DENVER – A former FBI agent has revealed that a serial killer who also served as an FBI informant for several years exploited law enforcement’s trust while targeting innocent victims.
Scott Kimball faces a lengthy incarceration, likely for the remainder of his life, in a federal prison in Colorado after receiving a 70-year sentence in 2009 for confessing to the murders of four individuals between 2003 and 2004. However, former FBI Special Agent Jonny Grusing believes the actual number of Kimball’s victims may far exceed this count.
“He turned the situation into a game at our expense,” Grusing stated during an interview with Fox News Digital, noting that Kimball’s case was unlike anything he had previously encountered. “Winning the game was all that mattered to him.”
“It was astonishing to have someone who reveled in manipulating us, altering our files, and orchestrating disappearances,” Grusing added.
Now 58, Kimball was a notorious serial con artist with a history of run-ins with the law from a young age. In the 1990s, he honed his skills within the justice system by acting as an informant for local authorities while scapegoating his own crimes on fellow inmates.
Following a 2001 arrest for check fraud in Alaska, he developed a friendship with Steve Ennis, a fellow inmate charged in a drug case. To secure a position as an FBI informant, a cunning Kimball convinced Ennis that he could help resolve the drug charges due to his supposed connections that could eliminate witnesses. He also ingratiated himself with Ennis’s girlfriend, Jennifer Marcum, a stripper.
After initiating a murder-for-hire storyline, Kimball informed the FBI that Ennis was plotting to eliminate witnesses, leading to Kimball receiving confidential informant status. He was subsequently transferred to a minimum-security facility and soon released.
“Our main victim in this scenario was Jennifer Marcum,” Grusing recounted. “He manipulated Steve [Ennis] into thinking he was looking out for Jennifer’s best interests, all while he was isolating her and eventually killing her.”
By early 2003, Scott had fully transitioned into a functioning informant across the western U.S., with Marcum already deceased.
Over several years as an informant, Kimball was linked to four murders, including that of Marcum. He later confessed to having killed at least 21 people and reportedly told his attorneys that the true total could be between 45 and 50. The identities of other alleged victims remain undisclosed.
After his eventual capture, authorities discovered Kimball had also murdered LeAnn Emry, another stripper, whom he shot and abandoned in a desolate area, a month before Marcum’s death.
In August of that same year, Kayci McLeod was reported missing, and her murder was eventually attributed to Kimball, who confessed to her killing.
In 2004, he also murdered his uncle, Terry Kimball.
In each instance, the serial murderer left behind “breadcrumbs” for the FBI, often revealing that he was the last person seen with two of the victims.
In 2006, after continued pressure from the victims’ families, the FBI began investigating its own informant.
“It was at that point that two fathers visited the FBI office to speak with my supervisor, asserting that Scott was responsible for both Jennifer’s disappearance and another girl named Kayci, who was last with Scott, with this information being recorded in our case file,” Grusing explained. “Scott had become so adept at his manipulations that he enjoyed the chase, leaving breadcrumbs to taunt us, as if to say, ‘I can describe these homicides, and you’ll never know I’m behind them.’”
In March 2006, Kimball was apprehended in California for fraud-related charges.
While he was incarcerated, the FBI worked to compile evidence against him, leading to formal murder charges in 2009.
Yet, Kimball continued to manipulate the FBI for years afterward, as Grusing and others pressed him to disclose the burial sites of his victims.
“We were conscious of his deceitful tactics, as he led us in circles, but he was the only one aware of what had occurred to them,” Grusing said. “Despite the discomfort of facing him and letting him feel victorious, we found that as long as he believed he was evading us, he would continue to talk. This was my strategy during the 15 years I had to deal with him.”
Eventually, the remains of McLeod and Emry were recovered.
<pDuring the lengthy ordeal, Kimball questioned Grusing about why he had never received a name like other notorious serial killers.
Grusing inquired what title Kimball would choose for himself.
“He responded, ‘The Opportunity Killer, as I only kill when the opportunity arises.’”
To this day, Marcum’s remains have yet to be found.
