Killer Story | 5. Diners, Dreams, and Death

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Previously on Killer Story.

He sat there seeming so innocent

and it was easy to believe that he genuinely cared.

While in the world would,

someone be taken out of $400,000 insurance policy

on a teenage girl that made no sense whatsoever.

Here it is. Here's the motive.

It's three years since Sabrina Kid

disappeared without a trace

and Jim Bixel, her former boyfriend,

rarely thinks about her anymore.

She was in his life one day and the next,

she was gone.

Jim moved on.

I thought she was missing

or moved back to Texas or ran off with somebody.

Jim's moved on from racing

down mountain roads on this motorcycle

and now he's an EMT at a local ambulance company.

One day he's on a 24 hour shift

when his phone rings.

It's Tommy, son of Tom Preston.

Tommy was Jim's childhood best friend.

He's known Tommy forever.

They played little league baseball together.

But Tommy moved out of Vegas

and Jim and Tommy drifted apart.

On the phone,

Tommy needs to reconnect with his best friend.

He sounds scared.

I'm like, what's going on?

He says, I can't talk to you right now.

He goes, I need to see a person.

He goes, I'm coming to Vegas right now.

I need you to get out of work.

We need to talk.

He was crying.

I'd never seen or heard Tom

that like that.

The kid was devastated

and was scared of something.

He's like, Jimmy says, I need to talk to you.

Like now.

And I said, what's this about?

And he says, this is about my fucking dad.

That's Preston.

He goes, he's a fucking asshole.

Jimmy says, and I'm in trouble.

I need to talk to you.

Jim asks his boss to cover his shift.

He heads home and waits for Tommy.

Hours go by.

Tommy never shows up.

This is Killer Story.

I'm Steve Fishman,

Episode 5,

Diner's Dreams and Death.

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Let's go places.

It's two days after Tommy's urgent call to Jim.

Two days after Tommy failed to show up at Jim's house.

Jim's back at his EMT job.

He's doing some paperwork waiting to be called to somebody's emergency.

A TV is playing in the background.

And channel 8 news at noon comes on.

One of their top stories was that a young white male was found in a drainage pipe

off the highway.

Jim doesn't pay much attention.

Why watch on TV when he sees all the time at work?

But a couple of days later the same story is back on the news.

They announced on the news that that body that was found in the drainage pipe

off that highway was identified as Tommy's last or pressing the third.

That's Tommy.

Holy crap.

And I'm like, that's why he never showed up.

Somebody freaking killed him and stuffed him in this drainage pipe.

And I'm thinking, what is going on?

According to news reports, Tommy was murdered execution style.

A bullet in his head.

Jim has no idea what happened.

But some answers may be on the way.

A few weeks after Tommy's murder, Jim gets a call from Tommy's dad, also named Tom Preston.

I'm referring to him as Preston for clarity.

Preston is calling Jim and, as with his son, it seems urgent.

He wants to speak to Jim in person and suggest the diner.

Jim figures Preston wants to talk about Tommy,

mourn his son with his son's best friend.

So I agreed to be with him.

Jim arrives on time.

I'll walk in, I sit down.

Preston is already there.

It's very first thing he says to me.

He says, Jimmy, he says, the police think I have something to do with Sabrina's disappearance

and I need your help.

Sabrina, this is not the person he expects to hear about.

Jim realizes he doesn't actually know much about Preston.

Though, he now knows one thing.

Like his son, Preston is apparently in trouble.

He says, the cops think I have something to do with their disappearance.

I had nothing to do with it.

Seated across the table from Preston, Jim doesn't know what to think.

Except maybe, why come to me?

He says, so I need you to go to the police and tell them that you saw her on a,

he gave me a specific date at a time and everything of what I allegedly saw her.

He wanted me to tell this big elaborate story to the police to try to, I guess, clear his name

of, you know, if any wrongdoing.

Preston is asking Jim to say that he saw Sabrina after she disappeared.

Seems he's trying to imply that Sabrina is still alive.

