

something Kem had been keeping from her entire family.

This friend told Sue that Kem had a boyfriend, an older boyfriend,

and that's who she'd been hanging out with Friday night.

While most of her friends seemed to know about this guy,

Kem hadn't told anyone in her family, knowing that they wouldn't approve.

This guy was out of school in his 20s, was either separated or divorced

from his wife, and had a kid or two of his own.

He lived right down the road from Kenny's house,

like less than five minutes or so.

And that's where Kem had gone after she had left her house that evening.

So the family immediately did what I would do.

They showed up at this guy's house unannounced, but no one was there.

Not too long after that first attempt, though,

police ended up catching up with this guy.

He was surprised to see them, but immediately forthcoming

about his relationship with Kem, saying it had only been going on

for about two weeks or so.

I mean, it wasn't very serious.

But he was nonetheless distraught to learn that she was missing.

He cooperated fully with police, answered all of their questions,

and allowed them to look around and even search his place.

He told investigators that the two of them hung out,

watched television for an hour or so, and Kem left between 1130 and 1145

to get home around the curfew that her dad had given her.

Sue even talked to him herself and said that he seemed scared to death,

but willing to do whatever he could to help.

And for Sue and investigators, that was a good sign.

Sue got the impression that he was telling the truth,

despite how bad it may have looked at first.

Within days, the Alabama Bureau of Investigation,

along with the FBI, were called in,

and they seemed to kick things into high gear,

taking lead on the case.

They interviewed neighbors, they interviewed Kem's friends,

and, of course, the boyfriend, but they didn't learn anything new.

No one else was sticking out as suspicious,

and no one could think of a single person who'd want to hurt Kem.

And there wasn't much in the way of physical evidence either.

But Sue thinks that's because police didn't bother to collect any at first.

Sue remembered that first day of the investigation,

police dusted for fingerprints back at the house

on the doorknob of Kem's bedroom.

But outside of this, she said,

the handling of the crime scene was basically nonexistent.

I guess local police weren't really considering it much of a crime scene,

because in their minds, there was nothing telling them it was.

any screaming or anything like that.

So whatever happened to her

happened without people seeing anything there at the house,

where someone would call the police or say something,

you know, hey, something's going on.

Nothing like that happened.

knowing in her heart Kem's room was going to be important.

But it was already too little too late.

Sue said everyone had been in and out of the house those first few days.

I mean, nothing had been roped off.

Even Kristen's boyfriend had wandered into Kem's bedroom

while Sue was taking a look around.

And he was just looking, looking, looking.

And I said, just don't touch anything in here.

You know, I was trying to be like the law.

And I told him, I said, don't touch anything.

They'll think you might have something to do with it.

but they were investigating in other ways

and making some progress one tidbit of info at a time.

First, from putting up roadblocks around the area

to stop and talk with anyone who may have seen something that night.

In doing this, a neighbor recounted seeing Kem's car

arrive back in the driveway sometime around midnight Saturday morning,

meaning she had in fact made it home around the time of her curfew.

Coupled with her contacts being in their case

and the clothes she'd been wearing that night on the floor,

it was clear she made it home.

She felt safe.

She'd gotten ready for bed

and then something had to have happened to her in her room.

So this finally sparked investigators to look harder at her bedroom.

Agents collected all of her bedding,

along with other things around her bedroom and house,

including old family videotapes

that Sue has never gotten back to this day.

They also took the family's landline phone for further examination.

Although there were no apparent signs

that someone had attempted to clean up anything,

the FBI conducted a luminol test in Kem's bedroom,

but there were no traces of blood found.

And outside of things being a little amiss in the bedroom,

nothing else was really seemingly off.

But Sue said she had noticed something else strange.

the first thing I noticed was when I was going in the side door,

there was light coming through from the doorknob up.

I could see light and I had never seen that before.

It was odd to me.

someone had tried to force open the locked door to get inside

and knock the doorframe off its alignment.

But unfortunately, no one could say for certain

if the door was already like that or not.

Maybe it was just old and broken.

Agents did take a closer look,

dusting for more fingerprints,

examining that door and analyzing the locking mechanism.

Though what, if anything,

they were able to conclude from their testing

has never been released to the public.

