Why did you stop when you realized, oh, this isn't going the way I thought it would?
Because I said, well, it's too late now.
I'm going to go to jail anyway.
Just get it done.
I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.
I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation.
Discovery's True Conviction.
And this is Anatomy of Murph.
There are countless ways in which one person can exert power over another, whether that power is expressed physically, emotionally or psychologically.
And, as we've seen in many domestic homicide cases, an uneven power dynamic in a relationship can be not just unhealthy but downright dangerous and is often at the root of an abuser-victim relationship.
But power in its many forms can also be wielded like a weapon, itself used to manipulate someone into committing careless, criminal or even violent acts, acts that can sometimes blur the thin lines between victim, accomplice and killer.
With us today is Sergeant Ron Parmenta, a 30-year veteran of law enforcement and head of the Detectives Bureau in Willoughby Falls, Ohio.
And ever since I can remember probably, I'm guessing it was like eight or nine years old that I knew that I wanted to become a police officer when I grew up.
Ron, like so many members of law enforcement, started his career of public service in the military, serving in the Marine Corps, before working his way up through the ranks of the Willoughby PD.
We're probably about 10, 12 miles from the city of Cleveland, from the downtown area.
But Willoughby Hills is, you know, we're about 11 square miles city.
We have a population of around 10,000 residents.
But the community itself, it's really a picturesque community here in Northeast Ohio.
You know, we maintain a delicate line between our country living and our city living.
Our motto for the city here is, you know, where the city meets the country.
Another public servant in their community was a woman named Lisa Marie Knafel, a civilian social worker for her county Department of Children and Family Services.
Lisa was a wife and the loving mother of two children, whose commitment to helping others, especially the vulnerable and the victimized, was recognized by all that knew her.
Lisa was a very heartwarming person. knew her, loved her.
She had a big heart and you know she's always willing and wanting to help people that are in trouble.
Not in trouble because they put themselves in that situation, but in trouble because, like they've grown up in a you know, in a bad situation at home where they didn't have that opportunity to make that choice.
Lisa was married to Kevin Knafel, a 42-year-old truck driver, and they lived together in a modest three-bedroom home with their two daughters, age 13 and 3.
But, as we've said before, Lisa had love to give and in July of 2011, she and Kevin became foster parents to a 16-year-old named Sabrina.
Like many young people in the foster system, Sabrina was the child of parents who had struggled with addiction.
She was also a survivor of sexual abuse and had spent many years living in both group homes and foster families.
Her childhood had been rife with pain, loss and uncertainty, but moving into the Knafel stable home gave her hope and a chance to reshape her future.
Sabrina got along well with Kevin and Lisa's daughters and was quickly accepted as part of the family.
But her adjustments were still a challenge.
There were fights at school, arguments with Lisa and other instances of acting out, all of which Lisa handled with the patience and grace of a professional.
But the escalating arguments between Sabrina and Lisa was taking a toll on the family.
And even with attempts to smooth their family road, there wasn't much improvement.
Lisa and Kevin had talked about giving her back to the county, but then it was agreed upon that they would keep her up through the time that she graduated high school.
But tragically, Sabrina's time with the Knafels would come to an end much sooner than that.
At approximately 115 am on the morning of November 16 2012, A 911 call was received by a dispatcher at the Willoughby Police Department.
On the line was Lisa and Kevin's 13-year-old daughter.
What's going on there?
Who has the knife?
My sister.
Lisa's daughter told the dispatcher that she had woken to the sounds of screaming and entered her mother's bedroom to a nightmare the sight of Sabrina repeatedly stabbing her mother.
The female was frantic on the 911 call.
And at times it was hard to understand.
Why is your mom going to die?
What happened?
She stabbed your mom?
Where is she and your dad at?
Police immediately responded to what was an active and very potentially dangerous situation.
The now 18-year-old Sabrina was armed with a knife, and Lisa's two young daughters were still in the house.