I mean, this is one of my best friends as a dad.

In other words, Jim feels some loyalty to Preston.

But still, he's not comfortable.

Here's the story, Preston wants Jim to tell the police.

You know, you saw her at Marl Parkway in Vegas Valley.

It says in such time on this date and she was with a black guy driving a yellow,

yellow Cadillac and they were going north down Marl Parkway.

You pulled up next to her in your ambulance.

You looked over.

You saw her.

She saw you.

You waved.

Like, hey, roll your window down and she's waved at you and they drove off.

He says, that's all I need you to say.

It's a really detailed story, which kind of gives it the ring of truth.

But it's a fabrication.

Jim isn't prepared for any of this.

Preston, though, has more.

And he said, if you say this, if you go to the police and do this for me,

Jimmy says, I'm going to give you Tommy's new Mustang GT and I'll give you 5,000 hours of cash.

This guy is just trying to bribe me to come up with some lie to the police to get him off.

Something else strikes Jim.

He never, ever brought up his son Tommy.

There's a whole conversation.

It was all about Sabrina.

That's all it was about.

I'm like, man, this is wild.

And not really even about Sabrina.

In Jim's mind, this is about helping Preston, helping him redirect suspicion for Sabrina's disappearance

away from himself.

I'm like, I'm freaking out at this time.

My gut just ripples up and I'm thinking he had something to do with Sabrina's disappearance, 100%.

And I got scared.

I'm thinking now Tommy just ended up dead.

All these things are going through my brain as he's talking.

I'm thinking about Tommy's and I his last conversation.

Tommy's calling his name.

He's in trouble.

He's crying.

And I can't help but think, man, that he's got something to do with both of these.

With Sabrina's disappearance and with Tommy's murder, I was scared to death.

Scared to death and still in a booth in a diner across from Preston, who's still awaiting Jim's answer.

So I'd said, look, there's a lot going on.

There's a lot to process and I said, I'll probably do it because I wanted to just tell him whatever he wanted to hear so I could get away from the guy.

Jim exits the restaurant and walks through the parking lot.

I remember getting on my motorcycle and I left there and I'm like, something's up.

I couldn't put my finger on it.

I knew something wasn't right.

I'm thinking Tom's dad actually killed his own son.

And if Preston could do that, what else is he capable of?

Who is this guy Preston?

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In 1991, Linda's looking in the Preston.

To her mind, he's the prime suspect in a murder.

Linda wonders, why would he have an insurance policy for Sabrina?

One her own mother wasn't even on.

But in truth, four years earlier to Sabrina, Preston is the kind generous father of her friend Tommy.

Remember that until Sabrina moves into Preston's home, she was knocking around from place to place.

And so Preston's modest house on a cul-de-sac must seem to her like a safe, stable landing.

The house's decorations are a little haphazard.

Preston's wife has just moved out. They're divorcing.

And she took a bunch of photos with her leaving bare spots on the walls.

After they divorced, it looked more of a, uh, a basketball pad, if you will.

That's Jim, who was a frequent visitor once Sabrina moved in.

Sabrina doesn't care what the place looks like.

The house has four bedrooms and she gets one.

Sabrina most likely decamps to Preston's place in her early September, just a few weeks before she disappears.

Preston seems to go out of his way to make the teenager comfortable.

Her friends are welcome. Preston has an open door policy.

He's not on top of anyone. He's not insisting on neatness, for instance.

Jennifer remembers a visit to Sabrina's bedroom.

I just remember going in there one day and all of the clothes were like, you know, like a girl would do.

Like she was trying to find something to wear.

So they were like piles of clothes everywhere and the suitcases were open.

And, you know, it was kind of like that. It was a, it was a little bit in disarray.

So Sabrina is in charge of her life, her messy life.

But for her, the real comfort must come from living with friends.

It's as if Preston is curated just the right crowd for her.

She's son Tommy and Tommy's girlfriend Denise live at the house too.

What else makes Preston look good to Sabrina in 1987?

