The Murder of Scott Macklem: The Guilt of Temujin Kensu: Flaming Framed: Season Three: Part Two

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[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_03] I'm Anya, and today we're going to be continuing with part two of our in-depth criticism of Frame Season 3, which of course covered the murder of Scott Macklem. Content warning, this episode includes discussion of murder, violence, intimate partner violence, rape, sexual abuse, the abuse of children, and the abuse of animals, because of course this is an episode about Temujin Kinzu.

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_06] I think the end of last episode was probably the angriest I have ever been on this podcast.

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_03] Yep.

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_06] We were discussing how Mr. Habel presented a version of events that he has to know is untrue about Crystal, making Crystal, who was a rape victim, into the evil stalker who so frightened poor innocent Temujin Kenzo that he had to move across the state.

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_06] And we talked about how that false betrayal inspired his reply guy, Aaron Habel's reply guy, to say, oh, let's dox Crystal. She's awful. Let's get her picture out there. Habel liked that, even though Habel knows that what these women victims of Mr. Kenzo fear more than anything else is being harassed and attacked by Mr. Kenzo's acolytes.

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_06] So Mr. Habel is going out there spreading false information designed to inspire other people to go out and harass these people who've already been harassed for decades. And he presented this false information about Crystal without even suggesting that there was another side to it. I think not only was that fundamentally irresponsible, I think it was a genuinely bad act.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_06] And to like a comment from someone saying, oh, let's dox her, that is a bad act. You don't do things like that unless you are a bad person. And so I'm saying Mr. Habel is a bad person. If he wants to be a good person, he needs to explain what the fuck he was thinking. And he needs to apologize to Crystal and to everyone else. He's a bad guy and he deserves nothing but our contempt and our scorn.

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_06] And if he's really so insensitive to rape victims and women sufferers of domestic violence, that certainly explains why he's such a fan of Temujin Kenzo.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_03] One thing I anticipate hearing is, you know, well, I don't run the Facebook page or I don't do this or I don't do that. I didn't research it. I didn't write this season. And to me, I just want to remind everyone that, you know, people like Kevin and I and Habel all make money off of covering these cases on our podcasts. And whatever we put on our shows, the buck stops with the person who is in charge. Kevin and I are in charge. There's also no one else.

[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_03] We don't have any sort of team. Kevin and I pretty much write, research, do everything. We edit everything. So if something goes wrong on our show, you can definitely yell at us because not only do we not have a team, but we also, you know, the buck stops with us. But the buck has to stop with Abel. And Kevin commented on that thread being like, what the heck?

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_06] So I shone a light on it. Still liked. Still liked. I looked the day we recorded part one. Still liked. And in fairness, someone else runs our Facebook discussion page. But if something was on that page that I found morally offensive, I could tell the person running the page, remove that, and they would. More than that, the person we selected to run the page for us is a good human being. That's true. In tune with our values.

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_06] And so I believe that if someone came on our page and said, let's dox a rape victim, our moderator would bounce that so quickly.

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_03] Their heads would spin. She would nuke that immediately. And if for some reason she didn't, you know, I mean, she wouldn't. But we would apologize ourselves and take ownership for it because it's like that shouldn't happen. That, frankly, as we talked about in the last episode, G shouldn't have been named. But this really shouldn't have happened.

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_06] Yes. Mr. Habel has stopped responding to us long ago. But if you think he might respond to you, ask him, why is this okay? Why the fuck did you do this?

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_03] It's wrong.

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_06] I'm making myself mad again.

[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_03] You're really mad. But I don't blame you. I mean, this is...

[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_06] I care about these people. I care about rape victims. I care about people who spent decades being harassed and stalked by fans of Temujin Kinsu. I care about the fact that people have been lied to you for decades about Temujin Kinsu by people who say, oh, he's just like Gandhi. We played in our last episode, Mr. Habel saying, oh, Temujin Kinsu, the light of the world. It's nonsense. It is nonsense. It is embarrassing nonsense. This guy, Mr. Habel, is so lousy at his job.

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_06] And in addition to that, again, I'm saying this, he's a bad person, a good person. If you see someone saying, let's dox a rape victim, a good person says no.

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_03] Let's not do that. I guess I just also see this as so unfortunate because it's so unnecessary. You can put together a Kinsu is Innocent project without, I think, crossing any severe ethical or moral lines. I'll disagree with the project, but I won't have any issues with it in that sense because it'll be like, well, you put weight on things differently than I do. That's OK. Right. We're not all in lockstep about everything and that's OK. We can agree to disagree on certain things.

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_03] It's just that you just don't need this victim blamey, victim targeting crap. I mean, it's just like it's just unnecessary. I don't understand it as a result of that. Why would you do this?

[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_06] Well, I say let's put on whatever hazmat suits you need. We can go into a toxic sewer and let's go and talk about the rest of this awful, awful series.

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_02] My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_05] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_02] And this is The Murder Sheet.

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_05] We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_06] We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_03] And this is The Murder of Scott Macklem. The Guilt of Temujin Kenzu. Flaming Framed Season 3. Part 2.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_06] Now, periodically throughout this, I'm going to refer to Mr. Kenzu as Mr. Habel's friend.

[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_06] I say that for a couple of reasons, one of which is throughout this awful series, Mr. Habel continually sucks up to and praises and puffs this awful, awful man. And secondly, because Mr. Habel chose to contribute to a dreadful self-published book, Our Friend Temujin. I'm guessing he has no problem with having people think that Temujin Kenzu is his friend. So I'm going to continue to refer to him as that.

[00:11:29] [SPEAKER_06] Let's start right off by sharing another lie that Mr. Habel spreads on behalf of his dear friend, Mr. Kenzu.

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_00] While he certainly recalled briefly dating Crystal and, on some level, knew she had once been involved with Macklem, the two hadn't spoken since July. Fred and Michelle had moved to the UP around Labor Day, and he insisted he had no knowledge of Crystal's renewed relationship with Macklem, nor was he aware that she was expecting Scott's baby or that the couple were engaged to be married.

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_06] Okay, so that is a lie. How do we know that's a lie? Well, because in Mr. Kenzu's testimony at his commutation hearing in 2010, Mr. Kenzu admitted that at the time of the murder, not only did he know Crystal was pregnant, but that he thought the child was his. Mr. Habel should really stop spreading Mr. Kenzu's lies. It is not a good look for him. Now, Mr. Kenzu is not an intelligent man, Anya.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_06] I often say that, but I have to believe there's some level of rationality to him. And if he wants to lie or hide something, I tend to think there must be a reason for it. And I think Mr. Kenzu has tried to hide the fact that he knew Crystal was pregnant because that goes to the heart of his motive for the crime. I'm speculating here, but I believe that what we know about Mr. Kenzu, he believes that his

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_06] bloodline is sacred, that people who have his blood are lions and lionesses of the Cathal, and the idea of his child being raised by another man was the straw that broke the camel's back, to use the cliche, and that's what prompted the murder.

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, and that's what I think too.

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_06] So that's why he's lying about it, because it goes to his motive. That's just my opinion. But if you disagree with that opinion, that's fine. But please know, Mr. Habel and his crack researcher, Kathleen McGrath, are once again spreading misinformation on behalf of their friend, Temujin Kenzu.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_03] I guess it's like what I feel as a journalist when I look at something like this is, I think it's okay, more than okay, good to put out Kenzu's version of events, right? I mean, that's why we keep trying to interview him. I want that. But you can't only put that out. If you truly want to be a podcast that goes into, quote unquote, both sides, you have to fact check your guy, you know? Like, and this is one area where

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_03] I think had they gotten Kenzu's version, and then they actually read the transcript of the commutation hearing, they would have found that there's a discrepancy there. He told us he didn't know much about this, but here he's saying he knew she was pregnant. Then go back to him. Confront him. What's this all about? How do you explain this? What were you saying here? Then we can actually get further in the conversation. And then the podcast is doing something good, which is kind of furthering the story along. Getting this guy on the record with all of his kind of discrepancies,

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_03] but it refuses to do that. Habel refuses to push. And frankly, the one possible saving grace of this podcast would have been that he had a lot of access to Kenzu, which would have been good to hear from him on some of this stuff. But it's like he just is scared to ask him any question that he thinks is going to piss him off. That's what the whole project feels like. It's like, oh, don't get mad at

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_03] me. You know, I mean, I just I it's bizarre. OK, I wanted to point out something else that I found

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_06] rather interesting. Why don't you play this next clip? Digging a bit deeper into the circumstances

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_00] surrounding this investigation and Fred's arrest would reveal some potentially troubling information about one of the members of law enforcement responsible for his arrest. OK, I thought this

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_06] was interesting because throughout his awful hypocritical series, Mr. Habel has maintained that Mr. Kenzu's character is completely irrelevant. Oh, but by the way, he's great. But his character is completely irrelevant. It's not even worth discussing. But by the way, he's great. I love him. But any alleged deficiency in the character of this police officer is highly significant. And let's really talk about that. OK, so one of this officer's alleged flaws is a problem

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_06] in his investigation. And he cites a problem in his investigation in this next clip.

