True Crime 49 Podcast

Aláxsxaq (Alaska) has the highest rate of violent crimes, twice the national average. It's no wonder what some killers call home to the Land of the Midnight Sun

Duffy Murnane Update Kirby Calderwood Profile 08/19/2022

Duffy Murnane Update-Suspect in Custody, Kirby Calderwood 05/16/2022

Duffy Murnane Update-Suspect in Custody, Kirby Calderwood Visit our Website https://truecrime49.libsyn.com/ A 38 year old woman vanishes "into thin air" in a very small, remote town in Alaska. Please share and listen. Any leads should be reported to the Alaska State Troopers or the Homer Police Department. Myles Williams is still missing from his family. If you haven't listened to those episodes, please do and share with anyone you think knows something. Sources: KBBI.ORG Find us on K Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. PLEASE NOTE: ALL NAMES, TRADEMARKS, AND IMAGES ARE COPYRIGHT THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS. AFFILIATE LINKS USED WHENEVER AVAILABLE The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of True Crime 49. Partial Transcription We’re finally excited to be back. Many things have happened,] we’ve published a book, Joe Millionaire. Of course, a true-crime story takes place in Anchorage, Alaska. Essentially, it's season two of the podcast, if you wanted to preview it. The book is for sale on amazon. I think it's a wonderful story we put a lot of work into it. We were diligent in the research and you know that every single bit of it is true. Joe Millionaire by TC49. Anesha Duffy Murnane was abducted in October of 2019 as she was walking to an appointment in Homer Alaska and they searched for her for several years. A jury pronounced her deceased in June of 2021. There hasn't been any activity on the case until May 2022, just this last Monday authorities arrested Kirby Calderwood 32 of Ogden, Utah, charging him in Alaska with first- and second-degree murder, kidnapping, and tampering with evidence. Kirby Calderwood is the main suspect in Duffy Murnane’s disappearance. Special investigator Matt Haney, we mentioned in the previous podcast identified Calderwood as a potential suspect in May of 2021, a month before they pronounced her deceased. Calderwood was employed by South Peninsula Behavioral Services. That's the mental health agency that runs the apartment where Duffy was residing at the time of her disappearance. He had over a span of time, fulfilled a couple of different jobs for South Peninsula Behavioral Services and came in contact with Duffy enough to even have shared meals with her in the past. April of this year, 2022, a tip came. Law enforcement when they were processing, they immediately knew that there were things that the tipster called in about and had reference to that were not public knowledge. No one should have known about those things unless they were either there or the person that was there told them about it specifically. The tipster had mentioned a watch that Kirby Calderwood, the suspect who was arrested, kept and he also had a missing poster of Duffy Murnane an actual missing poster with her watch and he told her about it. Kirby confessed to her, the tipster who was his partner at the time, which also sounds like it's a way of manipulating her not to leave or to have absolute control over her. He wanted her to know either he felt guilty, which it doesn't seem that way by his actions or he was manipulating her to frighten her to where she would be basically terrified to ever leave. It lines up, that several previous partners, essentially his past intimate partners spoke of his sexual fantasies and of them personally being sexually assaulted by their husband or their boyfriend. Kirby would sexually assault them as an intimate partner. They said that he fantasized about torturing and killing someone. One of the women mentioned Calderwood’s hurting of animals since he was a child. In October of 2019, the parents of his then-girlfriend were out of town from October all the way through to December. As we mentioned in the episode Duffy’s father had given a lecture with roughly 70 attendees, some people from the community, and the next morning he was going to Mexico. That's normal in a seasonal town like Homer. Kirby Calderwood knew that the girlfriend’s parents were out of town. He had gone to their house and constructed a place to torture in their crawl space according to the news report. He pulled up and offered Duffy a ride to her appointment. He was driving a blue Subaru Forester. He claimed that he needed a phone charger and made a short detour up the side of the mountain essentially still in town, raising an elevation, going up away from the heart of downtown Homer to the house to with the ruse. As they drive up the hill there was would have been plenty of time, she had 45 minutes to walk from her apartment to her appointment. 45 minutes is a long time to walk across Homer, a very short distance to where she was going. Up the hill, he takes her to a strange house but it's okay because he needs to pick up the phone charger apparently, he had enough closeness with her that she actually went in and he had the crawl space door opened and basically once they got near the crawl space door, he attacked her and up until that moment maybe she felt weird, maybe she was scared but up into that moment, he makes it sound as if she had no idea what was going on. He attacks her and drags her into the crawl space. More graphic things have occurred to her that we have chosen to speak about. Yes, when you're talking about these things with actually true crime, you're actually talking about crimes that are happening. It is very easy to get excited when things break loose and when the news comes out, that they've arrested someone. You get all the answers to all the questions that you pondered over and over. It’s so easy to get excited about the good news and in this case, in particular, even the good news isn't good news anyway. Now is a time to show respect to her and her family when it comes time to, you would be hoping that he would reveal the location of where she is so that they could be retrieved for her family and for her parents and her. He said that he placed her into plastic bags and into a fish tote. Then placed her in a dumpster so that he could monitor it. We know who. it is but we can't examine all of the pieces yet. They're coming to us one by one. Of the things that we do know is that Calderwood originally is from Utah. His brother was a charter fisherman who worked in Homer and he had overdosed in 