Episode 2 - Timeline

I never believed for a second that it was true.

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Previously on Tunnel Vision:

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It was mind-boggling.

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And not one person could say anything bad about Kenneth Carl Grondin in the third.

I know Andrea was his first girlfriend, and he loved her very much.

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We've got an unidentified fingerprint on the glass, and we have an unidentified fingerprint on her car.

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They zoomed in right on him, and 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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My name is Avery Tatro, and you're listening to Tunnel Vision, episode 2, Timeline. If you haven't listened to episode 1, please go back. To recap, in 2011, 20-year-old Andrea Eilber was found dead while house-sitting for her aunt and uncle in Michigan.​ Andrea's boyfriend KC was arrested, convicted and jailed for this crime. We are investigating what really happened.

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Today, we are going over the timeline of the murder. The timing of events was developed from the statements and testimonies of several key players who all remember the events of these days differently. Where possible, we use information gathered from multiple sources and further corroborated with phone records and surveillance video to present the most credible timeline.

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...because people estimate times, and when they go back and reflect, they're off a little bit. Yeah, it might have been 9.30...

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KC's trial was not recorded, so we have no audio or video to reference. The courtroom voices you hear in this episode are synthesized from trial transcripts.

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...What did you do last Thursday at 7 p.m.? What did you do last Tuesday at 6 p.m.? What did you do last month on a Wednesday at 5 p.m.?​ You guess, and when you're under pressure and you have officers asking you questions, and you're trying to be as honest as you can, stories may be different...

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That was KC's lawyer during his closing statement. There are three important items in this timeline that we will focus on. The first is a spare key to the house where Andrea was house sitting.​ The crime scene showed no signs of forced entry, so how did the killer get inside? Who had access to the house and was the spare key a factor?

 

The second is a series of ATM withdrawals that were made with Andrea's debit card after she was presumed dead.​ Who made these withdrawals? We know when and where they happened, but who had Andrea's card and the opportunity to make them?

 

The third is a search party that Andrea's friends organized in the days following her disappearance.​ Who was involved, who wasn't, and what was discovered? Andrea had been house sitting for her aunt and uncle at their home on Kings Mill Road since Thursday of that week in November. They had asked her to keep an eye on their house while they were away at their northern Michigan cabin for a hunting trip.

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The house is in a fairly remote location in Mayfield Township, 11 miles northeast of the city of La Peer. There are other houses clustered along the main road, but the area is mostly forests, fields and lakes. In fact, many of the local roads have the word lake in them.

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On Friday and Saturday night, KC and his friend Cody stayed with Andrea at the house to keep her company. They got there on Saturday night before Andrea had, since she was finishing a shift at the Kroger store. They let themselves in with the spare key Andrea had given KC.

Here's what Cody remembers at the trial.

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You just recalled, about eight months after, that he may have had a key?

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I mean, yeah, I remember, yeah.

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And do you recall how he got that key?

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I believe Andrea gave it to him earlier in the day, because we were going there before, just a little before she got there.

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And do you recall what the defendant did with that key?

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He hung onto it, and after she got there, he said, what do you want me to do with this key? She said, throw it on the counter, toss it up on the counter, and that was the end of the key.

And that was Saturday.

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That was Saturday.

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Cody's statement is only one version that I've heard about this key. The prosecution pointed to text messages between Andrea and KC about picking up the spare key on Sunday, not Saturday. A different account was made by KC to Andrea's aunt Carla that he may have left the key on the counter of the Hummer House when he went back to pick up his Xbox, perhaps sometime on Sunday or Monday.

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The location of this key at various points in this timeline remains unsolved, and it begs a lot of questions about who had the key and when. Is it a crucial piece of this puzzle, or is it simply circumstantial evidence?

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KC and his friends had planned to have a guy's night on Monday, but Andrea suggested moving it to Sunday, so that she and KC could spend Monday night together. On that Sunday night, Andrea stopped by the Grondin house for 15 minutes to say hi to KC and drop off some food for the guys. Andrea may have collected the spare key from KC during this time, but it is not clear that this actually happened.

