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00:09Tonight on Dateline.
00:10Did you say he's dead?
00:12Oh my god, I'm so...
00:14There's blood everywhere.
00:16I'm trying not to freak out. I'm sorry.
00:19He said, Brad was my best friend in the whole world.
00:21Please find out who did this to him.
00:24My mom's like, Uncle Brad is dead.
00:27I fell to the floor.
00:29Who would want to kill Brad?
00:30Exactly. Who would want to kill Brad?
00:32You start to see things like ransacked drawers.
00:35Maybe somebody was there to rob him.
00:38He was working as a miner.
00:39Yes.
00:40How common is it to have gay guys in the mines?
00:42I don't think it's very common.
00:43I think Brad broke that barrier.
00:45He was having a hard trouble at work.
00:46Anybody in particular?
00:48All of them.
00:48Was he murdered just because of who he was?
00:51He never pretended to be anyone that he wasn't.
00:53He got a text message from a lover that they were going to meet up.
00:57People don't want to get caught cheating.
00:59How do you not get caught?
01:00You lie.
01:01Two can keep a secret if one's dead.
01:04That's the point of the story where the wheels fall off the crazy train.
01:07It was the ultimate betrayal.
01:10Nine times out of ten, the person that killed you loved you at some point.
01:13A killer who betrays not just one lover, but two.
01:18I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.
01:29Here's Dennis Murphy with Dangerous Secret.
01:39The Ohio River Valley.
01:41For decades here, generations of men have gone underground.
01:46And in places like Bel Air, Ohio, population 4,000, it's still a way of life.
01:52Is it as tough as most people think to be a coal miner?
01:56It is.
01:56It's not for everybody.
01:57Super physical, demanding.
01:59Former mine foreman Franco Pinacchio.
02:02You're almost 2,000 feet underground.
02:04One way out, the gases will kill you.
02:06Moving equipment will kill you.
02:08The coal falling will kill you.
02:09It's an unforgiving environment.
02:12But with risk comes reward.
02:14In this case, a big payday.
02:16For some, up to six figures.
02:18Luring men like Brad McGarry to don a hard hat and take their chances underground.
02:23The 43-year-old had risen through the ranks to become a foreman.
02:28A bit remarkable because Brad McGarry was not your father's coal miner.
02:32Friend, Melanie Roscovich.
02:34He was openly gay.
02:36Never tried to conceal it, right?
02:37Correct.
02:38Was comfortable in the skin.
02:40Yes.
02:40He was being Brad.
02:41Yes.
02:42He was real.
02:43He never pretended to be anyone that he wasn't.
02:47But Brad was also a person with a secret.
02:50And a secret, as we all know, can be dangerous.
02:58911, where is your emergency?
03:01Oh my God!
03:02My husband is dead!
03:04A late Sunday afternoon in May 2017.
03:07On with 911, a distraught Sherry Kinney, who along with her husband David and 13-year-old daughter Elizabeth, have
03:15just walked into an awful scene.
03:17We came to visit my husband's friend, and his back door was cracked open, and he wasn't answering his phone,
03:24so we came in the house, and he's in his basement.
03:27Okay.
03:28Oh my God!
03:29Okay, calm down.
03:30Did you say he's dead?
03:32I think so!
03:34Oh my God!
03:35I think so!
03:36He's on the floor!
03:37There's blood everywhere!
03:38What is his name?
03:40Brad McGarry.
03:42Brad McGarry?
03:47I was on just general patrol, driving through the town when I got the call.
03:54Veteran Bel Air Patrolman Hank Martin was the first to respond, and encountered the couple and the young teenager outside
04:01Brad McGarry's house.
04:02Highly upset, crying, shaken up, what you would normally expect of somebody finding a dead body.
04:13Officer Martin entered the basement to secure the scene.
04:16On the floor, sandwiched between a covered hot tub and piles of storage, was Brad, with an apparent gunshot wound
04:23to the head.
04:24I seen blood by his head area, and he was laying down and touched.
04:31Didn't get any kind of pulse.
04:34I'm trying not to freak out.
04:36I'm sorry.
04:36I can't, I'm not supposed to see that, man.
04:41It's all right.
04:42It's understandable.
04:44Understandable, because the Kinney family and Brad were as close as could be.
04:49David and Brad met several years earlier in coal mining training classes.
04:53We just took him and his family, you know, we celebrate holidays.
04:58We have a vacation, and all these things to go on together with him.
05:03My kids call, uncle.
