Stephen Hricko killed by wife Kimberly Hricko

Over the course of the Forensic Files series, the graphic nature of the visuals seems to steadily decline. While the first few seasons frequently included crime scene photographs which portrayed the deceased victims, the later episodes spare us this degree of detail. So it's odd to see the images of Steve Hricko after his body was burned, since this episode occurred in season six and aired in August 2001. Another relatively late-series episode with this type of graphic content was A Voice from Beyond (s5e04), which shared multiple photographs of Reyna Marroquin's mummified remains recovered from a 55-gallon drum after three decades.

In the shots of Steve's body, his face looks very dark. At first, I believed this to be the result of the fire, but I've considered additional explanations. The episode had a reenactment of what police suspected Kimberly Hricko did on the night of February 14, 1998. It described that Kim pulled Stephen's t-shirt up over his head before she started the fire. Assuming the evidence at the scene confirmed this was true, why would she do this? Perhaps to hide his face as she poured accelerant about the room and lit it ablaze? I also considered the darkening of Steve's face may have been a blurring or censoring, applied to spare viewers the details. The episode Undertaken (s11e13) included crime scene photos from Frankie Pullian's murder. In the one that still included his body, it's distinctly blurred out.

A poison by any other name

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

In documenting this case's murder weapon, I debated between creating a new poison for succinylcholine or using "prescription medication". Of course, nearly any substance given or taken in the wrong dosage essentially makes it a poison. In Latin: Sola dosis facit venenum (The dose makes the poison). I'd used prescription medication in the case where Bill Guthrie murdered his wife Sharon. I felt succinylcholine deserved its own instance within poisons since a) someone cannot simply obtain succinylcholine with a prescription, and b) it's used in a few other cases in Forensic Files.

The very end of this episode mentions the development of testing in human tissue that can detect succinylcholine. This had been impossible since it breaks down in the body almost immediately. But research at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden led to new protocols that was able to detect the drug, even in embalmed tissue. Horse Play (s06e13) describes this in detail. In the episode, David Davis lures his wife Shannon to a remote field with the enticement of sex. Davis then poisons Shannon with an injection of succinylcholine and stages her death to look like an accident. But our episode doesn't reveal if Steve Hricko's tissue was ever tested for presence of succinylcholine to confirm Kimberly Hricko's conviction.

Considering the Hrickos' eight-year-old daughter Anna, it's not always poison that one parent uses on the other and causes the child(ren) to end up losing both. Remember Foundation of Lies (s05e12) where Jack Boyle murders his wife Noreen and buries her body in the basement of their new home. Jack used a plastic bag to suffocate Noreen. After he was convicted, their son Collier entered Ohio's foster care system. And it's hard to forget the series' pilot episode The Disappearance of Helle Crafts. Helle and her husband Richard had three children shortly after their marriage in 1979. By late 1989, Richard Crafts was found guilty of murdering his wife Helle and disposing of her body using a woodchipper. The children were left without either parent when Richard was sentenced to 50 years.

Beer, cigars, and Playboy

Kimberly Hricko was known to have purchased the beer and cigars on the night of her husband Steve's murder. But this almost certainly wasn't the "errand" Kimberly claimed she'd run after the couple had supposedly argued about having sex. It was from this supposed errand that Kim returned to find the resort room on fire. The events of the night in question suggest Kim Hricko when out twice, after she's already killed Stephen.

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

After dinner and before Kim bought the beer and cigars to stage the scene, Kim must have injected Steve Hricko with the succinylcholine. Planning to set the fire, she needed the props – minimally the cigars – to create a believable source of the blaze. It's doubtful that Kim went out to purchase these items while Steve Hricko was still alive. So she poisoned him, purchased the items, returned, staged the scene, doused the room with the accelerant, and started the fire. With an accelerant, she likely needed to leave immediately. And if she returned while the room was still alight, it's doubtful she was gone on this second outing very long.

Thankfully the room was so well insulated that the fire was starved of oxygen, and it went out on its own. Kim apparently had NO concern that her fire might spread across the entire resort, endangering or even killing other helpless victims. She was convicted of first-degree arson, which I'm guessing might cover the attempted murder of additional innocents. And probably the least important question: Did she buy the Playboy as well, or had it been brought to the resort by the Hrickos?

