Episode 1 - Bias

My name is Avery Tatro, and you're listening to Tunnel Vision, Episode 1.

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In 2011, 20-year-old Andrea Eilber was found dead while house-sitting for her aunt and uncle in Mayfield Township, Michigan. For the past several months, I have been researching the details of this mysterious case.

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Have you ever noticed that you tend to search for information that confirms your beliefs rather than challenges them? Take a moment to think about the last time you may have done this. I'm totally guilty of it, we all are.

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This tendency is called confirmation bias, and it seemed to come up a lot throughout my research of this case. Sometimes when we're seeking advice, we will go to a person that we know will tell us what we want to hear. When making an important decision, we will look for information to support the gut feeling that we have inside.

Confirmation bias comes up a lot in the world of politics too. People will often search for positive information about their favorite candidate and ignore or fail to accept any negative information. These bubbles and echo chambers are quite common.

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Why do we do this? Because we humans are inherently stubborn. Stubbornness is a natural defense mechanism. It allows us to maintain our beliefs and autonomy when faced with challenges. At the end of the day, we don't like to be wrong. And when we are presented with information that contradicts our beliefs, we become uncomfortable.

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So I wanted to run a quick experiment with a few of my family members. 

Okay, so your first set is two, four, six.

8, 10, 12.

Yes.

14, 16, 18.

I gave each person a set of three numbers that follows a rule. Then they gave me sets of three numbers as many times as they wanted, until they felt confident they knew what the rule was.

20, 22, 24.

Yes.

I believe the rule is multiples of two.

8, 10, 12. 

It does. 

Is it increasing by two?

10, 12, 14.

Yes.

8, 10, 12.

Yes.

Okay, so each number...

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The concept of confirmation bias was introduced by a psychologist named Peter Wason in 1960. He conducted an experiment to test his theory about this phenomenon. He found that most of his subjects only tested examples that fit their initial theory about the rule.

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Given 2, 4, 6 as a starting point, most guessed that the rule was either even numbers or numbers increasing by two. The actual rule was any three ascending numbers. For example, 5, 26, 43.

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Very few people tried to prove their initial theory wrong. Why is this relevant? There are opinions that the police in this case fell into a trap of confirmation bias as they were performing their investigation.

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This bias is common in everyday life, but it shouldn't play a role in a murder investigation. Did the police exhaust every possibility when attempting to find Andrea's killer? Or did they simply act off of their initial impulse? Was their investigation truly thorough? Or did their tunnel vision cost them the ability to serve justice? 

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A little over 13 years ago, on November 14th, 2011, a girl named Andrea Eilber was murdered. She was a 2009 graduate from Lakeville High School in Otisville, Michigan. Andrea was beautiful, cheerful, kind, outgoing, and her family and friends say that her smile could light up any room. At the time, she was living with her dad and grandmother and working at a Kroger grocery store in the small town of Lapeer. She was saving up some money so that she could attend college. In her free time, she loved to cook, listen to music, and go to the movies. 

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Andrea had been house-sitting for her aunt and uncle in the days leading up to her death. On November 15th, when Andrea's family had not been able to reach her for over 24 hours, they knew that something was wrong. The following morning, police found her body in her aunt and uncle's basement. The crime scene was brutal.

Andrea was slumped over in a wooden chair with a single gunshot wound in the top of her head, and abrasions on her wrists, where medical examiners determined that she had been tightly bound. 

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Less than an hour after the discovery, Andrea's boyfriend Kenneth Carl Grondin III, who goes by KC, was brought in by the police for questioning. After about six hours of interrogation, KC was arrested for her murder.

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I first heard about this case several months ago through my mother, Melissa Tatro. She teaches preschool alongside KC's cousin Kristi Hendrickson at the Keansburg Early Learning Center in Monmouth County, New Jersey. Kristi and the rest of the Grondin family adamantly believe in KC's innocence.

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Oddly enough, this topic of conversation arose from a discussion about hair dye. Kristi explained to my mother that her family owns a large chain of hair salons in Michigan called Grondin's Hair Centers. And with all of the press about this case over the years, the family business has been struggling.

