Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
When Ina Thea Kenoyer’s fiancé, Steve Riley, was set to inherit
$37 million,their lives seemed about to change forever….
But just hours before the payout, Steve mysteriously fell ill and died. What initially seemed like a tragic accident quickly unraveled into something far more sinister.
what the cop doesn’t realize at this time is that Ina is a very good actor and she knows far more about steve’ss sickness than she leads on….
steve was less than an hour away from cashing in $37 million in heritance payment when he became fatally ill .
and as the multi -week investigation would progress detectives would quckly discover that steve’s death was due to poisining.
someone had killed him ….
and everyone close to steve , all had dire needs to claim his newfound fortune by any means necessary.
24 hours before steve’s death
steve and Ina’s drunken neigbhor had been harassing them and other residents of the neigbhorhood, so Ina called 911 to deescalate the situation .
what makes this specific footage interesting is not the situation with their drunken neighbor, but rather what Ina would tell police after …
her $37 million inheritance fund that she’s just hours away from cashing in.
but this is where Ina shouldn’t have ,there plans to pay off all of their bills ,which had over the years been racking up and she does this for one reason…..
to brag and ” take a long vecation”
according to Ina steve is set to receive an inheritance from his late uncle tomorrow which supposedly is enough money to turn their lives around completely.
what police don’t realize at this time is how enormous this inheritance sum really is .
2016
steve’s friend had received a call from a man named marcus riley who claimed to be steve’s long – lost uncle from Ireland.
he had explained that he finally wanted to get in touch with his newphew, after connecting with each other,steve had learned he was in line to receive an inheritance upon on his uncle’s passing.
which was a sum over $ 17 million at the time.
this was enough to permanently fix the financial struggles he and Ina had been dealing with.
a couple of years later ,4 months prior to the footage you just watched, steve would learn of his uncle’s passing from a british lawyer who had contacted him .
additionally he would learn that his $ 17 million inheritance had grown to over 30 million due to his uncle’s successful investiments over the years.
that’s why Ina cannot hold herself from boasting to the police tomorrow they plan to meet with their lawyer to officially sign the documents and claim the $ 30 million inheritance fund.
the two plan to take the money and live with steve’s long -lost family in Ireland quote;”we’re gnna live in the castle”
in less than 24 hours Ina will be rich .
so, as officers leave for the night Ina would make one final statement about how her life was about to change forever.
steve would return to his and Ina’s apartment that night and the two would patiently wait , not being able to sleep as they counted down the hours until they would receive their millions
the plan to receive the funds was simple, at 2: pm, the group would go to the airport to meet the laywer who was flying in with their inheritance paperwork .
Ina and steve obliged and would arrive at the airport alongside their two friends billy and wes before patiently waiting.
however , while they were waiting for the lawyer’s ,steve would become extremely sick …
he would claim feeling drunk even throwing up in the airport bathrooms ,his heart rate was rapidly increasing and his condition worsened to the point where wes decided to take him home to help him treat his sickness.
Ina would wait at the airport for the lawyer to arrive,however he would never show up.
and after a couple of hours with no lawyer,no money and a sick fiancé, she would return home as well.
everyone believed that steve had suffered from a heat stroke as a resolt of working on his truck for hours that morning.
but steve’s symptoms were far more fatal then the heat stroke he had received in the past.
even experiencing fatal signs of kidney failure throughout the night and in the morning steve would become completely unresponsive forcing Ina to call 911.
inside the home , officers would find steve unresponsive , they would drag him out of the house through piles of trash and filth .
quickly he was rushed to the nearest hospital but with his condition so poor he would be flown to the st alexis hospital to undergo more professional treatment.
after steve was flown to the hospital Ina would explain to the officers that steve had gotten a heat stroke wich caused his illness.
the officers had no reason not to believe her story so they would comfort her throughout the day as steve was being treated.
unfortunately steve would never again regain consciousness.
this is billy burkhead , steve and Ina’s neighbor and his was with steve and Ina the entire day of his sudden sickness , even working on the truck with steve and traveling with them to the airport.
billy simply refused to believe that steve’s death was caused by heat stroke , especially since steve seemed perfectly fine all day until they reached the airport.
instead ,billy suspected something far more sinister and wanted to share his theory with the detectives, so the day after steve’s death billy woul dcall officers back to apartment 912a to detail his side of the story.
billy’s explanation for steve’s death is… well horrifying if Ina truly did poison steve then his symptoms would make sense and would ad up far more han the idea of him having a heat stroke.
however, why would Ina want to poison her husband if they were about to live such a good life, well billy seems to have the exact answer to that question.
billy thinks that Ina was secretely planning to split with steve after the inheritance was received ,even going so far as to throw his belongings out of the house afterthey returned from the airport.
even worse, is that Ina lied about getting help for steve after they returned from the airport,pretening to take him to get trated when in reality they never left the house.
unfortunately ,Ina overheard all of this talk and decided to give billy a piece of her own mind…..