The reenactment made Kim's choice of cigars seem almost spontaneous. The convenience store's checkout counter offered Backwoods cigars for $2.49. Of course, Backwoods are purchased frequently, but seldom smoked. Like Phillies Blunts, Backwoods are often repurposed for the paper they're rolled with. Multiple YouTube commenters found humor in Kim's cigar of choice. But suggesting Stephen would even smoke a cigar was just one of Kim's blunders.

How not to stage an accident scene

During the course of a potential murder investigation, police speak to many of the victim's acquaintances. To stage a scene using an item of which the victim has never partaken is a blunder. My special lady knows that I don't and won't smoke a cigar – they're nasty. I'd bet she'd consider another, more believable source of an accidental fire if she were staging my murder scene.

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

Rule two of getting away with making your husband's murder look like an accident: Don't talk to your friends about killing him. Kimberly apparently spoke to multiple people about her plans to murder Stephen Hricko. I'm not sure if she had an unrealistic degree of trust in these people, but police pressure and the threat of jail time can often wrench the truth out of the most trusted confidant. I'm guessing these were the same friends who probably also knew of Kim's other relationship. Our episode stated he was ten years Kimberly's junior, and additional research names him Brad Winkler. Since Kim was 32 at the time, young Brad was barely old enough to drink.

Rule three: When you're purchasing items to use in your scene staging, don't make yourself memorable to people whom you interact with. Kimberly supposedly took offense to the convenience store clerk's question about where she had her red hair dyed. Kim's "Karen" moment of indignation stood out in the clerk's mind, and so did the items Kim purchased.

Finally, I have to wonder if Kim considered the police to be lazy or dumb. I suppose she thought potential investigators would simply buy her story of the tragic "smoker's accident". But the autopsy easily revealed that Steve Hricko was not breathing at the time of the fire. With no soot in his airways and normal carbon monoxide levels in his system, he'd died before the fire started. With Kim's knowledge of hospitals, surgeries, and medicines, I imagine she'd also realized this would be the case.

The case against Kimberly Hricko

Proper crimes, especially murder, are thought to have three elements in common: Means, motive, and opportunity. Looking at these another way, I like to consider them as how, why, and when/where. Starting with the easy one, Kim had multiple motives to kill her husband Stephen. The couple was having some compatibility difficulties – Kim was an extrovert and Steve a homebody. Kimberly had begun a physical affair with another man, and her husband Steve was in the way of her pursuing that relationship. And finally, the oldest motive in the book, Kim stood to gain $400k from Steve's life insurance in the case of his demise. In fact, Kim had more than doubled this coverage shortly before she killed him.

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

Switching to opportunity, Valentine's Day in 1998 was ideal. The couple scheduled a trip to the resort in Saint Michaels, and (at least to Steve's knowledge) they'd planned to work on their differences. Young Anna was out of the way, and the isolated resort seemed like the perfect time and place for Kim to enact her murderous plan. She had the means buttoned up as well. As a surgical nurse, she'd discretely pilfered a bottle of succinylcholine. Its disappearance easily went unnoticed, and injected in a high enough dose, the powerful muscle relaxant was the right tool for the job. It'd quickly cause Stephen to stop breathing, and it'd be untraceable within minutes.

Hopefully, hospital staff's access to succinylcholine and similar drugs is under better control protocols. At the time, it was not accounted for since it was not classified as a narcotic. I imagine by now though, such a powerful paralytic and other dangerous drugs are ascribed a higher degree of accountability. Letter Perfect (s08e26) covers the case where medical student Joe Mannino gave his roommate Michael Hunter an overdose of lidocaine. And Needle in a Haystack (s13e28) sees Oliver O'Quinn injecting Michelle Herndon with propofol – a lethal dose. In this latter case, at least the propofol was traceable to O'Quinn's hospital and specifically logged Oliver O'Quinn procuring the deadly medication.