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I know there was bad press for sure. You had one side completely believing that he was guilty, and the other side completely believing that he was not. So it was the big talk of everywhere, honestly, especially in our hometown in the county where it happened. And that's where our home office was and everything else. So people always had something to say. There was always stuff in the newspaper. So it definitely took a huge hit for sure, as far as just the gossip and trying to keep it out of the…

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When my mom told me about KC's story that night after work, I was both intrigued and heartbroken, as I realized that Andrea's life ended when she was only a year older than I am now. Kristi recommended that my mom and I watch the episode Convicted by a Hair on Reasonable Doubt, where a criminal defense attorney and retired homicide detective took a deep dive into the case. I was floored by what the show revealed and the second it ended, I fell down a deep internet rabbit hole. I began obsessively reading articles, examining trial records, and searching for any other information that I could get my hands on. 

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My mom reported back to Kristi how invested I had become in her cousin's story and the next thing I knew, there was an envelope in my mailbox addressed to me from Michigan. Kristi's mother, Susie Kage, had sent me a copy of the Lapeer County newspaper, which featured information about KC's conviction. 

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I'd like to make it known that I am not a detective, a lawyer, or even a journalist, but I am a passionate and persevering 19-year-old college student with a mission to share this story. I happen to be the same age as KC was when he was arrested for murder. And I can't help but continue to put myself in his shoes. Think about what your life was like at 19. Could you imagine being accused of this horrible crime, so young and with your entire future ahead of you? I recently spoke with KC's great aunt Susie about their family.

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I don't know how much, you know, from Kristi, but we live in a real small town. I don't know, when I grew up, there was 500 people in the village. It might be 600 now. The township is bigger, but the village itself hasn't changed much. There's 10 of us in the family. So the last 7 were all born and raised in that town. So everybody knows everybody.

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Susie is one of 10 siblings, and her older brother Carl is KC's grandfather. KC's parents moved from Dryden to nearby Lapeer, and the family remains close.

From what they say, he was more of a kind of a quiet, nerdy kind of kid, I guess, growing up. It wasn't a go out party. So this whole thing was like, I mean, total shock.

Here is KC's cousin Kristi.

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Super sweet and kind, like my mom said, kind of like nerdy. I know Andrea was his first girlfriend, and he loved her very much. I remember exactly where I was when I got the phone call that this all happened, and I was completely shocked.

I know that he would never say a bad word about anybody, let alone hurt anybody. I never believed for a second that it was true, and then just how it all unfolded, it was mind-boggling, because he just wouldn't hurt a fly. He was super sweet and kind.

Here is KC's lawyer at the trial during his closing statement.

 

This young man was raised the right way as well. Not a story, not a claim.

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The voice you hear is synthesized from court transcripts.

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Because, remember, did you see any other pictures of any type of violence of Kenneth Grondin? You've got the weight of the government and the weight of various police departments, and the weight of the Attorney General's office. And expert after expert after expert that came in before you. And not one person could say anything bad about Kenneth Carl Grondin III. What they told you was that he was in the band. What they told you was that he was on the golf team. What they told you is that he was on the bowling team, and that he was going to college at the university.

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Let's go a little further back.

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In November 2010, 19-year-old Andrea Eilber met 18-year-old KC Grondin while they were both employees at the Kroger in Lapeer. KC graduated from Lapeer East High School in 2010 and continued his studies at the University of Michigan in Flint, where he majored in business. In May 2011, six months after their initial meeting, KC and Andrea began dating.

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Although Kristi had never met Andrea or witnessed KC and Andrea's relationship firsthand, she told me exactly what I had heard from everyone else. KC and Andrea were often described as a beautiful couple who were very much in love. According to KC's mother, April, Andrea softened KC and made him into a mushy boyfriend.

KC himself said that Andrea was really down to earth, that they could always joke about stupid things, and that they got along very well. Something just doesn't feel right. The descriptions of KC and his relationship with Andrea don't seem to fit with a cold-blooded execution.

