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mysteries that keep you... It's

2:01

incredibly difficult to watch as

2:03

a promising life is cut down by

2:05

unknown sources. On

2:23

April 21, 2014, a mother and

2:25

daughter who had everything in life

2:27

to look forward to were

2:30

brutally slain by a person or

2:32

persons unknown. So,

2:35

if you like your coffee hot but your bones

2:37

chilled, sit back and start your day

2:39

with a morning cup of murder. Kathy

2:43

Hart in Netherland, when described by those

2:45

who knew and loved her, was said

2:47

to be a caregiver who often put

2:49

the needs of others ahead of herself.

2:52

Having lost her mother at a very young

2:54

age, she and her sister went to live

2:56

with their grandparents until their grandmother passed away

2:59

as well, and they were

3:01

moved once again back to Bardstown, Kentucky

3:03

to live with their father and step-siblings.

3:07

A little older, Kathy attended Western

3:09

Kentucky University, where she would meet

3:11

her future husband, Bob Netherland. The

3:14

pair lived a happy, healthy,

3:16

and normal life together, and

3:18

eventually made their way to Bob's hometown

3:21

of Campbellsville to raise their daughters, and

3:23

so Kathy could take care of her

3:25

husband's ailing grandmother and mother.

3:29

Unfortunately, the move to Campbellsville

3:31

left Kathy, even with

3:33

her two master's degrees in

3:35

vocational rehabilitation and family studies,

3:38

with very little in the way of job opportunities.

3:41

So, she decided to pursue yet

3:43

another master's degree in special education.

3:46

Landing a new job in Bardstown, the

3:48

family moved for what would be the

3:51

final time. Bob, for years,

3:53

had worked as a social worker for the state and

3:55

private agencies, but after decades of

3:58

watching families torn apart and children

4:00

left unwanted, he decided to

4:02

leave the job that took such a toll on him

4:05

and began work in a local Walmart,

4:07

meat and dairy department. The pair were

4:09

incredibly happy with the life they had

4:11

built together and often sharing

4:13

loving tributes to one another on social media.

4:16

In August of 2012, they

4:19

blissfully celebrated their 25-year wedding

4:21

anniversary together. Just

4:24

two months later though, they were

4:26

completely blindsided when Bob

4:28

was diagnosed with colon

4:30

cancer and began deteriorating

4:33

rapidly. He passed

4:35

away in July of 2013 and

4:37

Kathy, having just lost the love

4:39

of her life, had to

4:41

learn to live life on her own again.

4:44

Trying her best to move on, Kathy devoted

4:46

all of her time and energy into her

4:49

daughters and the children at

4:51

Bardstown Elementary School. Working

4:53

as their special ed teacher, people said

4:55

she was known as the troubled student

4:58

whisperer and never seeing

5:00

these kids as bad, she

5:03

had a real knack for helping them

5:05

succeed. She did all

5:07

of this while raising two beautiful girls who

5:10

in April of 2014, one

5:12

Holly was off at college while

5:14

the other Samantha was living

5:16

with her mother, succeeding as a

5:19

star student, volunteering at

5:21

the Humane Society and had just

5:23

recently been accepted into a prestigious school

5:25

for gifted upperclassmen, a

5:28

school in which she would live on

5:30

campus and receive college credits. With

5:33

dreams of becoming a marine biologist,

5:35

Samantha was set up for success

5:37

and was ready with the help

5:39

of her mother to flourish despite

5:42

the devastating loss of her father.

5:44

She had also just recently been asked to

5:46

prom and had purchased the perfect dress for

5:49

the special evening, a garment

5:51

that unfortunately she

5:53

would never get the chance to wear on the dance

5:56

floor. On March 21st, 2014, the beautiful

6:00

The beautiful future of both mother and

6:02

daughter was brutally taken away when

6:04

an unknown killer or

6:06

killers entered their home and

6:09

ripped away their promising lives.

6:12

The following day, when Kathy failed to show

6:14

up to work without a phone call, her

6:17

colleague, Gladys King, simply

6:19

thought that the now single mother must

6:21

have overslept. So this

6:23

wasn't like Kathy, everyone was entitled to

6:25

a late night, and she even thought

6:28

that maybe she'd gone out to visit

6:30

with Holly at school two hours away.

