My brush with true crime…

If you are from Fort Worth you know that although Fort Worth is pretty large, it really is a small town where everyone is connected and if you don’t know someone, you likely know someone they know and on and on.  Growing up here that can be a good thing or a bad thing depending upon your reputation.  Everyone seems to know your business and when I was in high school the circle seemed even smaller.

This brings me to one of the more interesting scandals that rocked Fort Worth in the 90’s, the Caren Koslow murder.  On March 12, 1992 around 3:30 AM Jack and Caren Koslow were asleep in their home in Rivercrest.  Two individuals broke in and beat and slashed the couple’s throats.  Caren Koslow died at the scene.  Jack Koslow managed to run to a neighbor’s home and call 911.  From what I understand it was a grisly scene, lots of blood and damage to both victims, a gun was shot into the floor, a bloody knife was found in the bedroom.

In the beginning the police believed that Jack Koslow had murdered his wife.  His account of what happened was murky and he insisted that he had armed their alarm system, yet the alarm did not go off, it was turned off.  Why did he run to a neighbor’s house to call 911 when he could have called from his home?  Why were the cuts to his throat superficial while Caren’s were not?  The police always look at the husband first so it was natural that he was a suspect from the very beginning.

At the time my mother worked for the Jewel Charity Ball which Caren Koslow volunteered for on a regular basis.  My mother liked her a great deal and was quite disturbed by the murder of her friend.  Jack also had an adopted daughter from a first marriage named Kristi Koslow.  She was about my age and I knew her as an acquaintance.  I had actually been to her mother’s home one day when I was skipping school to hang out and my boyfriend at the time was friends with her.  See what I mean about Fort Worth being a big/small town?

As the police continued their investigation most of Fort Worth was convinced that Jack Koslow had murdered his wife.  The police received a call from a man who said that his friends had given him the bloody clothes and the tire tool used in the murders to dispose of.  This led to the arrest of Brian Salter and Jeff Dillingham.  The twist to this crazy story?  The daughter, Kristi Koslow, had offered them one million dollars from her inheritance to kill the couple and had given them the alarm code and the floor plan for the home in order to inherit her father’s money.

The twist to this very sick story?  The weekend before the murders I had gone to a church retreat over the weekend.  Guess what my boyfriend did that weekend?  He had sex with Kristi Koslow.  And, of course, I found out about it when I returned, and I was angry to say the least.  Apparently, Kristi was none to happy about me too and, this was just a rumor at the time, was on the lookout for me to “beat my ass.”  When she was arrested friends took sides, some believed she was innocent, some guilty.  I knew that crazy bitch was guilty and I was very happy that I did not run into her.  Who know what could have happened?

Brian Salter struck a deal and received life in prison and Jeff Dillingham refused a deal and was executed in 2000.  Kristi Koslow was sentenced to life in prison and from what I have heard is a butcher in prison.  This seems ironically appropriate to me!  It was later revealed that Jack Koslow had not left his money to Kristi in his will and, if he had died, she would not have received a penny.  So that is my one and only brush with true crime and ignited my interest in true crime forever after.