Kasi Peek, a 44-year-old computer programmer from Smyrna, Georgia, was shot in the back with a .30 caliber rifle in her condominium on October 2, 2005, by her estranged husband, John Peek. Her killing did what nine years of investigation had not: it tied John Peek to the 1996 bludgeoning deaths of his previous partner, Carol Marlin, and Marlin’s friend Margaret Ginn. He pleaded guilty to all three murders in April 2007 and received three concurrent life sentences without the possibility of parole.1Atlanta Journal-Constitution. How the AJC Covered the John Peek Murders
Who Kasi Peek Was
Born Kasi Devenport, she grew up in Richardson, Texas, graduated from Plano Senior High School in 1979, and later moved to Georgia.2Dallas Morning News. Kasi Peek Obituary She worked as an informatics developer for Matria Healthcare in Marietta and attended North Avenue Presbyterian Church in Atlanta.3Legacy.com. Kasi Peek Obituary She married John W. Peek in May 2000. By the time of her death the couple had separated.4Oxygen. John Peek Murdered Wives for Insurance Payments
The Killing and a Staged Scene
John Peek called 911 on October 2, 2005, saying he had come to return some of his estranged wife’s belongings and found her dead. Kasi was lying face down on her bed, shot in the back.4Oxygen. John Peek Murdered Wives for Insurance Payments
Smyrna detective Ron Waddell, who responded to the scene, was skeptical from the start. Dresser drawers were pulled open but nothing inside was actually disturbed. Waddell called it “the most adolescent attempt at staging a scene that I think I probably have ever seen,” and compared using a .30 caliber rifle to shoot a sleeping person to “driving a thumbtack with a sledgehammer.”4Oxygen. John Peek Murdered Wives for Insurance Payments There was no sign of forced entry, and nothing had been taken.5NBC News. Dateline Full Episode: Deadly Omission
When detectives asked John Peek whether there was anything in his past they should know about, he volunteered: “As a matter of fact, I was the primary suspect in my last wife’s murder. How about that.”4Oxygen. John Peek Murdered Wives for Insurance Payments
The 1996 Cold Case
Nine years earlier, on June 13, 1996, John Peek had reported his longtime companion, Carol Marlin, 46, missing. Cobb County detective Eddie Herman traced Marlin’s car to the home of her friend and coworker Margaret Ginn, 64. Officers forced entry and found both women bludgeoned to death, Marlin face down on the dining room floor and Ginn in a bedroom.4Oxygen. John Peek Murdered Wives for Insurance Payments
Two weeks before that killing, Marlin had changed the primary beneficiary of her $700,000 life insurance policy from her mother to John Peek. He collected the payout after her death.6Marietta Daily Journal. NBC’s Dateline to Feature Cobb Murders Investigators suspected him, but prosecutors declined to charge. There was no physical evidence, no DNA, and no eyewitnesses. The case sat cold for nine years.4Oxygen. John Peek Murdered Wives for Insurance Payments
How Her Sister Broke the Case
Kasi’s sister, Jaquidon Kruger, told investigators about the 1996 murders as soon as she learned of Kasi’s death. That prompted Smyrna detectives to line up the two scenes side by side. Both were staged to resemble burglaries. Neither had signs of forced entry. Neither was actually missing anything.5NBC News. Dateline Full Episode: Deadly Omission
John Peek claimed he had been working on a home in Allatoona when Kasi was killed, and police were once again short on physical evidence. So Kruger pushed on a second front. She filed a civil lawsuit against her brother-in-law. “I was adamant that John would not profit from Kasi’s murder. But we found out that with the civil suit we had more discovery power than the police did,” she said.4Oxygen. John Peek Murdered Wives for Insurance Payments
Civil discovery turned up the financial pattern investigators needed. During the separation, John Peek had been quietly double-paying the premiums on Kasi’s life insurance to keep the policy active, positioning himself to collect just as he had with Marlin’s $700,000 policy in 1996.4Oxygen. John Peek Murdered Wives for Insurance Payments
Kruger also agreed to wear a concealed wiretap and have a recorded conversation with him. “I can’t believe that I’m going to talk to my brother-in-law with a secret wiretap thing,” she recalled.7NBC. John Peek Kills Kasi Peek, Carol Marlin, Margaret Ginn Investigators described Peek as a “master manipulator” driven by financial gain, and later charged him with perjury and jury interference after he tried to pay people to give false testimony in his defense.1Atlanta Journal-Constitution. How the AJC Covered the John Peek Murders
Guilty Plea and Sentence
In December 2005, John Peek appeared in Cobb Magistrate Court for a probable cause hearing on murder charges for all three deaths. In April 2007, at 54, he pleaded guilty to three counts of murder along with the perjury and jury interference charges. He received three concurrent life sentences without the possibility of parole, an outcome that allowed him to avoid the death penalty. Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head remarked at the time that although Peek would never be eligible for parole, “he believes he might get out of jail.”1Atlanta Journal-Constitution. How the AJC Covered the John Peek Murders
For Kruger, the resolution was mixed. She called it “cathartic” but added, “I still think it’s regretful that he wasn’t prosecuted for the first murders. I would have liked to see him off the streets before he killed my sister.”1Atlanta Journal-Constitution. How the AJC Covered the John Peek Murders