6:33

Having spoken to her friend on the phone

6:35

about Samantha's prom and her worries about Holly

6:37

being so far away, Gladys

6:39

had no idea that she was the

6:42

last person to ever speak with Kathy

6:44

Netherland, but would later remark how the

6:46

widow seemed hopeful and was, quote,

6:49

quote, finally coming to grips

6:51

with everything. Finding out

6:53

that she did not make a call for a

6:55

substitute teacher, Gladys found Kathy's

6:58

stepsister, who also worked at

7:00

the school, Stephanie Thompson, and together they

7:02

tried to call the missing woman's cell

7:04

phone. While all of this

7:06

was happening, Kathy's father and another stepsister

7:08

went to her home and saw that,

7:11

though Kathy's car was sitting in the driveway, no

7:14

one was answering the door. Concerned,

7:17

Norris Harden peered through the windows

7:19

and saw, lying on the ground

7:21

in her dining room, the

7:23

body of his daughter. Running

7:25

to the back door to try and get

7:28

inside, he found his granddaughter as well and

7:30

called the police. By

7:33

11am, word spread throughout the school and, though

7:36

the details were hazy, everyone

7:38

was shocked to find out that

7:40

both Kathy and Samantha Netherland were

7:42

dead. In

7:44

what would later be described as

7:46

an incredibly brutal double homicide that

7:48

rocked the town of Bardstown, Kentucky,

7:50

48-year-old Kathy Netherland was shot to death

7:53

and her 16-year-old daughter Samantha was

7:55

bludgeoned in the head before both

7:57

were slashed across the neck. Samantha,

8:01

when finally laid to rest, was

8:03

placed in that unused prom dress

8:05

before being lowered into the ground.

8:09

As more and more people found out about

8:11

the crime and those who knew the victims

8:13

insisted that they never had any enemies and

8:16

were not the type to ruffle any feathers, many

8:19

noted how this was not the first

8:21

unsolved slang to occur in a small

8:23

picturesque city. A year

8:25

before the mother-daughter slang, a Bardstown

8:28

police officer, Jason Ellis, was ambushed

8:30

on an exit ramp on

8:32

his way home to his wife and his kids. Someone

8:35

had laid out tree branches onto the

8:37

roadway as some sort of trap and

8:40

used a shotgun to end the man's life.

8:43

There was also, a little later, Crystal

8:45

Rogers, who vanished in July of 2015 and,

8:47

now presumed she was

8:50

dead, was last seen by her boyfriend

8:52

and the father of her baby, Brooks

8:54

Hope. And just

8:56

a year later, her father, Tommy Ballard,

8:58

a man who vowed to never give

9:00

up the search for his daughter, was

9:02

shot and killed while hunting with his

9:04

grandson in a murder that

9:07

many believe is connected to Crystal's

9:09

disappearance. Each

9:11

case, Kathy and Samantha's included,

9:14

lead to small-town rumors and fears

9:16

that something nefarious might be happening

9:18

in the town once voted

9:20

the most beautiful in America. Some

9:23

even worried that the place might

9:25

be cursed. Investigating

9:28

the scene of the crime, police found

9:31

very little in the way of clues,

9:33

with the exception of the nearby surveillance

9:35

tapes that captured a black car driving

9:37

near the Netherlands home the night of

9:39

the murder. One that

9:41

was seen parked in their driveway just

9:43

before 8pm and likely contained

9:46

the killer who, somehow, entered

9:48

the home and killed two women

9:50

without leaving behind traces. Retracing

9:53

their steps, investigators learned that, after stopping

9:55

at a grocery store on their way

9:57

home, the pair picked up a

9:59

pizza, had dinner and were

10:01

winding down for the evening just before

10:03

that car pulled up. Both in

10:05

pajamas, Samantha took their

10:08

dog outside sometime after 7pm

10:11

and shortly before her murder, she

10:13

said goodnight to the boyfriend that she had been

10:15

texting back and forth with all day. After

10:18

the car was seen pulling up into the house, a

10:20

dark figure walked up to the door, stepped

10:23

inside without hesitation, and then

10:25

left 15 minutes later. With

10:29

little to go on but some

10:31

potential DNA, officers began

10:33

interviewing anyone and everyone in

10:35

Kathy and Samantha's lives, and

10:38

announced to the public that they needed

10:40

help locating a total of three vehicles

10:42

captured on surveillance the night of the

10:44

murders. Some that could

10:46

belong to witnesses, and one that

10:48

could belong to their killer. Eventually

10:51

narrowing down their search to a 2006 to 2013

10:53

black Chevy Impala, they scoured the records of hundreds

10:55

of vehicle registrations

11:00

in the area but came

11:02

up empty-handed. While they

11:04

continued looking for the car, even telling the

11:07

public that maybe it was borrowed and that

11:09

it very well could smell like bleach now

11:11

due to a cleanup, those who

11:13

knew the Netherland family wondered if it

11:16

was Samantha and not Kathy

11:18

who was the target that evening.