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Monday was a normal day for KC. A few of his friends had slept over from the night before, and trickled out throughout the morning. Diane White, one of KC and Andrea's coworkers, reported that she received a call from KC to the Kroger sometime on Monday, asking for Andrea's home phone number and whether or not she would be working on Tuesday.

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She told him that she could not give out the phone number, as it was considered personal information. This is a strange interaction. I wonder why KC couldn't have just asked Andrea himself, and was it really KC calling?

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That afternoon, KC had a physics class and drove roughly 20 minutes to the Flint campus. After class, he stopped by Kentucky Fried Chicken for some lunch, and then returned home where he played video games until dinnertime. His mother April insisted that he clean up after dinner and do the dishes before he left to go see Andrea.

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KC spent the next hour washing dishes and finishing a video game, and then packed his car with the movies that he had rented for the evening. Monday was a normal day for Andrea too. She went with her dad to bring her grandmother to get blood work, and then the three of them went out to lunch.

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They returned home at around 1 p.m. and Andrea told her dad that she was going to do some laundry over at her aunt and uncle's house. Investigators were told that Andrea was supposed to leave at around 3 to go to the Hummer House, but she took extra time, had a shower and didn't leave until 5 30. While they didn't know it at the time, Andrea's dad and grandmother were the last people who reported seeing Andrea alive.

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Shortly after she left, Andrea and her dad spoke on the phone. This is where details become very important. Andrea's cell phone carrier Sprint reported a 78 second call from Andrea's phone at 5 34 p.m. Sprint also reported the location of her phone on Dodge Road at the time of the call.

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I checked the route from Andrea's home to the King's Mill address, and the phone call location is a few minutes from her home, and lines up with the most direct route to the Hummer house. It would seem that she was headed directly to house sit, like she had told her dad. During the phone call, she told him that she was a bit scared to stay at the house alone, and was glad that KC would be with her.

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Andrea didn't have any specific reason, and her dad was not worried at the time. If Andrea was at Dodge Road at 534, then she would arrive at the house close to 556 p.m. At 625 p.m., KC received a text message from Andrea saying, can we meet directly at my aunt's house? KC responded yes, and at 706, she said, hey, will you bring those movies over, please?

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KC responded saying, sure, but I'm not done cleaning up. And she replied at 7-Eleven with, hurry up, babe, smiley face. At around the same time, Andrea's aunt Carla proceeded to call her cell phone, and then the Hummer's house phone, but was not able to reach her niece”.

“The first call rang, but the second call went straight to voicemail. Here's Carla speaking with the prosecutor during trial.

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Did you try to have any contact with her on Monday?

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Monday, yes.

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And did you call her?

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Yes.

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And do you recall approximately what time you called her? Was it early in the day, evening?

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Probably about 6.30.

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Okay. Were you able to get a hold of her at all?

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No.

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But the phone was on. Is that fair to say?

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Yes.

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Did it go to, at that time, did it go to voicemail or?

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No, it rang, and then it would.

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Okay. Did you try to contact her after that night?

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Yes.

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And at that point, what happened?

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Later, her cell phone went right to voicemail, like it was turned off.

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Okay. Was that initially a big concern for you when you found that out, that her phone was off?

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Yeah.

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Even initially? Okay. And why is that?

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Just because if you called her, she would either answer or she was driving or something, she might stop and call you later.

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Okay. But usually?

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I don't recall her ever having her phone off.

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KC said that he left his house between 720 and 730 that night. Cody remembered it being closer to eight. He went to the Grondin house to play video games with KC's brother, Kyle.

When he arrived, he said he saw KC in his car getting ready to leave and noticed movies on the front seat.

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And do you remember what this small talk was about?

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I mean, I knew it was supposed to be him and her's night, so probably along the lines of "have fun".

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And did he appear to be agitated in any way?

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No, not at all.

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Did he appear to be angry in any way?

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No.

