An Act Of Murder

by Linda Rosencrance

  “I said, ‘What did you say?’” Maureen recalled.

  But before Kim could respond, state police officers Joe Gamble and Keith Elzey arrived to serve Kim with a warrant to search her purse, and she immediately clammed up. Maureen’s head was spinning, because she wasn’t quite sure what Kim had said.

  “I don’t know if I was making myself hear what I thought she said, or if she actually said she killed Steve,” Maureen said.

  When the police were finished searching Kim’s purse—items they seized included one of Brad Winkler’s business cards and a piece of paper with Ken Burgess’s name, home, and work telephone numbers on it—Maureen walked out with them and followed them to the elevator.

  “You guys have to come clean with me and tell me what’s going on,” Maureen said. “That’s when I found out they suspected me.”

  Gamble and Elzey told Maureen they couldn’t tell her anything about the investigation because she was a suspect.

  “What do you mean I’m a suspect?” Maureen asked.

  “We haven’t quite figured out if you’re involved in this, but we have enough evidence to arrest Kim for Steve’s murder,” one of the officers said. “We’re just not sure when we’re going to do it—it could be tomorrow, it could be next week, it could be next month, but we will be arresting her. And if you didn’t have anything to do with this, you may want to back off.”

  Maureen told the troopers she didn’t have anything to do with Steve’s death. She begged them to tell her what was going on, but they again refused. By now, Maureen was convinced that Kim was guilty and that the police had the evidence to prove it.

  “And I’m thinking she did it, after hearing what I just heard, her behavior, the Playboy being too obvious, what Rachel had said; I’m like, ‘Oh, my God,’” Maureen said.

  When she walked back into Kim’s room, Harry Walsh was right behind her.

  Walsh showed up, even though he knew that Kim didn’t have the $10,000 retainer, because he also knew this was a high-profile case. In fact, that’s why Maureen called him—she believed he would be blinded by the limelight.

  Maureen went home so Walsh could interview Kim in private. When she called Kim later, she asked her what she was talking about earlier. Maureen wanted to find out if Kim really did admit to murdering Steve, but Kim said Walsh instructed her not to say anything to anyone.

  “I’m like, ‘Okay, how are you feeling? Is the insurance taken care of?’ We had a normal conversation and that was it,” Maureen said.

  However, later that day Maureen got a call from an employee of Easton Memorial Hospital to tell her Kim was going to be transferred to the Upper Shore Community Health Center, a state mental-health facility. The employee told Maureen that there was a problem with Kim’s health insurance. It seemed because Kim’s insurance was through Steve, and because Steve was dead, she technically didn’t have insurance.

  “So they were trying to get all that straightened out and to ultimately get her into a mental hospital because she was on suicide watch,” Maureen said. “But they said that the other hospital couldn’t admit her for longer than three days, so I said go ahead and send her up there.”

  Chapter 10

  While Kim was dealing with attorneys and insurance, Corporal Keith Elzey was laying out the case against Kim in a warrant for her arrest. It had only been about a week since Steve’s death, but the state police felt they had enough information to arrest Kim for killing Steve and setting fire to room 506 to cover up his murder.

  In the charging document Elzey said on Sunday, February 15, 1998, at approximately 1:35 A.M., Trooper First Class Clay Hartness responded to Harbourtowne to investigate an unattended death in room 506. Also present at the scene were members of the St. Michaels Fire Department and other law enforcement personnel.

  Elzey said the preliminary investigation revealed that there had been a fire in room 506 and that concerned citizens had removed Steve’s burned body from the room and placed it outside on the rear deck before the fire department or law enforcement arrived at the resort. Stephen Hricko was pronounced dead at the scene by a forensic examiner. A subsequent search of the room turned up a package of cigars with one cigar missing from the pack. The missing cigar was not found during the search.