Well, he offers to help her.

He takes an interest in her future.

He asks Sabrina what she wants to do with her life.

The way the story gets told, when Preston inquired about her future,

Sabrina answered that she was interested in modeling.

Sabrina hadn't ever modeled before.

And as far as I can tell, she hadn't ever mentioned a modeling dream to those closest to her,

not to friends or relatives, not to her mother,

who had once been a model herself, nude in Playboy magazine,

according to Sabrina's cousin.

Preston, though, is boundlessly enthusiastic about Sabrina's possibilities.

One day, Sabrina and her friend Jennifer are in a car with Preston.

The whole way back, he was talking to her about modeling and this,

and I remember sitting there, you know, like half a sweep going,

this guy is so full of shit.

He really sold it to her.

Preston assures Sabrina.

He can help make her dream, if it really is her dream, come true.

He has connections, he tells her.

Sabrina must be tickled.

Until now, her crowning achievement is an eighth grade certificate for excellence in math.

And Preston is talking about making her a star.

Sabrina tells Jim about the exciting possibilities Preston is lining up,

including, apparently, a sprite commercial.

And he had told Sabrina that he had her set up to do a sprite commercial.

It was to make a ton of money off of the sprite commercial she was going to do.

So Preston offers a home interest, prospects, and money.

All things Sabrina wants.

In 87, Preston seems to be giving direction to Sabrina's directionless life.

There are a few skeptics, though, like her friend Jennifer.

Sure, Jennifer believes Sabrina could be a model and told her so.

Yeah, 100% you could.

You're tall and thin and pretty, and yeah, I mean, you could.

But he ain't going to make that happen for you.

But praise can be intoxicating, maybe especially for a kid on her own.

Sabrina didn't seem concerned.

I'll come on, Jennifer.

And she's like, yeah, but maybe it'll go somewhere.

It's my friend's dad, you know?

I suspect Sabrina was more committed than she let on.

To me, the modeling plans were Preston's brainstorm,

but then Sabrina embraces them.

And with a determination she's never previously shown.

She calls her mom to tell her about the new opportunity.

We have an actor voicing her mom's words.

She was very excited about becoming a model.

And Bobby Sue noticed something else.

She felt Preston was the person to help her.

Maybe Sabrina is drawn to this view of her future

because of who it's coming from.

Preston is a good salesman.

And maybe also she's seduced by his promises because,

as far as I can tell, no one else has ever shown interest in Sabrina's future.

Sabrina's mom certainly didn't set her up for success.

Sabrina is a high school dropout with no vocational training.

The only tool Bobby Sue sent her 17-year-old daughter

into the world with was her good looks and some lingerie.

It was a little preparation for a teenager alone in Las Vegas.

But just a few weeks after Sabrina moves into Preston's house,

there's a glitch in the plan to make her a model.

Big events happen in quick succession,

though it starts with a petty crime.

On September 10th, eight days before disappearing,

Sabrina is arrested by the Las Vegas police for shoplifting.

I think it's because she needed things.

She would just take things here and there.

But it wasn't like she was a klepto that did it all the time.

It wasn't like major.

The Las Vegas juvenile authorities take a different view.

To them, Sabrina is one more rootless teenager making trouble.

The authorities call Bobby Sue in Texas.

They tell her that because Sabrina is a minor

and because she doesn't have an adult guardian,

she is banned from Las Vegas until she's 18.

Sabrina's just six months shy of 18, but she's impatient.

Her modeling career is waiting for her in Las Vegas.

On September 12th, six days before disappearing,

Sabrina leaves town.

She flies to her mom in Texas.

She arrives with a plan.

She and Preston have obviously discussed this.

He's willing to sign on as her guardian.

And now Sabrina tells her mom,

she wants Preston to step into that role.

That way she can get back to Vegas, ASAP,

to work on her career.

This is the voice actor again.

She had been advised before she got back here or got back to me.

She knew about it when she got to my house.

Bobby wanted to convince Sabrina to spend a little more time with her in Texas.