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Side note, we have requested from the court the cell tower map and phone records for KC and Andrea's phones, and hope these records will help explain the exact times and locations of these details. KC told the police that after a 15-minute drive, he arrived at the Hummer house at approximately 745, and noticed that Andrea's car was not there. He then sent Andrea a text message saying, here, where are you?

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KC then got out of his car and walked up to the front door of the house, where he discovered that there were no lights on inside. He reported that he did not knock, but rather tried opening the door to see if it was unlocked. When he was unsuccessful, he sat down on the porch while he waited for Andrea to respond.

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This is where things get very strange. Sprint reported that at 747, her cell phone sent its GPS coordinates and then lost power. I looked these up and the location was within 500 feet of the Hummer House.

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It could have been inside the house or very close to it. Was KC really there at the time her phone died? Did he go inside?

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Was Andrea inside the house alone or was someone else with her? Her cell phone carrier then reported a text message sent at 813 to KC's phone saying, Hey babe, gotta cancel, sorry. We'll catch you tomorrow.

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What happened between 747 and this text message? Where was Andrea and where was her phone when this was sent? Andrea's dad told investigators that this text did not sound like his daughter.

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Did she even send this text? KC then responded with what? And said at this point he thought she may have been breaking up with him, as she had never canceled plans with him before.

Feeling disappointed and reporting that his cell phone had died, KC decided to go back home where he saw Kyle and Cody playing video games. Cody remembers KC arriving back home only a half hour later, and was surprised to see him.

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Did anything seem out of the ordinary when he came back?

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I mean, yeah, because he wasn't really supposed to be back. And he yelled down the stairs for his brother's phone charger. And that was it.

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Cody and Kyle began to feel as though something was wrong, so they asked him why he wasn't with Andrea. KC said, I don't know, and Cody assumed that he and Andrea had gotten into a fight. While at home, he messaged Andrea saying, are you really ditching me?

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KC told investigators that he called Andrea perhaps five times that night, and her phone appeared to be off. Cody stated that KC went to his room until about 10, 10:30 p.m., whereupon he left again, returning at around midnight. Investigators also spoke with two of KC's coworkers, Brittany and Joe.

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Brittany remembered calling KC at 8.58 and then texting him at 9.09, asking what was wrong. At 9.10, he replied with IDKB, meaning I don't know Brittany. At 9.11, she said, something is, and I think you need to tell me.

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He replied at 9.12 with, me and Andrea were supposed to hang out, I went there, she wasn't, and she got there from her house, I say, where are you? And she said, sorry babe, gotta cancel.

 

Then at 9.16, Brittany said to KC, seriously, come over and hang out.

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Movie night? Here is Brittany speaking with the prosecutor during trial.

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Can you tell the jury what the conversation was in general?

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Honestly, don't remember the conversation. I just told him that we could, that he could come have a movie night if he wasn't doing anything. It was nothing out of the ordinary.

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Did he seem at all upset about Andrea dumping him at that time or canceling on him, I should say?

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You could just tell that he was like irritated that she had, that he didn't know what was going on.

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According to Brittany, she and KC talked in the Kroger parking lot until 929 when he left. She then sent him another message saying, just come over. Joe Kaiser, who also worked with KC and Andrea, told investigators that he drove to the Kroger on Monday night to jumpstart Brittany's car.

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Sometime between 845 and 9pm, Joe said he observed KC drive into the Kroger parking lot and witnessed him and Brittany speaking for a short period of time. After leaving the grocery store, KC made two purchases at a gas station at a Walmart at 942pm, according to surveillance video. Joe Kaiser was at Brittany's house when KC arrived at approximately 945.

Brittany remembers it being closer to 10. Joe said that KC went straight to the couch and didn't really say much when he arrived. Cell records confirm KC's location when his phone pinged the cell tower at 1016pm.

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Then at 1023, only seven minutes later, something happens that complicates the story. Andrea's debit card was used at a bank ATM in Davison, Michigan. $200 was withdrawn, then an additional $100.

