Episode 16: Kevin Mahoney
Hello,
I’m continuing my rabbit of missing or possibly murdered men in the Midwest.
I almost didn’t do this one cause it happened in North Dakota but this one is close to Minnesota so I decided to look into it. Did you know there are a bunch of Kevin Mahoney’s in the world? I got results for a whole bunch of them I had to add missing and Fargo to the search to get anything on this one. After doing that I realized I have heard about this one before on the Vanished Podcast, which is very well done if you are looking for a new podcast to listen to.
There are conflicting statements on when Kevin went missing. His mother last saw him on Sept 30th, and a couple of friends confirmed the same thing. However, later a friend stated it was the following day October 1st. The police had it listed as October 2nd at one point. There was a lot of misinformation on this case from the police such as the wrong date, misspelling of names, and mislabeling his sisters as friends or cousins.
On September, 30th 1993, 25-year-old Kevin Mahoney disappeared after leaving his friend’s house in Fargo, ND. People partying the night in question would tell police Mahoney left around 1 a.m., on foot, headed for his brother's place in south Moorhead. This walk would have been about 46 mins or so since it’s 2.3 miles from his friend’s house to Moorehead.
For nearly three decades a family and detectives have been searching for clues in hopes they would lead to answers in the case of a missing Fargo man last seen leaving a friend’s house in north Fargo on Oct. 2, 1993.
Some Facts about the night he disappeared.
He left his friend's house around 1 am
Kevin called a friend Lenah who he called for a ride that night but wasn’t able to. She did go down a couple of days later to the house where he was and found a pair of jeans with blood on them. His Mother and Grandfather gave Dan samples but it was never tested again the pants. The pair were a 34 x 34 which would have been too big but Kevin would borrow clot
He was walking to his brother’s house but his brother was not home at the time so it’s not known if he ever arrived. Ben stated he called his brother first and also stated he called several family members but that was never confirmed.
The police didn’t take the case seriously until years later and some cold case investigators to a look at his file and determined that foul play was involved in his disappearance.
Some theories
In 2007 someone said that Kevin was killed at Ben’s and put in the wall or buried under the floor in the basement. They did dig up part of the concrete in the basement. The family doesn’t believe that they dug down deep enough and they took 120 photos that are on the vanished podcast website. There was a hole in the cedar block wall that the owners after Ben found and there was. 2x2 wall which they checked they didn’t find anything suggesting that a body had been there.
A rumor that he got into a fight with someone after a wedding and that dude came across him that night and killed him as payback
There was a rumor that Kevin someone gave him drugs to overdose,
That he was killed and then put in a woodchipper.
He was done like Jeanna North an 11-year-old girl who was kidnapped and murdered. Her killer stated her body was disposed of by tying a rope around her and weight it down with a cinder block in the river. Her body has never been found.
He was put in a meat grinder at Federal Beef which was rumored to be what happened to Jeanne North as well.
Suspects
Ben his friend whose house he was at that night. He got into a fight with Kevin before he left and gave conflicting statements to the police. All the stories that make sense kept coming back to Ben’s House. Ben did have some conflicting statements but he wasn’t confronted about it. They did a polygraph 3 months late and only had 3 questions and he was asked to fight and about the door.
Lonnie stated that after a wedding a year earlier that there was an argument where Kevin got out of the car and beat him up with nunchucks. He stated that due to this he would vow to seek revenge.
Phil said that Kevin was involved in a drug deal with the Mexican mafia and that if he didn’t kill Kevin they would have killed him. He killed him and put him where they put Jeanne North who was put in a grinder at federal beef. This came from someone named Scott who did put some connections together. When they reached out to Phil he stated they were barking up the wrong tree. There is nothing tying Kevin to Phil
The unlikely one is that of Kevin himself. whether he walked away or something happened. we don’t know. There was a woman who claimed to have seen Kevin at Rick’s bar in Fargo about a month after his disappearance, but that was never proven.
Each year in the days before and after the anniversary of his disappearance, Kevin’s family take to the streets of Fargo holding signs with his face and case on them to both keep his memory alive and remind the community of his case. They are putting up flyers and there is someone taking them down.
References
KVRR Article
Kevin's Footprints at The River's Edge blog page.
