Dateline NBC
DNA at heart of Arizona trial. Aspiring model's killer fights to clear his name. Plus, Relisha Rudd.
06 Nov 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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You're listening in to the Dateline story meeting.
We can go ahead and get started. Yeah, let's go. Let's go.
Our producers are catching up on breaking crime news. So it sounds like he just snapped too, right? This fraudulent insurance claim kind of hints at this double life.
There's a Fitbit that actually shows a spike in a heartbeat and then it just goes flat.
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Chapter 2: What happened in the murder trial of Allison Feldman?
That's right. We learned that Mitchum's defense team is pointing a finger at a person police pursued as a potential lead during the murder investigation. This person was Allison's pharmacist and made comments that implicated him in the homicide. He viewed Allison's dating profile and lived near her. And the man being implicated by the defense, has he made any comments?
So as of now, Dateline has not spoken with this person, but he was in court last week with his attorney and his attorney told the court his client plans on pleading the fifth.
OK, Brittany, thank you. So many moving pieces still in this case as the trial finally gets underway. Thank you so much for bringing us the latest from the courtroom in Arizona.
You are so welcome. Thank you for having me.
Coming up, a man who was convicted, along with his parents, of murdering his ex-wife is fighting to clear their names. On September 27th, 1996, police found an abandoned car on the side of Interstate 72 in central Illinois. The engine was running, the headlights were on, but the car's driver, 23-year-old Karen Hearn Slover, was nowhere to be found.
A few days later, in a lake miles away, a boater made a horrifying discovery. A garbage bag containing a body part. Law enforcement soon found more bags and more body parts nearby. It was Karen. A years-long investigation led to the arrests of Karen's ex-husband, Michael Slover Jr., as well as both of his parents. In 2002, a jury found them all guilty of Karen's murder.
But now, almost three decades since Karen's death, the case is back in court with bombshell new evidence that could turn this case on its head. Here to bring us up to speed is Karen Izert, an anchor with NBC-owned station WAND in Decatur, Illinois. Thanks for coming on the podcast, Karen.
Thank you so much for having me.
Let's just start by telling us a little bit more about the victim in this case, Karen Hearn Slover.
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Chapter 3: How did DNA evidence play a role in identifying the suspect?
And he had told police that she had had some car issues. And so he had lent her his vehicle.
We mentioned the gruesome discovery of Karen's dismembered body days later. Where does the investigation go from there?
Yeah, so now it's why did this happen? Who did this? Investigators obviously looked at her boyfriend, David Swan. They checked him out. He had an alibi at the time that all of this was unfolding on the 27th. And so then it started to asking people around town, well...
There was a story that had been told that three people in Decatur had kind of claimed that they knew the details of what happened to Karen. And so police obviously looked at these three people closely as well, but ruled them out. So what comes next is the ex-husband.
What did the police learn about the relationship between Karen and her ex-husband?
Yeah, so friends had described that their relationship was just a little rocky. And now they're divorced, and they have their son Colton. And so there became issues with the custody over Colton. Karen had an opportunity to go out of state to model, and that obviously threw a wrench in this custody issue.
Police don't just look at Michael Jr. They go a step further and not something you hear every day. They start looking into Michael's parents, Michael Sr. and Jeanette.
Yeah. And what I really thought was very interesting in the case was they looked closely at the business that Michael Sr. owned, and they had noticed that there were certain concrete cinders, is how I would describe them, that they noticed was on the property, but they also found those same cinders in the car that Karen was last seen in. They also saw it in the plastic bags that
that Karen's body parts were in as well. So they really wanted to take a look at the Miracle Motors property that Michael Sr. owned. And they were able to dig up dirt. They have these five-gallon buckets. And in those buckets, they end up finding buttons. And they looked closely at the brand. They looked closely at, you know, is this exactly the button that it is of the jeans that she would wear?
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