  Elzey said when he responded to Harbourtowne he learned that Steve and his wife, Kimberly Michelle Hricko, had arrived at the resort on February 14 and checked into room 506. During questioning by police Kim said that she and Steve were at the resort to attend a murder-mystery play that was being presented on Valentine’s Day. Kim told police that Steve had been drinking heavily during the evening and at the end of the play they purchased some alcoholic beverages from the bar at the resort to take back to their room. A short time later, Steve pressured Kim to have sex with him. The couple argued because she said no. Kim left the room at approximately 11:00 P.M. in order to avoid a nasty scene.

  Kimberly tried to drive to a friend’s house in Easton, but got lost for a couple of hours and subsequently returned to Harbourtowne shortly after 1:00 A.M. on February 15. She tried to enter room 506 through the rear sliding glass door, but was met by thick smoke. Unable to see what was happening in the room, she went to the hotel lobby to get help. The concerned citizens who responded to the Hrickos’ room found Steve inside on the floor and pulled his badly burned body out onto the rear deck.

  Kim subsequently told Elzey that she and Steve had been having marital problems and they were both seeing separate marriage counselors. Kim also told Elzey that Steve chewed tobacco and smoked when he was drinking. However, Kim said she didn’t think Steve brought any cigars or cigarettes with him to Harbourtowne, nor did she buy or bring any smoking materials to the resort for him. After interviewing several people who had known Steve for several years, Elzey said he learned that no one, except Kim, had ever known him to smoke.

  Elzey said Steve’s body was removed from the scene and taken to the state medical examiner’s office in Baltimore. After performing an autopsy, Dr. David Fowler, the medical examiner, told Elzey that there was no carbon monoxide found in Steve’s blood, nor was there any evidence of soot or burns in Steve’s trachea or any related injuries to his lungs. That meant that Steve was either not breathing or dead before the fire started, Fowler told Elzey. The medical examiner also said that Steve’s blood alcohol content was 0.00 percent, which meant that there was no alcohol found in his blood. At that point Fowler told Elzey he was waiting for the results of more tests to determine the exact cause of Steve’s death.

  Elzey said on Tuesday, February 17, two days after Steve’s death, he spoke with one of Kim’s friends, Rachel McCoy, who said that about three weeks before Steve died, Kim told her that she planned to kill him. According to McCoy, Kimberly planned to inject Steve with a drug that would paralyze him and stop his breathing. Kim said because she was a surgical technologist she had easy access to the drug. She said because the drug wasn’t classified as a controlled substance she could get it at work without being noticed. Interviews with medical personnel at the hospital where Kim had worked confirmed that she wouldn’t have had any trouble obtaining these types of drugs without being noticed.

  Then she was going to set the curtains on fire with a cigar or candle, making it look like Steve died in a fire in their town house. McCoy tried to talk Kim out of her horrific plan by telling her it would look suspicious if she used a cigar because Steve didn’t smoke. Kim countered that the fire wouldn’t look suspicious because she had purchased a smoker’s life insurance policy on Steve, so everyone would think that he really did smoke.

  In the arrest warrant Elzey said that Sergeant Karen Alt, of the Maryland State Police Bureau of Drug and Criminal Enforcement Unit, had also interviewed several of Kim’s other friends. In those interviews Alt learned that Kim was having an affair with a younger man and wanted out of her marriage and even had asked Steve for a divorce, but she didn’t think he would agree to divorce her. She also said that Steve would be better off dead a
nd that she would kill him immediately if she thought she could get away with it. Kim advised her friends that Steve would probably just kill himself if she told him about her affair. The problem, though, was that she wouldn’t be able to collect on his life insurance if he committed suicide.

  One of Kim’s friends told Alt that Kim had taken out a $250,000 life insurance policy on Steve. A check by Maryland State Police corporal David Sharp, of the insurance fraud unit, revealed that Kim took the policy out in November 1996.

  Elzey said that on February 22 Corporal Joseph Gamble, of the Maryland State Police, met with one of Kim’s former coworkers, who had contacted police after he learned of Steve Hricko’s death. Ken Burgess, the coworker, disclosed that about six weeks before Steve’s death, Kim had approached him and asked him to kill her husband for either $5,000 or $50,000—but later said it was $50,000. She also asked Burgess if he knew anyone who would kill Steve for money; Burgess declined to take Kim up on her offer.