But no.

She started getting phone calls from Tom Preston,

telling her that he had set up this meeting with her

and someone that was going to advance her career.

And if she didn't get back out there, just to forget it.

Bobby Su might have wanted more time with her daughter.

But by now, Sabrina is calling the shots.

Sabrina was adamant about wanting to come back to Las Vegas.

She couldn't wait to get back.

Who would you choose?

Someone who thinks of you as a lost kid, Bobby Su's term,

or a modeling agent promising fame.

That's what Preston became, her agent.

Sabrina rushed back to Preston.

And Preston got to work.

He had Sabrina posed for photos.

He worked the camera.

There were headshots, of course.

But also, he wanted something a little more provocative.

Luckily, Sabrina had Bobby Su's lingerie handy.

Preston took a photo of Sabrina in a baby doll outfit,

a kind of sheer nighty.

Perfect.

As if declaring victory, Preston lets Bobby Su know

Sabrina has moved past her.

And he said that I didn't really care about my daughter.

If I had, I would have never let her come to Vegas in the first place.

And that she knew he cared about her.

He told me I didn't know my daughter any longer,

that she had changed.

And Bobby Su also, partly,

likes that a responsible adult has taken an interest in her daughter.

Sabrina's legal guardian,

slashly and Lord slash modeling agent, Preston,

does it seem supportive?

He rapsidizes about her.

And he would talk to me about her,

about how beautiful she was.

And you know, he would say that she put on this white dress

and walked through the house,

and she'd look like an angel.

Ugh.

He said she looked so beautiful and so pure.

On September 14th, after two days in Texas,

Sabrina hops on a plane and heads back to Las Vegas

to Preston's home, now her official home.

She takes with her a handwritten letter from her mother,

appointing Preston, her daughter's legal guardian.

For Sabrina, things seem to be falling into place.

With a devoted Preston at her side,

it must seem like the beginning of something exciting.

But Sabrina's life is about to take another twist.

Her view of Preston is about to change.

That night, Sabrina calls Bobby Sue from Preston's house.

She was crying.

She said, I made a mistake.

She was crying and she really sounded nervous and scared.

She said that when she returned back to Tom Preston's home,

that he told her he was going to lay the law down,

and that she would not be going out with her girlfriends.

She would be staying there and following his rules

because he was going to be the boss from then on.

And she said that he treated her in a different manner

than he usually did, and it scared her.

And she wished that she hadn't gone back.

Now there's an argument to be made

that Sabrina could benefit from a strong parental hand.

Maybe she needs the law laid down.

After all, she's just been arrested.

Are her girlfriends really good influences?

He said my daughter was reckless.

She was always running around with her friends

and that you never know what could happen to a girl

when she's riding cars fast, going out with boys that he didn't know.

But Preston's enthusiasm for parenting someone like Sabrina,

it soon evaporates.

And he told me he said, well,

I was going to make her famous, but she didn't ever head together.

And Preston's sudden flip flop,

so different from how he'd been talking about her just days earlier.

It leads me to wonder what was really going on in that house on the cul-de-sac.

Preston never did book her any modeling jobs, no sprite commercial,

no sock commercials for seers.

Did he intend to?

What about those sexy photos?

What truly did Preston think of Sabrina?

And what was his true plan for her?

All these events, the arrests, the guardianship, Sabrina's tears,

they happened just days before September 18th.

The day Sabrina disappears from Preston's house and from the world.

After Sabrina disappears, Preston talks to a detective

from the juvenile division of the Las Vegas PD.

He tells the detective he doesn't know where she's gone.

She's a teenager, unreliable,

and he tosses in that Sabrina had a drug habit,

and oh yeah, maybe she was a prostitute as well.

To the cops, Preston is likeable, believable,

that's one of his talents.

Soon after the police investigation stalled,

Preston is not a suspect, for the next four years,

he will be unbothered by cops or conscience.

Until 1991, that's when Lindel starts poking around.

