Irene Silverman Missing Person Case

Apr 06, 2011

Dec 22, 2020

Irene

Silverman

110

82

60 inches

115 lbs

White / Caucasian

Female

Irene Silverman, an 82-year-old former ballerina and wealthy widow, was last seen at her Manhattan mansion on July 5, 1998. After her husband passed away, Silverman had transformed her six-story Upper East Side townhouse into apartments, which she rented out to business people and acquaintances for as much as $10,000 a month. In June 1998, a man using the alias Manny Guerrin moved into one of the apartments. This new tenant was actually Kenneth Kimes, who, along with his mother Sante Kimes, was a con artist with a long criminal history. Silverman soon grew suspicious of her new tenant and, on the night of July 4, told friends she intended to evict him. The next morning, her housekeeper was unable to reach her, and her door was locked; police were alerted that afternoon, but Irene Silverman was never seen again. The investigation into Silverman's disappearance quickly focused on the mother-and-son tenants who had also vanished. Authorities arrested Sante and Kenneth Kimes on the same day Silverman was reported missing, initially on a separate fraud charge from Utah involving a bad check for a Lincoln Town Car. Upon their arrest, police discovered a wealth of incriminating evidence in their possession. This included Silverman's keys, passports, Social Security card, and blank checks. They also found loaded firearms, wigs, masks, plastic handcuffs, an empty stun gun box, and a forged deed that transferred ownership of Silverman's valuable townhouse to a shell corporation the Kimeses had created. Investigators believed the pair had been monitoring Silverman for months, even wiretapping her phone to learn her habits, all part of a scheme to steal her home, valued at over $7 million. Despite the fact that Irene Silverman's body was never found, Sante and Kenneth Kimes were charged with her murder in December 1998. The prosecution built a compelling case based on circumstantial evidence. In May 2000, a jury found them both guilty on dozens of criminal counts, including murder, robbery, and forgery. Sante Kimes received a sentence of 120 years in prison, while her son Kenneth was sentenced to 125 years. Years later, Kenneth Kimes confessed to the murder, stating his mother had first used a stun gun on Silverman, after which he strangled her. He claimed he wrapped her body in garbage bags, placed it in a duffel bag, and drove to New Jersey, where he disposed of it in a dumpster or a construction site. The case stands as a chilling example of a premeditated crime driven by greed, in which a mother-and-son duo of grifters murdered a vibrant, elderly woman to steal her considerable assets. Sante Kimes died in prison in 2014, and Kenneth Kimes remains incarcerated.

Jul 05, 1998

Manhattan

New York

New York County

21458

New York City Police Department - Missing Persons Squad

New York

New York

New York County

10039

2770 Frederick Douglass Boulevard, New York

2126947781

Local

Law Enforcement

KNMP05362

New York City Police Department - Missing Persons Squad

Red/Auburn

Brown

Brown

08/31/2026