Ina coincidentally seemed to put the blame on the neighbors calling them evil people .
it’s become more clear that steve’s death was far more sinister than officers expected.
officers now had a potential homicide case to investigate but as they went to leave…
one officer accidentally broke the news to Ina that her fiancé had passed away
Ina’s reaction to her husband’s passing is one of the strangest ever
she starts balling her eyes out then suddenly jumps right back to her normal self,as if she hadn’t even heard the terrible news to begin with
it’s becoming more and more clear that something is not adding up.
billy was not the only person to initially put the blame on Ina ,in fact he was only one of many, who would come forward with their concerns.
billy’s wife lynn ,had stated that Ina had made horrifying statements in the past alluding that if she was to ever kill her partner..she would poison him,using an antifreeze.
to add to pile of already incriminating information steve would be tested for ethylene glycol in his bloodstream. a key ingredient in antifreeze,to nobody’s suprise the results showed toxic of ethylene glycol in his system.
this information would serve as the catalyst for initiating a formal homicide investigation into the death of steve riley.
following the commencement of the investigation a series of intensive interrogations would be conducted with all parties connected to the incident ,including Ina…
to ultimately solve steve’s murder.
however before that,Ina would launch a plan on her own.
it must have been made apparent to h er that she was in hot water as the day after this encounter with the police she would call them back to apartment 912a to explain theories of her own.
Ina seems to conspire to the idea that steve may have drank the antifreeze himself or that someone may have poisoned him
however despite all the suspicion being thrown her way,she can only stay on track for minutes before going back on tangents about her inheritance fund.
it was clear at this point that somebody had poisoned steve, the idea of this being self- inflicted was unlikely as steve had a life- changing amount of money waiting for him and would haave had to drink the antifreeze just hours before going to claim the cash.
clearly Ina can be made out as the lead suspect due to the amount of fingers being pointed her way.
but the other potential suspects should not be ruled out either , with this in mind,officers would bring their first suspect in for questioning,rebecca.
rebecca was another neighbor of Ina and steve’s who was very involved with the entire case so far,pitchin her opinion to police whenever she could.
rebecca was brought in primarily to add to the pile of evidence to confront Ina with later.
but as the interview would continue,strange red flags would arise from rebecca’s odd personality.
starting off a homicide interview explaining how demons left your daughter’s butt is an interesting way of proving your innocence.
but the detective isn’t here to judge,rather to get to the bottom of steve’s death , so she ignore the strange remarks .
it seems asthough steve’s life wasn’t as straightforward as initially thought,having drug issues, weight loss and possibly depression.
whether or not Ina was a large contributor to these deteriorating issues is something they would soon learn
as this interview would become a pivotal piece of evidence.
laying the groundwork to dismantle her defense entirely during the interrogation.
the amount steve had planned to receive was something he kept very secret often lying to people like rebecca on how much he was actually getting , as we’ll soon find out this number was much,much larger than $ 2 million .
this statement from rebecca would explain what Ina was talking about last time she spoke to police.
and how she was trying to switch the will over from steve’s son to herself.
if Ina discovered his plan , it would have given her a strong incentive to do whatever it took to change the will back in her favor…
possibly by any means necessary.