2017. Calderwood had come up for his brother's memorial service and he ended up staying in Alaska for the next six years. He left Alaska in June of 2021 which was the same month that they declared Duffy Murnane deceased by homicide, which was headed up by Special Investigator Matt Haney who had already identified Kirby Calderwood as a potential suspect. The tipster's information provided was enough for them to get several search warrants for his house, his car, and his DNA. When they searched his home, Duffy’s watch was found there and as well as the missing poster with her photo on it. this is just preliminary, maybe he had other people's trophies or maybe this was a one-time thing. We do know that there were several items of interest at his home. Something's very interesting in the episode about Duffy, we speak about the helicopters. We speak about the dog teams. We speak about them applying the silver alert. They had it classified as a homicide. All of those steps that you see law enforcement and essentially the search and rescue people doing are amazing and outstanding. It's what you'd want to have to happen every time and so it follows suit that when they would arrest him, they arrest him in the exact same manner that they arrested BTK. They arrested him in the same manner that they arrested Richard Kuklinski, The Iceman. the protocol of watching them having surveillance on them knowing exactly how many other people, other collateral people are in the house and waiting for them to get into their vehicle and drive away. then swoop in on him as a regular traffic stop. quickly as it escalates into a felony arrest and that way they are not at the house, not near their guns, not near their hidden cache of weapons, not near people who could be used as hostages. Ryan Andrews in Alaska used a firearm on the state trooper, Hans Rolle, and on himself and his family members. So they arrest him in his vehicle. When they begin to search the vehicle, once he is in custody and detained, they go into the vehicle and they find two rifles. At the time, he had a protective order on him that barred him from even having guns much less in his possession. When they go to the house, they find a machete and several large knives. A number of them appear to have dried blood on them. This person has dark sexual fantasies. They fantasize about hurting people, in a sexual manner and seeing someone who is apparently discriminating enough that they are going to choose a victim that is essentially a townsperson, a good person. That's not something that usually someone starts with and you hear about these fantasies. you hear about the ex-wife. you hear about the new girlfriend. In an interview on the radio station called Homer is Home Calderwood speaks of going to Homer when his brother had passed away for his memorial and what it appears is, looking at all the other things about him, he mentions identity in the 30 seconds. he mentions identity and he mentions of going to the bars where he never was with his brother, we know that but he says that. He absorbed into this void of where his brother used to be and created this whole other identity. I believe his words are that he “cultured his identity” there. This is the person who was just arrested. This is the person who had guns and rifles in their car while they were being arrested that they're not supposed to have because of the protection orders. the person who has the bloody knives in his house. Kirby Calderwood is one of seven children, one of the second youngest. He was born on January 14th, 1990 in Provo, Utah to LDS parents or latter-day saint parents who were also raised in Utah. He has a very strong family lineage in Utah and of the latter-day saint. He participated in several sports and he earned his eagle scout. I believe all of his brothers are eagle scouts including Connor who passed away. He went on to join the army from September 2009 to November 2011. He was a unit supply specialist in the army and he spent one year in Iraq. Then in 2017, he joined the army reserves for nine months. There's not a lot of history with his other things that pop up as far as work history and or anything like a dedicated career. Although after 2017 after the army reserves, we do know that he went to Homer and worked for the behavioral health services. Interestingly, it seems that Kirby Calderwood has several similarities to other Alaska serial killers or other people who have committed these types of crimes sadistic sexual crimes in Alaska of course Robert Hansen was the boy scout it appears that his fantasies began while he was a boy scout When all the boys are Eagle Scouts, a lot of times, the parents are involved, and much like Robert Hansen, that was a component of his childhood. He bragged to his wife, just the same as Kirby; he bragged to his wife that he would cheat on everything he could. He didn't want to earn a badge and she said he was so able he could do it if he wanted to. Anything he wanted; he flew a plane with no license. He loved watching them sign it off, knowing he had cheated. Israel Keyes was from a large family that was Latter-day saints. Kirby Calderwood is from a large family that is Latter-day Saints, and the reason why I mentioned the starting point is there are other similarities there. He goes to the military. Kirby says that he was a supply specialist. Israel Keyes says in an interview, in his own voice, that the army is the only branch that will take a lot of the people that were people like what he saw and where he was in the infantry and where Kirby would be in supply. having a role going into the army and not developing, really having no real work record. Just popping up in the middle of Homer, surrounded by people who are doting on him, essentially, and he gets a job at the behavioral health center. His younger brother passed away in January of 2017, and it would be two years later that Duffy Murnane would go missing. we would be searching for her for the next two and a half years until here we are today. Kirby Calderwood is in custody. Some of the things from the previous episode I thought were very interesting, were that you kept focusing on the economy, being seasonal. That the town goes quiet after Labor Day. That is something that Calderwood took advantage of, in the episode when we're talking about Homer's a seasonal town, the feel of him recognizing that the energy in the town is decreasing. So many eyes that were there just a while ago, there's this web of interactions. that entire web of eyes and connective saying, did