[00:15:44] [SPEAKER_00] This singular focus did not allow police to investigate other theories. It turned out that the victim, Scott Macklem, had been followed and threatened by two men in January and February of 1986, several months before his death. The men, who, according to witnesses, were visibly angry with Macklem, had allegedly confronted the student at his workplace. Bounds investigation never included

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_00] any attempt to identify these two individuals. OK, so that is, again, part of my language. That is utter

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_06] bullshit because look at the police reports, Mr. Habel. And you will see there was something in the report that none other than Sergeant Bounds went and talked to the people at the store and, quote, are we from this report? After the crime, Sergeant Bounds showed him some photographs and he identified Fred Freeman as the one he saw in the store that day. So not only did Sergeant Bounds try to identify

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_06] the two stalkers, he actually succeeded in identifying one of them. And the person that was identified was Fred Freeman, a.k.a. Temujin Kenzu. So, again, you're spreading misinformation.

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_03] Why lie about this? It's so blatant. It just puts the lie to this idea that we don't know who was stalking Scott. They know who was stalking Scott. Witnesses saw him. It was Kenzu. This is not a mystery. It's not a mystery. It's not a mystery whatsoever. I mean, it's just hilarious to me that he's criticizing someone for their investigation and it just underscores what a fucking shitty

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_03] investigator Habel is. I'm going to tell you something. I would bet a substantial sum of money that Habel never read the police report, never read the trial transcript and never read the commutation hearing in full. Maybe he glanced over snippets provided to him. I do not believe that this man actually read everything. And you know what? Even if you hire a researcher, even if you hire a writer, you should know the case inside and out if you're going to be purporting to do a deep dive on it.

[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah, I've heard this described as a deep dive. This awful show is not a deep dive. It's barely sticking your toe in a kiddie pool. It's really inept and irresponsible. And it's caused so much pain to people who have already suffered so much and all in the service so he can lie about a monster and

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_03] claim, oh, he's the light of the world. Not to mention that most of his sources do not seem to be the raw materials of the case. They actually seem to be other podcasts and then blog entries, blog entries, a newspaper article, and most notably, perhaps reports from Proving Innocence, which is this sham nonprofit that serves Kenzu's interests. It's always great when you get clothing that you

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[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_03] private investigator for Kenzu. Like, he didn't go in depth on this at all. He went where he was told to. And, and I just, I, why? Like, it's, you know what it's like for me? When I go to a restaurant, I don't expect to sit down and order something from their menu and then have them rush off and Uber Eats the dishes coming in from other restaurants so that they're cold by the time I get them. Like, I want you to make the food. Like, that's why I'm here. You make the food for me. If you want

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_03] to bring in something like, why are you even opening a restaurant? It's like a freaking faulty towers episode. I mean, I don't even, I don't know. I don't know, man. Why?

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_06] And here is some more offensive nonsense from Mr. Habel.

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_00] While conducting their investigation, police began hearing whispers among locals that Scott may have been involved with narcotics activity. Considering the prominence of the Macklem family in the area and the looming threat of possible retaliation, folks were naturally reluctant to talk about this. To be clear, these rumors have never been substantiated and should not be considered fact. But hushed gossip and murmured speculation continued behind closed doors. If there was any

[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_00] truth to the allegations at all, this could likely account for unsettling visits from menacing strangers as well as Scott's absences from school and his noticeable anxiety.

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_06] His noticeable anxiety was caused by the fact that he was being stalked by a thug who was threatening to kill him and who ultimately did kill him. This also pisses me off. Fuck this. Mr. Habel's friend, Mr. Kinzu, took the life of this wonderful young man. But that is not enough. Now they also want to drag his reputation and his name through the mud. There is no indication Scott Macklem had anything to do with drugs. Mr. Kinsu's investigators have spent decades

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_06] scraping the bottom of the barrel and they have failed to find any evidence to back up such utter nonsense. Even Mr. Kinsu's own crack investigator, Herb Welzer, admitted to us there was no evidence to back it up. That is because it is a lie. It is a lie. Again, they are dragging a murder victim's name through the mud in order to get off the rapist who killed him. The only risk factor in Scott's life

[00:25:47] [SPEAKER_06] was Temujin Kinzu and it was Temujin Kinzu who killed him. And what kind of nonsense is it to say, it'd be like if I said, you know, I'm not saying Anya burned dinner last night, but you know, maybe she burned dinner last night. If you're trying to be responsible on any level, you don't put out information unless you know it is true. It is like he wants to put out the

[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_06] information without getting blamed for putting it out because he knows it's not true. Yeah. He doesn't

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_03] give a shit. I mean, it's just about his narrative. He just, I don't think he cares about what's true or not. What he cares about is his dear friend, Mr. Kinsu. I think he doesn't want to get yelled at by members of his listener base that know this case at all. He thinks that he can trick people into saying, well, I didn't say it was true. I said, you shouldn't consider it as fact. Then why are you putting it on the fucking program? Usually if someone comes to me with a bunch of bullshit, I don't put it on the podcast. Okay. And in fact, he had an opportunity here to say,

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_03] well, I looked into it myself and I didn't see anything that made me think this was true.

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_06] And this nonsense, oh, people were talking about it behind closed doors. What is your source for what people were talking about it behind closed doors? I'm guessing you heard about this from Mr. Kinsu or members of Team Kinsu, because I have found no one in Port Huron other than Mr. Kinsu or Croswell who thinks this guy had

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_03] anything to do with drugs. It's nonsense. It's not his personality. It's not who he was. He doesn't

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_06] have a record. He doesn't have anything. His only risk factor was this thug who was threatening him.

[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_03] Who he was telling people was threatening him, who he was trying to like look into himself in order to figure out what was going on. Okay. He was stressed out. First of all, he was going to become a father. He was getting married. His life was changing. And second of all, he had this freak after him because Kinsu thinks that women are property who belong to him. And then he saw Scott as someone who was taking away his property and he was going to punish him. That's what happened.

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_03] There's no, I just want to say, not only do I find it so despicable for Habel to be smearing this guy while acting like he's not, which he is to be very clear. It's not just that. He's also smearing Scott's entire family because what he's doing is saying, well, the reason we don't have any drug information is because the Macklems are so scary and so influential. They're such a prominent Michigan family that they're tamping it down. And, you know, they might retaliate against people

[00:28:14] [SPEAKER_03] who come forward and say Scott was on drugs. Are you kidding me? The Macklems have never spoken out on this case as far as my knowledge and I think your knowledge too. They have stayed silent for all these years while suffering from all manner of abuse from Kinsu's acolytes, while suffering from people posting about, you don't really care about your son's murder. You know, we're the ones who care.

[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_03] We're trying to solve Scott's murder. It was already solved, guys. They have the patience of saints, apparently. I think a lot of people, if they were in that situation, they would want to go up and beat some of these people, but they've done nothing. To act as if they're like somehow Machiavellian controlling all this and making sure no one says anything is ridiculous. And it's like he's covering his ass because it's like, yeah, he knows there's nothing there. So in order to make it sound like there still could be something there, he's got to blame the Macklems.

[00:29:10] [SPEAKER_03] Well, we might have something, but they're just so powerful. They're not. Okay. Like, I don't know. It disgusts me.

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_06] It disgusts me.

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_03] Shut the fuck up about this.

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_06] Again, it's like, I'm not saying Anya burned dinner and there's no hard evidence that she burned dinner, but maybe she burned dinner. It's, it's, it's, it's.

