MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
Death of a Salesman (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)
Mon, 21 Apr 2025
On a June night in 1997, Kathy Peters was asleep at her home in Mirror Lake, a quiet neighborhood of Sarasota, Florida. Around 3:45 AM, she was awakened by a strange noise. It was unlike anything Kathy had ever heard – a faint, eerie, rattling hiss. After a few seconds, the sound faded and Kathy tried to go back to sleep, but now she was too anxious. So she got up and crossed to the window. She opened the blinds and looked across the lake's glassy surface. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. But then she nearly jumped out of her skin when a loud, metallic banging noise sounded right below her window. Someone was pounding on the screen door. Kathy hurried downstairs, wondering who could be bothering her at this time of night. She considered not answering, but Mirror Lake was a safe community. There had to be a reasonable explanation… so she opened the door. Through the screen, she could see someone standing in the darkness. Kathy asked who it was and what they wanted - but the figure didn’t respond. By now, Kathy was absolutely terrified, so she switched on the porch light. And when she saw what was in front of her, she reeled back in horror.For 100s more stories like these, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What strange noises did Kathy Peters hear on that June night in 1997?
Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin Podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. On a June night in 1997, Kathy Peters was asleep at her home in Mirror Lake, a quiet neighborhood of Sarasota, Florida. Around 3.45 AM, she was startled awake by a strange noise.
It was unlike anything Kathy had heard, a faint, eerie, rattling hiss. After a few seconds, the sound faded, and Kathy tried to go back to sleep. But now she was too anxious. So she got up and crossed to the window. She opened the blinds and looked across the lake's glassy surface. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
But then she nearly jumped out of her skin when a loud metallic banging noise sounded right below her window. Somebody was pounding on her screen door. Kathy ran downstairs, having no idea who could be bothering her at this time of the night. She considered not answering, but Mirror Lake was a very safe community, so there had to be a reasonable explanation here. So she opened the door.
Through the screen, she could see someone standing in the darkness. Kathy asked who it was and what they wanted, but the figure didn't say anything. Now Kathy was terrified, so she switched on the porch light, and when she saw what was in front of her, she reeled back in horror.
But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please remember, before you do anything mean to the follow button, walk a mile in their shoes.
That way, when you bully them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. Okay, let's get into today's story.
When a young woman named Desiree vanishes without a trace, the trail leads to Cat Torres, a charismatic influencer with millions of followers. But behind the glamorous posts and inspirational quotes, a sinister truth unravels. Binge all episodes of Don't Cross Cat early and ad-free on Wondery+.
June 20th, 1997 started out as a perfect day for Henry Knieva. The wiry, silver-mustached 76-year-old arrived at the Toyota dealership in Sarasota shortly after dawn. Getting to work early meant that he got first pick of the morning customers, which was how he liked it. By lunch, he'd already made two sales, and he was working on his third.
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Chapter 2: Who was Henry Knieva and what was his life like before the murder?
And when that third customer signed for her car, Henry handed her the keys and felt that familiar rush of victory. He'd worked plenty of jobs throughout his life, but selling cars was the first thing that he truly loved, and he was really good at it. Henry had an effortless charm and a sort of unthreatening quality that made people trust him.
He enjoyed talking to strangers, and he had no plans of slowing down or retiring. Growing up in the Great Depression had imprinted on him a set of unshakable values. He believed that you should work hard, save every dime you can, and treat every day like it's your last. And that mindset had served him well over the years. But life still had come with plenty of setbacks.
Two decades ago, his marriage had fallen apart, and so he'd upended his life and moved from California to Florida. Finding a new job there had been easy with Henry's sales experience, but he had not expected to find love again, too. He'd met his current girlfriend, Janet Scott, a little over six years earlier when Janet had come into Henry's dealership looking to buy a car.
She'd left with a car and also with Henry's phone number. Their relationship quickly progressed from friendly dinners to romance. And Janet never seemed to mind that she was 26 years younger than Henry. She laughed at his jokes, loved his cooking, and put up with his constant car talk. Janet was also a salesperson in her own way.
She worked at the Hallmark store at the Sarasota Square Mall, selling cards, chocolates, and stuffed animals. And that day, while Henry was getting ready to sell his third car, Janet was helping a shopper pick out a condolences card for a funeral. As she pulled different options from the rack, Janet couldn't help but feel a twinge of heartache.