Law enforcement, family, friends and community members

started searching the surrounding areas for any sign of Kim.

When our reporter Madison traveled to that area to meet with Sue,

she passed people driving ATVs while traveling down dirt roads.

It was then, and still is today, a heavily wooded area.

When it had been about a week since anyone had seen Kim,

her mom knew deep down that her daughter had not left on her own.

And at this point, law enforcement agreed

someone else was likely responsible

for whatever happened to Kim that night.

that anything like that's going to happen

because it just didn't happen.

Everybody knows everybody.

It's a quiet little town.

So it had to be somebody that she knew, that we knew,

and that made it even scarier.

someone Sue hadn't even suspected, not even for a second.

And apparently, special agents started setting their sights

on this person when he was the only one close to the family

who was avoiding them.

To her utter shock, Sue told our reporting team

that FBI agents let her know

they were looking into the boyfriend of Kim's older sister,

26-year-old Jerry.

Jerry and Kristen had only been dating

a few months at this point,

and though Sue had never suspected him on her own,

once the FBI brought up his name,

she realized it might make sense.

You know, I thought he was okay

until I saw the other side of him.

And then when that happened,

I just didn't want no part of him anymore.

Investigators confirmed that he had a violent criminal history

dating back to the early 90s

that included charges related to assault,

but she didn't know any of that until after Kim went missing.

It was also after that Sue found out

from some of Kim's friends that Kim hadn't liked Jerry.

I mean, they didn't have a ton of interaction

in the short time Kristen and Jerry dated,

but even the limited time she had spent around him,

she told her friends he was, quote, creepy.

And in hindsight, Sue started reflecting on things

that had happened earlier on in the investigation.

Some of his behavior that she once thought of as unusual

now seemed almost malicious,

like the way he was hovering over her,

looking into Kim's room.

And apparently at one point early on,

he tried to cast suspicion onto her dad, Kenny.

You see, Jerry's dad was a deputy

for the Walton County Sheriff's Department.

And while he didn't work Kim's case,

Jerry acted as though he was being fed information.

And it was a flat-out lie.

Kenny had been quickly cleared

and wasn't ever suspected of harming his daughter.

And soon after the crime, Jerry also told Sue

that he was planning on getting away

from the area altogether.

this area right now?

You know, this is not when I thought

that he had anything to do with it.

And it got me to thinking a little bit.

Why would you wanna leave?

It's just weird.

they learned more and more that made him look even worse.

He didn't have a solid alibi

for early that Saturday morning

when they believed Kim was taken from her home.

Kristen confirmed that Jerry had left her alone

that Friday night while she was babysitting

to head to a party in the Leonia, Florida area,

even taking her car.

But apparently police found out

that when he did finally show up to that party,

he was actually in a different vehicle

for some unknown reason.

It seems that Jerry ditched Kristen's car that night

and then ended up stealing a work truck

from a former employer.

There were accounts of drug use

and definitely drinking at this party.

At first, some friends who had attended assured police

that they were with Jerry the entire time.

But when agents went into them a little harder,

they admitted they couldn't vouch for his whereabouts

after a certain point early that morning.

Depending on who you talk to,

these exact times varied though.

What we know is that ultimately early Saturday morning,

Jerry showed up at a friend's house

where he had left Kristen's car,

freaking out, saying that he needed to ditch the work truck

that he had stolen ASAP.

And he ended up abandoning it at a local church.

At some point early on in the search for Kim,

a tip got called in from a woman who said

she had seen something early that Saturday morning

that in hindsight now seemed suspicious.

A red and white three quarter ton Dodge truck

with dual wheel tires around five in the morning

in an area about eight miles outside of off.

Now she assumed that the car was broken down

and someone needed help, so she drove closer.

But when she noticed that there were two men inside,

she decided to just mind her own business

and kept heading to work for her own safety.

Agents made the connection that her report

referenced the same distinct truck

that Jerry had allegedly stolen that night.

But it can never be that easy, right?

Detectives didn't make this connection

until the truck was already returned to its rightful owner,

who already had it professionally detailed.

So any forensic testing was a lost cause,

but they did try.