The officer's got to worry about their safety, number one.
The safety of anybody else in the house, number two.
And then you know also, deep down in the back of your mind, you've got to wonder if there's anybody else involved in this.
First responders entered the home carefully, weapons drawn, clearing the living room before moving slowly down the hallway to the primary bedroom.
When the officers arrived, they observed our 911 caller, who was our victim's daughter.
She's screaming at the front door, telling officers, you know, like she's down the hallway and She's pointing as the officers are coming in to their left.
In what was an incredibly tense scene, officers called for Sabrina to come out of the bedroom.
Sabrina comes out of the room and she has a 12-inch bread knife in her hand and she raises it above her head as officers are giving her commands.
Our officer that was given the commands thought that he was going to have to use deadly force on her because he didn't think that she was going to comply with his orders to drop the knife.
After a second or two, she did comply with the officer's orders and did drop the knife.
Let me just say, you know, the movies and TV might lead you to believe this happens all the time.
But it's actually very rare for law enforcement to respond to a crime scene while the crime is still taking place.
Subduing a suspect who is not just still present, but is still armed with a deadly weapon.
Which of course is a testament to Lisa's young daughter who called 911 and the response time of Willoughby PD.
The officers were able to disarm Sabrina, who was bleeding from several wounds to her arms and appeared to be in a state of shock.
And immediately then they put her into custody.
But when they entered the primary bedroom they realized that even their quick response was unfortunately not enough time to save Lisa, who was found on the floor next to her bed covered in blood.
They attempted to do life-measuring safety caution on the victim, and it was obvious that she was deceased.
Lisa's body displayed what looked like dozens of stab wounds to her head, neck, and chest.
Defensive wounds on her hands, arms and legs indicated that she had fought desperately for her life before succumbing to her injuries.
We just want to warn our listeners that the content of the crime scene may be graphic.
It was one of the bloodiest crime scenes that I've had in my career.
I think when it started, she was in bed and it looked like she was in a fight of her life.
There was blood spatter on the ceiling, the wall, like right above the bed.
And then obviously the carpet was bloodstained.
It was like a scene out of a horror movie.
And yet, for as bad and as disturbing as the crime scene was, investigators couldn't help but think what might have happened if they had not arrived when they did.
We go into the master bedroom where this incident happened.
And on the right is the master bathroom.
And then on the left is like a walk-in closet.
As the officers walked in there, they heard what they believe was crying.
And they opened the door and found a three-year-old daughter hiding in the walk-in closet.
Lisa's three-year-old daughter was in the bedroom and had witnessed Sabrina's attack on her mother.
Thankfully, she was at least not physically harmed and was then removed safely from the home.
As for Lisa's older daughter, who placed a 911 call, she was interviewed by police and was able to provide a clear and terrifying account of what happened, an eyewitness account and a firsthand account of Sabrina stabbing Lisa repeatedly with the very knife she was holding when police officers arrived.
At this point in time.
It's not a whodunit, but it was pretty clear that Sabrina stabbed Her foster mother, whether it was from anger or whatnot, but she committed the crime.
An autopsy would later reveal that Lisa had been stabbed.
178 times, including what doctors called complex wounds where the knife had been plunged in her body and twisted, removing any doubt that the intentions by Sabrina were to end Lisa's life.
So investigators went straight from the crime scene to the hospital where Sabrina was being treated for her superficial wounds.
Despite everything they already knew about the crime, her answers to their questions would still be critical to the investigation.
She was just pretty nonchalant.
When we started questioning her, like you know, we told her she was being investigated for a homicide, and she didn't react to that.
Like you know most people, if they're being investigated for a homicide, rather if they didn't do it, there would be some type of reaction.
Like, what?
That didn't happen.
Told her that, you know, Lisa was dead and that she's the one who stabbed her.
Her question back to me was, I killed her?
Ask him the question to me.
And I told her, you know, yeah, you know, you're the one that killed her.