It was not that long ago that her own mailbox had been flooded with cards like these. Just before she met Henry, her husband, Roe, had died from a heart attack. Janet still wore the diamond engagement ring that Roe had given her, right next to the inexpensive topaz one that Henry had gotten her a few years earlier.
She was comfortable in her relationship with Henry, but she knew not to expect a wedding ring from him. Henry had never actually gotten around to filing divorce paperwork for his first marriage, so he was still legally married to his ex in California, and they had two adult kids together, a son and a daughter. But Henry hardly ever spoke to his kids these days, which made Janet sad.
She'd seen the same thing happen to her late husband. Roe had had an adult daughter from a former marriage, and they'd grown distant after Roe married Janet. Janet thought that Roe had regretted not repairing that relationship before he died, and so she didn't want Henry to die without getting a chance to patch things up with his kids. But she wasn't sure how to help him do that.
As upbeat and charming as Henry was, he could also be very private and stuck in his ways. But Janet took a last look at the condolence card her customer chose and resolved to talk to Henry about his kids that night. After purchasing their card, the customer left, and Janet began closing up the store. Twenty minutes later, she was driving past sandy white beaches, teeming with senior citizens.
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Chapter 3: What happened during the violent attack on Janet Scott and Henry Knieva?
Henry sort of gave off the vibe that he was a senior citizen on a limited fixed budget. But in reality, he had $700,000 in the bank. So the detectives speculated that maybe Henry was killed for his money. And their thoughts immediately turned toward Henry's relatives, who were most likely to gain financially from his death.
The detectives learned that Henry did not have a will, but that only meant that the bulk of the inheritance would be divided between his adult children, Jeff and Sharon Knieva. When the detectives reached out to Jeff and Sharon, they learned that they were actually already on their way to Sarasota after learning their father had been killed.
And at the detective's request, they agreed to stop by the station to answer some questions. Brewer and Muncy knew it was impossible for Jeff or Sharon to have been present for the murder, since they were across the country in California when it happened. But that did not stop them from potentially arranging a hit through a third party.
The detectives pressed the siblings about how they got along with their father. And both Jeff and Sharon said they were on good terms with Henry, but they didn't really talk to him very much. Not because they didn't want to. Jeff clearly idolized his father and had even followed in his father's footsteps to become a car salesman.
But they said their father liked his privacy and didn't want many visitors. He seemed happy with the new life he'd built in Florida, so they'd try to give him space and let him be. But then Jeff dropped some truly shocking information. A few months earlier, he had called his father at home and a young man had answered. When Jeff asked who he was talking to, the man said he was Henry's son.
Jeff was initially stunned and very confused because he believed he was Henry's only son. But eventually, the truth came out. Soon after Henry had separated from Jeff and Sharon's mother and moved to Florida, he was in a very brief relationship with a woman who gave birth to Henry's other son, David. But Henry never told anybody about David.
And Henry himself didn't even meet him until David had grown up and tracked him down. But from what Jeff was able to gather, it seemed like Henry and his son David had seen a lot of each other in the months leading up to the murder. It stung more than Jeff liked to admit, both because Henry had kept David's existence a secret and because he'd been so unavailable to his other kids.
Following the conversation with Jeff and his sister Sharon, detectives Brewer and Muncy got to work tracking David down. They learned that he was 20 years old and lived about three hours away in the Daytona Beach area. When they contacted him, he agreed to come down to Sarasota for questioning.
and during his interview, he admitted that he knew Henry had a lot of money, but didn't know how much or if Henry had a will. David confirmed that he had been spending more time with Henry recently, and that some of the visits had taken place at the house in Mirror Lake, where the murder took place.
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Chapter 4: How did the detectives begin investigating Henry's murder?
The detectives agreed it was not that surprising that the siblings didn't get along. However, them not getting along did not necessarily mean they killed their father. But regardless, Brewer and Muncy decided to still keep an eye on all of Henry's children while they simultaneously dug into his other relationships.
The following day, the detectives headed to the Toyota dealership where Henry worked to interview some of his colleagues. And one of Henry's buddies, a guy named Red, was more than happy to help.
Red said the other salesmen definitely respected Henry due to his long history in the business, but they also saw him as being pretty old-fashioned and would sometimes give him a hard time about being cheap. They couldn't understand why he wore old, ill-fitting clothes and drove a 10-year-old car when they knew he had money.
It was common knowledge around the dealership that Henry had made more than the rest of them put together, just from the number of cars Henry had sold. As one salesman put it, Henry had, quote, more money than God. The detectives jotted all this down and then asked Red if there was anyone on the staff who might have wanted to harm Henry.