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The prosecution's case rested on three main elements. The first was the fact that KC had presumably been the last person to communicate with Andrea before she was killed. The second was a set of incriminating statements that KC made near the end of his six-hour interrogation. And the third was a bloody hair of Andrea's that was discovered in an evidence bag with KC's clothing. 

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The state suggested that he may be a cold-blooded killer who murdered his girlfriend for $600. KC's family and friends completely discounted the prosecution's argument based on motive alone.

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Here's Kristi again.

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I remember that it was absolutely crazy because my family owns a chain of hair salons in Michigan. At the top, I would say we probably had close to 70, maybe more at one point. So everybody in Michigan knows the Grondin name. It was called Grondin's Hair Center. KC's last name is Grondin. So, you know, I wouldn't say they were, my uncles were like super, super rich, but well off. And so, KC didn't need money, and he certainly didn't need it from Andrea. If he ever needed money, he could have just asked his father or definitely his grandfather. It would not ever need to be from her.

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Another one of the prosecution's theories was that KC lashed out and killed Andrea in a fit of rage when he believed that she was going to break up with him or that she was cheating on him with another man. The evidence doesn't seem to support this argument either. We will take a deep dive into why in the coming episodes.

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The motive is not the only thing that caused speculation. None of the biological evidence at the scene of the crime was found to be a match to KC. In fact, extensive analysis determined that the DNA and fingerprints that were discovered belonged to another male, one who law enforcement was unable to identify at the time.

The murder weapon was not located, nor were there any physical pieces of evidence at the scene of the crime linking KC to Andrea's death. You are probably wondering how KC was convicted beyond a reasonable doubt of the first degree murder of Andrea Eilber given this information. Believe me, I too was completely unconvinced.

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Here is KC's lawyer again.

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His fingerprints could have been there. I don't know why they didn't find it, because he was there on the 11th, and he was there on the 12th. So even if his fingerprints were there, no big deal. But the problems that I have with the lack of fingerprints is that we have unidentified fingerprints. And Detective Sergeant Pendergraff said they tried to eliminate everybody. We've got an unidentified fingerprint on that backsliding door. We've got an unidentified fingerprint on the glass. And we have an unidentified fingerprint on her car.

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I asked Kristi if she felt that the police rushed the investigation.

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Oh, absolutely. They did not want to hear anything else. I think they wanted this over and done with immediately. They did not want, like I said, this type of thing doesn't happen in where I'm from. So to have different suspects that they were trying to look at, it was a big no. So they zoomed in right on him and I think they never even looked at anybody else or wanted to investigate any further. They were trying to think of any shred of anything they had to just pin it all on him.

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Again, KC's lawyer.

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Is that we just get regular officers come up there and say, everything was done correctly. Was it? I beg to differ. Did they show you a handbook that showed that they did everything correctly? Did they bring somebody from the Police Academy that teaches evidence tech school and show you how it's done and how it should be done? They just tell you, we did it right. And it's very easy to say, we did it right and very hard to be critical of yourself. It's very hard when you look back on your investigation to be critical of yourself. But I can see what happened here and why Tunnel Vision happened with the Michigan State Police.

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So why did the police fixate on KC as the only suspect in this case? Because after six hours of interrogation, with no lawyer present, KC signed a statement that he was there at the scene on the night she was murdered and saw her dead body. But did he?

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Coming up on Tunnel Vision.

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This case is not solved yet. Don't let them off the hook.

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I don't think our county was ever used to handling anything of this magnitude.

They faked home invasions and were convicted of insurance claim fraud.

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It's not justice for Andrea to just say this is our best suspect at the time.

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I think they talked about the trial, how they just dumped all the evidence together. So I just don't think they handled it right from the start.

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Somebody in this group of people knows what happened.

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You've been listening to Tunnel Vision, Episode 1, Bias.

 

If you have any information that could help with the investigation of this case, contact us directly at tunnelvisionseries@gmail.com.

 

Tunnel Vision is written, produced, and hosted by Avery Tatro, editing by Michael Tatro.

 

To keep up with new episodes, subscribe to Tunnel Vision on Apple Podcasts.

 

Original music is by Michael Tatro and Suno AI.