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It is unlikely that Andrea made these withdrawals. Medical examiners determined that she died sometime between Monday afternoon and evening. A neighbor of the Hummers, when questioned by the police, reported hearing a gunshot sometime earlier on Monday evening before going to bed at 10pm, but figured it was just a hunter.

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The prosecution suggested it could have been KC, but that is also unlikely. He was at Brittany's house at the same time according to phone records and multiple witnesses, and the ATM was 40 minutes away round trip. Here's KC's grandpa Carl.

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One surveillance video where you see the guy's hands at the drive up bank, he walked up to it. You could see in the video the guy was wearing what they call a cable knit sweater. That was one of the things missing from the house.

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That bank is out in front of a shopping center, and in that shopping center was a Grondin's hair center that we own. So they tried to tie that in. Well, KC would have been familiar with that bank because of the Grondin's hair center being in there.

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Well, KC had never been in that hair salon. We had 35 of them at the time.

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Whitney reported that KC stayed at her house, watched the movie Horrible Bosses, and left around midnight. Cody and Kyle also remember KC returning at around midnight.

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Can you describe to the jury what happened when you saw him, if anything?

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Kyle ended up going upstairs shortly before me from the basement, and said that his brother was in his room. He said, something seems wrong. You should come up and talk to him.

I can't figure anything out. So I ended up going upstairs in his room. The lights were off.

I asked him what's going on, and he just said he didn't know what was going on.

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So you knew something was wrong?

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Something was wrong.

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On Tuesday morning, KC's phone pinged the tower for the Hummer House at 9:58 a.m., then again for his house at 11 a.m. The drive is about 12 minutes, so KC was there for at most 35 minutes. KC recalled going to the house around noon to look for Andrea when he was later questioned by police. At the same time his phone registered his return to his house, $300 was withdrawn from Andrea's account using the same debit card as before, but this time at a Speedway gas station over 20 miles away in Burton, Michigan.

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I just walked in the door. And that's another thing you won't read about, and it's great police work. They never even went over there and measured to see how tall he was.

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KC's mother went over there, because they got all these things on the wall, you know, even measure how tall a person is. That guy was obviously at least three inches taller than KC.

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Surveillance cameras at the Speedway and at Baker College captured a man entering and approaching a standalone ATM in the store. He was wearing dark pants, a dark hooded sweatshirt with the hood over his head, and possibly a baseball cap. The video also shows him driving away in a dark colored SUV that was parked at the Tim Hortons next door.

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KC continued texting with Brittany on Tuesday that he was bummed out that he couldn't reach Andrea. Over the course of Monday and Tuesday, KC called Andrea's cell phone about 85 times, but all the calls went directly to voicemail. Diane White reported that she received another call at the Kroger store from KC on Tuesday, where he asked again for Andrea's home phone number.

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She told investigators that around 12 to 1230 p.m., KC walked into the store and asked again for Andrea's number. When he was told again that she could not share this personal information, he seemed to mope around the store and then wandered out. Debbie Bailey, another Kroger employee, told investigators that she had seen a Facebook post posted by KC on Tuesday, which said, Worst day ever with a sad face.

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KC's behavior is very interesting to me.

 

He doesn't act cold and detached from reality. He's also not overly dramatic by advertising to the world how upset he is.

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He isn't careful about maintaining a clean digital footprint. He doesn't try hard to establish an alibi on Monday night or Tuesday. And he returns to the Hummer House multiple times, which is risky if you're tied to a crime there.

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It's not the behavior of a criminal mastermind, as the prosecution would suggest. Instead, it's the kind of messy and uneven response that you might expect from a struggling 19-year-old boy in rural Michigan. That evening at around 8 or 9 p.m., KC and Brittany met in the parking lot of Walmart, where they talked about Andrea.

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She reported that KC was crying and seemed distraught over Andrea canceling on him the night before and not being able to get ahold of her. Meanwhile, Andrea's family became concerned that they had not heard from her for over 24 hours. Carla reached out to Andrea's dad, Steve, to ask if he had heard from her.