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_03] No, it's, it's more than that. It's like, I'm not saying Anya burned dinner and I don't have any factual information proving she burned dinner or even anything indicating she burned dinner ever. But you know, like her family's very powerful in the culinary world and they might come after people who say that she burned dinner. So like, I mean, we can't, it's like, it's like, you're trying to make it like we can never know this. And it's like, no, we,

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_03] you can do reporting and you can go, you can never prove a negative. Right. But as far as like people actually going around and talking to a ton of people who actually knew Scott in life, Kevin and I seem to be the only people who've done that. And what we reported was pretty emphatic that he was not into drugs and that the primary stressor in his life was Kenzu.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_03] So again, if someone has information that's credible, great, but they don't because it's not true. So stop fucking saying it. It's disgusting.

[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_06] You should be ashamed of yourself.

[00:30:35] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, absolutely. I'm just like the victim blame me. And then the family, the family is not that powerful. I don't know what we're talking about. He was mayor of a small farming town. He's not the fucking, like, he's not like the, the vizier behind the throne in Michigan. What, like, what are we? And again, like, this is so not reported. He's just cobbling together talking points he's been given. Like in journalism, there's a concept of you don't just go in and say, many people say that this is going on. If I handed that into an editor, they'd be like,

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_03] well, what, what is this based on? Is this based on your vibe on you? Go get some people actually saying it on the record or go like find indications of what you're saying. If I say, oh, this was a really big media case that the police were being pushed to solve. Well, what's the evidence of that? Be skeptical about what you're being told. I think there were a few things you wanted to talk about before we get to the next clip. I'm getting pissed off now. I don't know. I just love,

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_03] I just love how Habel tiptoes around this without really like expanding. He talks about how Kenzu, one of the women he was going on a date with the early morning hours, I guess, of the morning of Scott's murder is a woman, a high schooler is a high schooler. And it's like, okay, we're not going to comment on that. I guess this man was in his twenties, you know, and he's dating high schoolers, but yeah, don't let, don't let that. Like, I just, I'm just pointing it out to be like,

[00:32:00] [SPEAKER_03] there were so many red flags about Kenzu that like he would have run into just while like reading this script. And not once did he think like, maybe I should kind of go easy on the whole action movie star with cascading Raven hair. Light of the world. You know, like, like I just, I'm like, how did, how did like, how did you read this and not immediately say, oh, I think I need to go like edit a bunch of stuff out, you know? And then talks about this young girl actually is,

[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_03] is this really important witness that, you know, the police hid for him. I don't know how the police hide someone who was part of your alibi when you're the one who knew that they were with you, but also more than that, they always make this out to be like, oh my goodness. Like that means he couldn't have done the murder. You know, if you are driving overnight in the early morning hours from Escanaba to Port Huron, I imagine the significantly less traffic, significantly at

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_03] risk of you being pulled over and that you can do it a lot faster than you probably could during the day during normal traffic conditions. So yeah, I think he could have driven down there, very quickly. And I do not think that she in any way throws off the timeline. And you know, I'm going to throw this out there. I don't know if I've ever really talked about my opinion about this,

[00:33:16] [SPEAKER_03] but you know why it really doesn't matter? If Kenzu had an accomplice, which I personally think he did, then it really doesn't matter because then you have another person to help you

[00:33:31] [SPEAKER_06] with a bunch of stuff. I'm just saying. And I don't think we're going to go into too much detail on that now, but it's fair to say we have a pretty good suspicion of who that accomplice was.

[00:33:39] [SPEAKER_03] Oh, I think I know exactly who that is. So, you know, yeah. Anyways. Let's move on. He talks about like how he uses aliases with quote conquests and acquaintances. At some point, he just starts listing out his alibi. He like, you know, he starts listing alibi witnesses or, you know, people who saw him at least at the fringes of what an alibi would be. That's fine. I mean, that's that's reasonable to talk about. Then he starts just stating his fact

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_03] like arriving home around 3 a.m. He said he crawled into bed where Michelle was sleeping peacefully. Like at this point, we're just going with what Kenzu is saying, I guess. That's how factual this is.

[00:34:15] [SPEAKER_06] Well, it's pretty clear that Mr. Kenzu and Team Kenzu is the A number one source for the research done

[00:34:25] [SPEAKER_03] by Ms. McGrath and Mr. Habel. And then one thing that I found really appalling was this. Digging further, Harmony uncovered the two felony warrants, a perjury charge and an aggravated assault charge in Michigan that had been issued against Fred attached to the charge with a caution. Subject might use martial arts weapons. This statement would prove to be the unlikely cornerstone of the eventual murder case against Frederick Thomas Freeman.

[00:34:55] [SPEAKER_03] OK. First of all, this is like after a whole episode of Habel underplaying all his violent crimes, you know, so he's not a criminal. He's a normal guy. And then like a guy like listing all this aggravated assault. Yeah. OK. Really normal guy. But what I want to focus on is the way he frames this again is he acts like the fact that police were aware that he carried around martial arts weapons

[00:35:22] [SPEAKER_03] was like their primary evidence against him at trial like this. That's the cornerstone of the whole case. They they found weapons in his vehicle.

[00:35:33] [SPEAKER_06] And that's not the cornerstone of the case. It's not like, oh, this guy has martial arts weapons. Therefore, he must be guilty of murder. You're really misrepresenting things there, Mr. Habel.

[00:35:42] [SPEAKER_03] He could have said this would prove to be important later or down the road or whatever. Instead, he chose to make it sound like something that it wasn't. And it's just like again and again, he could be honest and just, you know, let it play out. But again and again, he's got to jump on the scale so that, you know, basically trying to take his audience by the nose and and lead them to the water

[00:36:06] [SPEAKER_03] he wants them to drink. And I just find. There's something like that just pisses me off and I just feel bad for everybody listening to his show that, you know, frankly, is a survivor of some kind of sexual assault or misconduct because I just I don't know. There's something like really heartbreaking thinking about like someone could go through something like that and then have a podcaster they trust just, you know, gassing up this guy. So I think we're on to episode three now, right?

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. So he taught. Yeah, geez. This this is how he this is how he describes a phone call in which Kenzu makes a bunch of, frankly, incriminating statements. The mission here was to find Frederick Freeman by tracing the call and not necessarily to get him to self-incriminate. But some things may have been said during this call between Freeman and the

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_03] Merrills that could lead some to believe that law enforcement were focusing on the right suspect. Holy word salad.

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah, he's really. That is the sort of thing that has led a lot of people to speculate the AI was used in the writing of this script.

[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_03] Could just be a bad writer.

[00:37:18] [SPEAKER_06] It could just be a bad writer. How hard. But some things may have been said during this call between Freeman and the Merrills that could lead some to believe that law enforcement were focusing on the right suspect. Kenzu said things that made police suspicious.

[00:37:30] Yeah.

[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_06] How hard is it to speak clearly?

[00:37:34] [SPEAKER_03] I think he becomes really I think to me, a tell is he could become extreme. And this is why I think it might just be bad writing. He becomes even more unclear when it's something that's a negative fact for Kenzu. He's willing to go and say basically, Renny Gobine lied. And, you know, like he's willing to be clear when he is taking a shot at someone he doesn't like. When it's somebody he likes,

[00:37:58] [SPEAKER_03] he's got to bury how bad this is for Kenzu under, you know, the soft blanket of snow of his unclear and poor writing. So I feel like there's something very intentional about that. He talks about again, this is we're getting into Crystal stuff, which I just find deeply upsetting. She also brought up questions to see if he would verify the stories about him being a ninja in a secret organization. But he seemed confused as to why she would even be asking about those

[00:38:27] [SPEAKER_03] things. He denied all of that stuff. Interestingly, the idea he was a ninja in a secret organization is something that Crystal gave extensive testimony on during trial. You know, I just this is where the Team Kenzu people drive me crazy, because again and again, Kevin and I have been lectured about, oh, you can't bring up character stuff. That's mean. It's bad. Don't do it. That has nothing to do with the murder. And then you have people turn

[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_03] around and say stuff like this about Crystal. You know, isn't it like basically the implication is, you know, Habel's looking at the camera being like, really, you buy this? And the fact of the matter is that other women that we talked to, that we put on the show, other women whose testimony we talked about on the show, back Crystal up. They say the same thing happened to me. He also mentioned the