05:05Ryan Allmer, chief detective with the Belmont County Sheriff's Office, arrived on the scene to assist the Bel Air PD.
05:12They were very close.
05:14Best friends?
05:15Best friends.
05:16Now, meanwhile, what's happened to the daughter?
05:18She saw the body.
05:19There was no question?
05:20Yes.
05:21So you get her out of there, I guess, huh?
05:22Yes.
05:23We didn't want to re-traumatize her more than she already had been.
05:27The girl was taken to a neighbor's as police got the story from the couple.
05:31How you coming about coming out here?
05:33All right.
05:34Yes, sir.
05:35That right there and the weed eater is the whole plan.
05:38Okay.
05:39You're bringing in the weed eater?
05:41Yes, sir.
05:42David told police they'd stop by to lend Brad a weed eater.
05:45I noticed that the kitchen was scattered.
05:48There was stuff all over there.
05:48I told my wife, I said, Jerry, something's wrong.
05:50There's something everywhere.
05:52She said, just open the door and yell for Brad.
05:54David yelled, but got no response.
05:57He went down to the basement.
05:59And then he yelled, call 911.
06:01And I ran down.
06:04I can't not believe that.
06:06That basement was now a possible crime scene.
06:10Tell me what you're saying.
06:11What we have is a garage slash basement.
06:14And it's what I would call organized clutter.
06:17There's a lot of stuff, but it's stacked, packed in containers and whatnot.
06:22Cluttered, but no signs of a struggle.
06:24If you're just looking at a dead body in a basement with a head wound, you definitely got
06:28to look and say, could this have been a suicide?
06:30Do you have any problems with depression or anything like that?
06:33Well, in the past, he has, but he has some bad, I think at one point in time he was,
06:40but
06:41nothing like recently that we know of.
06:44But if Brad shot himself, something was missing.
06:48If it was a suicide, a gun would have to be in the immediate area and we didn't see it.
06:53I didn't see a gun.
06:54Now, it's not saying he couldn't have fell on it.
06:55Well, yeah, he could have.
06:56A lot of times, if it's a suicide, you know, a gun will fall underneath him or whatnot.
07:01There could well have been a weapon tucked under his belly.
07:03Sure.
07:05Investigators rolled Brad's body over.
07:07I don't see a firearm.
07:09No, I don't either.
07:10I don't see nothing there, guys.
07:13We didn't find anything.
07:15There was no gun there.
07:16So we had to go to step two, which was that it was a homicide.
07:21You need to canvas the neighborhood?
07:22Correct.
07:23See if anybody's doorbell cam caught an image or something?
07:25Those are so helpful right now.
07:28Everybody seems to have got one.
07:30But at this time period, it was kind of a novelty.
07:35Only one house on Brad's block had security cameras.
07:38And, stroke of luck, that house happened to belong to the Bel Air chief of police.
07:43What are the odds that he would live on the street to have a camera that was operational?
07:48Sometimes things work out.
07:50The chief's security video would be scrutinized for clues.
07:55Back at the house, officers were done talking to Brad's shell-shocked friends.
08:00Go ahead and leave your truck.
08:01I know it's tough.
08:03You guys go home, rest.
08:05We will be in touch in a day or two.
08:08I shook his hand and he kind of pulled me in to the truck window there and looked me right
08:14in the eye.
08:14And he said, Brad was my best friend in the whole world.
08:18Please find out who did this to him.
08:20Please figure this out, huh?
08:21Yeah.
08:22That's exactly what the detective intended to do.
08:25But he had no idea the secret he'd uncover along the way.
08:44Coal miner Brad McGarry had been shot to death inside his Bel Air, Ohio home.
08:48The news blindsided friends like Melanie Roscovich.
08:52So sudden, so shocking, huh?
08:54Yes, and so senseless.
08:56What did the town lose when Brad got killed?
08:59The town lost security.
09:02They didn't feel safe any longer.
09:05And those who knew Brad personally, they lost a dear friend.
09:11You're never going to see him again?
09:12Yeah.
09:13Just like that, so quick?
09:14Just like that, in a heartbeat.
09:17We were devastated.
09:19Mary Kay Milliken and her daughter Abby thought of Brad as family.
09:23How do you find out, Abby?
09:25I was at school.
09:26That was my senior year.
09:29And my mom came to school.
09:31I got called down to the office.
09:33So I went down there.
09:35I was like, hey, what's up?
09:36And my mom's like, Uncle Brad is dead.
09:41And I fell to the floor.
09:44I was a mess, just sobbing uncontrollably.
