How (Not) to Get Rid of a Body

This case is "Dracula" meets the "Sons of Anarchy."

I've never seen anybody go to this length to dispose of

and conceal the body.

They told us that there was no body to look for.

The most offensive thing I can think of to do that to another

human being, alive or dead.

It was a genius plan that they concocted.

They thought they were smart.

They were completely outmatched.

In early February 2020, a person by the name of

Dottie Palumbo came into the Upper Darby Police Department to

report her son, Keith Palumbo, missing.

I went up the steps, and the man said,

"Can I help you?"

And I said, "Yes, I want to report my son missing."

And the first thing he asked me was,

"How old is your son?" And I said, "He's 36."

Muah. Love you.

And I said, "Something's wrong,

it's not like him to not call me."

Keith and I became best friends in nursery school.

When I first found out he disappeared, yeah, I was

like instantly sick to my stomach.

Because I knew deep down, like, that's not Keith.

He would never let his mother worry like that.

We learned that Keith was a very beloved person

within the community.

Keith was a lifelong resident of

Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

He was an accomplished musician.

He had a toy guitar when he was maybe like four,

and keyboard, little keyboard, any kind of instrument, really.

He just loved music.

He started two different bands with two different groups

of friends.

Thank you everyone for coming out!

We are The Return!

Keith was a prodigy.

It was unbelievable how fast he could move his fingers.

I mean, he was gifted.

His mother, Dottie, told me that one of the pieces of

jewelry that Keith wore all the time was

a gold-plated guitar pick.

It says, "Keith, never let the music stop.

Love, Mom." And he always wore it.

He always had it on.

He was just cool, man.

Without even trying, he was just cool.

Keith was fearless. Keith, he was tough.

He was a badass.

You know, he's not one to tuck tail and run away.

It was the night Keith went missing.

Keith came in.

He went upstairs and got changed.

And when he came down, he grabbed a couple

pieces of pizza,

and he said, "I'll see you later."

Dottie stated that he left in her silver vehicle.

From that night, he was never seen or heard from again.

This case is at the forefront of our minds.

So Keith was entered into the national database as

a missing person.

And then from there, we have a checklist

that we follow.

We'd call all the local hospitals,

the morgues, the prisons, homeless shelters,

um, any other places that we believe that we would be

able to find Keith.

But without any success.

We also put in a request to the cell phone provider to

obtain his cellular phone records.

And we did prepare an alert for Keith as well as

Dottie's silver vehicle.

As part of my research into Keith, I located a report from

January 28, 2020,

in which he was a gunshot victim.

That is approximately two weeks to his reported going missing.

Police officers went to the hospital, and attempted to

interview him.

He would not identify the person who shot him.

I reasonably believe that Keith was in fear for

his life at that time.

We were all thinking, did this have something to do

with his disappearance?

I believe that Keith was, uh --

had some skeletons in his closet.

He had some secrets.

It is my job to sort through all the information that we're

getting and kind of do a deep dive into his life.

In interviewing Keith's family, they indicated to us that Keith

and someone by the name of Michael DeLuca had been

lifelong friends since childhood.

Michael and Keith, they were very good friends.

I mean, they were always over my house.

They were at my house for birthday parties.

He looked out for me and Keith and all.

And we never had anything to worry about or fear, like when

we were with Mike.

Mike DeLuca was one of our core best friends,

like, he was our brother.

I began looking into Michael DeLuca.

He has a very distinctive appearance to him.

Shaved head, tattoos all over his head and neck.

You can't miss him from a mile away.

Michael DeLuca also had a lengthy criminal history,

a violent criminal history.

He had only recently gotten out of jail for

shooting his girlfriend.

We learned that when he came home from prison,

he thought he was going to step into the role as the leader of

the local chapter of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club.

The Warlocks organization,

specifically the Harpy Warlocks, are a 1% organization within

Philadelphia and the surrounding counties.

For most of these biker groups, violence is a calling card.

A lot of guys in these biker groups are hardened criminals.

Keith was not a member of the club, but he was absolutely

surrounding himself with some pretty dangerous people that

could turn on him in the blink of an eye.

Anybody could have been responsible for

Keith's disappearance.

But one of the interesting things that we found was that

Michael DeLuca was also missing.

He was nowhere to be found.

We thought that perhaps this could possibly be connected to

Keith's disappearance.

We were frustrated because we are getting numerous pieces

of, or tidbits of, information from various sources.

Whoever is responsible for Keith's disappearance made

our investigation difficult.

But we got a break in the case

when a patrolman found Dottie's car in Kensington.

So this is a missing persons investigation.

Now you have a car turn up in Kensington,

a feared neighborhood in Philadelphia.

I think that was the real surprise for investigators.

But they had never covered a case like this,

and they're dealing with an outlaw motorcycle gang,

this has the potential now to really open a can of worms.

Keith Palumbo was last seen on February 6, 2020, in

Upper Darby Township.

He was in his mother's vehicle, which was a silver vehicle.

Investigators put out an alert looking for this car.

Days later, they found it in Kensington.

Normally, when we find people or vehicles in the Kensington

section of Philadelphia, my initial thought is

they're involved in the drug trade.

It is a supermarket for heroin and drugs.

People come from all over the country to go to Kensington

to use heroin.

It is not unusual to see dozens of people bent over at

the waist, staring at the ground.

It's a cesspool up there.

The detectives were left wondering why was

Mrs. Palumbo's car in Kensington, and where was

Keith Palumbo?

Keith, number one, would never leave my car anywhere.

And number two, he wouldn't be in Kensington.

Keith had a problem with drugs when he was younger, but he had

been sober for over 10 years.

We thought maybe someone left the car up in Kensington to

make it seem like Keith may have relapsed.

They thought they had the perfect plan to

get rid of Keith.

So the car was processed for any latent prints or any

physical evidence.

But it was wiped clean.

We believe that there was an effort to try to stay ahead

of the police.

It was very difficult.

Whoever did this obviously went to extreme lengths to

conceal their crimes.

It's very evil and very calculating.

I was thinking, what could have happened Keith, is this

a potential homicide case? Where is this body?

When I found out the car was found in Kensington,

I'm talking to Dottie, Keith's mom, and we're trying

to work this out.

We're trying to figure this out.

I was every night wondering, where is Keith?

Where's my best friend? Like, is he alive?

Is he dead?

We posted on Facebook.

I mean, we were almost 24 hours a day trying to get leads from

people that might know something.

At the same time, Keith's best friend and member of

the Warlocks, Michael DeLuca, was still missing, which was

out of the ordinary.

We were trying to put all the pieces of

the puzzle together.

And we needed to delve into how Michael DeLuca fit

into the investigation.

But while we were investigating Keith's disappearance,

rumors were flying that Keith could would be an informant

for the police.

A lot of the Warlocks club members thought

he was a snitch.

We learned that there was an incident between Keith

and a patched-in member of the Warlocks motorcycle group

by the name of Buck Evans.