Back in 2005, John Peek of Smyrna was arrested for both the murder of his then-wife Kasi Peek and the murders of his previous wife Carol Marlin and her co-worker Maggie Ginn nearly a decade earlier.
NBC’s “Dateline” explores the case at 9 a.m. Friday, Oct. 25, which will be available on demand on Peacock the next day. Here is how NBC is promoting the episode: “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?”
“Dateline” reporter Andrea Canning interviewed detectives Eddie Herman and Richard Peluso as well as Marlin’s sister Susie Sutton and Layla Bryant, granddaughter of Ginn.
Here is how the AJC covered the conclusion of the case on April 14, 2007, in a story written by my former colleague Christian Boone:
About once a month for nine years, Sgt. Eddie Herman of the Cobb County Police Department called the sons and daughter of Margaret Ginn, a 64-year-old woman who was beaten to death in 1996.
Herman suspected that John Peek of Smyrna killed Ginn and his common-law wife, Carol Marlin. But prosecutors told Herman they lacked enough evidence to convict Peek.
Police did not arrest Peek until nine years later ― and only after another woman in his life was killed.
On Friday, after years of denials, Peek pleaded guilty to killing the three women. He admitted guilt in the deaths of Ginn and Marlin as well as Kasi Peek, his estranged wife, who was shot to death in Smyrna in October 2005. A judge gave him three life sentences.
He will be eligible for parole in 14 years, but District Attorney Pat Head of Cobb County said he believes that Peek “won’t ever get out of jail.”
Head said the murders of Marlin and Kasi Peek were committed for financial gain and that Peek showed “no emotion” to investigators after the deaths.
“There were striking similarities between the two cases,” he said.
The guilty pleas came just weeks before Peek was to stand trial for murder in the death of Kasi Peek. A grand jury recently indicted Peek on charges of planting false evidence and interfering with witnesses in that case.
“He was trying to pay people to testify falsely,” Head said.
He said he thinks the latest indictment might have persuaded Peek to confess. “I think he was ready to get this whole thing over with,” Head said.
The guilty pleas brought to a close a long pursuit by Herman, the police sergeant. He first encountered Peek in June 1996.
Peek had reported his wife missing, but an officer found the circumstances strange.
“He called only a couple of hours after he said she was supposed to be home” from a visit to Ginn, Herman recalled. “And he made a big production out of a threatening letter she had received from work. He didn’t sound like the typical worried husband.”
Herman said his “antennae went up” when Peek claimed he did not know where Ginn lived.
“[Ginn and Marlin] were such good friends, and her husband had no idea where [Ginn] lived,” he said. “He couldn’t even tell me what part of the county she was in. At that point I figured this was a setup, that something had happened to his wife.”
Twelve hours later, Herman discovered the dead women in Ginn’s home. He believes Peek killed Ginn “as a ruse” to confuse investigators and deflect suspicion.
The lawman suspected Peek was the killer ― police questioned him ― but prosecutors concluded that they lacked enough evidence to win a conviction. Peek remained free as the case went cold.
Nine years passed.
Then one day in 2005, Herman heard that someone had shot and killed Peek’s estranged wife, 44-year-old Kasi Peek, in her condo in Smyrna. “I felt sick to my stomach,” he recalled. “He’d done it again.”
Some relatives of the victims said Friday that their satisfaction at the guilty pleas was tempered by the reality that justice came only after a third woman was killed.
Kasi Peek’s sister, Jaquidon Kruger, “found today cathartic,” said her attorney, Gary Freed.
“But I think she is regretful the first murders weren’t prosecuted,” he said. “Had they done that, my client’s sister would still be alive.”
Ginn’s children were pained for many years by knowing that their mother’s killer walked the streets as a free man, said Layla Bryant, Ginn’s granddaughter.
“The worst part of this was that he had to kill someone else before he was brought to justice,” she said. “It’s been such a big part of our lives for so long.”
Her father, aunt and uncle declined to talk with reporters Friday, Bryant said, but they wanted everyone to know how much the family appreciated the dogged efforts of Sgt. Herman.
“Through this whole thing, he showed us that somebody still cared,” Bryant said. “I don’t think it’s hit any of us yet … It’s unbelievable that it’s finally over.”
She paused. “It’s unbelievable that it ever happened.”
IF YOU WATCH
“Dateline,” 9 p.m. Fridays on NBC and available on demand on Peacock