09:48And my mom had to take me home for the rest of the day.
09:52After a late night processing the scene,
09:55police were back on the case early the next morning.
09:58You got to get Brad's backstory in here pretty quickly, huh?
10:00Yes.
10:01We did a lot of interviews in a short period of time.
10:04He has many people that knew Brad because it's very important for us to get to know Brad.
10:08I have a new Brad for almost 20 years.
10:11Mary Kay was one of the friends who spoke to police.
10:14If he were to walk in the door here, who would we meet?
10:17He's larger than life.
10:19He absolutely had the best personality.
10:22And he was friendly and just wanted to have a good time.
10:27Make you laugh?
10:27I'll definitely make you laugh.
10:29One of the craziest things we ever did, we were at Walmart.
10:33And we were just goofing off.
10:35And he was looking at fish.
10:37And he wanted to ask some questions about the fish.
10:41We couldn't find anybody to help.
10:42So he just got on the intercom and he was yelling for help himself.
10:45Over here on three, yo.
10:47Yeah.
10:47Somebody help me at the fishies, please.
10:51Mary Kay and Abby met Brad before he became a coal miner.
10:55Back then, he was a professional hairdresser.
10:58The switch had been a head-snapping career change.
11:01I couldn't wrap my head around it.
11:03I still can't.
11:04Why do you think he made the change?
11:06The money.
11:07He was looking to make more money and he just wasn't making the kind of money he wanted in doing
11:12hair.
11:13To Abby, Brad was more than just an uncle figure.
11:16He was a role model.
11:17I was about 15, 16 years old.
11:20And one day, I just had an urge to tell him.
11:24I said, Uncle Brad, I need to tell you something.
11:27He said, what's up, little girl?
11:28And I said, I'm gay.
11:31No way.
11:32Yeah.
11:33And he said.
11:33How did he swing with that?
11:35Girl!
11:37And it was Brad Abby turned to when she was bullied in high school.
11:41Would you get a hold of Uncle Brad and say, I'm having a really bad day here?
11:46Absolutely.
11:46I'd text him and be like, Uncle Brad, this and this happened today.
11:50I feel so low.
11:51Please, like, what do I do?
11:54And he would just tell me, water off a duck's back, baby girl.
11:57You know, you shine like a light in the darkness and don't let that crown fall because, sorry.
12:08It's such a sweet thought.
12:09Yeah.
12:10It's something that ought to be written out on a card by your bedside.
12:13I think about that message all the time just because that's really what pulled me out of the darkness.
12:18That's really what I was like, okay, I do matter.
12:21I need to be myself.
12:23Who would murder a friend like that?
12:26Police wondered if Brad's killing was a random attack.
12:29There were no signs of a struggle in the basement, but upstairs was a different story.
12:33All the cabinets and drawers were open.
12:36There's stuff spilled out on the floor.
12:38Things scattered everywhere, especially in the kitchen.
12:42Had Brad interrupted a burglary in progress and paid with his life?
12:46His best friend David had shared this bit of information.
12:49I know he had guys here just last day of the last week putting in the pens.
12:54I said, well, do you know if he paid them by cash or check or, well, I think maybe cash
13:00and Brad had cash around the house.
13:03And that drew up a bit of a red flag.
13:06Investigators were also pursuing another line of inquiry.
13:09We definitely had to look at this as a potential hate crime.
13:13Was this the reason that he was murdered just because of who he was?
13:17Friend and former mine foreman, Franco Panaccio, says that at work, Brad did not hide his orientation.
13:23In fact, he embraced it.
13:24He just didn't dress like the typical coal miner.
13:28You know, all of us did.
13:29You know, he took pride in how he looked, how he smelled, you know, how he presented himself.
13:33Brad always wore a safety gear.
13:35But Brad always made a point to make sure his shirt was always unbuttoned, three or four buttons down.
13:39Showed his chest, showed his gold chains, sprayed his cologne.
13:42He would joke around, let you know if you thought you were good looking.
13:45And compliment, you know, what, maybe how you looked in a certain pair of jeans that day or whatever.
13:51Now Brad was dead, a bullet to the brain.
13:54Maybe not everybody found his joke so funny.
13:57Time to find out what was going on underground.
14:01He was having a hard trouble at work.
14:03Anybody in particular?
14:05All of them.
14:21Speaking to investigators, Brad McGarry's friends were at a loss.
14:25What would be so bad that you'd have to shoot him over, you know?
14:29Did that make any sense to you?
14:31It did not make any sense.