  Elzey said on Sunday evening, February 22, Gamble monitored a conversation between Burgess and Kim. During that conversation Kim acknowledged that she talked to Burgess about having Steve killed. Elzey said he questioned Kim the next day about Steve’s death and the fire in room 506 at Harbourtowne. During the interview Elzey presented Kim with the results of the investigation to that point. He said Kim then said if she told him what really happened, would she have to go immediately to jail? Kim never told Elzey what really happened and the interview was ended, he said in the arrest warrant.

  “It took us a week to put this case together,” Gamble said. “First off, we have a fire death, that’s all we have to start with. Then the next day we have the autopsy. On Sunday afternoon the investigators find out there are problems and they start doing some research. But Steve’s gone. Kimberly had the body cremated and his sisters are all screaming that there’s something wrong.”

  Not only were Steve’s sisters crying foul, so was Mike Miller.

  “Mike told us Steve didn’t smoke—he chewed tobacco,” Gamble said. “He said Steve was often offered cigars at dinners, but he didn’t smoke them—although he sometimes took them for Mike. So all these people are calling us saying Steve didn’t smoke—even though Kim said he was smoking.”

  By now the state police knew there was a major problem, but they couldn’t tell anyone.

  “We’re stringing Kim along the whole week,” Gamble said. “People from all over are coming to the barracks asking about the case and we’re telling everyone, including the press, that it’s just a normal death investigation with some weird circumstances. Even Hard Copy was calling and telling us they were from the family in order to get information.”

  Gamble had a theory about how Kimberly killed her husband.

  “The guy who dragged Steve out said he was sitting at the foot of the bed and his pants were down,” Gamble said. “I think what she did is she killed him, and she staged it to look as if he was masturbating—she pulled his pants down and had the Playboy book open to look like he’s had all the pleasure that he wanted and then he’s puffing on the cigar. I think she’s so bizarre that she actually set this thing up.”

  Gamble believed Kimberly got Steve in a compromising position—either they were having sex, or she was performing oral sex on him.

  “He’s lying in bed and he’s thinking it’s all great and she’s got all this stuff ready—she goes into the bathroom and she’s got this needle ready and tells him, ‘Just lay back, honey, I’ll take care of you,’ and he feels a pinch. ‘Oh, what’s that?’ he says, and she says, ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’” Gamble said. “Even if he sits up, all she has to do is avoid him for a couple seconds—and he’s gone. The doctor says you’re conscious and it’s like somebody’s suffocating you. You’re conscious—you can see, you can hear; your muscles are going, but your brain is still working.”

  Gamble continued, “The medical examiner thought Steve would be incapacitated within one minute. He thought Kimberly could inject him and he would be totally out in thirty seconds. He’d be conscious, awake, alert; his brain would be functioning, he would know what’s going on, but he wouldn’t be able to move.”

  On Tuesday, February 24, Kim was transferred to the Upper Shore Community Health Center, and at 10:30 P.M. she called Maureen and told her the police had arrived and they were arresting her for Steve’s death.

  “They’re saying I murdered Steve,” Kim told Maureen.

  “I told her to call her lawyer and I hung up. That was the last time she and I spoke,” Maureen said. “Well, after she had been arrested, everything came out in the paper about the succinylcholine and her affair. And when I heard about the affair, I knew immediately who it was. I knew it was Brad. Then I talked to Jenny Gowen and Jenny confirmed it was Brad, and all the pieces fell into place, and I was like, ‘God, how stupid was I?’ I fell for everything hook, line and sinker.”

  In the months leading up to Kim’s trial, she and Maureen never spoke. In fact, it wasn’t until a week before the trial that Maureen even started talking to Kim’s other girlfriends, including Rachel and Norma.

  “When we all started talking, then we started piecing the puzzle together,” Maureen said. “When I was at Kim’s that first day after Steve died and I called Rachel, and Rachel called another friend, and then Rachel called Kim—that’s when Rachel knew Kim had killed Steve. And then the next day Rachel called the police and told them everything.”