[00:39:20] [SPEAKER_03] ninja organization. Okay. It's a wild story, but it's one that's backed up by all of these abuse victims who don't know each other. And many of whom came forward right away saying this is a really dangerous guy. So it's not like they're just coming forward years later. Like there's a documented history of this. So why he's acting like this kind of, I don't know, this kind of like coy,

[00:39:45] [SPEAKER_03] like she testified to it too. Jeez. Other women have said this. You don't get to play these games. You don't get to say, don't bring up character evidence. And then when the character evidence actually corroborates the, you know, star witness in the case, say, well, you know, I don't want to hear about that. And, and, and criticize her for her testimony, like pick a lane. Crystal's either

[00:40:10] [SPEAKER_03] a target and then you have to deal with the character evidence or she's not a target. And then you have to deal with the fact that why did the guy who was the only one who had a reason to kill Scott, why is he innocent? He talks about how Crystal said that this guy was practicing martial arts in front of her, showed her weapons, showed her ninja movies, showed her a bunch of money that he would always

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_03] keep on him. The organization talked about that, how he wanted to recruit her to it and they might go after her and her family if, if she didn't cooperate. Again, all corroborated by other women, all corroborated by other women. On your own podcast table, you're going into how much he loves and adores, you know, martial arts and all this stuff. Why is it so hard to believe that a man that we know to be

[00:41:00] [SPEAKER_03] twisted in the head would take that to an extremely dark place? Is it a red flag or bad to be interested or enjoy martial arts or practice them? Of course not. Of course not. But could a warped person twist that into something that's really negative and used to abuse and scare people? Of course, just like anything could be twisted. Nobody's saying martial arts are bad or a red flag. People

[00:41:26] [SPEAKER_03] are saying that when this guy does martial arts, he's doing it so he can beat up women and keep them in line. And that very much fits in with his character. Very much. Again, there's just self-contradicting all the time. He talks about earlier how Port Huron had vanishingly few serious crimes, vanishingly few murders. Murder was rare there. And then he's criticizing the Port Huron Police Department for having a detective on it who had never worked a murder case before. Guess what?

[00:41:54] [SPEAKER_03] If there's not a lot of murder cases in an area, there's not a lot of experience dealing with those. That's just the nature of the beast. Beating them up for that, I don't think is logical. And again, he's always citing this David Sanders guy with Proving Innocence, this report from Proving Innocence, which is riddled with errors, by the way. It just gives the game away. If you wanted to come into this clean and actually portray both sides, that's not a source you should be citing.

[00:42:25] [SPEAKER_03] Or if you're going to cite that, then cite something to counter it too. And again, like the weasel words of this. Let me show you the weasel words here. As alleged in the Proving Innocence article, the Port Huron police sergeant completely mismanaged the investigation. Why are we like, I don't know. Do you know what I mean? As alleged, like he's hiding behind all these other outside sources.

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_03] There's something very like consciousness of guilt about that. He knows what he's doing. Yeah, I think he does. He brings up the empty shotgun ammunition box again. This is his inaccuracy he's presenting to his audience is like the main forensic evidence in the case. If I hear the one thing found at the crime scene that had fingerprints on it didn't match the killer, that's a big deal to me if I don't know the case. And frankly, why should an audience have to like read the whole case themselves? Shouldn't they be able to trust somebody to tell

[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_03] them accurately what's important? Again, I just this pisses me off so badly. At one point, he says this. The murder weapon was never found and Freeman was never proven to or even legitimately suspected of owning a shotgun. What do you think about that, Kevin?

[00:43:43] [SPEAKER_06] Crystal testified to him owning a gun she described as looking like a shotgun. She said he would even sleep with it because he was such a fearful man. Didn't he also show it to her sister? Yeah. In a threatening incident. That was part of the reason why Tracy suspected him of being involved in the murder. Not like as Mr. Habel said, because she

[00:44:03] [SPEAKER_03] heard he liked rock music. It's like you're like you're just saying things that are not true. There's a difference in interpretation as far as certain things in this case, like witnesses, who you put weight on, what you think is enough evidence.

[00:44:15] [SPEAKER_06] And let me say this. Let me say this. If the only way you can build a case for Mr. Kinzu being innocent is by lying, then there is no case for him being innocent. And you've done such a bad job. All you've done is strengthen the case for his guilt with your transparent lies.

[00:44:36] [SPEAKER_03] Here's something that I find odious for reasons I'll explain. There were no attempts made to establish where the victim had been the night prior to the murder or why he might be skipping classes. And he clearly remained on campus. This is bullshit. They knew where he was the night before the murder. I know where he was the night before the murders. The police knew too.

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_03] To act as if that was not known is stupid. And anyone who looks into this case more than the most shallow amount, I think. You know, also, I think stuff like I don't know stuff like this. It's like, again, it's it's the drug thing. It's all this stuff. Why was he on campus when he was skipping class? Well, he was going to class that day. He was going to the makeup gym class, as we previously discussed.

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_03] He had all his gym stuff. He had his gym phys ed book. Like, what are we talking about? He wants it so badly to be one thing. And this is even worse here. Moreover, Bounds and his team wouldn't even thoroughly question Crystal Merrill about her whereabouts on the night before and the morning of the murder. Oh, it goes on. Nor would they properly interview the Macklem parents who initially admitted their son had never

[00:45:53] [SPEAKER_03] ever even mentioned Freeman or any of his aliases. And in a glaring over say, police made no effort to talk to the victim's brother, Jeff, to learn of his whereabouts at the time of the murder. No, let me let me allow me. Fuck you. That's all bullshit.

[00:46:10] [SPEAKER_06] Yes. The police talk to all of those people extensively. And I think this really goes to the misogyny, frankly, that is at the heart of the Kinzu cult, which is they hate women. Oh, yeah. They hate women.

[00:46:25] [SPEAKER_03] Or they hate themselves if they are women.

[00:46:28] [SPEAKER_06] They, Mr. Habel contributed to this book, which says, oh, maybe Crystal was the killer. And that's basically what this is, because he's saying, whoa, why didn't they question Crystal about where she was? Maybe she was the killer. No, they did question her.

[00:46:43] [SPEAKER_03] They did question her. And she had a fucking alibi.

[00:46:47] [SPEAKER_06] Stop smearing victims who have already suffered mightily at the hands of your dear friend, Mr. Kanzu and his acolytes like yourself, Mr. Habel.

[00:46:58] [SPEAKER_03] Like, I just find this so odious. There's stuff about this that I don't know how much I want to get into just in simply like a flaming framed episode. Maybe this could be a separate thing. But I guess it wasn't that hard for us to find some of this information that he's acting like is impossible to find or that, you know, I and again, if you're going to put this out there. Or they never found if she had, you know, had an alibi or you're questioning.

[00:47:28] [SPEAKER_03] Where are you getting that from? At least put a source if you're going to do this shit, you know, like you didn't look like, you know what? This this whole fucking, you know, like, I'm sure we've all had this experience with our spouse. Kevin, I've been this person. Sometimes you're this person, you know. Hey, can you go get my red sweater? And then the person like looks around the room slightly. I don't see it. Well, look a little bit harder. And then it turns out it's like right in plain view. And you're like, oh, come on.

[00:47:55] [SPEAKER_03] This guy is doing the same thing in this case. He steps into the room. He gets, you know, he gets one look around, which is his interview with Kenzu. And it's I can't find anything. And it's like. You have to dig a little bit. You have to do your fucking job. Like. I don't know. I don't get it. I think it is misogyny. I think it is like blaming on Crystal. Crystal didn't do this. Crystal isn't the murderer.

[00:48:20] [SPEAKER_03] To suggest so with your only evidence being Kenzu said it is really odious. Crystal was not in Port Huron on the morning of the murder. Crystal's whereabouts are accounted for on the night before the murder. Crystal and Scott were eagerly awaiting their wedding in January and looking forward to that because they loved each other. Crystal and Scott were in the middle of the murder. The only problem in their lives at this point was Kenzu.

[00:48:50] [SPEAKER_03] Who they were terrified of.

[00:48:53] [SPEAKER_06] Rightfully so.