Ina clearly had become obsessed with the idea that she was about to live the life of her dreams with steve’s inheritance.
but after rumors of steve leaving her,it seems Ina became terrified that she might not receive the funds and would be stuck with her depressive living conditions.
it’s now become how these events and steve’s strange death could be correlated to one another.
however, as rebecca had stated herself, she was a nosy neighbor, looking for any rumors or conspiracy theories to help solve the neighborhood drama.
in orderto confirm the accuracy of these claims , two more reliable sources would be brought in the following day….
steve’s son ryan and billy.
if anyone would be able to give proper insight into steve’s life,it would be these two, as they were by far the closest people to steve.
almost every piece of information the detectives receive lead straight to Ina as the killer and also makes sense why Ina hated billy and steve’s son so much as they knew far more information than she would liked about the inheritance and her schemes to obtain it.
these interviews wouldn’t last long as detectives got all the information they needed from billy & ryan, and could directly confront Ina with it
but before leaving, they would break disturbing news to ryan which would make this case even more of a terrible tragedy.
the inheritance was a scam, steve had lived for the past seven years under the impression that if he just patiently waited living through his terrible living conditions he would come out with more money than he could dream of and finally enjoy life.
even worse,was that this very scam that stagnated his life for years may have been the cause of his very own death with such a pity of a case…
detectives would go on to interview a handful of other suspects.
in order to get as much information as they possible could to help break down Ina’s defense.
and after multiple days of interviews, the day finally came ,to confront Ina with everything they’ve gathered.
but despite all this evidence against her,officers knew they would have a hard time prosecuting Ina without a confession or incriminating statements, and that’s exactly what they were determined to get .
the detectives would go on to get more information about Ina and steve’s early relationship
but it wouldn’t last long before Ina would start conspiring against billy and others she wanted to paint as suspects.
this would be the first of Ina’s lies during this interrogation.
she knew steve had been using long before the incident she described,but in order to make billy seem like the villain in their lives
she wanted to make it seem as though he was the reason for steve’s drug use.
but now the police would ask her perhaps the most intriguing question, what exactly did she plan to do with the inheritance money.
clearly Ina is running out of resources to take suspicion off herself and the detectives won’t take long before making her abundantly aware of how horrible of a liar she is .
for now they’d like to get some more information on this inheritance and if Ina would admit to trying to claim it all for herself
the detectives would spend the next 25 minutes trying to understand Ina’s timeline for rhe day they plan to receive the inheritance.
whenever she gave a time for when the group went to the airport,she would conveniently change that time entirely like
no ,it was 1:30 pm”
just a few minutes later.
but one detail would stay the same .
unlike her original claims to officers on the day of the murder, she would insist that steve had never gone to the airport but rather wes had gone instead to represent steve, this was confusing
but Ina’s reason as to why steve couldn’t make it to the airport would make just as little sense.
here she’s carfully crafting a story to deflect suspicion but the detectives came prepared.
steve had no traces of alcohol in his system the day of his death, proven by a blood test and toxicology.
so detectives know clearly Ina is lying through her teeth.
realizing she’s running out of options to defend herself and with the detectives closing in , Ina resorts to something suprisingly clever as a last ditch effort….asking for a lawyer.
the second Ina realized the detectives saw right through her story she folded under the pressure and insisted on a lawyer.
Ina had finally realized her game was over …..
following this interrogation, Ina would roam free while detectives scrambled for concrete evidence that she had poisoned steve.
Ina would continue fighting for her innocence making more deranged,theories such as steve drininking the antifreeze out of shaem that the lawyer was a fraud or that t she had too been poisoned just months prior
unfortunately for her ,police managed to file a search warrant on apartment 912 a,finding multiple alarming items.
an old windex bottle without a cap ,containing a bright green liquid suspected to be antifreeze.
as well as a coors light bottle containing antifreeze, found in the garage , steve had been working in that morning .
this exact coors light bottle was what Ina used to poison steve with.
antifreeze contains ethylene glycol an ingredient that makes the liquid tast sweet.
by mixing this with tea, steve was fully unable to tell this fatal substance apart from his typical morning tea.
additionally by hiding the liquids in the dark coors light bottle
steve was unable to see the bright green color of this drink.
with this all of this newfound completely incriminating evidence as well as the numerous lies and false claims Ina had told law enforcement,she would finally be arrested on october 30th 2024
6 months following Ina’s arrest, she would sit down in the courtroom for one final time,eccepting a plea dealfor the murder of steve riley.
it had been a matter of principle for Ina throughout this entire investigation, staying true to her word , no matter how delusional it sounded,but in this courtroom Ina was left with no choice but to finally confess.
Ina was charged with murder ,intentional knowing or with extreme indifference of an adult victim.
she was sentence to to life in prison,her first chance at probation will come in 2050…..