She said to me that you know.
If this is true, you know the three-year-old and the 13-year-old, you know, saw me kill their mom.
And then she said nobody needed to see that.
To Ron, it sounded an awfully lot like an admission of guilt.
But Sabrina stopped short of making a full confession, instead claiming that she actually didn't remember a thing.
Before...
She went to bed that night.
She said she was just working on a work project.
She went to bed around midnight.
And then she came down into the bathroom and got some ibuprofen.
And then she blacks out.
And then she all of a sudden remembers being in the back of an ambulance.
Now, there was obviously no way to know for sure if this was true.
Memory loss can occur in instances of a psychotic break.
But to investigators, the blackout alibi was a little too convenient and also frustrating.
I was kind of sick to my stomach.
I was wanting answers to know why she did what she did.
So I can at least get answers for Lisa's children and her family.
But Sabrina just continued saying that she didn't remember anything, which was very frustrating for us as investigators when you know they're sitting there lying to your face that she didn't remember.
Despite having a suspect in the murder already, not to mention an eyewitness and the murder weapon, there was still so much investigators didn't know about how and why the homicide occurred.
Ron also had the difficult task of making contact with Lisa's husband Kevin, who was supposed to be out of town for work.
And the goal here was actually twofold.
It was a death notification but as a matter of procedure it was also important to verify his alibi for the night of the murder.
We want to try to verify where Kevin's whereabouts were on the time of the day of the homicide, what time he left the house, where exactly he was around the time of the murder, so on and so forth.
And we confirmed it was a truck driver and that at the time of the homicide he was in the area of the Ohio-Michigan border.
So Kevin was nowhere near the house when Lisa was killed, but officers hoped he could still provide some background on why their foster daughter would have any reason to hurt his wife.
But here's where the investigation had its first strange twist.
Because, upon Kevin's return to Willoughby Hills, his behavior struck detectives as more than just a little odd.
I had a little bit of contact with him that night in our police lobby, which was very limited.
Tell him we're sorry for his loss.
And you know, he was just kind of mopey.
He just would nod.
There was no tears.
Didn't have any questions.
Never asked, well, who killed her?
No questions about the house.
He just did not have any questions.
Somebody that's been a victim of a crime, you know, they have a thousand questions.
It was enough to make detectives wonder if maybe Kevin knew more about his wife's murder than he was letting on.
And that, despite the overwhelming evidence pointing to Sabrina as Lisa's killer, this investigation was far from over.
Police in Willoughby Hills Ohio, had identified Sabrina Zunich as the primary suspect in the fatal stabbing of her own foster mother, Lisa Knafel.
On November 19th, just three days after Lisa's death, the high school senior was arrested and charged with first degree murder.
Lisa's young daughters had witnessed the attack, and police arrived at the scene to find Sabrina holding the bloody murder weapon.
So there was little doubt of her guilt, but her motive for such a vicious crime that still remained a mystery.
So I don't think we necessarily have an initial theory.
Besides, you know that Sabrina did kill Lisa.
But at this point in time, we didn't have a theory that there was anybody else involved.
There was nothing that really was pointing us in that direction.
But no matter how clear the case looked against Sabrina, police still had to collect the evidence to prove their case in court and unravel whatever circumstances may have led up to this terrible tragedy.
So we looked at the crime scene.
Obviously, we knew we needed a search warrant.
So that was our top priority looking for electronic devices such as phones computers, you know things like that, just to see if there's anything that would tell us a story about what may or may not have happened prior to the homicide occurring.
We talk about how digital forensics like tracking, location data and recovering files can often yield tons of incriminating evidence.
But sometimes just a peek at a call or text history can be the first step in developing an investigative theory.
And that's just what happened here.
No expert required.
The first thing we're going to examine is going to be your phone.
And when we looked at the phone history we saw that maybe seven day period Lisa and Kevin maybe talked or text 50 times and that Sabrina and Kevin talked or text over a thousand times.