14:32Who would want to kill Brad?
14:33Exactly.
14:33Who would want to kill Brad?
14:35Brad and I met in, uh...
14:36Police continued to press those close to Brad for clues.
14:40Wendy Neubauer was a friend who'd met Brad years earlier at a wedding.
14:43What's your relationship to Brad?
14:45Oh, we were just best friends.
14:49Brad, it seemed, had a lot of best friends.
14:51This best friend talked to police about one theory they were already considering.
14:55His murder is a hate crime.
14:57He was having a hard trouble at work.
15:00Anybody in particular?
15:01All of them.
15:03Wendy, with her two children in tow, said initially Brad had no problems underground.
15:07It took a lot for him to get associated up there being gay, up at that one plant, and he
15:13got settled and situated, and they all hummed him.
15:16Coworker Franco Panaccio agreed.
15:18Never did I ever see anybody, you know, give him a weird look or, you know, want to beat him
15:23up, so to speak.
15:24But after a recent transfer, Wendy said Brad was stressed.
15:28And they moved him down here, and he just was miserable at this work.
15:31What was he struggling about?
15:32With all of all the people, making him work over when he didn't want to, making him do this, and
15:38the people weren't nice to him and that.
15:41To run down the information from Wendy, Detective Aller, along with fellow investigator Doug Cruz, utilized their own inside man.
15:50We lucked out.
15:51A former detective of ours had left to work at the mine, so we had a pretty good information pipeline
15:57into there and able to kind of cut through the BS.
16:00So what was the real story?
16:02Had Brad been harassed or discriminated against?
16:05Anyone at the mines they should look at who may have had a hateful motive.
16:09Quite to the contrary, from everybody we talked to, Brad was very well liked by his co-workers.
16:16So there's nobody down in the pits that has it in for this guy, as far as you can tell.
16:20People in the coal mine, in the small towns are much more accepting to different lifestyles than somebody in the
16:28bigger city would think.
16:29Since a hate crime didn't seem likely, police dug into their other theories, like a burglary gone wrong.
16:35You start to see things like ransacked drawers and noticing that there's a lot of stuff in the house that
16:43maybe somebody was there to rob him, was spooked.
16:47Maybe there was a confrontation and a shooting.
16:49And there was a lot to rob.
16:51Brad was a collector.
16:52Oh, he had lots of toys.
16:54He liked his antiques.
16:56Oh, antiques, that was his thing.
16:57That was his thing.
16:58That was his catnip.
16:58That was his catnip for sure.
17:01His house was filled with all kind of antiques and country things.
17:05He had a Cracker Barrel house.
17:07His house was like a Cracker Barrel?
17:09The decor.
17:10Kind of woody and rough and...
17:12Yeah, it was really nice.
17:13So that's kind of the joke that we have about Cracker Barrel, has to do with his home decor and
17:19the way that he decorated.
17:21I know he had guys here.
17:23Investigators remembered what Brad's best friend David had told them.
17:26Two workers had recently installed a fence had they come back to rob the place.
17:31It was a lead detectives followed, but they were having little luck in tracking down those workers.
17:36You know, we would have to try to find some kind of contract or something when you have major work
17:44around your house.
17:45No such contract was found.
17:47We were looking for a ghost, in other words.
17:50And a closer examination of the upstairs gave police pause.
17:54The ransacking.
17:55It was too neat.
17:57Articles were taken out and dumped.
17:59It was like in one particular area instead of being strewn.
18:03Valuables within easy reach?
18:05There was nice televisions.
18:07There was, you know, iPads, iPhones, high-dollar items, things that a thief could sell pretty quickly.
18:14The burglary scenario was scrapped.
18:17Police now wonder if Brad's murder wasn't about plunder or hate.
18:21Was it about love?
18:23Nine times out of ten, the person that killed you loved you at some point.
18:26So, you always look towards lovers, family.
18:30Of particular interest to investigators, Brad's most recent romance.
18:35The Kinneys had provided a possible lead on that, too.
18:38He's the last relationship he was in.
18:40It was pulled off and he hasn't been with anybody ever since.
18:44He's my best friend.
18:44How long ago was that?
18:46I couldn't even tell him.
18:49Who was the girl?
18:50No, it was the guy.
18:51It was the guy.
18:53Oh, he was in with the guy?
18:55Yes, sir.
18:55Okay, who was the guy?
18:57Scotty.
18:58Scotty something.
18:58Brad had a relationship that had soured in the past couple weeks with a man named Scotty.
19:05So this is a recent relationship that's come to an end, huh?