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Carla and Andrea spoke with each other almost every day, and according to Steve, it was unlike Andrea to go an entire day without contacting family and friends. Carla said that around 8.30 to 9:00 p.m., she called the Kroger store to see if Andrea was working and was told that she was not. Carla then decided to drive over to the Hummer House to check on her niece.

Andrea's car wasn't there and the lights were off. It seemed that she wasn't home, and Carla was too afraid to get out of her car and start poking around.

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So at that point, did you talk to anybody or give anybody a call?

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I called Harold.

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Okay. And what was that conversation? What did you guys talk about?

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What did you tell them?

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I said, Andrea's car is not there, and I have not heard from her, and I've been trying to get hold of her. Have you heard from her?

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Did he indicate if he had heard from her at that time?

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No, he hadn't.

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Okay. And he did seem to be concerned at that point?

 

Yes.

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Okay. And so what was, what happened after that? So he hadn't heard from her, you hadn't heard from her.

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What happened after that?

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He told me, he said, go to Ken's house and knock on the door. He said his mom will be there.

At this point, Steve and his girlfriend Kim had become worried and decided to search for Andrea as well. They drove over to the Hummer House and found it the same way that Carla had.

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Do you know, did you know, if there was a spare key or not? Did you look for one, or did you just not know if there was a spare key?

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Well, we called my sister.

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Which sister?

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Stephanie.

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Okay.

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And asked her about it, because Andrea had told me there was a spare key.

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Okay.

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And when we talked to my sister and Kim, my brother-in-law, they kept telling us it's on the porch, right by the, you know, in a little pot or whatever. We kept looking for it and couldn't find it.

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Steve and Kim then drove to the Kroger to see if Andrea's car was parked there or if she was at work. But they were not able to locate her there either.

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Do you go anywhere else other than Kroger and the house?

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We drove around different spots, and we drove over to, over by her brother's house, over into the trailer park. But I'm not sure if we went in the trailer park or not. We called Mickey and she, her cousin, and she...

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And anywhere else that you looked, if you recall?

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Then we ended up going back to my mother's house. And we were out there, and I told him, I say, this ain't it, we need to do something.

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And did you do something at that point?

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Called the police.

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Carla arrived at the Grondin house and spoke with April about the situation. April then called KC, still at the Walmart with Brittany, and asked him to return home, because Carla had arrived. She told him that he needed to go back with Carla to the Hummer house for a second look.

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KC told investigators that at approximately 11 p.m., he and Carla drove to the Hummer house together. On the way, KC told Carla that he no longer had the spare key, and it was on the kitchen counter.

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What do you do? What do you and the defendant do when you get to the house?

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We get out of the car, and he went up to the garage door window, and like, lit up his phone, and was looking in there. I didn't even think of looking in there, because I know she never parks in the garage. I started going up on the front porch, and he said the key is on the counter.

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At that point, okay. So he says that to you again?

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Uh-huh.

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A second time. Is that a yes or no?

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Yes.

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Carla told investigators that KC then tried to get in through the basement sliding doors, but she told him to stop because she was concerned that he might break them. Steve reported his daughter missing to the police at approximately 1040 p.m. and troopers Kramer and Straub were requested to check the Hummer House. At around 1230 a.m., now Wednesday morning, they found all the doors locked, Andrea's car missing, and there was no answer at the door.

Meanwhile, Andrea's friends and co-workers organized a search for her. KC was invited to join, but he declined.

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Anyways, he asked KC, do you want to go? And by this time, it was late at night. And KC was going to bed. He had to get up at like 5 o'clock in the morning to go to work. And he'd been for two days. He's upset.

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He thinks she just ghosted him as he sat and gone someplace with somebody else or ran on up or something. So he said, no, I got to get up early in the morning to go to work.

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A Kroger co-worker, Jeffrey Babcock, called KC to ask about Andrea's last known location. KC told Jeff that she had been house sitting for her aunt and uncle up in Mayfield. When Jeff asked for the address of the Hummer House, KC told him that it was off of Roods Lake Road.