And we thought that to be very, very suspicious at that point.
Now, of course, it would not have been out of the ordinary for Kevin and Sabrina to be in contact, but the sheer volume of their communications hinted at a relationship more than that of guardian and child.
I think it was, you know, a few weeks later, when we got some phone records back and we started going through phone records that you know, our eyebrows started to raise a little bit.
I mean we were learning that he was barely talking to his wife who he's married to, rather than text or telephone call.
And most of his conversations that he was having was with Sabrina.
Friends of Lisa's had described a growing tension between Sabrina and her foster mom over the last few months.
But now investigators were starting to see why.
We also had a teacher at the school say that there was times when Kevin and Sabrina were would be at the school and that they would be acting inappropriately towards each other.
And it just, to him, it did not appear to be the normal father-daughter type of relationship.
He thought it could possibly be something more.
So if Lisa had grown suspicious of the relationship between Sabrina and her husband Kevin, maybe that is the real reason behind her suggestion that it is time for Sabrina to have moved out of the house.
Which means Sabrina was at risk of not just losing her home and also the man she may have fallen in love with which, taken together, sounds like a motive for murder.
But if that was the case, detectives wanted to know if Kevin may have been aware of her plan, or maybe even complicit.
We spoke to Kevin over the phone and told him we wanted to come in and talk to him and agreed.
A few minutes later, his attorney called.
And so the attorney agreed to bring Kevin into our police department to interview him.
So, you know, it's interesting, Scott.
I think people normally think about people of interest speaking to police or prosecutors without their attorneys present, but obviously it definitely happens.
While we haven't talked about it a lot on AOM, it happens more often than people think in real life.
But again, I mean, and you can speak to this from the perspective of law enforcement, but certainly from a prosecutor and having seen a lot of these videos like –
It doesn't change it all that much, except obviously it's more formal, right?
And so the questioning, I should say, is different because it's a different scenario.
It's less casual, which I think actually does not usually make for potentially as productive or honest a conversation.
As far as an approach, Anastasia, I think it's really no different for me.
It's just about establishing that you as the investigator, this is your interview.
So whether he's in the room or she's in the room or not, all of that information will eventually get to that defense attorney.
The only thing different is they have the opportunity, of course, to tell their client not to answer the question.
But there is an advantage for investigators as well.
Bulletproof admissibility.
I mean if they happen to confess it drastically reduces, as you know, the risk of a confession or a statement being thrown out for potential coercion or Miranda violation.
And I think that's exactly it, Scott.
I think you just made a great point that one of the potential biggest downsides of this while there's lots of upsides once you get to the courtroom with it is the lawyer obviously stopping their client from speaking at a point that they see down a road that it's going.
But, you know, these are all the things that it's the balancing act, if you will.
But again, here they had the lawyer.
And so he went into the interview room along with Ron and Kevin.
We brought him in and Jim, his attorney, sat down.
So we started asking him you know about the night of?
I think that's how we started off, is you know?
Tell me about what happened prior to you know you leaving for work?
And his attorney wouldn't let him answer that.
We kind of got an idea that his attorney's not going to let him answer anything about the night of the homicide.
And of course, that is his absolute right.
But as an investigator, it also raises more questions than answers.
And it did little to settle the suspicions they had that Kevin was somehow involved, or at least knowledgeable maybe, about his wife's murder.
He only allowed me to talk about Lisa's work, what she did there, who her friends were, who she hung out with outside of work.
But as far as any questions about the night of the homicide, he refused to let Kevin answer.
And this is probably something that Ron was thinking about Anastasia, when he posed the question could it be that the interview would be shut down?
And that's exactly what happened.
Because he had asked the question of the nature of the relationship between Sabrina and Kevin.
That's when Kevin's attorney shut the interview down.
But as you all can imagine, it did not mean an end of the detective's questions or investigation.
So our next move after that is we went and actually spoke to Kevin's son, from a different marriage.