19:08Yes, apparently.
19:09That's interesting.
19:10Absolutely.
19:11And at that point, we didn't have a whole lot to go on, so we were pretty interested in that.
19:16They needed to track down the recent love interest.
19:19Where was he the night Brad was killed?
19:22And investigators were about to learn that Scotty was not the only man in Brad's life.
19:27It was insinuating that they were having sex.
19:30It was romantic.
19:47An investigation still underway into the death of the man who lived at this home on Wagner Avenue.
19:53As word of Brad McGarry's murder was echoing through the Ohio River Valley,
19:57investigators were busy digging into Brad's love life, trying to locate a recent ex.
20:03Scotty.
20:05Scotty.
20:05First name, Scotty.
20:07Nobody seemed to know what his name was off the initial conversations with people.
20:14Pretty quickly, though, police were able to utilize social media to identify Scotty as 22-year-old Scott Ray Butler.
20:22His dad was a friend of Brad's from the coal mines.
20:25Brad met Scotty at a Butler family party.
20:28They were on and off. Is that the picture you had?
20:30They were a hookup. Yeah.
20:32It wasn't going anywhere serious.
20:33No. No, it wasn't going anywhere serious.
20:36When investigators located Scotty, he was willing to talk.
20:40So what is Scotty's story?
20:42Scotty basically says that he and Brad were kind of on again, off again, and it had kind of cooled
20:48off.
20:49Did your people say, Scotty, we got news for you?
20:51Yes.
20:52How did he take it?
20:53He was upset. I'd say devastated.
20:56When the investigators informed Scotty, um, of Brad's passing, you know, all the appropriate indicators were present.
21:04There were no indicators of resentment or anything where Scotty wished bad things upon Brad.
21:12Scotty was cleared in Brad's murder, and not just because he showed genuine affection for Brad.
21:16You see, Scotty had an ironclad alibi, as in iron bars.
21:22He was incarcerated at the time of this homicide.
21:25Scotty was in jail for a probation violation on a prior burglary conviction.
21:30So he was in-house and accounted for in the county jail when you believe that Brad had been murdered?
21:36Correct.
21:36It's a pretty good alibi.
21:37A very good alibi.
21:39But Scotty wasn't the only love interest detectives were hearing about.
21:42We're cousins.
21:44Okay.
21:44Brad's my first cousin. Grew up together. All right?
21:46Okay.
21:47Brad's cousin, Skylar Strausser, came forward with a story, and for investigators, a tantalizing new lead.
21:53She tells you about a Sunday brunch, families getting together. What's her story?
21:58So the, uh, night before the murder, Brad went to a family wedding and had spent the night there.
22:04The next day, there was, like, a family brunch.
22:09We were at Grammys on Sunday.
22:11At Grammys, we...
22:13Me, the cousins, most of the cousins.
22:15During this brunch, Brad tells his cousin Skylar, he got a text message from what, uh, she took as a
22:23lover,
22:24that they were going to meet up in a little bit to take a nap.
22:30He made a joke about, he said, Tisha, which is one of the other cousins, calls it taking a nap.
22:36And it wasn't taking a nap. He was insinuating that they were having sex. It was romantic.
22:41So he's getting this text message, let's hook up a little later, huh?
22:44Correct.
22:45And then he leaves the family gathering? Is that what happens?
22:47Yes.
22:47We kind of ate, and he just left. Just kind of left. I don't even think he stayed for dessert.
22:54A tryst with a lover on the very day Brad was killed.
22:57This becomes a person that we want to reach out to immediately.
23:01This is somebody that we need to know, because they obviously are going to have a piece of the puzzle
23:09that we're missing.
23:10But once again, detectives didn't get a full name.
23:13Though Skylar told police the relationship had been going on for years, the cousins just knew him as DJ.
23:20That mean anything to you?
23:21No, at that time now, we don't know who DJ is.
23:24Brad's friend Melanie had heard a lot about DJ.
23:28You knew him as DJ?
23:29Mm-hmm.
23:30What did DJ mean to Brad?
23:32Oh, he was absolutely in love with him.
23:34There wasn't anything that he wouldn't do.
23:37If DJ needed anything, Brad was right there.
23:39He would literally rearrange anything in his life to be there for him.
23:44Brad thought he'd met the love of his life the way you're describing it.
23:47Was it being reciprocated?
23:48From what Brad had shared with me, he believed that DJ was in love with him as well.
23:54The love of Brad's life.
23:56Just one problem.
23:57A big one.