That's when she finds the life insurance policy

that leads her to declare she's found a motive,

a motive for murder.

Preston isn't a helpful, generous father figure.

Lindel says he is Sabrina's killer.

But if that's so, Tom Preston is lucky.

Lindel has gone down every rabbit hole,

but still there are no actual witnesses

to the murder of Sabrina Kid.

That though, is about to change.

Okay, we're back in 1991.

Four years after Sabrina's disappearance,

Lindel had met with Preston to ask him about Sabrina,

but her amvotion, the diner, didn't go as hoped.

Was Preston really going to incriminate himself

to a journalist?

Lindel, as usual, was undeterred.

She's calling everyone in Preston's life,

she'll even interview his mother,

and she's gotten the Las Vegas police

to restart its investigation.

Sabrina's body has been found and identified.

She's not a missing person anymore.

She's a murder victim.

And now, homicide detective Robert Leonard

is interviewing all of Sabrina's friends.

He couldn't interview Tommy.

He was murdered.

But he did interview Tommy's old girlfriend,

Sabrina's housemate, Denise.

Though, Denise claimed to know nothing

about the disappearance.

Denise had quite a few encounters

with the police department, both locally and in California.

So, I wasn't expecting a lot from her.

Where is Preston?

Is Lindel and Detective Leonard bear down?

Turns out, Preston has opted for a change of scenery.

He makes a new life for himself,

a very respectable new life in Anacortis, Washington,

a community of just 12,000 people,

a thousand miles from Vegas.

It's a place where his past can be whatever he says it is.

Preston presents himself as a skilled grant writer

and lands a job with the mayor's office.

This new iteration of Preston, Preston 2.0

appears to be bug free.

He's been in Anacortis for months.

He's outdistance his past, or so it seems.

Except that the preeter naturally dog at Lindel

is still looking to connect the dots.

She's been on this story for more than a year now.

So, how long is Preston safe?

Remember, Lindel's been preparing a story

for a current affair.

She's got tape of Detective Leonard

labeling Preston the prime suspect in Sabrina's murder.

She's even got Preston's mom on tape

calling her son a liar.

For Lindel, there is one roadblock.

The lawyers at a current affair are worried.

They threaten to act the show.

They think it's too risky.

Lindel is terrified that she won't be able to tell the story.

This story that has so much personal meaning for her.

But then, Dan, her boss and husband steps up.

He's called into the office of the head of legal.

She says, while you realize if you're wrong about this,

you can take it on a current affair.

And I said, I trust in Lindel.

We're not wrong.

Trust in Lindel.

There's a good husband.

And then, on April 9, 1992,

a current affair aired a piece about Sabrina.

A dusty missing person file was quickly turned into a murder investigation

with one suspect, Paul Preston.

The show was a hit with viewers across the country.

One person in particular was impressed.

The mayor of Anacortis.

He watched as his trusted grant writer

was accused of murder on National TV.

The very next day, he fired Preston,

who quickly fled the state.

Meanwhile, back in Vegas,

the wheels of the criminal justice system

are beginning to turn.

Detective Leonard has taken the case against Preston to the DA,

who has declared it prosecutable, whatever that means.

Two weeks after the current affair segment,

a warrant for Preston's arrest for murder

is sent to jurisdictions across the country, accompanied by his photo.

The cops don't know where Preston is.

He's in the wind.

Who's the expression goes?

A step ahead of the law.

He heads to Deadwood, South Dakota.

He's got a few thousand dollars in cashier checks in one pocket

and a passport in the other.

He's clearly got travel plans in mind.

But one evening,

he walks down Main Street in Deadwood,

past a celebration for a new casino.

The head of casino security

who happens to be dressed in a tuxedo for the occasion

recognizes Preston from his arrest warrant.

He buttonholes the mayor's wife,

keeping an eye on that guy he tells her,

and then he calls the sheriff's office.

Preston is soon led off in handcuffs.

Little gets some locals to record video of the arrest.

It's perfect for television.