The thing that struck us was he recalled a conversation that him and Sabrina were having.
And for some reason the conversation was about if they can kill one person and get away with it, who would it be?
Not that they were planning on doing this.
I forget who his son said, but his son told us that Sabrina said it would be Lisa.
Was it a joke?
Maybe.
But given the circumstances, it felt a lot more like circumstantial evidence of premeditation.
But aside from Kevin's son and some of those whisperings around school, the best and most shocking information about Sabrina and Kevin came directly from someone that knew Sabrina best.
Her name is Autumn.
And the reason why she is important in this case is because Autumn and Sabrina were best friends.
And Autumn, we used to spend a lot of time over with Sabrina and Kevin.
And this new young witness also spent a lot of time on Facebook.
And shortly after news of Lisa's murder broke, she wasted no time in expressing her opinions online.
After the homicide happened it might even been that day or maybe a day after Autumn posted a message on Facebook saying The Post raised even more eyebrows by what they read next.
Sabrina's friend made it clear that in the past Sabrina had actually talked about killing her foster mom.
The Facebook page said something about.
She thought that Sabrina was bluffing when she told her that she was going to do this, but she just figured, like other kids, that they hate their parents and they all say they want to kill their parents, but they don't actually kill their parents.
When questioned by police, Autumn confirmed that the tension between Sabrina and Lisa had everything to do with a brewing affair between her and Kevin, and that Kevin had even been exploring ways for them to stay together if he and Lisa got divorced.
But then the talk of divorce, it evolved into something much darker.
Autumn said that there was a plan to kill Lisa because they had this 750000 life insurance policy and that she's worth more dead than alive.
And in fact, according to this bombshell witness, she was privy to multiple plans to kill Lisa.
But that it was Kevin, not Sabrina, that was the mastermind behind all of them.
You know, they had a couple of different plans.
The first plan was they were going to make it look like a robbery.
The other plan was Kevin asked Autumn if she can get a hitman.
And because I guess allegedly Autumn had some type of connections to some mafia people.
Now that her connection to Hitman, well, that turned out to be more teenage fantasy than reality.
But Kevin's intentions to kill his wife, those seem to be very real.
She was just kind of putting Kevin off, but kept saying that she's working at it.
She's working at it.
And I think just after some time, Kevin got impatient.
So him and Sabrina moved on to another phase of him, them killing Lisa.
Sabrina's friend became a critical cooperating witness in the investigation.
And in hopes that she may be able to get Kevin to incriminate himself.
Investigators even got her to pay Kevin a visit.
And she also wore a wire.
And what I mean by that is a hidden recording device.
And to protect her identification, we have altered Autumn's voice.
We're going to Kevin Knievel's home. at 2518 Chagrin Drive.
And we're going to attempt to talk to him about his activities.
She calls him and starts making some small talk with him.
He knows exactly who she is.
It's clear as day.
I wanted to see if I could talk to you, if it's all right.
What about?
Just some things have been bothering me lately and, like, I'm really nervous about a lot.
There's cops that have been contacting my dad trying to find me, and I have no idea what's going on.
Like, what am I supposed to say to them?
Because of the whole, like, the hitman thing that we talked about on the phone.
She starts saying, you know, hey, I'm getting scared.
The law enforcement is out sniffing my way.
You know, I don't know what to do.
You know, he just says, you know, just do your own thing.
Keep your mouth shut.
She also said that you and her collaborated or put together some type of plan that you were going to make it look like.
You guys are going to try and make it look like a robbery.
The hitman didn't go through.
So it's like, well, how are you going to do that?
Well, she goes well.
Kevin told me that I should go in to her room while she's sleeping and put the pillow over her head with that gun.
With a gun?
And then just shovel it on some jewelry and make it look like a robbery.
If I wanted someone dead, it would have been with a gun.
Because I have a lot of them.
Right.
