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The Trail Went Cold

The Trail Went Cold - Episode 108 - Lester Garnier

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.53.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2019

⏱️ 45 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

July 11, 1988. Walnut Creek, California. Lester Garnier, a 30-year old vice officer with the San Francisco Police Department, is found shot to death inside his car in a shopping center parking lot. Eyewitnesses recall seeing at least two unidentified blonde women in the parking lot the previous night and speculation mounts that Lester’s murder might be connected to his involvement in the recent high-profile bust of a teenage prostitution ring. Twenty years later, authorities announce that a partial fingerprint from the crime scene has been matched to Catherine Kuntz, a Scottish woman with an extensive criminal history, but there is not enough evidence to file charges. Was Kuntz responsible for Lester Garnier’s murder? If so, what was her motive? Were other people involved in this crime? What was Lester doing in that parking lot to begin with? This week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” explores a baffling unsolved murder of a police officer which has a number of unanswered questions. Additional Reading: https://unsolved.com/gallery/lester-garnier/ https://www.sfgate.com/magazine/article/SAN-FRANCISCO-S-COLDEST-CASE-A-coverup-is-still-2669756.php https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Fingerprint-may-solve-mystery-of-cop-s-killing-3281170.php https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Suspect-in-S-F-cop-s-1988-slaying-is-deported-3173664.php “The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

July 11th, 1988.

0:04.0

Walnut Creek, California.

0:06.7

Lester Garnier, a 30-year-old vice officer with the San Francisco Police Department, is found

0:12.2

shot to death inside his car and a shopping

0:14.6

center parking lot. Eyew witnesses recalled seeing at least two unidentified blonde

0:19.2

women in the parking lot the previous night and their speculation that Lester's murder might be

0:24.1

connected to his involvement in a recent high-profile bust of a teenage prostitution

0:29.2

ring. Twenty years later, it's announced that a fingerprint from the crime scene has been matched to a Scottish woman with an extensive criminal history.

0:37.0

However, there is not enough evidence to make an arrest, and the motor for Lester's murder remains unknown. After that, the trail went cold. Oh, uh, uh, and uh, and uh, and uh,

0:55.0

uh, uh, uh, for, uh, uh,

0:58.0

uh, uh, uh,

1:04.0

uh,

1:05.0

uh, uh, uh, uh,

1:06.0

uh,

1:07.0

uh,

1:08.0

uh, uh, uh,

1:10.0

uh, uh, uh, Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of the Trail when cold.

1:26.0

I'm your host Robin Warder and today we'll be exploring an unsolved cold case involving a police officer.

1:32.0

The 1988 Murder of Lester Garnier.

1:36.1

This story was profiled on the first season of Unsaw Mysteries, and I now consider it to be one of the

1:41.2

more underrated cases featured on the show.

1:43.4

Since the segment was only about 10 minutes long, they really didn't have the luxury of

...

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