23:59One of the things we learned was not only is he married, but he's almost living a double life.
24:04Because he, while he's dating Brad, he's portraying himself to everybody that he knows as a happily married man.
24:13A married man with a secret.
24:16Was it a dangerous secret?
24:18Detectives needed to find DJ right away.
24:20Turns out, he was someone they'd already met.
24:24I didn't even know his name until I went on Facebook to find it out.
24:42Investigators were running down their most promising lead.
24:44A married man who was having a long time affair with Brad McGarry.
24:48One who'd had an intimate rendezvous planned with Brad on the day he was killed.
24:53A guy named DJ.
24:54I didn't even know his name until I went on Facebook to find it out.
24:58I knew who he was.
24:58Brad's cousin had already done some detective work for the investigators.
25:02I guess they call him DJ or David Kenny.
25:07David, the guy who was at the house.
25:10Yes.
25:11With his wife and who'd found the body.
25:13Correct.
25:13DJ is David Kenny.
25:15David Kenny.
25:17David Kenny.
25:18Brad's best friend from the mines.
25:21Who, with his wife and stepdaughter, had found Brad's body.
25:24I'm trying not to freak out.
25:26I'm sorry.
25:27David, the guy on the scene who had sounded so devastated, so willing to help.
25:32I know he had guys here just last day into last week, putting in the fence.
25:36Known to friends and family as DJ, short for David Jr.
25:41Had he lied about the true nature of his relationship with Brad?
25:46All right.
25:47David agreed to speak with Chief Detective Ryan Aller voluntarily, and to bring along his
25:53cell phone.
25:53We had already told David we're going to need copies of all the text messages you have
25:58with Brad, because he was one of the last people to talk to Brad.
26:02All right.
26:02Give me a couple minutes, and I'll buzz right through this.
26:05Yes, sir.
26:05He's turned it over to you without an issue, huh?
26:07Yes.
26:08Here it is.
26:08Knock yourself out.
26:09Take a look.
26:09Correct.
26:10Okay.
26:11We have the ability to, while Detective Aller is speaking with Mr. Kinney in one room,
26:17that I can literally take his phone, walk down the hallway in our forensics lab, and process
26:24it in real time while he's talking to him.
26:26And talking to David, it seemed his grief was still raw.
26:32Are we for her?
26:33It's okay.
26:35It ain't the first huge man to cry in this room.
26:38I don't know, I've just been trying so hard to.
26:44It's okay.
26:45It's all right.
26:46Down the hall, Detective Cruz was using a forensic software program to retrieve texts and photos,
26:53some deleted from David's iPhone.
26:55What I'm finding on the phone is pretty clear.
26:58These guys are way more than friends.
27:00You know, they're intimately involved.
27:03David, there's some, there's some stuff on your phone that's a little, a little questionable.
27:12Yes, sir.
27:13Confronted with the evidence on his phone, David changed his story and admitted to being
27:18more than friends with his best friend, Brad.
27:21Did you guys have sex together?
27:24There was a few times in the past where, you know, he's attempted a lot and we've kind
27:33of moved around a little bit in the past.
27:36It's okay.
27:37When was the last time you guys did do anything together?
27:43Um, it's been a little while.
27:49Weeks, maybe months, a month max.
27:53But what about that take a nap date Brad told his cousin about?
27:57Investigators estimated Brad's time of death to be between 3 and 3.30, close to that planned
28:03meeting.
28:03So, Detective Aller wanted David to account for his whereabouts around that time.
28:08Where were you and your wife at Sunday afternoon?
28:10Um, we went to a Chinese restaurant, got some lunch after we hung out at the house.
28:16Then David said he drove alone to window shop some trailers for his truck before heading
28:21back to his house in Brilliant, 30 miles north of Brad's place in Bel Air.
28:25I was back home, I think it was like 3, I was back home about 3 o'clock.
28:313 o'clock, near the approximate time Brad was killed.
28:35But once again, David's phone told a different story.
28:38The GPS clearly shows that at the time we believe that Brad was murdered, your phone was there.
28:48David's story suddenly morphed again.
28:50He was at Brad's after all.
28:52I went to his house, he was not there.
28:56I stayed and I hung around for a little while and that was it.
29:01David insisted he left before Brad got back from his family brunch.
29:05But remember, the Bel Air police chief had a home security camera just down the street from Brad's.
29:10It showed David in his wife Sherry's car heading toward Brad's house just before 2 p.m.
29:16We see David drive by Chief Cavulic's house.