That conversation left little doubt that Sabrina's friend Autumn and Kevin, that they not only knew each other, but that she knew information that could incriminate him.
And that he was also, from the way he sounds, clearly suspicious that he might be walking into a trap.
Do you think if I got a lawyer, I would look bad?
The only reason we need to get a lawyer is if you're in trouble.
So Autumn calls him back. five or six times over the next two days, and he never answers the phone.
So what if anything?
Did investigators get from this, if nothing else, that they were definitely on the right track.
I even made a telephone call to Kevin.
I know that he had just talked to Autumn that day.
So I called him.
I was like, hey, Kevin, there's a couple of names that are coming up.
I just want to know if you're familiar with them.
So I read it off a couple of names.
He's like, no, I don't know who that is.
No, I don't know who that is.
When it came to Autumn, he was like, yeah, that name vaguely sounds familiar.
You know, I don't know where she's went.
You know, she I heard last time I heard she's in.
California or something.
And I don't know what's going on with her.
I haven't heard from her.
Knowing that he just talked to her like either that day or the day before.
So now they had more than just their suspicions.
Now they had proof that he was lying.
Not only that, there was reason to believe that, with or without Sabrina, he was already trying to cash in on the murder.
There was a life insurance policy for, I want to say it was like $250,000.
One of the policies were that the agent was calling me, asking me if Kevin was cleared as a suspect because he was asking for this money.
You know, we told this employee that, you know, he has not been cleared at this time.
It was becoming clear that Kevin's motive to kill his wife was not so much his affair with his young foster daughter but the windfall that Lisa's death would bring.
And the longer Sabrina sat in jail, the more that reality began to set in.
Feeling abandoned and manipulated by her foster father and the man she was having a relationship with, she finally agreed to cooperate with investigators in early August of 2013.
After multiple talks between our attorney and Sabrina's attorney, it was agreed upon that she would do a proffer.
A proffer is basically you come in, you tell exactly what happened.
You know, you be as truthful as you can be, obviously.
And, you know, what we would do with that information is we would.
Try and figure out if this is usable or not.
As part of her conversation with police in the presence of her attorney, Sabrina gave a detailed confession outlining her relationship with Kevin Knafel and the planning of Lisa's murder.
Here is part of Sabrina Zunich's conversation with police.
Take us back a little bit in terms of when this first started to be discussed between yourself and Kevin, and who brought it up, whose idea it was and what the details of that were.
It was Kevin's idea and it was talked about after we were having sexual relations and him and Lisa were having problems in marriage.
So she confirmed what Autumn told us about the multiple times, the different plans that they had to kill Lisa.
But as shocking as her confession was, her description of her relationship with Kevin Knafel was almost just as disturbing.
When was it, after you started to live there on a daily basis that your relationship with Kevin changed?
It all started not with sex, but with massages, because he was a truck driver and his legs would cramp.
So it was inner thigh and then it progressively moved on.
She described how it progressed to multiple sexual encounters.
In all, Sabrina described how Kevin had begun grooming her as early as 2012, when she was just 16 and had just moved into the Knafels' home.
And obviously it goes without saying that, as a survivor of sexual abuse, Sabrina had been in need of a safe refuge.
Instead, she found herself in the crosshairs of a predator.
Does he ever tell you, hey, you can't tell anybody about this?
All the time.
Okay, what would happen?
Do you say what would happen?
Then you'd be taken out of my care and I could lose my foster parent license.
According to Sabrina, she had fallen in love with the man that promised to love and protect her.
The only thing threatening that promise was his wife, Lisa.
He had promised Sabrina that you know they would live in this White House, this white picket fence, and they would have children together, grow up happily and not be bothered by anybody.
She would never have to go back into foster care ever again.
He just really played into her.
You know Scott, we just have to stop here for a moment, because here we have, like just in what Ron's describing, it's an adult manipulating a teen who, we've already heard, has had a rough road and is vulnerable.
He's basically promising her everything she would want most, stability and love.