Even with all of this,

Jerry still wouldn't own up to anything.

There wasn't enough evidence to even charge him

with stealing the truck, and in Kim's case,

he invoked his right to remain silent.

But that didn't stop Mama Bear Sue

from confronting him herself.

Since he didn't have a concrete alibi

for early Saturday morning,

he tried to come up with one, at least for Sue.

He told her he was driving around by himself

for hours after the party and drove to Lake Cassidy twice,

an area known for hangouts and partying.

Except no one else was there both times,

so no one could corroborate his story.

and I said, Jerry, did you go to op that night?

Did you do that?

Did you do something to Kim?

And then I said something else and he said, prove it.

He told me to prove it on the phone.

with retired FDLE Special Agent Dennis Haley,

who started assisting on this case that very first week

Kim went missing in 1997.

Today, he's back on it to take a closer look

at all of the FBI's files alongside Investigator Sunday.

Agent Haley said detectives asked Jerry's former employer

for a description of what the truck had looked like

when he first got it back after it was stolen,

trying to get some insight about what Jerry

may have been doing in it that night.

Like, was there a reason that he had

to get it professionally detailed?

Well, this man said that the truck was covered in dirt,

the tailgate was missing,

and the most remarkable observation,

he described muddy footprints

up on the inside ceiling of the truck.

Now, around this same time, investigators got

the phone records back from the landline

that was in the Ramer house.

And what those records revealed would be one

of their biggest breaks ever in this case.

Around 5.20 Saturday morning,

three phone calls were made from the Ramer's house phone

to numbers in Florida.

All three of those calls were made out

to numbers in the Leonia area.

Does that sound familiar?

It should, because Leonia was the area

where Jerry and his buddies were partying that night.

Neither Kim nor her dad, Kenny,

would have had any reason to contact someone there.

I mean, they had absolutely no connection to it.

But here's the catch.

None of the numbers actually went anywhere.

Like, it seems one or two digits were off

as if the number was dialed incorrectly,

or as agents surmise, dialed in a panic.

So armed with all of this new evidence,

agents started developing a theory.

Could all of these things be connected?

The stolen truck, the report about the two men

near Op in the truck, and the phone calls.

It seemed like someone had come to the Ramer house

uninvited early that morning,

and then the very next day, Kim was gone.

And get this, one of the things

that had bothered investigators early on

was the possible lack of forced entry.

But with Jerry, that could be explained.

the month of July.

And he could have gotten in there that way,

or with the door being like that,

he could have come to the door and said,

hey, is Kristen there?

I'm looking for her.

Because she knew him.

She would have let him in.

for Kenny to spend the night out with his girlfriend,

common for Kim to be home alone.

probably to try to have sex with her.

And I think he went in there,

and I think that he tried something.

Kimberly was very athletic,

and I believe that she fought him,

and that's probably what happened to those pictures.

Something happened in that room,

and I was told by another person

that he was told that the person of interest

did go up there.

Something happened in the house,

and he was gonna put her in the truck

and ride her around until she woke up.

And she never woke up,

and I don't know what they did with her body.

So Sue was told by someone

that they heard this is what happened,

that Jerry did something to her in her room that night.

And what Sue heard tracks

with what investigators told our reporting team,

that they've heard rumors.

But the problem is, they're just rumors.

and then sometimes they would,

well, I heard this one said this,

and then there'd be times you might go to that person,

that person might say, well, no, I didn't say that.

So it was a lot of hearsay stuff that was out there,

but law enforcement had to sift and go through that.

from Kim's bedroom, like the bedding,

were sent off for testing,

but nothing of evidentiary value came of any of it.

So what they had was suspicious,

but there was no smoking gun and no body,

not nearly enough to put him behind bars,

at least not for this.

But within a week or so of Kim going missing,

there was a warrant out for Jerry's arrest

for another incident.

He was wanted for a home invasion

and for stealing a motorcycle.

And at the time he was already on probation

for something else.

Agent Haley thinks he was taken into jail

on or around August 23rd, 1997,

on account of these other unrelated charges.

And he was eventually sentenced to around 15 years in prison.

And though Jerry was the prime suspect

in Kim's case at this point, that's it.

No charges were filed on that.