[00:48:54] [SPEAKER_03] Rightfully so. I do want to say this. I guess, again, it's like the double dealing. It's like it's like he's not even listening to himself talk in in the script. At one point he says this. He talks about how Michelle, who is Kenzu's, I guess, one of his hostages who gave birth to his son. She basically flees and doesn't participate in the trial.

[00:49:23] [SPEAKER_03] So this is what he says. Based on the accounts of multiple sources. Again, what the fuck does that mean? Pardon me. Based on the accounts of multiple sources, it appears far more plausible that Sergeant John Bounds deliberately threatened and intimidated Michelle to deter her from testifying, as Michelle herself has always maintained. Now let's go a little bit later. Moreover, Michelle had made Dean aware of this and confirmed her willingness to take the stand in support of Fred.

[00:49:53] [SPEAKER_03] Okay. So on the one hand, Michelle didn't testify because this evil cop scared her and made her run away and threatened her. Okay. So that's that's one. Then you have her going to the defense attorney and saying, hey, I'm totally fine to testify. Put me on the stand. Put me in, coach. Which is it? It can't be both.

[00:50:14] [SPEAKER_06] Can't be both.

[00:50:14] [SPEAKER_03] Now, here's the reality. The reality is that Michelle started out this investigation lying to police. And if David Dean, Kenzu's defense attorney, had put her on in any capacity, that would have opened her up to not only questioning about her lies and being impeached, but also questioning about her whereabouts during the murder. And also questioning about the abuse she experienced from Kenzu.

[00:50:41] [SPEAKER_06] Yes.

[00:50:42] [SPEAKER_03] Okay.

[00:50:42] [SPEAKER_06] Like there are very solid strategic reasons not to put Michelle on the stand.

[00:50:46] [SPEAKER_03] No, you're underplaying it. I'm going to tell you this. If Dean had put Michelle on, that would have been defense attorney malpractice to the extent that I would buy arguments that he was ineffective counsel. That's how bad it would have been. You don't put someone like that on the stand. That's that's. Whatever benefit you're going to get from her lying about him being there.

[00:51:12] [SPEAKER_03] It's going to be immediately destroyed when the prosecutor gets up there and says, well, you know, you said this, this and this and this and this and that all turned out to be lies. So why should we believe you? It would have been. There would have been no gain and all pain for the defense team. All these people, all these years later, second guessing that don't know how any of this shit works. So, yeah. And again, he's just from a podcast. If you're writing a script and you're contradicting yourself like a couple of paragraphs later, what are you doing? How do you not know that?

[00:51:41] [SPEAKER_03] How do you say the evil police scared her off? That's why she didn't testify. But also she wanted to testify in this evil defense attorney. Didn't let her testify. Which is it? All right. Are we going back to the clips?

[00:51:55] [SPEAKER_06] Play a clip.

[00:51:55] [SPEAKER_03] I'll do it.

[00:51:56] [SPEAKER_00] Despite having a sterling reputation for his involvement in community organizations and for his dedication to justice, some of Judge Corden's actions and decisions during the trial would later be called into question by Freeman's supporters. For example, the judge did not advise Freeman of his absolute right to testify in his own defense, something that would come back to haunt Fred.

[00:52:18] [SPEAKER_00] As mentioned by David Sanders in Proving Innocent's Temujin Kensu examination of a wrongful conviction, as well as other sources, Freeman had been told by trial counsel that he was not allowed to testify. Judge Corden did nothing to contradict that assumption.

[00:52:34] [SPEAKER_06] So, first of all, all that's lies. Because in an interview that Mr. Kensu gave to a reporter not long after the conclusion of the trial, Mr. Kensu made it clear it was his decision not to testify because he knew if he testified, they could ask him about a lot of character stuff that he didn't want to have brought into the trial. So he's lying there.

[00:53:01] [SPEAKER_06] He's lying, and this is another lie that Mr. Habel is passing on. And the other thing I wanted to say about this is one way to tell just how far in the tank someone is for Mr. Kensu is how intelligent they say he is. And I think Mr. Habel has certainly said, oh, Kensu is so smart. Oh, light of the world. Smart man. But then at the same time, they want us to think, oh, he's so dumb. He didn't know he could testify on his own behalf.

[00:53:30] [SPEAKER_06] And I don't know.

[00:53:32] [SPEAKER_03] To me, I mean, you're absolutely right. But to me, it's, I believe that later on in the show, he actually, like, goes into.

[00:53:48] [SPEAKER_06] He actually mentions that interview. Yeah. Which I want to mention something about that is he did such a sloppy job with this. He's such a profoundly lazy podcaster. It feels like a lot of these scripts were written years ago and never updated. Like, they just feel out of date. I think we'll get to one later where he acts like Mr. Kensu and his wife Paula are still together. And they're not.

[00:54:18] [SPEAKER_06] Update your stuff.

[00:54:19] [SPEAKER_03] This is what he says. I'm going to say it because you brought it up. I mean, like, you can't make this shit up. He's saying, oh, the judge, the supporter said the judge was bad because he didn't tell him. And then Kensu saying, no, I just didn't want to do it because of this. And then he incites it. Look. According to the article, Freeman claimed he declined to testify because he was afraid the prosecutor would dredge up information that was detrimental to his character.

[00:54:46] [SPEAKER_03] Believing that everyone has some skeletons in their closet, he told reporters that he thought the state would have tried to slander him due to some of his past misdeeds and questionable morals if he testified.

[00:54:55] [SPEAKER_06] So if you know, if you know that Mr. Kensu acknowledged it was his own choice not to testify, why do you put out this nonsense that Mr. Kensu was just a poor dupe who didn't know he could testify?

[00:55:09] [SPEAKER_03] It's just to bring back the restaurant metaphor. It's like it's like a chef knowing that a bunch of food fell on the floor and then serving it anyway. You know, it's like, you know, this is bad information that you're putting out because you're debunking it in your own episode. But you're trying to have it both ways. You're not saying, oh, turns out that thing I told you. That's not true. Here's the truth. You're not underlying it in any way. You're simply just like slapping it together. It's like you said earlier, like he has different faces for each room.

[00:55:39] [SPEAKER_03] Hable does. He'll kind of portray himself in interviews in one way or another. He's the light of the world versus I don't have any horse in the race. And what you have here is, I think, the same thing. You know, he's basically criticizing implicitly the prosecutor. Like, how dare they make him feel like they're going to bring out his bad character in a murder trial. And at the same time, you're going with the other side, which is, you know, how dare the judge not make it clear. And it's like.

[00:56:09] [SPEAKER_03] I just this is why I don't understand how this gets made other than someone just being like completely in the tank for Kenzu, because it just doesn't make any sense. These are not honest mistakes. They can't be because they contradict themselves. Again, like you can't make this up. Prior to the trial, motions in limine or pretrial motions were made to the court by both David Dean and Robert H. Cleland, the lead trial prosecutor for the state of Michigan.

[00:56:39] [SPEAKER_03] Does he not know what motions in limine are?

[00:56:43] [SPEAKER_06] No, he doesn't.

[00:56:44] [SPEAKER_03] No, I don't think he does either, because let me tell you something. They're not simply pretrial motions, although they do occur pretrial. They're actually when you ask the judge to rule on what specifically can or cannot come in at trial. So if I wanted a motion in limine in a trial against Kevin and he wanted to say, hey, I don't want Anya to be able to bring up the fact I love Captain Deez.

[00:57:14] [SPEAKER_03] He can file a motion in limine for Captain Deez during the trial. I think his legal knowledge is is just the shallowest thing imaginable. I mean, I guess it would have to be in order for this to happen.

[00:57:26] [SPEAKER_06] I'll say this. It's a big world. We can't all be experts in anything. I don't begrudge a person if they don't understand all the details of the legal process. What I begrudge a person on is whether or not they have basic integrity and basic honesty and whether or not they care about their fellow human beings.

[00:57:46] [SPEAKER_06] And listening to this podcast and the way he treats the facts, the way he treated Crystal and other victims, I think there's a real lack of integrity and empathy and decency in this man. And I'm perfectly fine making fun of him for his lack of knowledge of things. But that's not the real problem here. The real problem is his feelings as a person.

[00:58:06] [SPEAKER_03] I believe that if you're going to cover a subject in a podcast in which you're going to take a strenuous viewpoint, you better know what the fuck you're talking about.