Completely taking advantage of her history, knowing that a father figure or a mother figure was all that she was really looking for for as long as she was in the foster system.
So playing on that vulnerability and giving her hope of a real, significant family and somebody to take care of her was how he weaponized the situation.
It's clear to see that Sabrina had second thoughts.
But Kevin was relentless.
Sabrina even claimed that on the morning before the murder, Kevin cried and told her he would kill himself if Lisa wasn't dead.
After he brought up well look, I'm going to kill myself if she doesn't leave, because I can't deal with this anymore.
That was afterwards.
And so when he said that, it kind of triggered me.
I was like, no, I don't want that to happen.
And so I was like, OK, I'll do it.
She was remorseful.
She felt very bad about the death of Lisa.
She recalled exactly what happened.
You know, that ibuprofen story was a hoax.
According to Sabrina's statement to police, the plan was Kevin's, a plan that conveniently left him out of the house and out of town on the night of the murder.
She confirmed that it was Kevin who also told her how to commit the crime and even what knife to take from the kitchen drawer.
We do want to warn you the following conversation is graphic and disturbing.
Was there any discussion about what knife to use?
Yes.
It was, what knife should I use?
Use this bread knife because there's gripping on it and there's ridges and it's long.
Therefore, go in and stab her and twist it and jab it, don't take it out.
But so this way there would be bleeding to death and too much cutting up for her to live.
And so we went to the kitchen, he showed me and... Showed you what?
The knife and which one to use.
And he was like I do not know word for word, but it was going over the specifics using the knife, what kind of knife to use?
How to do it either if she's laying on her side with her back towards you, go for in between the shoulder blades.
Or if you can get to the other side without her waking up, go for the neck.
Or don't go for the heart, because it could be possible that it would not work.
So he told you to either stab her in the back or, if she's facing you or you're facing her, to stab her in the neck.
Correct.
Told me that she came down the night of November 16th, 2012.
It was about one in the morning.
She said that Lisa was sleeping on her bed.
She got the knife that Kevin told her to get, got on top of Lisa and started stabbing her in the chest, in the head, face on her arms, her fingers, her hands, until she stopped moving.
Gwen asked why.
Why she continued stabbing Lisa so many times.
Sabrina's reply is chilling.
Because I said, well, it's too late now.
I'm going to go to jail anyway.
Just get it done.
Sabrina Zurich agreed to testify against Kevin Knafel at his trial as part of her plea deal and accepted full responsibility for her actions.
And as horrible as those actions were, it was also clear that she too had been victimized by Knafel.
There's absolutely no doubt about it she's a victim.
Doing this profession for as long as I have.
We know that.
You know kids in foster care are vulnerable.
There's no question that Kevin Knafel took full advantage of Sabrina's vulnerability.
There is just another aspect of this crime that I think also showed just how cold-blooded Knafel was and that it was his plan to have Sabrina kill Lisa in their home, while his own children were there, with no consideration for their safety, both physical or psychological.
Every plan that was told to us by Sabrina and by Autumn all involved them killing Lisa at the house.
It did not involve, you know, when the kids were away or when Lisa was at a different place other than the house.
Every single plan was about them at the house.
The investigation had exposed Kevin Knafel as a master manipulator, a remorseless predator, unashamed to victimize one young life entrusted to his care and plot the taking of another.
And with Sabrina's statement, police believe they now had enough to arrest him for the murder.
So at the time, I was part of the U.S.
Marshal Violent Fugitives Task Force.
We end up, you know, getting our team together.
We were aware that there were guns in the house.
So we had brought up proper equipment and came to the door.
He came down defeated, and we took him into custody with no issues.
Kevin Knafel was indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, as well as six counts of sexual battery relating to his statutory sexual assault of the then 16-year-old Sabrina.
So Sabrina Zunich pled guilty and, as we'd said before, she agreed to cooperate as part of her plea deal.