you hear about such and such, it disappears, and as a certain percentage of this town is flashing here or gone. the way he must have viewed that house. He saw that there was an opportunity. It's very interesting in the episode we talk about how it feels as these waves of people are coming in and out and that the bad people would recognize that in a town like this that you could do it once, at least. You could be invisible. You had mentioned that maybe they saved up their money maybe they didn't but they were going to indulge themselves and it sounds like if this is something that he had talked about before and that he wanted to torture somebody and murder, that this would be an indulgence. One of the things that you mentioned that strikes me every time is when you say if you went there for your son's wedding and it's so eerie that it wasn't for our son's wedding. It was for her son's memorial. In the episode we say to go look at the photos, that you could have gone there, you could have photos in your album. We say that maybe in the background is the abduction, that the dogs and the dog handlers said happened. in reality, the right way to say it is you went there for your son's memorial, and in your photos, there is the murderer and it's your son. There are things that you brought up in particular about victimology. You ask people to consider if there's someone you know they have maybe an obsession with a woman who kind of looks like Duffy Murnane. You mentioned Ted Bundy, his mom, which was actually his sister; it influenced the concept in his mind of what he wanted or what he wanted to destroy. all of the photos lined up look very much similar to his sister, who's actually his mom. He was raised by his grandma. When you look through the photos, all of those things are in that photo. Kirby Calderwood's mother and sisters, you slap a pair of Helly Hansen's on them with their hair in braids; they do look strikingly like Duffy Murnane. Unfortunately, along with that, you said the good girl. I do think that if their family was in the church for a long time, they probably would be church folk and be kind, like Duffy. there's no way that she would have gotten in the car with somebody strange. She would have known There's a radio clip that's on our Instagram, the one that you mentioned, you hear Kirby Calderwood's voice and it's very soft and almost feminine. to have that person in a little blue Subaru Forester come up and offer you a ride, and you know that they're a safe place because where you live is a safe place and the place where you eat is a safe place. he offers you a ride that is so sad because she wasn't the type of person to just all be all willy-nilly. She was very cautious and somebody took advantage of that. He hit all of the right chords. His previous partners all said that he has been violent to them, violent of things and that they've seen him bragging, or even torturing animals. let's just say he did sexually assault his wife or his ex-wife and his girlfriend; they were family members that didn't report it for whatever reason. If he had sexually assaulted somebody outside of his home, he could have already done 10 to 15 years at different times and had a record. This isn't his first time being violent towards a woman. it's just that this is the first time he was violent to a woman outside of his family that we know of. and that there could be more, as soon as it was posted on Instagram, one of the first comments that were made was that this seems awfully suspicious for this to be his first time. How many people do you know make a crawl space torture chamber if they've never done anything like that before? One thing that's interesting is that, as we said in the episode, her phone has never been discovered, and from the time that they knew that she was walking and was in control of herself, her phone never called or pinged once she disappeared. her phone never called or pinged, and she never received any calls or pings. it's interesting that from the downtown area or down by the water where they were to go up the hill you know up into the residential area and never worrying that her phone is going to ping apparently savvy enough to know that the cellular network around Homer isn't a giant metropolitan area with enough cell towers to triangulate locations. really, to have enough savvy, and or at least be comfortable enough to have her with a live active cell phone in her pocket and to drive her up there to that next location. that if they could track phones down to the square inch or even to the square foot, he would have led them directly to where the crime scene being first-degree murder, second-degree murder kidnapping, and tampering with evidence. Another note is he had said he hadn't planned on killing her and that he was just out looking for a victim. if that was the case, then why did he construct a crawl space? if it was happenstance, then why would he have an area to take somebody? If he hadn't planned on killing them, the same thing with the cell phone, he did certain countermeasures, and eventually when he did leave the house, he disposed of her phone in Beluga Lake. Somebody on Facebook changed his profile picture. interesting that they chose to replace his profile picture with a picture of him, and it looks like his squad in the army. They have their squad leader tied up or duct-taped to a telephone-sized barrel up at an angle and the entire squad below them. You know, it looks like some sort of prank or something, but Kirby is front and center, and he kind of looks, I try to be respectful, but as an example, I feel like he looks a little bit like Gomer Pyle from Full Metal Jacket, a little devious, a little off-kilter. Front and center with their squad leader duct-taped up in the air. If I had done something that was going to make the news or something horrible that involved killing somebody, I definitely would not put a picture of somebody tied up above me. I would like to say our condolences to her family. This is a story where we don't know what happened to her, and you know that if you look into it, everything you're seeing so far, you don't want to look into it, really. This would be a good time to mention Myles Colt Williams who went missing in Big Lake on the 4th of July 2021. He's still missing, we heard that the lake is thawing and they haven't resumed searches for him in Big Lake, but again, if you have photos, look at the photos. If there's anything you've heard, call the local police department there. /episode/index/show/truecrime49/id/23131229