[00:58:16] [SPEAKER_06] That's fair because he seems to think he can lecture us all on character evidence and things like that. Precisely. We definitely understand the process.

[00:58:23] [SPEAKER_03] Which has also been fucking adjudicated for years in Michigan by people who are a hell of a lot smarter than him.

[00:58:31] [SPEAKER_06] Do you want to talk about how he treated Crystal's testimony?

[00:58:34] [SPEAKER_03] Oh, gosh. Yeah, here we go. Okay.

[00:58:39] [SPEAKER_00] Crystal recalled that she'd again ask for her keys, feeling increasingly scared. She then disclosed that Freeman had forcibly raped her. It should be noted that this accusation that Crystal made in court was never reported to anyone, not the authorities or even her parents. And Frederick Freeman has never been charged or convicted of such a crime.

[00:58:59] [SPEAKER_06] So this is really offensive, victim-blaming stuff. I think in this time in our history, we're aware that it is common for some women not to immediately report.

[00:59:12] [SPEAKER_03] Some men, too, victims.

[00:59:14] [SPEAKER_06] Some men out of a misplaced sense of shame.

[00:59:17] [SPEAKER_03] No, but he also fails to mention that Kenzu threatened her and her family and said, I'm going to kill you and them if you ever say anything happened.

[00:59:25] [SPEAKER_06] Another question I would have for Mr. Habel, and I would appreciate a clear answer, which I know I'll never get, does he believe Crystal was raped? Does he believe she committed perjury on the stand? Because she didn't. I'd like him to come down firmly one way or the other instead of this mealy-mouthed bullshit.

[00:59:43] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, I think the question is, did Crystal commit perjury on the stand? Because that encompasses the rape, it encompasses the abuse, it encompasses all the bizarre ninja shit that he told her. I think if you believe Crystal committed perjury on the stand, you absolutely should say that. See how that goes? See how that goes with your 70% female audience, you know? Women are sick of this shit, okay?

[01:00:12] [SPEAKER_03] Men are, too, I think. A lot of men are, too. Men can be victims of this stuff as well. You know, anyone who's, like, honest about this sort of thing is sick of the fucking victim blaming and saying, well, she didn't turn, you know, you know.

[01:00:26] [SPEAKER_06] I think a lot of people are sick of men putting down guidelines for how they believe rape victims should have behaved if they want to be believed.

[01:00:36] [SPEAKER_03] In 1986, when the culture was very different, and I'll note that, again, we really don't just have to take Crystal's word for it, okay? I'm actually in a position where I believe in due process, and I believe in evidence, right? And one thing that bolsters Crystal's allegation of rape

[01:01:05] [SPEAKER_03] is the fact that a bunch of other women say the same exact thing happened to them. These women do not know each other. These women also came forward during the original investigation to at least say, this guy terrifies me and is coming after me. And since they've been, they've opened up. Yes, I was raped, too. Multiple women. You know what he says and kind of repeats as if it's just highly credible, even though I'm not aware of any child abuse allegations or cases against Kenzu's mother?

[01:01:35] [SPEAKER_03] He says, well, he had a highly violent, highly abusive childhood. Well, by this logic, why aren't you saying that there's no court cases regarding that in the system, right?

[01:01:44] [SPEAKER_01] Right.

[01:01:44] [SPEAKER_03] Why is it, why would we just take his word for it? By the way, I have reason to believe that that is not true. Yeah. That is not true that his mother was not abusive towards him. But, you know, if we're going to use this, you know, well, she didn't report it when it happened. And, yeah, you know, because she was extremely young, extremely terrified. This guy made her feel like he was going to kill her whole family and she didn't know how to deal with it and didn't know how to get the help she needed.

[01:02:14] [SPEAKER_03] You know, a lot of this stuff about his violence towards women and his attacks on them and the men that they were with would have probably come into trial in the modern day as we understand more about how intimate partner violence and patterns work. So when people complain about, oh, Crystal was too mean to him on the stand and that got him convicted, that is bullshit and that is simply, like, it probably would have been worse for him today.

[01:02:37] [SPEAKER_06] And here's the thing. If you truly and honestly believe it is wrong to bring up Mr. Kinzu's character, then take any accusations about Crystal's character out of your fucking mouth. Because if you are putting them up against each other and saying, oh, Crystal is a liar or Crystal is a perjurer, if you even hint that, then obviously we have to respond with the facts.

[01:03:07] [SPEAKER_06] And the fact is Crystal has excellent character. She's always had excellent character. And your dear friend, Mr. Kinzu, has always had an awful character. Now, being an awful person doesn't mean you are a murderer. Right. I've explained I think Mr. Habel is a bad person based on some of the choices he made in this podcast. I don't believe Mr. Habel is a murderer.

[01:03:28] [SPEAKER_03] No.

[01:03:29] [SPEAKER_06] And I can walk and chew gum at the same time. I'm not some idiot who hears, oh, this guy's a bad person. He must be guilty of everything. No. I based my determination about Mr. Kinzu's guilt in this matter on the actual evidence.

[01:03:43] [SPEAKER_03] Well, you know why? This is why they attack Crystal so hard. You know, this is why they've always attacked Crystal so much, the Kinzu people, because she gives motive. She was the star witness against this guy. She gave the whole story. She gave motive. She gave that he was stalking Scott. She gave that he had a shotgun. She's a huge portion of this case. She's not everything, but she is a very important witness. And they realize that. So they can't let up on her.

[01:04:13] [SPEAKER_03] It's either Crystal or Kinzu as far as these people are concerned. And I think to a large degree, they're right, because I think that the folks who think that he's innocent, who don't attack Crystal, at that point it becomes, well, who else did this? And I think that really weakens their argument. But I mean, at least they're doing the honorable thing by not attacking a rape victim. So I give them credit.

[01:04:33] [SPEAKER_03] But I think the folks on the kind of crazier side of this do actually see reality when they say it's Crystal or him.

[01:04:44] [SPEAKER_06] And I know who I choose.

[01:04:46] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, I certainly I certainly do, too.

[01:04:49] [SPEAKER_06] I think there's some things you want to talk about before we get to the next clip.

[01:04:55] [SPEAKER_03] So, I mean, this is just, I think, very telling. He talks about, quote, He has many supporters that agree with him, while some of those familiar with the case have serious doubts about his innocence. It's very interesting to me. Again, it's this kind of dancing around people who think he's guilty. He has no real concept of why anyone feels that way. He'll allude to them, but there's no curiosity at all. He goes on to say, this is great.

[01:05:23] [SPEAKER_03] However, the prosecution had a novel approach to presenting their case and a truly imaginative theory of how a cash-strapped 23-year-old who sometimes landed on the wrong side of the law could have accomplished. I want to point out something, and Crystal also testified to this. Kenzu always had money. How did he have money when he didn't have a job because he was a lazy piece of shit? Well, I'll tell you. He would extort that money from women he was with by forcing them to work for him, often making them go around and collect money in fake scams for fake charities.

[01:05:53] [SPEAKER_03] The real charity case was him because this man would not get a job because he's lazy, and he was a drain on society even before he took the life of a far better man. So, yeah, he always had money. This idea that he was broke because he was living in some shithole farmhouse in Rock, Michigan, just because he wasn't spending money on, like, his girlfriend and his soon-to-be-born son

[01:06:21] [SPEAKER_03] and, like, taking care of them and doing the right thing and trying to fix up the house, just because he doesn't have the same values as a normal person doesn't mean that he didn't have money. It just meant that that wasn't important enough for him to spend on. What did he want to spend on? Himself! To collect all his bullshit ninja weapons and to, you know, get his motorcycles and whatever. So, yeah, to say he was cash-strapped simply because Michelle was on welfare or whatever is nonsense. He always had money.

[01:06:50] [SPEAKER_03] He always had money. This is something that multiple women we talked to spoke about who knew him, and it's what Crystal testified to at trial. So he's centering the plane theory. He's, like, basically, this is all they have. This is the only way they could get him to the murder site, which is not true. The crux of the case was that he drove. They threw in the plane theory at the end just to make sure the jury basically got it.

[01:07:18] [SPEAKER_03] It's a crossing your T and dotting your I thing. I'm not going to defend the plane theory because I don't like the plane theory, but I don't need the plane theory. And to overstate this as if, no, they needed the plane theory to get this is dishonest. And if you read the trial, you'll know it's not true. He talks about, oh, there's so much publicity, pretrial publicity. How could they how could they try it in St. Clair County? You know, the seat of the powerful Macklems. And it's like the Macklems were from Croswell, which is in Sanilat County.