The prosecution made a big deal of this at trial. They claimed that KC knew exactly where the house was, but gave the wrong address three miles away to delay the search for Andrea. We know the house is at Kings Mill Road.

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So what happened here? Let's look closer.

 

The trip from KC's house to the Hummer House is eight miles, running north along Roods Lake Road, east on any road that connects to Fish Lake Road, and then north to reach Kings Mill Road. Roods Lake runs for almost four miles of that eight mile route and is only two turns away from Kings Mill. Was KC intentionally giving the wrong address to Jeff? Did he say the house was on Roods Lake Road, which is obviously not true? Or did he say the way to get to the house was off Roods Lake Road, which was true? I tested this idea on a few people.

 

Okay. Name me any of your friends' houses that you think you could get to without using a GPS.

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Melaina, Cory, Anna, Noella, Grace, Megan.

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And what are their addresses?

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I only know Cory's address.

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I would say the Milardi's. I can get to their house. I can get over to the Ostrowski's house, the White's house without a GPS.

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How many do you know their exact street address?

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None of them.

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Carmen's house, Susan's, Marcy's, Mike and Sarah's.

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How many do you know their exact address?

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Zero.

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I don't really know what happened here. We don't have a recording of KC and Jeff to make our own judgments. We don't know what was said, how it was delivered or received, the cadence of the conversation, and what tone or inflections might offer clues.

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Despite having the wrong location, Jeff and his group continued searching and eventually found Andrea's black Mazda at 1:13 AM. It was abandoned a few minutes away from the Hummer house in a parking area of a hunting spot on Five Lakes Road. The driver's side door was open, the interior light was on, the emergency brake was engaged, and there was a tire mark on the rear bumper.

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The area had poor cell reception, so the group drove north to Kings Mill Road to make the call to police. Shortly after, Andrea's dad and police officers arrived to identify her car. Her dad noticed something strange. The emergency brake didn't work in Andrea's car, and she wouldn't have used it. Whoever drove her car didn't know this.

 

On their way home, the group stopped at KC's house to inform him that they had found Andrea's car. The discovery was a turning point for her family and friends. The situation was much more serious than anyone had thought. On that early Wednesday morning, the police got permission from Andrea's aunt Stephanie to break into her home.

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Around 4:30 a.m., Trooper Szuhent found a way in. Here is his testimony at trial.

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Can you tell the jury the process when you make entry?

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What happened? What you saw?

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Certainly. The back of the house there are sliding doors, and then as you move to the east from those doors, there's a small crack that went all the way across, horizontally across the window. And I removed some of that, broke the rest of the window out, to be able to reach in, to crank the window open, so that I could gain access through that basement window.

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And you were able to do so?

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I did.

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When you arrived inside the location, what did you see?

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Initially, as we were looking through the window, it was very dark in the room, no lights on in that room. I shined with my light, I couldn't see anything. As I came through the window, directly beneath the window is the laundry wash tub, and I navigated down into the tub and then out of the tub.

 

As I then started continuing what would be north through the room, towards where I could see the door, there was a chair almost in the center of the room, high back chair with its back to me, to the window. And as I walked past that chair and was going to the door through the peripheral of the light of my flashlight and my peripheral vision, I observed something blue that caught my eye. And as I turned, what it was, was the fingernail polish on a hand on an individual sitting in the chair.  

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Coming up on Tunnel Vision.

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...noted small cuts and abrasions inside Andrea's mouth, indicating the possibility that the victim may have been gagged or her head covered.

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I think some of them are covering up something they know too that they don't want out there.

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The behavior of the offender is psychopathic. He does not feel bad about what he did, nor will he ever.

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We honestly feel God was on KC's side. If he just showed up earlier, he'd have probably been killed, too.

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You've been listening to Tunnel Vision, Episode 2, Timeline. 

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

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

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

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Original music is by Michael Tatro and Suno AI.