found no reason why it would fire without a pull of the trigger. in other words, the arrow that went through anna creamer must have been fired on purpose. i saw anna laying there facedown with an arrow square in her back. but the true star of the case against ken creamer was the next-door neighbor. that retired naval commander, randall howes. ken is kind of just babbling, making noise or whatever and saying, we need help, we need help now. remember, howes told us he saw something in the garage that jumped out at him much later. a detail about to assume a huge importance. as howes stood there near anna s body, he testified, he was scanning the room looking for that crossbow. on the far side of the refrigerator there was a cardboard box, and sitting on top of the cardboard box was the crossbow. i could see the front of it. mr. howes, i d like you to take a very careful look at that picture. you see a blue paper bag in front of the refrigerator in that picture, sir? yes, i
they put the boy into foster care briefly and then he was taken away too live with anna s relatives. ken was denied bail and took up involuntary residence here in the virginia beach county jail. it was more than a year later when police, still preparing their case, mind you, asked neighbor randall howes for another interview. they had some pictures, crime scene photographs that i had not seen. but now he saw something very disturbing. and right then and there randall howes knew he was about to play another important role in ken creamer s life. so i went, uh-oh. this means probably that my testimony will be key. and randall howes was absolutely right. a trial begins and the prosecution tries to prove that what happened to this young wife and mother was no accident. i determined that the manner of death in this case was homicide. bored with your one trick lipstick?
any doubt. he told the truth. still, creamer said the crossbow went off inside a bag. maybe that made it an accident after all. we had the bag and we had the weapon, and we were trying to figure out desperately how could this weapon be in the bag and have done what it did. and none of the positions this bag was in made any sense whatsoever with the weapon inside of it. it just didn t make sense. we couldn t find we couldn t figure it out. we couldn t find a good exit hole. there was no rip in it. there was no hole for the arrow. it didn t make sense. so if it couldn t have been an accident the second time, what about the first? this sounds like that to me already he s already planning something. so now jury members realize they had formed some strong opinions about mr. creamer. i just don t put any stock in anything he says. you know, i just don t don t trust the guy. and once they decided that about ken creamer, members of the jury began to look at the marr
insisted he didn t know it was loaded. i never loaded it. so you re saying she did? most probably, yes. why would she do that? i don t know. i m just trying to get through my head, why would somebody load a crossbow with a hunting arrow with a razor tip on it and put it in a bag in the garage. doesn t make any sense. that goes through my mind, too. i don t know. in fact, he still claims he was convinced anna had gien the crossbow away to a friend at work. what friend? that was unclear. you have the name of the friend? there was a two. one was a julia who wanted it. and was a pierce. miss pierce. i thought she was giving it to pierce. did those people ever testify at your trial? no. why not? why not? why wouldn t they say, she
remember, there was lots of evidence at the trial that suggested that the marriage was strong, that ken and anna were quite close. but once in the jury room, some of those members said, evidence or not, they saw it a different way. i think she was a woman that was living under terror with great threat upon her. so he planned it? yeah. he thought about it? yes. he wanted to kill her. i think he wanted to kill her in october. remain seated. and so the jury returned to the crowded courtroom and told the judge they were ready. in the case of the commonwealth of virginia versus kenneth frank creamer, we the jury find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree. guilty. creamer twitched a little, looked down. they didn t believe him. he looked like a beaten dog. and among his few remaining friends, perhaps only these, the katzes, grieved for ken creamer. they had him guilty before