[01:07:46] [SPEAKER_03] Like he just he's just completing all these different things. Oh, gosh. He at one point cites a Law Enforcement Today article. Who's one of the co-authors of that, Kevin?

[01:08:00] [SPEAKER_06] Herb Welleser, who is one of the investigators for Mr. Kinzer.

[01:08:04] [SPEAKER_03] He cites it as if it's this independent source. And it's like, no, it's the guy you've been, you know, exclusively talking to, apparently. At the time of the trial, Cleland had recently lost a second bid for state attorney general just the day before Macklem had been murdered that prior November. And yet you're acting like this is why they investigated it so hard. The election was over. He lost. And again, I just want to be so clear to people. The Republican Party like needs to put somebody up for the AG's race.

[01:08:32] [SPEAKER_03] But that doesn't mean like it's going to be like a hotly contested thing that they expect to win because Michigan was solidly blue at the time. So like to act as if like, oh, Cleland's ambitions were foiled because he lost the race. Everyone knew he was going to lose is crazy. Like maybe do a little bit of research on the context of what you're talking about. Like instead of just going based on what sounds good because it's what Kenzu told you.

[01:09:04] [SPEAKER_03] He talked, they talk about, oh, they brought up the aliases and the implication was that he was dishonest and deceptive and it represented his character. Well, it did. So, yeah, that's fair. This is something I would be very curious about Hable's take on. Cleland suggested that Freeman's supposed absolute desire to manipulate, control and dominate the young woman led to the murder, painting the defendant as abusive, angry and jealous. Hable, do you dispute that?

[01:09:32] [SPEAKER_03] Do you dispute that that is who Kenzu is? That's what I want to know. Who disputes that at this point? So everyone can avoid you. He talks about how Dean brought up that Scott Macklem hadn't been at his first class. So how would Kenzu have even known where to look for him? I want to point something out. The person that the state posited was Kenzu was lurking around the parking lot as early

[01:10:00] [SPEAKER_03] as 8 a.m., which is when Scott's class was supposed to be. So I feel like they kind of missed the boat on that one. Someone was lying in wait for Scott there. And that person was Kenzu. Again, he brings up the fact that all these different ninja weapons were found in his trunk. And then before that, he was acting like, oh, you know, it's all speculation. He at one point gets back to Crystal again, just continuing to just beat up on her for absolutely no fucking reason.

[01:10:29] [SPEAKER_03] Once again, referencing the unique mystical powers she claimed he possessed. She described a sex crazed ninja assassin determined to make her a handmaid in his alleged harem. First of all, that's just what he does to all the girls. And second of all, she's not. Crystal's not an idiot. She's not saying that he's magic. She's saying he told her that he was. Which he did because we know that because he said that to G. He said that to other women. This is what he does.

[01:10:59] [SPEAKER_03] It's a playbook. He does it again and again. It's not like I feel like I'm going crazy sometimes. How do these people not see this?

[01:11:10] [SPEAKER_06] It's easy to not see things that you do not want to see.

[01:11:14] [SPEAKER_03] At one point, he does note that, you know, Crystal said. Well, this is how he frames it. She conceded she couldn't confirm if Freeman had a shotgun, but she thought the firearm in court resembled the one he showed her sister and her sister's boyfriend. And that he showed her. I believe he slept with the gun. She saw it. She's not a gun expert. She's not overstating things. She doesn't handle guns. She's being honest about what she saw, but what she describes matches a shotgun.

[01:11:43] [SPEAKER_03] She's not saying it's a shotgun because she's not going to overstate because she doesn't know the difference between a shotgun and a rifle. But when she's saying here are the pieces of it, here's how it all comes together, that adds up to a shotgun. At one point, Dean asked her why she continued a relationship with Freeman after the alleged rape. Crystal said it wasn't a conscious decision and Fred wouldn't let her escape his attention, which is super common with victims of abuse.

[01:12:12] [SPEAKER_03] I think now you want to get into some of the interesting commentary Habel had about, I think, one of the karate studio witnesses.

[01:12:19] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah, the most important witnesses in the case in terms of alibi were these karate studio witnesses who claimed to see Mr. Kenzu on the early afternoon of the day of the murder. And basically, if they were accurate, then it would have been impossible for him to have committed the murder and driven to the karate studio in time. And there was real strong reason to doubt the credibility of these witnesses for a variety

[01:12:49] [SPEAKER_06] of reasons, including the fact that they were contacted inappropriately by Mr. Kenzu himself. But while we play this clip that I found Mr. Habel said something interesting about the testimony of Kathleen Dyer, one of these witnesses. This is bizarre.

[01:13:18] [SPEAKER_06] This is like through the looking glass, Alice in Wonderland type stuff. He's saying that Prosecutor Cleland was unsuccessful in challenging her credibility when in fact, he successfully challenged her credibility because a juror after the trial said they thought that Ms. Dyer was mistaken when it came to the time she saw Mr. Kenzu.

[01:13:44] [SPEAKER_06] And so that means her credibility was successfully challenged. She was found to be not credible. They lost the case! They lost the case. Now, if you had a situation where Mr. Kenzu was acquitted, then you could say yes. Yes. That's true. He did not successfully challenge her credibility. But they lost. And the jurors specifically cited, we think this witness was mistaken. So what the hell?

[01:14:10] [SPEAKER_03] I'm not going to do what Habel did with the parking lot witnesses, namely Rennie Gobine, where he was acting like, well, Gobine wanted to be a cop. And cops love it when people frame people for murders or are witnesses to crimes. You know, if you've ever seen like a like a aftermath of a crime scene with all the crime scene tape and you see like cops like going out and like handing out their business cards to people like they're recruiting those people because, you know, they've seen a crime. So now they want they want in.

[01:14:39] [SPEAKER_03] So like I'm not going to do that. And I guess the equivalent of that would be me saying that like Kathleen Dyer wanted into the ninja council, you know, she was a martial artist, but, you know, she wanted to go further with that. And so she knew that by sucking up to Kenzu, she could get in on that fictional ninja council that he made up in his mind. No, I'm not going to say that. I think Kathleen Dyer is an honest person. I think all the people in the karate studio were just trying to be helpful. Like, I don't they're not I don't think they're lying.

[01:15:08] [SPEAKER_03] I don't think I think they're wrong. I just don't think it says anything about them as people necessarily. But the fact of the matter is and this is something Habel does not really make clear in his episode. I wonder why he makes it out like Dyer, John Manali, the owner of the studio and Mark Sherman are all like equally weighted as witnesses as like, oh, yeah, like these three people put him there.

[01:15:34] [SPEAKER_03] And the reality is that Sherman provides the necessary scaffolding for Dyer and Manali because he's the one who basically jogged their memories in this kind of bizarre phone tag that they were all doing where Manali is calling Dyer and saying, don't you remember it was this day? And that was after Kenzu called Manali and said, don't you remember it was this day after Manali was like arguing with him like, oh, I don't remember. Like. They tainted each other. OK, this is really bad. And it made them look bad in front of the jury.

[01:16:02] [SPEAKER_03] I don't mean bad as if they're bad people. I just mean it made them look like less than reliable. If you remember something, you remember it. You don't like need like three people calling you and starting this thing. There were certain things she didn't remember about that week that kind of made it seem like the week could have been similar to any other week. So maybe she just didn't remember this. And what's more, and Habel, for some reason, just totally skims over this.

[01:16:29] [SPEAKER_03] The jury heard from people who were other people that Kenzu tried to do this to, where he'd call them and say, don't you remember me that day? And they'd be like, no. And he'd be like, are you sure? And they'd be like, yes. Like that made them not credible in the eyes of the jury. Doesn't mean they're lying. Doesn't mean they're bad. The power of suggestion can be very powerful. And that's it. I think later on, Habel tries to act like, oh, people are criticizing Dyer. I'm not.

[01:16:59] [SPEAKER_03] I'm sure she's a lovely woman. The jury has a right to look at that and say, that's not really the alibi we were promised.

[01:17:08] [SPEAKER_06] Such stale talking points have been debunked time and time again.

