Partners Forever

Chapter 8 - The Therapist

We arrived at Dr. Kendall Knapp's office the following morning just before 8 am. His office was located not far from the two deceased families' residences. It was located on the second floor of an office building and set up very quaintly with only a few chairs in the waiting area and a small receptionist desk. A female receptionist looked up at us as we walked in and gave us a timid smile, "Hello, you must be the 8:00 am appointment, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson." I smiled to myself knowing what she assumed, since this was not the first occasion El and I were accused of being a couple. Elliot held up his badge and said, "No, we are here to see Dr. Knapp though. We need to talk to him right away." The receptionist looked worried upon seeing the police badge, picked up the phone and said, "Dr. Knapp. Two police officers are here to see you."

Within a couple minutes, a gentleman about 5 foot 9 inches tall, glasses, clean cut short brown hair, a dress shirt and khakis walked out of the office. I looked at him and said, "I'm Captain Benson and this is Detective Stabler. Are you Dr. Knapp? We have a few questions for you."

I noticed our presence caused no reaction in his face and he just said, "Ok, step into my office."

Dr. K: "What can I do for you detectives?"

O: "I need to know if John and Katrina Sutton are patients of yours as well as Jennifer and Jeremy Miller?"

Dr. K: "You know I can't answer that without a warrant."

O: "Well, they're all dead, so I don't need a warrant."

Dr. K: "Oh, I am sorry to hear that. Yes, both couples were patients of mine."

I stared at him trying to gauge a reaction of any kind since right now he was the only link and suspect we had. His eyes were blue in color but there was a coldness and a darkness to them. I suddenly had chills along my spine and knew this was our guy. The lack of feeling and the robotic response he gave me when I told him they were all dead were all red flags. I glanced over at Elliot and could read his face that he was thinking the same thing.

O: "So, I need to know where you were on September 5th and September 9th in the evening?"

Dr. K: "Let me look at my calendar. It looks like I had late appointments with a married couple, Evelyn and Brian Robinson. They were here until around 9:00 pm on both dates and then I went home."

O: "So, you were home alone all night after 9:00 pm on both of those nights? Can anyone attest to that?"

Dr. K: "I'm sorry, no. Is that all detectives? I have an appointment coming in and need to get back to work."

At this point we had no evidence that he was the killer and needed more than just the couples using the same therapist to obtain a warrant for Dr. Knapp's home. We had semen at both crime scenes but no DNA match in the database. Elliot and I would need to stake out his home, monitor his whereabouts and see if we could get a DNA sample somehow from him. We said goodbye and left with both of us anxious to get out of there. The last time I felt this on edge about a suspect was when I interviewed William Lewis. The darkness in Lewis' eyes which still haunt my dreams to this day were identical to Dr. Knapp's eyes. El and I went back to the precinct to do more research on Kendall Knapp and figure out who we were dealing with.

We found out that he grew up in Manhattan with a younger sister and his father. His father was a wealthy defense attorney that had died about 6 months ago from cancer. His sister had moved out of the state to Oregon. We found out his mother and father divorced when Kendall was nine years old. Dr. Knapp had no criminal history at all and appeared to be completely normal on paper. I knew from all these years of experience though that who someone is on paper doesn't always match who they really are. I knew in my gut that this guy had killed those families. I am not sure why yet, but I was going to find out.