NEW YORK — In a Manhattan murder mystery, a jury on Thursday convicted a mother and son of slaying their wealthy landlady so that they could steal her $8-million mansion--even though her body has never been found.
Sante Kimes, 65, and Kenneth Kimes, 25, were convicted of the second-degree murder of 82-year-old Irene Silverman. The jury, which deliberated for four days, also found the pair guilty of criminal possession of a weapon, conspiracy, forgery, robbery, burglary, grand larceny and eavesdropping.
Mother and son sat quietly in New York State Supreme Court while the forewoman read the verdicts, intoning "guilty" 118 times.
They each face 25 years to life in prison when they are sentenced June 27.
Defense attorney Jose Muniz said Sante Kimes, whose criminal record dates to 1961, asked him: "What's next? Is this the end of everything for us?"
The bizarre case, which stretched from New York to California, drew widespread notoriety.
During the 15-week trial, jurors were told that the plot began in 1996, when Sante Kimes attended an anti-aging seminar in Las Vegas. There she met Ralph Pellecchia, an insurance salesman who knew Silverman, a widow who charged as much as $10,000 a month to rent apartments in the luxury building she owned.
That description, prosecutors said, piqued Sante Kimes' interest. In March 1998, Pellecchia testified, Kimes again asked about Silverman, a former ballet dancer who had married a rich real-estate agent.
Pellecchia said that when Kimes pressed for details, he mentioned the name of Rudy Vaccari, Silverman's butcher and friend.
Prosecutors said that two months later, Kimes phoned one of Silverman's employees. Dropping Vaccari's name, she identified herself as Eva Guerrin and said she was the secretary to Manny Guerrin, whom she identified as a Mexican designer.
The ruse worked and she reserved an apartment for Guerrin--an alias prosecutors charged Kimes' son used.
Meanwhile the Kimeses, who at that point were in Florida, continued their research. Using a stolen Social Security number, prosecutors said, the pair set up a dummy corporation to be used to eventually steal the townhouse.
In June 1998, posing as designer and secretary, the Kimeses moved into apartment 1-B for $6,000 a month.
Three weeks later, Silverman was nowhere to be found.