Knafel's trial began in May 2014, with Sabrina Zunich's testimony at the heart of the prosecution's case against him.
As far as when it comes to Sabrina, we didn't have any concerns.
You know, it was pretty point blank that she's the one who did it.
With Kevin's trial.
It wasn't a classic case of look, here's all the evidence we have and you can see it right in front of your face.
We have to figure out from a prosecution standpoint, to get all this information to the jury so they actually can understand and see where we're going with what we're trying to accomplish.
The prosecution asserted that Knafel manipulated Sabrina into murdering his wife to collect life insurance and continue their sexual relationship.
Prosecutors also emphasized Kevin's calculated behavior leading up to the murder, including his strangely calm demeanor and lack of grief following Lisa's death and his eagerness to collect on the life insurance policy.
The day of the homicide, his best friend came over to his house and was speaking with him.
He had his best friend log into his account and start looking up life insurance policies.
The day of the homicide.
As for the defense, Knafel's attorneys argued that Sabrina Zunich acted independently, claiming she attacked Lisa in a moment of emotional instability after learning she would be removed from the home, and denied that Kevin Knafel had any involvement in planning or encouraging the murder.
But the testimony of multiple witnesses who described Kevin's inappropriate closeness with Sabrina, including his visible displays of affection and sexually suggestive jokes, proved to be pretty damning.
And ultimately so was Sabrina Zunich's testimony and chilling account of their conspiracy to commit the crime.
Sabrina went up there, and I believe this to the day I die, Sabrina was telling the truth because...
She had the exact same story that she told us back in May when we proffered her for this crime.
After deliberating for nine and a half hours, the jury found Knafel guilty on all 11 charges six counts of sexual battery, three counts of complicity to commit aggravated murder and two counts of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder.
He was sentenced to life in prison, with the possibility of parole in 2043, when he will be 73 years old.
After pleading guilty to the aggravated murder, Sabrina Zunich was sentenced to life in prison, with the possibility of parole in 30 years.
At the heart of this story is a painful irony.
Sabrina was already a victim of sexual abuse before she came to the Knievel's home.
But the very place that was supposed to be refuge from danger became a place of nightmares.
It's ironic that Lisa was somebody that worked against sexual abused children and the foster child that she brought into her house.
Her husband was actually sexually abusing the foster child.
There are just so many victims in this story.
Lisa, who had dedicated her life to helping vulnerable and at-risk children, and Lisa's three and 13-year-old daughters, who now lost not just their mother but, in the act of committing the murder, their father on that same day.
And then there are the many people in Sabrina's life, from social workers to teachers, who had worked so hard to help the troubled teenager secure a stable future.
A future that, for now, she's spending behind bars.
As I look at the facts of Lisa's case, one thing becomes absolutely clear.
This wasn't a crime of impulse or emotion.
It was a calculated act rooted in greed and manipulation.
Lisa opened her heart and her home to a vulnerable teenager, only to have that compassion exploited in the most horrific way.
What makes this case even more disturbing is how Kevin Knafel, someone who was supposed to be a protector, weaponized the foster care system for his own selfish gain.
He groomed a child in crisis, used her as a pawn and orchestrated a murder, not out of rage or revenge, But out of money.
It wasn't about love.
It wasn't about anger.
It was about control.
And Lisa paid the ultimate price for someone else's twisted ambition.
I'm often asked why people commit crimes, why some people are capable of such brutality and cruelty.
There is no easy answer, often no answer at all.
But I've definitely seen my fair share of murders committed by people who had horrible childhoods themselves.
And I often think that they were almost set up in a way to be so uncaring and not value human life, because no one valued them.
It's not an excuse not at all but it's something that I've thought about over the years and think it's something that, if we maybe tackled it as a society more effectively, would not only help the children but potentially stop them committing future crime.
But it's important that we end on Lisa, honoring her memory and thinking of her other children who now have to walk through life without her.
So, what do you think, Chuck?
Do you approve?
I approve!