[01:17:12] [SPEAKER_03] You know, like he even brings up Phil Joplin, who is the jailhouse informant. You know, he brings up, oh, there was a guy, Booker T. Brown, who's Joplin's cousin. And he said he didn't hear anything. Well, he was not in the cell with them for the whole time. He was in there for a fraction of the time.

[01:17:30] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah. Kenzu and Joplin were in the cell together for an extended time. Booker Brown was in the cell for part of that time. Booker Brown says, I didn't hear him confess. Joplin said, well, he confessed, but he confessed at a time when Booker Brown was not in the cell. And again, all of this came out at the trial. Booker Brown testified. This is all. It's just tiresome.

[01:17:52] [SPEAKER_03] Like the jury heard all of that and made a decision based on all that wasn't hidden from the jury.

[01:17:59] [SPEAKER_06] It's like, do a better job, man. These are very stale talking points that were debunked decades ago.

[01:18:04] [SPEAKER_03] This is like one of those YouTube shows where they eat like really stale food from like the 50s or something. He also brings up, oh, my gosh, he was a high profile witness in the state's case. He was so high profile that they only added him at the last minute because they felt they had enough without him. But then his thing came up and they added him. If the prosecutors like we're rolling, then they're ready. They feel like they don't need him. And then when he comes up, they use him. Fine. I don't love jailhouse informants.

[01:18:31] [SPEAKER_03] That's not something I would necessarily feel comfortable basing my personal decision on in a case. They have a right to put him on there. And he certainly knew weird details that like he shouldn't have known about, like how like, you know, an incident that really happened where Crystal and Kenzu went to a specific Chinese restaurant that I think turned out to be closed. Like he knew stuff. He knew stuff about Scott screaming. He knew things that, as far as I'm aware, were not really out there.

[01:19:01] [SPEAKER_03] Again, would I base my decision on him? No, I wouldn't. But I mean, to act as if that's what they needed is crazy.

[01:19:10] [SPEAKER_06] So I think I've mentioned that there was this thread on Reddit where they said like Anya and I were the elephant in the room that couldn't really be mentioned. There was another elephant in the room that was mentioned somewhat briefly. And this is the fact that Mr. Kenzu wrote this absolutely absurd book in which he created a really ridiculous fake religion.

[01:19:34] [SPEAKER_06] And the primary tenet of this religion, as best I could tell, is that Mr. Kenzu was a really cool guy who can do whatever he wants. Now, when Mr. Habel appeared on Crawl Space with Tim and Lance, he made a point to downplay the importance of this volume.

[01:19:53] [SPEAKER_01] Wait, he wrote this book, too, right? A 600-page book about this religion? I guess my question about this is did he ever try to like, I don't know, share the religion to get other people sort of worshipping him or anything like that in prison?

[01:20:09] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, yeah. So that's actually a thing. It appears to me like he attempted to reverse things because there aren't many copies of this book out there. And I have people asking me for my copy. I managed to get a copy and I've been reading it. I didn't get it cheap either because it's so rare. So I've been looking through it. It appears to me like he has since moved on from it, like it was a project that he put a lot of time into and effort in.

[01:20:36] [SPEAKER_00] Reading through it, I can tell you, it definitely feels like it was a passion project for him at the time. But when I've talked to him since, and this is just my take on it, I don't know what he'd actually say. But it seems to me like he's kind of proud of it, but isn't behind it. It's more like, well, if it helps others, then great. Because, you know, that's what some people would tell you is when you're becoming spiritual and you're looking for answers,

[01:21:00] [SPEAKER_00] sometimes it's just about what it does for you on a daily basis more than if it actually means anything in the grand scheme of things. Is there a God, etc.?

[01:21:09] [SPEAKER_06] Okay. So first of all, he's saying, oh, this book is no longer important to my dear friend, Mr. Kenzo.

[01:21:16] [SPEAKER_03] He didn't tell me that. That's just the vibe I get.

[01:21:18] [SPEAKER_06] Because I know him and understand him so well. And literally, while this series is being released, presumably, literally while Mr. Havel was giving that interview, Mr. Kenzo is involved in court action about the end of his marriage to Paula Kenzo. Why is the marriage ending? The marriage is ending because Paula is upset because the religion is so important to Mr. Kenzo, the Catholic religion,

[01:21:48] [SPEAKER_06] that he wants her to have sister wives. Because one of the tenets of the religion is Mr. Kenzo can do whatever he wants. And one thing he wants is to have extra wives. So Mr. Havel is misleading the audience and saying, oh, this religion is not important to Mr. Kenzo anymore at a time when Mr. Kenzo is ending his marriage because of the importance of this religion to him. Mr. Havel also addressed this book on his own program frame.

[01:22:14] [SPEAKER_03] I want to... Go ahead. Before we get to that, let me just say, like, this to me is just such peak Kenzo enslavement syndrome that we're seeing from Havel because it's like he's too scared to even ask the guy about it directly and get his take. Hey, is this religion still important to you? Also, what the fuck? You know, he doesn't want to ask that. It's very clear. It's uncomfortable. He doesn't want to make his guy uncomfy. So instead, he just is cruising on vibes.

[01:22:45] [SPEAKER_03] And like, well, they didn't print more copies and they were kind of incompetent about it. So I guess that means it's not important to him. That's the vibe I get. Like, the one thing that Havel could have brought to the table was actually ask him about some of these things that have come up that we put out there. Like, you have access to him. He won't talk to us. He's scared of us. You talk to him. To ask him about some of this stuff, get his response. That's actually useful. That furthers the story. That gets him to respond. That gets him on the record.

[01:23:11] [SPEAKER_03] He won't even do that because he's scared of the guy or because he doesn't want to hurt his feelings. He's way too emotionally invested in this.

[01:23:18] [SPEAKER_06] I'm petty enough. I wonder if Mr. Havel had even heard of this book before we mentioned it on our program.

[01:23:25] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, I don't think he knows his ass from his elbows on this case, honestly. I think he's just acting like a puppet of this guy. It's bizarre. It's bizarre. I've never... Would this show be that much different if we found out... Like, would it have come out that much differently if we found out that, like, I don't know, he's in the cult? Or, like, the cult has his family. Like, you know, parts of this feel like a cry for help. I don't think the book's important anymore.

[01:23:55] [SPEAKER_06] Mr. Kenzu is the light of the world.

[01:23:57] [SPEAKER_03] He's the light of the world. Like, what is... Why? How do you get there? How do you even get there? You put this out there in the world in 2026.

[01:24:05] [SPEAKER_06] Mr. Havel also addressed the book on his own program, Frame.

[01:24:09] [SPEAKER_00] As a result of his studies, perhaps not wholly satisfied with Buddhism, he founded his own religion while in prison. Similar to Taoism, he dubbed it Kathol, and appointed himself the sect's spiritual leader, or Omi Samyan, Reverend Father. Needless to say, this all seems alarmingly cult-like and is quite concerning. However, Kenzu is quick to assure those who ask that the Kathol religion espouses the practitioner's personal belief in the following.

[01:24:36] [SPEAKER_00] The power of self, respect for spouse and family, and care and nurturing of the planet that is a foundation for all that is good. Supporters claim that the deity is within, as is the power for living and building the best possible life. Kenzu and his followers believe there is the power for good in what they offer, and that peace and joy for the followers can create a new path for a troubled world. Given his bleak surroundings, who can begrudge him a little peace?

[01:25:03] [SPEAKER_06] I can. I can happily begrudge this asshole peace. And I think it is telling that Mr. Habel is so concerned about whether Mr. Kenzu gets peace, and he doesn't care about any of Mr. Kenzu's victims and whether or not they get peace. Instead, he likes it when his reply guy says, oh, let's dox a rape victim. I don't care if Mr. Kenzu has peace. He doesn't deserve peace.

[01:25:31] [SPEAKER_06] He is a remorseless killer and rapist who fancies himself a god. He manipulates and stalks people. The fact that a manipulator and a control freak has a religion he created that has him at the center of it, that is incredibly concerning. And it is not about a man trying to find peace. But to the extent that it is about a man trying to find peace, I begrudge him, and I will begrudge him until my dying breath.

[01:25:58] [SPEAKER_05] Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail dot com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

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[01:26:44] [SPEAKER_05] Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for The Murder Sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com.

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