Red thought for a moment and then told them they should go talk to a guy named Mark. Rhett explained that Mark was a younger salesman who had worked at the dealership until recently. He was argumentative and lazy and would often miss work, sometimes disappearing for as much as a week at a time.
Mark's laziness really rubbed Henry the wrong way, and at one point he had tried to talk some sense into Mark, but Mark just sort of blew him off. And soon after that, Mark was abruptly fired, just a few days before Henry's murder.
Now, Red didn't know if Henry had formally complained to management, which sort of led to Mark's firing, but Red said Henry had been vocal enough about his dislike of Mark that most of the other employees assumed that Henry must have had something to do with Mark's firing. The detectives interviewed more of the salesmen and heard similar stories.
Some people thought Mark was actually a drug addict and that was why he disappeared sometimes. And a few of the salesmen recounted that Mark had been looking for a gun right around the time he got fired. He had told them he needed it to, quote, take care of something.
Armed with all these stories, detectives Brewer and Muncy tracked down Mark and brought him into the Sarasota police station for questioning. Mark had a bad attitude right away and acted annoyed at them for wasting his time. While Mark said he did not know anything about Henry's murder, he also said that yes, he and Henry had butted heads.
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Chapter 5: What evidence was found at the crime scene and what did it suggest?
He said that Henry wanted to be treated like the dealership king simply because he'd been there the longest. Mark said that Henry was always butting into other people's business, and as far as Mark was concerned, Henry had gotten what he deserved. Naturally, Brewer and Muncy found this kind of talk extremely suspicious, so they pressed Mark harder.
They told him that they'd found a latex glove fragment at the crime scene with fingerprints on it. Now, this was a total bluff on their part. They'd already analyzed that glove fragment and it was clean of prints, but Mark didn't know that. And if he was guilty, thinking that the police had hard evidence could make him crack.
But instead, Mark responded somewhat sarcastically saying that, yeah, finding that glove at the scene would make me a good suspect because my sister is a nurse and so I have access to gloves just like that. The detectives thought this was a very strange thing to say, even if it was sarcastic.
I mean, Mark was technically incriminating himself in a murder investigation, but Mark just did not seem to care. Brewer and Muncy just sat there trying to make sense of what Mark had just said when they got a call from the hospital. Janet was awake, and it looked like she was going to survive. And while she was still weak and in a lot of pain, she had said she was ready to answer their questions.
The detectives were so eager to hear from her that they let Mark go for the moment and raced over to the hospital. But when they finally sat down with Janet, it became clear she was not going to be as helpful as they'd hoped. Janet was not just beaten up. She was severely traumatized and confused about what had happened.
Doctors said the first thing that she had asked when she regained consciousness was, where's Henry? When Brewer and Muncy gently pressed her to try to focus and remember any details, she tried, but then suddenly got this crushing headache and had to stop.
And then a couple of minutes later, when her headache kind of faded, she told them that all she could remember was being beaten and strangled by this faceless dark figure. And then a little bit after that, she remembered waking up on the ground, hearing this horrible rattling wheezing sound.
To help jog her memory, Brewer showed Janet some crime scene photos of the bedroom that were taken after the attack. Janet looked closely at all the pictures, but still she just could not remember anything else. However, she did notice something in one of the photos. Her two rings that she had placed on the nightstand were missing.
And so at this point, the detectives knew that perhaps the stolen rings indicated that this was a robbery after all. Maybe the killer was planning to take more, but got spooked by the dogs barking and ran. But on the other hand, the fact that just these rings appeared to be missing and that they had sentimental value could point to a personal connection between the killer and the victims.
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Chapter 6: Who were Henry Knieva's relatives and what was discovered about his secret son?
Now, they all knew that two rings had been taken from the crime scene, but that detail had never been made public, which meant this couple, specifically John, might actually know something about Henry's murder. As soon as Detective Brewer and Muncie got word about John and Leela, they were convinced the couple must have had something to do with Henry's murder.
They just couldn't figure out how John and Leela were connected to him. So, out of desperation, they decided to go back and talk to Janet one last time. Unfortunately, Janet still could not remember anything more about the attack. So, Brewer and Muncy came up with an idea. They were going to try to hypnotize her. It was unorthodox, but at this point, they were willing to try anything.
