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he placed a call to her friend katherine with the unimaginable news. >> karen, it's tim. i'm at karen's apartment, she has been stabbed. >> stabbed? >> it's a horrible way, it's very horrible way to die. >> karen, the baby of the family with five older brothers suddenly gone. she had been especially close to her oldest brother mike. >> my brother called me. i was at the airport, and said, you better sit down. he said, karen's been murdered. >> any theories about what happened? >> i don't know. i was trying to figure out the why and relying on the police to do what they needed to do. >> and what they had to do was plenty.
sometimes the best, okay, because they don't lie. the circumstances don't lie. people lie. >> and that's the case lowry made to the jury. the circumstances showed tim permentor was the only one with the motive and the opportunity to kill karen. and everything he did afterwards was fabricated to cover up his horrendous crime. >> the issues in this case were the murder of karen by the only person that really could have done it, and that person lied about all these things. and you know, there's no reason for a person to lie about the death of their loved one, if that's really true. >> defense attorney clapp countered with common sense, arguing that karen's killer must have been just drenched in blood after such a frenzied attack, and there was no forensic evidence to show that his client was that person. >> in order to buy the state's case, you have to make assumption upon assumption upon assumption. that's not what our system is about. >> how did i do it? how on earth did not one single drop of blood get on my clothing, anything like that? >> or in your car, which was ripped apart. >> right. that's why i agreed to let them look. get what you want, because i knew i was innocent. >> the defense also tore into the credibility of the state's star witness, george solomon, saying it was ridiculous to think tim would get an invitation to spend the night with him after blurting out a murder confession. >> hey, i killed somebody. just now, or whatever. oh, really? oh, okay, well, come on, let's
>> as roc tells it, she gave as good as she got. he dodged a few pieces of thrown crockery. >> she was ready to stand up for herself at the drop of a hat. she was a tough girl. >> roc remembers karen playing hardball about that rolltop desk of his, too, not liking her attitude. >> i did call her on several occasions about my rolltop desk. >> the desk. >> that stupid desk and it was bugging me. i mean, it was a nice piece of furniture and i wanted to get it back. she pretty much said, you left, you're not getting it. >> he never did get. that roll top was still in karen's condo on the night she was stabbed to death. now, detective holbrooke pointedly wanted to know if roc had been there too. >> he says, where were you on such-and-such a day. i'm like, well, first of all, i'll have to look at the calendar because i don't know where i was that day but i
handed and her left hand did not have blood smear on it. >> not only that, when the autopsy report came in, it suggested karen couldn't have written anything with either hand. from what the medical examiner was seeing on this table, was this a victim who was going to dip in her own blood and write roc on the wall? >> no, absolutely not. over 90% of her spinal cord had been damaged by the knife wounds. >> she was incapacitated. >> incapacitated. it wasn't her. she didn't write that. >> the evidence was overwhelming. karen pannell did not write the letters roc in blood. it was a huge turning point in the case and the best news possible for the ex-boyfriend roc herpick. >> they confirmed 100% she could not have done that. she couldn't have done it. she would have been physically incapable of doing that and it certainly wasn't me. i mean, why would you write your own name on the wall? >> police agree, implicating yourself in a murder just made no sense. roc got more good news after
that was missing its match, missing its pair. >> a garden glove was found in karen's kitchen, just one glove. the mate was never located. it had a distinctive dot pattern. >> on the interior side where the palm and the fingers were, it's like that rubber and it's got those little. >> bubbly surface. >> the knobby grippy surface. i remember thinking, wow, i wonder if that's what wrote these letters. >> cox bought similar gloves at a hardware store. after several more days of testing was satisfied that her hunch was correct. ana cox had come up with two important findings. the message in blood had likely been written with a gloved hand and it had been scrawled at least 20 minutes after the onset of the attack on karen. she reported her results to the detectives who by then had learned another pertinent fact about their victim. >> karen was exclusively left
>> roc said he savored the good times with karen, too. >> when she got dolled up, oh, my god, gorgeous. i mean, picture perfect. wasn't anything out of place. >> were there some sparks there, roc? >> yeah, there was, she was all that, just by herself and ready to go. she looked hungry for attention and she was alone and it was perfect. it was a perfect setup. >> what do you think she saw in you? what was working from her side? >> probably the bad boy kind of thing. i wasn't your conventional straight-laced kind of guy. >> roc was open with the detectives. even came across as a good guy. but conceded there were screaming matches with karen and a few rip roaring fights but said she was the instigator. >> she'd get violent, physically violent. just stuff. things would happen. but nobody ever got arrested, but they'd come out. they would address the issue.
not she's dead, i don't know what happened. >> he said she's been stabbed. >> he said on the phone that she has been stabbed. >> okay. she has been stabbed. >> we didn't know that at that point in time. >> he knew something crucial he shouldn't have known. >> he knew something he shouldn't have known because he's the one that stabbed her. >> the prosecutor looked at the rejected lover and they showed was at the scene of the crime and lied about it. he charged permentor with first-degree murder and decided to seek the death penalty. then, just weeks before the trial was scheduled to start, tim's friend, george solomon, his sleepover alibi witness, recanted his story. >> he tells me this whole new story that permentor admitted that he had killed karen that night. >> blurted out a confession. >> when he got up there. >> so, that's a hole aye cow
valuable piece of furniture, i want it back. >> right. but karen said that that was a ruse. >> trying to worm his way back in? is that the way she saw it? >> that's the way she put it to me. >> they knew they had to confront this roc, so they tracked him down and paid a surprise visit. he wasn't happy to see them. >> i'm in the garage of my home in north port, florida. unmarked car shows up, everybody know what is that is. i'm thinking, what the heck is that? >> detective holbrooke identified himself and said they need to talk to him about his friend karen. >> we sit down on the porch and he goes, well, she's dead. of course this doesn't register. and i just said you need to tell me what's going on. >> but the detective wanted roc to do the talking. he asked about his troubled relationship with karen. >> roc indicated that he was using drugs and that karen liked to drink and that they fought often.
somebody that is going to offer you a better future? >> you can't dictate terms to your kid sister? >> no, you can only fix yourself. >> as it turned out, roc wasn't a fix for karen either. the relationship soon took an ugly turn. >> they seemed to get along for a while and she was happy. and he turned into not a very nice guy. he was a little creepy. >> he was tough on her? >> there were some unexplained bruises. i used to tell her, what are you doing? he did not deserve her. she wouldn't listen. >> the fights got worse and police were called three separate times to intervene. one time roc allegedly broke down the front door. that was the last straw. karen filed a domestic battery complaint and roc moved out. tim says even a year later, he was still harassing karen about a rolltop desk he left behind. >> she was starting to get scared of him towards the end. >> the issue he had was i got a
matter what you do, there's always going to be that spectre hanging over you. >> it was several months into the relationship before tim finally revealed his ugly secret. he was a felon that spent more than a decade behind bars, not a navy s.e.a.l. but a violent one-time pump. the self-described escort king. >> i said, i have been waiting for the right time to tell you this. she was flabbergasted. i think that she became frightened of me. >> why didn't you shake hands and call it quits? >> because i loved her. >> karen's friends and brothers say she told them she was afraid. when she tried to pull away from tim, brother mike says those fears were quickly borne out. >> did you ever hear evidence she was not being treated well? >> yes. and she called me and said that tim had choked her and i felt like after that conversation that i had convinced her to file a police report.