Dateline NBC episode Deadly Omission reportedly explores the gruesome murders of Kasi Peek in 2005 and Carol Marlin and Maggie Ginn in 1996. Dateline correspondent Andrea Canning has reported on the mysterious triple murders of Georgia.
The prime suspect in the investigation was John Peek, Kasi Peek's husband. John was previously married to Carol Marlin, a 46-year-old Marietta, Georgia resident. Margaret (Maggie) Ginn was Carol's former colleague, who happened to be with her at the wrong time and became a victim.
The timeline of the two murders and the pattern of killing became clear to the investigators following Kasi Peek's death. The incident further brought to light a decade-old murder and the link between the two investigations eventually led to John Peek, as per the Dateline episode.
John was later arrested and charged with three murders. He pleaded guilty to all his crimes and was served three concurrent life sentences. The official synopsis of the Dateline episode Deadly Omission reads:
"A woman's murder shines a light on an unsolved mystery from years earlier. As the connection between the two cases becomes clear, a long-hidden truth surfaces. Could a master manipulator be behind both crimes?"
Deadly Omission on Dateline: What happened to Carol Marlin and Margaret Ginn in 1996?
As reported on Dateline NBC, Carol Marlin lived in Marietta, Georgia, and was 46 at the time of her murder. Carol was an employee at Lockheed Martin, where her husband John Peek also worked in the IT sector.
Margaret Ginn was 64 years old and was Carol's former co-worker. The two were reportedly close to each other and on June 13, 1996, made dinner plans. That night, the local authorities received a missing person's report on Carol Marlin, from her husband John Peek, according to the Dateline episode.
After a search party was set to work, Margaret and Carol were soon discovered dead at the former's residence. They had been fatally beaten on the head and Carol was reportedly in a much worse condition. An investigation started and the police were able to link the crime to Carol's husband, per reports.
One key piece of evidence made Peek look like the murderer. About two weeks before her death, Carol named John Peek as the primary beneficiary of her life insurance worth $700,000. Moreover, a witness had called 911 and reported an intruder who was allegedly John Peek. However, since there was no physical evidence against him, the case went cold and John was not arrested, per Dateline.
How was John's second wife Kasi Peek murdered?
Years later, in October 2005, the local authorities received information of a homicide at a Smyrna residence. When the police arrived at the site, a woman was found lying dead on her bed. She had reportedly been shot in her back, as explored in the Dateline episode.
Investigators identified the victim as Kasi Peek, 44 (John Peek's wife). A retired detective with Smyrna PD, Ron Waddell had reportedly said:
"Using a .30 caliber rifle to shoot somebody in the back in their sleep is overkill. That’s like driving a thumbtack with a sledgehammer."
He further added:
"It was the most adolescent attempt at staging a scene that I think I probably have ever seen."
How did Kasi's death bring new light to a decade-old investigation?
When Kasi's sister, Jaquidon Kruger was informed about the murder, she reportedly asked the police if they knew that John's first wife had also been murdered, almost ten years ago.
On comparing both cases, the detectives learned some harrowing details. John had tried to gain access to Kasi's life insurance too. Moreover, as per reports, the couple had only been married for a few years but were going through a troubled marriage.
Further questioning led the police to a search operation at John's house. They found several CSI tapes in his house, to whose justification John had said:
"I really like looking at that stuff."
There was not much physical evidence to link him to Kasi's murder. But as the investigation further unraveled, Kasi's sister said in a statement:
"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."
After going through John's financial records, the investigators found that he was double paying his wife's insurance, to make sure it did not get canceled while the two were estranged. The fact that John was trying to keep Kasi's insurance afloat even before her death, revealed a deadly pattern to the police. It all looked very similar to Carol's murder from years ago, as explained in the Dateline episode.
Eventually, John Peek was arrested and charged with murder. He pleaded guilty to all three killings. In April 2007, at the age of 54, John received three concurrent life sentences without parole. He is currently imprisoned at the Wilcox State Prison in Abbeville, Georgia.
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