29:21Then, 56 minutes after that...
29:23You see Brad drive down the road and then about 15 minutes later, there goes David, leaving.
29:33David, look at me.
29:35It's starting to look...
29:36Yes, sir, I know, and it's starting to look pretty messed up.
29:39Listen to me.
29:39As the evidence mounted, David's story took another left turn.
29:43I didn't shoot you, sir.
29:44You didn't know?
29:45I'm wanting to tell you.
29:46Then who did?
29:47Tell me what happened.
29:49That's the point of the story where the wheels fall off the crazy train.
29:53David said, yes, he was still there when Brad got home.
29:56But said when Brad arrived, he wasn't alone.
29:59He had another guy with him.
30:03Okay.
30:06I don't know who he was.
30:07I don't know his name.
30:08He starts telling me about, okay, I was at the house.
30:12Brad pulls up with this dirty looking guy I've never seen before.
30:18He went in the garage.
30:20Okay.
30:22It's okay.
30:23David, look at me in your eye.
30:27But you can tell me what happened next.
30:30That was so scary.
30:32What happened?
30:34You heard a gunshot?
30:36You heard a gunshot?
30:37Yes, sir.
30:38So there's a mystery man who arrives with Brad who then ends up killing him.
30:42Yes.
30:43But detectives knew there was a problem with the third man scenario.
30:47We see Brad and this guy pulled in with the Beamer?
30:49Yes, sir.
30:50Okay.
30:51Brad's front seat in the Beamer was full of stuff that he brought from the wedding.
30:55Yes, sir.
30:55He didn't have a passenger.
30:57Look, here's a picture of the car with all the stuff there.
31:01So where did the mystery man sit?
31:03So mystery man is now gone.
31:04Mystery man is out.
31:05So now he's got to explain what he's doing in the basement with the body of his best friend.
31:11In a quiet voice, a now-subdued David began yet another version of his story.
31:16Brad's been wanting me to leave my wife for a while, quite a while.
31:23From what we gleaned at this point is Brad felt like David was taking advantage of him.
31:31He wanted to be with David. He wanted David to leave his wife and be with them, then be a
31:36real couple.
31:37According to David, he arranged to meet with Brad that Sunday afternoon not for sex,
31:41but to end their years-long affair.
31:44News David said that Brad didn't take very well.
32:03That's when, according to David, Brad pulled out a Derringer pistol.
32:08He kept leaving and happening, so I grabbed it.
32:11Okay.
32:14What happened after you grabbed it?
32:18I pushed him.
32:20Okay.
32:24Then what happened?
32:26I saw him.
32:28Detective Aller asked David to demonstrate.
32:31Show me where?
32:33In the top of the head right there.
32:35Top of the head?
32:35Yes, sir.
32:37Investigators had a confession and a claim of self-defense.
32:41David Kinney was arrested for the murder.
32:43How would his self-defense story play for a jury?
32:46And how would the whole story play for his wife?
32:51Oh, I couldn't even look at you.
33:07David Kinney admitted shooting his best friend and secret lover, Brad McGarry.
33:13I was like, no way.
33:14There's no way.
33:16Couldn't be him.
33:17No, could not be.
33:18Why not?
33:18Why rule him out in your mind?
33:20Just because of how close him and Brad were.
33:23You know, they were doing everything together.
33:24Their families went on vacation and holidays.
33:27I could not picture him doing that.
33:31David's admission meant the horrible shock of finding his friend's body had been an act.
33:38Question now was, had his wife, Sherry, been acting too?
33:44Did you have a sense of whether the wife knew about this at that point?
33:47We were awful interested in that.
33:49You could come up with a narrative where she's the wrong person in this track and the gun's in her
33:53hand.
33:54Yeah.
33:55It's not hard to get there as a story.
33:56It's really not.
33:59David told investigators Sherry knew nothing about any of it.
34:03But when David asked if he could be the one to break the news to Sherry,
34:09investigators kept the camera rolling, keen to see her reaction.
34:12He flipped out on me and he grabbed the .22 derring shirt.
34:17He, before he even did that, he slapped me around a little bit after I told him this was it.
34:23Okay?
34:23You are .
34:31The shock that just goes over her because he doesn't come out and say it,
34:36but he's clearly walking up to it.
34:38You know, he came at me with that gun, okay?
34:41He came at me with that gun because he wanted me to leave you guys.
34:47I told him that when he come at me with that gun.
34:54It comes across very honest, very raw at the moment that it's going on.
34:59We believe she definitely reacted appropriately, but what is that reaction?