11:21

Citing her injuries and the brutal nature of

11:23

her murder, they also pointed out

11:25

that nothing of worse like the

11:27

iPad, phone, and purse left in

11:29

plain sight was taken

11:31

and therefore, robbery was likely

11:33

not the motive. They also

11:36

determined that since the missing murder weapon

11:38

did not seem like anything found in

11:40

Kathy's home, the killer likely brought the

11:42

items with them, meaning the

11:45

attack was not random and

11:47

that someone inside must have been the

11:49

target. The problem was, Samantha

11:51

was described as a quiet, shy,

11:54

reserved, and calm young woman. Again,

11:57

not the type to gather enemies

11:59

or upset someone. so much

12:01

that they decided to commit murder. But

12:04

some strange things did happen in the days leading

12:06

up to their deaths. Like the

12:08

cryptic message that Kathy sent to a friend that,

12:11

though it did not generate any further leads,

12:14

did mention that she was about to have to

12:16

make a tough decision that she wasn't looking forward

12:18

to. She didn't

12:20

give any further details at the time, but

12:23

the friend worried that it had something to

12:25

do with Kathy's other daughter, Holly. A

12:28

young girl who briefly was considered

12:30

a suspect due to her sometimes

12:32

volatile relationship with her mother. Nothing

12:36

panned out and a year after the murders,

12:39

Holly, in her first time speaking with the

12:41

public, tearfully announced a

12:44

$50,000 reward for information on her family's case.

12:47

She desperately pleaded with people to come

12:49

forward and, now completely

12:51

on her own, she

12:54

would give anything to tell her mother how

12:56

much she influenced her and

12:58

to hear her sister sing one last

13:00

time. Every

13:03

single lead, most of which were small

13:05

to begin with, came to

13:07

a dead end, and the case of

13:09

who killed Kathy and Samantha Netherland remains

13:11

a mystery. There have

13:14

been only two major updates reported in

13:16

this case. In

13:18

2018, during the season finale of

13:20

Oxygen's docu-series, The Disappearance of Crystal

13:23

Rogers, a reporter spoke

13:25

with an anonymous prison inmate who

13:27

claimed the murders were a gang

13:29

initiation. When pressed for

13:31

details, this inmate claimed, quote,

13:36

I know that they were tied to their chairs. I

13:39

know that one of them had her throat slit. They

13:42

were stabbed, and one was shot. I

13:45

know that trinkets were taken as trophies. Going

13:48

further, they said that a cell phone jammer was

13:50

placed in the front of their door, to, quote,

13:53

kill all the signal in the house, and

13:56

when a retired homicide detective met with Holly to try

13:58

and confirm the inmate's fees had been made. She

14:01

said a series about gang initiations

14:03

and trophies might have been

14:05

possible. When speaking about

14:07

the cell phone jammer, she said, quote, I

14:09

mean, that would explain why they didn't get

14:12

a call off because I know my mom

14:14

always had a phone in her hand. I'd

14:16

like to think that if something happened to

14:18

mom, that she would have tried to get

14:20

a call off. She would have had a

14:23

cell phone. Then

14:25

in 2023, a special prosecutor was assigned to

14:28

the cases of Jason Ellis, Crystal

14:30

Rogers, Tommy Ballard, and,

14:32

quote, any other criminal

14:35

activity discovered as part of the

14:37

investigations into those matters. Though

14:39

Kathy and Samantha's murders were not part of this

14:42

inquiry, if they are connected

14:44

to the other cases, then hopefully

14:46

this search will find that out.

14:49

As of now, though, their case

14:51

remains unsolved. Thank you for

14:54

joining me in my morning cup of murder. Please

14:56

join me again tomorrow to hear a terrible thing

14:58

happened on April 22nd. Don't

15:01

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