Preston is extradited to Nevada,

Detective Leonard gets the honor of retrieving him.

Preston protests his arrest.

He's a respectable businessman.

He writes a little speech.

I'll read it to you.

The system has failed me greatly.

You get framed, arrested,

and overnight everything you once were is no more.

The system has changed to the point

where horrors, liars, dope dealers, dope users.

Theaves are now witnesses for the prosecution.

Today I have seen the police and prosecution alike.

Why?

A seemingly outraged Preston pleads not guilty.

So now it's going to be a courtroom fight,

and Lindel is worried.

She is convinced Preston is a killer,

and she had enough evidence to put that version on TV,

but court in court the bar is higher,

and the legal case is hardly airtight.

We had a body.

We had motive.

We had an arrest.

But it was still in my mind, I'm not a lawyer,

but I know that it was still a circumstantial case.

There was no witness.

There was still a possibility of a defense attorney arguing

his way out of it in this guy walking off scot-free.

Lindel thought of her own attacker.

Would this be another perpetrator walking off scot-free?

That's a nightmare for Lindel.

She shares her fears with detective Leonard.

For once, his imperturbability does not reassure her.

Bob was very measured and cautious

that we still didn't have a case

that he was confident that we could win.

Back at work in New York City,

Lindel gets a phone call from a stranger.

Someone besides the mayor of Anacornis

is following Lindel's stories about Sabrina.

It turns out that a young woman watched Lindel's segment

watched as Preston was led away in handcuffs.

The woman was watching in a common room

at Arizona's Mojave County jail.

She was there for forgery.

Her name is Denise Day.

Denise, the girlfriend of Preston's son, Tommy.

She'd lived with Sabrina in Preston's house.

She'd already spoken to Detective Leonard

and said she knew nothing.

Now, watching Lindel's piece on TV,

it was like reliving a part of her life,

a part she'd been running from.

Denise, too, was scared to death.

Denise makes a phone call.

She calls a current affair and asks for Lindel.

I got a phone call one day

while I was sitting in my office in New York.

And I remember this very timid voice

at the end of the line.

And she said, is that Lindel Marx?

And I was like, yes.

And then the next question was,

is Tom Preston in custody?

And I'm like, I knew it was a young voice.

I knew it was a young girl.

I said, yes, yes.

He's just been taken into custody.

She said, why I need to talk to you.

She just said, I know that man.

I think she used the word hurt, hurt Sabrina.

She was very scared.

She just said, if Tom Preston's in custody,

I want to talk to you about Sabrina.

He had something to do with Sabrina.

How did she know?

Denise told Lindel.

I was there when they threw Sabrina's body into the river.

What really happened when Sabrina was murdered?

We'll find out when a courtroom fight breaks out.

It's Preston on the stand against Denise on the stand.

There's also a surprise witness with a new version of events.

She'll also take the stand.

He had good defense.

And he had the gift of the Gabani.

And he gave his own testimony.

And if you were a jury member that believed him,

only one of them had reasonable doubt.

This guy would not have gone to jail.

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Killer Story is a production of Orbit Media in association

with Signal Company No. 1.

Creator and host is me, Steve Fishman, executive producers,

Orlando Marks, Kevin Wardis, and Jonathan Hirsch

from Sony Music Entertainment.

Producers Jackie Pauli, Hannah Beale, and Austin Smith.

Production coordinator Austin Smith.

Series consultant, Emil Klein, sound designer, Brit Spangler,

Fact Check Ryan Alderman.

Our lawyers are at Claris Law.

Special thanks to Emily Rasek, Steve Ackerman, Catherine St. Louis,

Sammy Allison, Allison Haney, Fisher Stevens, and the glamorous Rhea Julian.

We also thank our agents at WME, Evan Crasick, Marissa Herwitz, Ben Davis,

and a special thanks to Shelley Chenoy for voiceover casting.

Our voice actors this episode are Raven Dunham,

as Denise Day and Lindsay Smart as Bobby Sumay,

and a special thanks to the inimitable Emil Klein.