35:04What are our kids going to think?
35:12You and our kids are my whole world.
35:17So much to absorb at once.
35:20Her husband was Brad's killer and Brad's lover.
35:23So you had an affair with him?
35:27Before?
35:28Yeah.
35:29I want to know what happened between you two.
35:32Before?
35:37I want to know.
35:39I want to know the last time.
35:42It's been a while.
35:44Yeah, it's been a while.
35:46A while.
35:46I want to know.
35:48It's been a while, trust me.
35:49Yeah.
35:50Our heart broke for her.
35:51Any one of those things was enough to break anybody.
35:55But to get all that news at once.
35:58It's a lot.
35:58It was a lot, yeah.
36:01And there was more.
36:03Perhaps the most painful realization of all.
36:05I just, oh my God, me and our daughter there.
36:09I know.
36:12I didn't know what else to do.
36:14Mm-hmm.
36:15Mr. Kinney took not only his wife, but his stepdaughter, a child, to a crime scene where
36:22he knew, he knew that there was a dead man inside.
36:27I mean, there's just no other way to describe it as other than disgusting.
36:32This guy brings his stepdaughter to a murder scene and she sees everything.
36:36Who would do that?
36:37I think he felt really backed into a corner and his mind was going crazy at that point
36:44because I don't, there's not a sane person that would involve a child in that way.
36:52David pleaded not guilty to aggravated or premeditated murder.
36:56With bail set at $1 million, he remained behind bars to await trial.
37:03When Brad's friends got wind of David's self-defense claim, they thought, no way.
37:08What do you think happened here?
37:09I think that Brad gave him an ultimatum.
37:14And I think he said, if you don't tell Sherry, I'm going to.
37:18You see this as premeditated. He came there with murder on his mind.
37:23Absolutely. So that the truth would not come out
37:25about their affair and his fear of losing his family.
37:30Law enforcement agreed.
37:32Either we're going to be amicable and reasonable with this,
37:36or one of us is going to walk away because two can keep a secret if one's dead.
37:44In January 2018, David went on trial at the Belmont County Court of Common Pleas.
37:50Prosecutors were ready to rebut David's claim of self-defense with their own smoking gun.
37:56Forensics, they revealed, showed that Brad was shot from behind
37:59in the back of the head, not in the front, as David had initially said.
38:03What's more, the jury heard that Brad had been shot not just once in the back of the head,
38:08but twice, which didn't exactly sound like self-defense.
38:16David never took the stand to explain that second shot.
38:19But jurors were shown the police interview with Detective Aller.
38:23You shot him once, he's dead on the ground. Why'd you shoot him again?
38:26It was just, it just happened.
38:30After just four hours of deliberations.
38:33We, the jury, Julian Pellett and Sworn, find the defendant, David Carl Kitty, guilty.
38:39His sentence, life in prison without parole.
38:54It doesn't bring Brad back.
38:56No. Nothing's going to bring back the laughter that we had, and the tears when something would happen,
39:02and that we were always there for the other.
39:06Sherry Kinney, now divorced, has done her best to move on.
39:10She told us she's found a new love and is focusing on raising her three children.
39:16Brad's friends are left with the notion that the hairdresser turned coal miner
39:20faced a much darker and more sinister peril above ground than he ever did below.
39:25It was the ultimate betrayal.
39:28It could have played out another way, don't you think?
39:30It could have. He could have come clean to his family, talked to his wife,
39:37let her know what was going on.
39:39He was willing to kill somebody that loved him, to keep a secret that I really honestly
39:46feel at the end of the day, nobody would have cared about.
39:50When do you miss him the most, Abby?
39:52I miss him the most when I'm feeling sad or anxious or unsure of myself.
39:59Sometimes I go on Messenger and I just message him his account.
40:03I know nothing will come back, but I think that he got the message up there in heaven some way.
40:11Uncle Brad to Abby, close friend to so many others.
40:15A man comfortable in his own skin, be it cutting hair or bringing up coal.
40:19Most of all, they will remember this companion they met along the way as someone who liked to tease,
40:27love, and of course laugh.
40:30I have gotten some feeling that he's just enjoying the attention.
40:35Oh, he would like this.
40:36He absolutely would.
40:37He loved attention, so he's absolutely smiling up in heaven somewhere and looking down on us.
40:49That's all for this edition of Dateline.
40:52We'll see you again Friday at 9, 8 central.
40:54And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News.
40:58I'm Lester Holt.
41:00For all of us at NBC News, goodnight.
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