  When the women started piecing everything together, they realized Kim had totally screwed them over.

  At approximately 4:00 A.M., on February 25, Kimberly was taken before a Talbot County Court commissioner and then was incarcerated without bail at the Talbot County Detention Center in Easton, where she was placed on suicide watch.

  At a bail review hearing later that afternoon, Talbot County deputy state’s attorney Marie Hill asked that Kimberly continue to be held without bail because of the nature of the charges and because she had no ties to the area. District Court judge William H. Adkins III granted Hill’s request. Adkins also granted a motion filed by Kim’s lawyer, Harry Walsh, asking that Kim be transferred to the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center, the state’s maximum-security psychiatric facility in Jessup, for a psychiatric evaluation to determine her competency to stand trial. She was moved to Perkins that afternoon.

  That same day Elzey contacted the Maryland Underwater Recovery Team and asked the team to go to Harbourtowne and search the Miles River directly behind room 506, as well as a nearby pier, for a hypodermic needle or anything else related to Steve’s murder. The dive team conducted the underwater search on Thursday morning, but they came up empty.

  Chapter 11

  When police searched the Hrickos’ house on February 23, 1998, they discovered a journal that Steve had written in the weeks before he died. Steve’s writings painted a picture of a man desperate to do whatever it took to make his marriage work—a man worried about his wife’s feelings, even as she was seeing another man and planning his murder.

  In an early morning journal entry on January 21, 1998, Steve said he felt terrible, like he was going to die, even though he felt hopeful the previous day. Steve also said he felt like he had ruined his life as well as Kim and Sarah’s lives and he was afraid Kim was going to leave him as soon as he got his depression under control.

  “I feel she doesn’t understand how deeply I love her—I mean real love. I am afraid I won’t get the chance to make the marriage right,” Steve said, adding that all his fears stemmed from his depression.

  Steve said he finally understood the pain he had caused Kim and said he never wanted to make anyone feel like he did again. However, even though he said he had changed and enjoyed talking now, Kim didn’t seem to be ready to trust him and try to get to know the new Steve—a sensitive, caring, affectionate man with an inner strength. Steve said he would never stop working, praying and fighting for Kim’s love.

  Later that day Steve said he felt better because Kim told him she loved hi
m. He said he was even able to eat some cereal.

  “I just talked to Kim and she said I love you. She may [have] just said that to make me feel better. I don’t care. I never thought three words could cause such overwhelming joy,” he said. “I love her so much. Thank you, God.”

  When Kim called Steve again that day and told him she loved him, he was beyond ecstatic. Just hearing his wife’s voice made all Steve’s problems disappear. He was so happy he wanted to run through the neighborhood yelling and screaming that Kim loved him. Steve said he was finally able to feel again and he knew that he loved Kim and Sarah more than he could say. He hoped that Kim would give him another chance to show her and their friends that he was more “than a quiet, big jerk.”

  But Steve’s good mood was shattered when Sarah told him that Kim wanted her to watch a show on divorce. Despite this setback, Steve said he was determined to keep working hard so Kim would love him again. Waiting for Kim to come home from work, Steve said that he felt so much better when she was with him.

  In a January 27 journal entry, Steve said he and Kim hadn’t made love in almost a month. Steve said he wanted to hold and kiss his wife, but not in a sexual manner. He just wanted to feel her body against his. However he knew that he couldn’t push her into any type of a relationship. He just had to wait and believe that someday she would love him again.

  Steve said he felt like two different people—the guy he was before and the guy he was now and he hated that other person. Steve believed that the other Steve ruined his life as a husband and a father and he was sure the new Steve would be a good husband and he prayed Kim would understand. However, Steve was afraid he had already thrown away his chance at a happy life.

  In his journal Steve wrote that he really needed some kind of affection from Kim—a hug when he didn’t expect it, or the touch of her hand. He said that although he thought he was getting stronger, he now felt weak and he hated feeling that way. Even though his doctor told him to forgive himself, he couldn’t do it, especially since he had caused so much damage to everyone else.