Chapter 1: What happened to Kenneth 'Kenny' Floyd in Aurora, Colorado?
Hi everyone, I'm investigative journalist and park enthusiast Delia D'Ambra, and every week on my podcast, Park Predators, I take you into the heart of our world's most stunning locations to uncover what sinister crimes have unfolded in these serene settings.
From unsolved murders to chilling disappearances, each Tuesday we dive deep into the details of cases that will leave you knowing sometimes the most beautiful places hide the darkest secrets. Listen to Park Predators now wherever you listen to podcasts. Our card this week is Kenneth Floyd, a wild card from Colorado.
When Kenneth Floyd was found dead inside his apartment in Aurora, Colorado, detectives didn't have to guess which way the suspect went. A trail of blood led straight from Kenneth's door to the front of the building, as if the killer had drawn them a map. And that trail of blood held one very important clue. Their suspect's DNA. The kind of evidence that's supposed to make this case solvable.
And for a minute, it seemed like it might. That DNA led investigators right to one particular island in the Caribbean. They were this close to a breakthrough. There was just one problem, and I'm talking a big problem. A volcanic eruption on the island had destroyed the very records they needed to track down their suspect.
Literal lava was the only thing standing between investigators and justice for Kenneth. But that's where you come in. There's a chance that some of you listening right now have roots on this same island without even knowing it. And if you do, you may be able to help detectives finally find Kenneth's killer. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck.
It was mid-March 1995, 6 p.m., when an apartment complex manager was about to do what I'd imagine is the worst part of being an apartment manager, knocking on the door of a tenant who is being evicted. This manager's name was John, and his tenant, 32-year-old Kenneth Floyd, was supposed to be out by noon that day. He hadn't come by to turn in his key, though, and John hadn't seen him leave.
So now he had to climb the stairs to the third floor and be the bad guy. John knocked on the front door of apartment 303, but there was no sign of Kenneth, not even rustling or the sound of TV behind the door. John tried the handle, but it was locked, so he pulled out his master key and let himself in. And it was instantly clear why Kenneth Floyd hadn't moved out.
Kenneth, who everyone called Kenny, was lying on the living room floor surrounded by packed up boxes in a pool of his own blood. He was lying on his side in a fetal position with one gash to his neck visible above the collar of his bathrobe. His hands were bloodied by what appeared to be defensive wounds, and there were cuts to the fabric of his robe as well.
When John called police some 30 years ago, it wasn't Detective Jason McDonald who showed up on scene. But he has had to make this his job now to interpret old reports and evidence in order to solve this mystery. So an officer that had arrived on scene noticed that there were spots of blood going down the hallway from Kenny's apartment.
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Chapter 2: How did detectives find evidence at the crime scene?
I mean, at that point, they didn't even know the full extent of his injuries because police weren't allowed to touch the body or check what wounds the robe might be hiding. That was the job of the coroner investigator.
A coroner investigator's role at the crime scene is pretty important because their initial examination of the body gives the detectives an idea of what we're looking at, what type of murder we're dealing with, what weapon was used.
This initial assessment helps detectives because it allows them to start their investigation right away without waiting for an autopsy, which could take days to happen and even longer to get results. But at Kenny's crime scene, for reasons we don't know, Detective McDonald said his records show that the coroner investigator didn't inspect the body at all.
According to those records, he or she apparently ruled that there was no sign of foul play. And listen, given the scene, I don't know how you could say this without looking at his body even. And neither does Detective McDonald. He told us that he's never been to a crime scene where someone died and a coroner investigator failed to examine the body. That baffles me.
I think he clearly had blood on his hands, blood on his neck, visible injuries, and he's dead. Yeah. Without that preliminary examination, the original detectives were lacking the most basic information about Kenny's injuries. But they still had to work and process what was clearly a crime scene to everyone else.
So they collected Kenny's glasses and a broken beaded necklace, made note of a bloody footprint on the living room floor, and they zeroed in on some very important evidence in the bathroom. There was a blue washcloth on the ground near the toilet that had some blood on it. And in the bathroom sink, there was droplets of blood and a washcloth that had blood on it.
There's a phrase that's popular in crime culture that at every crime scene, the killer leaves something behind. For this crime scene, this blood in the bathroom might be it.
Their crime scene was mostly contained to the living room, so taking this into consideration with the blood droplets that they'd found outside the apartment leading to the exit, it seemed highly possible that the killer injured themselves during the attack.
In our experience, we've seen this in many murder cases that involved a knife, especially brutal attacks where there's multiple stab wounds, is there's a lot of blood and blood's very slippery. And once it gets on the handle of the knife that's being used by the killer, it oftentimes ends up causing the killer's hand to slide down the handle and cut themselves.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did investigators face with the DNA evidence?
At the scene, they learned some surface-level information about Kenny from John, who owned and managed the building. He said that Kenny was being evicted for numerous complaints. He was throwing loud parties that were bothering his neighbors. And investigators discovered that police had actually been called to Kenny's apartment just a few days before his murder.
Officers had responded that night and took an individual named Leslie Taylor to detox because he was drunk and being very loud because he'd been partying and was drunk at Kenny's apartment just three nights before his murder. It turns out Leslie was more than just a friend or acquaintance. When investigators tracked him down, he told them that he and Kenny had been in a romantic relationship.
But Leslie said that he'd recently ended things. But before you go thinking that might be a good motive for murder, he also told them where he'd been when Kenny was killed. He was still at detox. And that's a rock-solid alibi. He didn't check out until the 19th. And so they did get those records from the detox facility and were able to rule Leslie out because of that.
While detectives were pulling police reports related to Kenny or his address, it wasn't just Leslie's name that popped up. They also found a report from a few months earlier, a report filed by Kenny alleging a man named Kevin Ransom had forged his signature on a money order. Hi, everyone. Ashley here with some exciting news.
The deck will not only land right here in your feed for you to listen to every week, but now we are also on camera for you to watch on YouTube. Now you can see the cards, the case files, and the people behind the coldest cases as I share these stories with you. So no matter where you get your podcasts, whether you prefer to listen, to watch, or maybe both,
I will be there with stories you need to hear. Join me for The Deck on YouTube. Subscribe to Audiochuck Investigates on YouTube today. According to police records, Kenny claimed that Kevin Ransom forged his signature on a money order. Kevin had been interviewed just two months before Kenny's murder, and he was cooperative at the time.
Kevin's story when he was interviewed was that he and Kenny were doing crack together one night and they ran out of crack. And Kenny wanted Kevin to go out and buy more crack for them. And he gave Kevin Ransom his rent check and told him, just scratch out my landlord's name and write your name and go cash this money and buy us more drugs. Kevin Ransom said he did that and
They came back, did drugs, and that later, now that Kenny is out of rent money, decided to make a police report. At the time, police hit Kevin with some minor charges, and that was the end of it. But now that Kenny was dead, they brought Kevin back in again. And again, Kevin cooperated. He allowed detectives to photograph him and look for injuries on his body.
Like a cut, you know, that might have left behind all that blood. Because it's one thing inspecting somebody's body a year after a murder and we're looking for a cut wound. Those can obviously heal and be totally gone. But a week after, if you cut yourself to the point where you're bleeding out of a building, you would still have that injury. And Mr. Ransom did not.
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