A large part of what helps close cases like this is the old fashioned, shoe-leather work put in by the investigators. In this instance, Sergeant Joseph Gamble visited over two dozen convenience stores in the area near Stephen Hricko's murder. He was armed only with a picture of Kimberly Hricko and asked employees if they recognized her. Of course, this led to the memorable interaction a particular clerk had with Kim on the night in question. Kudos to the tenacious investigators who are still willing to put in the hard work. Consider Skeleton Key (s14e19) where the initial evidence is a simple set of keys. Investigators visited all of the locksmiths in the area in hopes of identifying a code on one of the keys. Their efforts paid off. Spartanburg County prosecutor Trey Gowdy compliments, "It is amazing how much luck the hard workers have."

Sometimes, there's more circumstantial evidence than physical, and for the most part Forensic Files focuses on the physical evidence's forensic value. But very little was recovered from the Saint Michaels resort murder scene. An accelerant was detected, but since it couldn't be identified, its role in the staged accident scene couldn't be part of the prosecution's evidence at trial. The case's autopsy showing that Steve Hricko couldn't have been breathing during the fire probably supplied the case's most evidentiary value.

Kimbery Hricko's murder (and arson) trial

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

The episode cited the prosecution making their case on the idea of "conclusion by exclusion". When a circumstance has multiple explanations (or theories), each is ruled out until only one remains. The last one is therefore the logical conclusion. This concept appears in a variety of situations but is certainly not a prosecutor's ideal scenario. Arthur Conan Doyle is credited with, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

In attempting to prove any case, especially murder, the prosecution wants no ambiguity in the minds of the judge and jury. The more evidence, especially irrefutable physical evidence supporting their contention, the better the chances for the guilty party to be convicted. Investigators tried to find additional evidence at Steve Hricko's murder scene. They suspected Kimberly had poured the beer in the sink to simulate Steve drinking it, so they likely checked the drain for beer. But would this have bolstered their case? There are other logical reasons one may pour out beer.

The defense offered their version of the case's facts in an attempt to exculpate their client, Kimberly Hricko. Of course, their theory was laughable, and the jury disregarded it. To say that Stephen Hricko was killed by the fire after falling unconscious was absurd. When the blood alcohol content in Steve's system was found to be normal, and no drugs were found in his system, the defense suggested that unconsciousness might've been induced by Steve's long-term exposure to various chemicals at his job. Steve Hricko's role as golf course grounds superintendent might have subjected him to various herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers, but he had no history of related maladies, nor were any intoxicants indicated at autopsy. And again, the autopsy found no soot in his airways. What a joke.

Lingering questions about Stephen Hricko's murder

Thankfully, the system worked, justice prevailed, and Kimberly Hricko was found guilty of Steve's murder in the first degree. The episode ended with the additional information about the development of testing procedures to identify succinylcholine in human tissue long after it'd normally be broken down. Above, I wondered if Steve's tissue was ever tested to confirm Kim's conviction.

My additional questions are less poignant, but nonetheless still made me wonder. Why had Steve's body been on the floor instead of on the bed when it was found? Are we to think he was lounging on the floor instead of the bed when Kimberly injected him? Did he realize something was happening, thrash, end up on the floor, and then Kimberly couldn't muscle him back onto the bed? And if the fire was believed to have started on the floor, why did investigators conduct their burn tests on the pillow and bed spread?

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

It was shared that Kim Hricko stood to receive around $400k from Steve's life insurance. It was also stated that she'd recently obtained a $250k policy on her husband Steve. So did Stephen Hricko only have $150k of coverage prior to the newest policy, or did Kim's most recent transaction up the payout to $650k? And finally, what became to the other couple at the Hrickos' dinner table on the night Steve's death? They shared their table with Caroline George (a probation officer) and Henry Dove (an assistant state prosecutor). Both companions were interviewed for the show, and the couple was shown together during one of the episode's shots. Did their date ever grow into a relationship?

Where is Kimberly Hricko now in 2024?

At her trial in March 1999, Kimbery Hricko was found guilty of first-degree murder and arson. She received a sentence of life plus 30 years. She continues to serve at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women.