Family room and she just plainly said, your dad killed your mom. what do you think about the possibility that your dad could be violent like that? no. i know anyone s capable of doing anything, but we would know. we re his kids. we lived with him. i honestly believe if she ever really felt threatened, she really felt at risk, the first person she would have reached out to was me. and she never did. kirk spent four months in jail before bonding out. and for the next three and a half years remained under house arrest. he couldn t leave the house. rachel and heidi couldn t stay in the house with him alone. there had to be another person who was 18 or older the entire time. the whole time, waiting for trial? uh-huh. up until we turned 18. until you turned 18? yeah. pam s neighbor and friend, julie koh, tried to help. i took his daughter driving,
ina hess stared, rooted to the spot. i guess i kind of went into shock, because i just i saw her lying there. but you had no idea what had happened. no. like she could have had a heart attack or something. could have. or maybe she tripped over a footrest behind the reception desk. kind of in the back of my mind, i m like, well, did she hit her head? police arrived in minutes. julie s phone still pinging. the kids are still texting, i keep saying, someone needs to go to them and tell them what s going on. eventually, officers went to the high school. one by one, pam s children were called to a conference room, where the police told them their mother was dead. that was the worst part, that they didn t tell us all together. they brought me into this room, and there s david, and his and his cheeks are stained with tears. and i just had to see that. and then they told me, and then i was just bawling, and then david starts bawling again.
was that unusual? very. the blinds in my area, the reception area, were never closed. but they were this time? they were closed. and i reached over and turned the light switch on. all of a sudden i hear her say, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. and i walked over to where she was, and we could see pam s body kind of laying in a fetal position. julie is a nurse. she checked for signs of life. i remember leaning down and, you know, checking for a carotid pulse. and i remember thinking, everything has changed in my life right now. everything has changed for those kids. and their life will never be the same. so, there are two things going on at once there. right, right, that s how you re trained. you immediately focus, emotions are put aside. i knew something was bad. i knew something wasn t right. i knew not to move her.
Couldn t. i just remember going to school, and rachel and i sat across from two of our friends at school, and i just lost it and started bawling. the whole morning was really hard. by now there was a tribe of frightened people. this is pam s cousin, vicki. i have a brother who s 18 years younger than me. he called and he said, they can t find pam. and i go, what? he goes, they can t find pam. and i said, that s not good. and he goes, no it s not. the drive to pam s office didn t take long. julie koh pulled into the parking lot. and right away, she saw something that would lead her to call 911. when we come back
Office. it was in a weird location. i convinced myself that she was at a client s house, because that was my excuse at the time for why she wasn t home. still, their mom was a rock. center of their universe. they told themselves they d be laughing about this later, or they d be relieved, anyway. we said, let s just get ready for school. just keep on with our day. she ll be home when we get home. yeah. same time. same morning. and just two doors down the street, one of pam s closest friends, julie koh, was still in her pajamas. my home phone rang, which is odd, because your home phone never rings that early. it hardly ever rings ever anyway. right, right. i mean, we re, i know, one of the rare people that still have a home phone. and so i picked it up and it was scott. scott baldwin was pam zimmerman s fiance. he lived a few hours away, near chicago. he said, i haven t heard from pam, i m really worried. i don t know what s going on. i ve been trying to reach her