And Janet was on board. So the next day, the detectives returned, now with a hypnotist, who put Janet into a trance. And then while she was in her trance, they asked her a series of questions, designed to draw out her repressed memories from the attack. And suddenly, it was like Janet could hear and see things from the night of the attack that she hadn't been able to before.
Finally, when the hypnotist asked her to describe her attacker, Janet grew quiet. She still could not picture their face, but she did remember something else. Under hypnosis, Janet recalled waking up to find a large shadowy figure sitting on her thighs while violently grabbing her neck. Janet tried to fight, but it didn't do any good.
Then, as the killer continued to throttle her, she became aware of another set of hands on her shoulders. A second person that she couldn't see was holding her to the ground. That meant there were two attackers in the bedroom that night, not just one. Janet's revelation stunned the detectives at first, but they quickly realized several of their suspects came in pairs.
The first pair was Henry's first set of kids, Jeff and Sharon. They stood to benefit the most from Henry's death, as they knew they would inherit a portion of his small fortune. But that also applied to David, Jeff and Sharon's 20-year-old half-brother. David's girlfriend had provided him with an alibi.
Now, the detectives wondered if maybe she'd help David commit the crime, thinking his inheritance would benefit her too, making David and her a pair. The third set of suspects was John and Leela, the couple from the domestic abuse call. While they didn't seem to have a motive or even really a connection, they lived nearby and seemed to know information that was not shared with the public.
The only suspect who did not come with a potential accomplice was Mark, the salesman who was fired days before the murder. While it was still possible that he had killed Henry over a grudge, or maybe as part of a robbery, the detective still had no idea who he would have worked with.
That night, after leaving the hospital, Brewer and Muncy holed up in their office and read through the files for each set of suspects, searching for any detail they might have missed. and they were starting to lose steam when Muncie stumbled upon something that made him pause. It was a single word buried in one of the suspect's files.
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Chapter 7: What suspicions arose around Henry's secret son David?
Janet woke up and screamed and began fighting as hard as she could to get free, and one of Janet's wild punches caught the accomplice in the nose, causing them to reel back in surprise. And as a result, the accomplice and Janet both tumbled out of the bed onto the floor. By this point, the leader had finished with Henry, so they climbed off the bed and rushed around to help the accomplice.
Together, they grabbed Janet and pinned her down, and then the leader climbed on top of her. Then the leader struck her several more times and then wrapped their hands around her neck and squeezed. The leader felt Janet go limp, at which point they said that should do it as they climbed off of her. The killers looked at their handiwork and turned to go.
On their way out, though, the accomplice spotted Janet's ring sitting on the nightstand, and they recognized one of the rings in an instant, and the sight of it made them furious. So, the accomplice impulsively grabbed both rings and stuffed them into their pocket, then turned and dashed out of the room along with the leader.
The killers had only been gone a few minutes when Janet regained consciousness, feeling excruciating pain across her body. She could hear the strange, horrible, rattling hiss and didn't know what it could be. Even as she lay there, her mind was already struggling to bury the horrible trauma she had just experienced.
That's why she didn't remember until her hypnosis session that she'd actually been attacked by two people and that one of them was actually somebody that she knew. It would turn out the killers were John Whiteley and Leela Hodges, the couple from the domestic abuse call. And just as Brewer and Muncy had suspected, these two did have a personal connection to the victims.
However, the connection was not really to Henry. It was to Janet. When the detectives reviewed their case file, that single word that stuck out to them was Leela's maiden name. Leela had been married several times and had taken multiple last names, but she'd been born Leela Scott. She was no stranger to Janet. She was Janet Scott's stepdaughter.
Leela was the daughter of Janet's late husband, Roe, from his first marriage. She grew up in the house on Mirror Lake where Janet and Henry lived together, and she hated them because she always thought that house should have gone to her when her dad died. Lila felt similarly about Janet's diamond ring. It was the same ring her father had given to his first wife, Lila's mother.
Which means, all along, the detectives were wrong about their most basic assumption. Henry was not the primary target of the attack. Janet was. And Lila's deep hatred of Janet explained the brutality of the attack. As a small older man, Henry didn't stand a chance, and Janet was lucky to be alive. She was beaten and choked so badly that her larynx was crushed.
That horrible wheezing hiss she heard when she woke up on the floor, that was her own labored breathing. Once Detective Brewer and Muncy put this all together, they had John and Leela arrested. John's DNA was tested, and it matched the DNA found on the cigarette butt that was at the crime scene. The leader during the actual attack itself was John, and Leela was the accomplice.
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