Lt. Joe Kenda is putting to rest the cases that kept him up at night. After a 23-year-long career solving hundreds of homicide cases with a 92% closure rate, Kenda’s grit and determination have long made him a respected figure in the law enforcement community, but the few cases he didn’t manage to close have always been in the back of his mind. Kenda returns to ID for three new theatrical-length Homicide Hunter specials chronicling three of the previously-unsolved cases that haunted him for so many years – until they were no longer unsolved.
Ahead of the Homicide Hunter: Never Give Up premiere on Wednesday, Aug. 17, Kenda spoke to PopCulture.com about the debut special, which focuses on the murder of 20-year-old active-duty soldier Darlene Krashoc, whose killer was a “ghost” in the night for decades after she was found murdered and sexually assaulted behind a restaurant in Colorado in March 1987.
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“You always agonize, or at least I did, over the cases,” Kenda told PopCulture of the unsolved mysteries that plague his thoughts at night. In Krashoc’s case, Kenda remembers coming to a dead end with nothing but a description of a stranger who matched “80% of the males in North America.” With violent crime by strangers making up a very small percentage of murders in the U.S., Kenda and his team had nowhere to go and no one else to speak to back in 1987: “Nobody knew who he was, nobody knew his name,” Kenda said.
Before the case went cold, however, Kenda fought to meticulously package and preserve every piece of fluid evidence found at the crime scene, despite it being an expensive and complicated endeavor at the time. “We don’t know if this is gonna work, and maybe it will mean nothing, and maybe it will mean everything,” Kenda said of the decision. More than 30 years later, with the help of new DNA technology, that decision changed the game, and it definitively put a name to Krashoc’s killer – Michael David Whyte.
Whyte was sentenced to life in prison last year. Kenda testified in the case against him. “We don’t forgive. And we don’t forget,” Kenda said. He added of his high solve rate, “I’m not smarter than anybody else. I’m just determined.” With Krashoc’s family finally receiving closure three decades later, Kenda has one less nightmare keeping him up at night, and details on the other two Homicide Hunter: Never Give Up specials will be announced at a later date.
Homicide Hunter: Never Give Up premieres Wednesday, Aug. 17 from 9-11 p.m. ET on ID, and American Detective with Lt. Joe Kenda, just aired its Season 3 finale. Both series are available to stream on discovery+.
