Two surviving victims of a murder which has become the subject of a true crime podcast by Kim Kardashian have spoken out against the program.
The System began airing on Monday (3 October) on Spotify. It focuses on the conviction of Kevin Keith for a triple murder dating back to 1994. Keith has always maintained his innnocence.
Three people – Linda Chatman, 39; her niece Marichell Chatman, 24; and Marichell’s four-year-old daughter Marchae Chatman – were killed in February of that year in Bucyrus, Ohio.
They had all been in the same apartment, along with Marichell’s boyfriend Richard Warren and her two young cousins. According to The System, a man showed up, asked to speak with Linda, and once inside the apartment, pulled out a gun and opened fire.
Richard Warren and Marichell’s cousins, Quentin Reeves and Quanita Reeves, survived the attack. Quentin and Quanita were respectively four and six years old at the time.
Kevin Keith was arrested two days later and charged with three counts of aggravated murder, on which he was later convicted. According to the podcast, he was never questioned by the police. Keith was sentenced to the death penalty. In 2010, then-Ohio Governor Ted Strickland commuted that sentence to life without parole.
“I’ve only been on the case about a year. It really spoke to me. The whole situation sucks,” Kardashian says in the episode. “And I just don’t feel like he was given a fair shot.”
Speaking to The Daily Mail, Quentin and Quanita, now 33 and 35 years old, shared their side of the story.
Quentin asserted that he believes Keith to be the perpetrator, telling the outlet: “We saw it with our own eyes. You don’t forget something like that. I don’t care what Kim Kardashian says – Kevin did it.”
Quanita shared the same belief, stating: “It was Kevin. He came in, and shot up the place.”
Both Quentin and Quanita allege they were not contacted about the podcast, with Quentin telling the website of Kardashian: “She did not contact us, not one time. If Kim Kardashian wants to get involved, she should come and meet us face-to-face.”
Sources close to the podcast disputed that assertion to The Daily Mail and said the siblings were in fact contacted.
The Independent has contacted Spotify, which airs the podcast, and Kardashian’s representative for comment.
“Kevin Keith’s trial began on 10 May 1 of 1994, only three months later. This is unbelievably and concerningly fast for a capital murder trial,” Kardashian says on the show. “Kevin was represented by defense attorney James Banks. Banks had never worked on a capital murder case before.”
Keith was convicted despite what his lawyer at the time – and advocates since – described as a lack of evidence.
“They searched the apartment where the crime was committed,” Banks, the defence attorney for Keith, says in an audio clip. “They considered fingerprints. They considered glass samples fiber samples, and yet not one piece of evidence was retrieved that would point to Kevin Keith.”
