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Sleeping with Death premieres on November 6th, 2022 on oxygen. Ken Eaton’s murder is featured in Episode 2, A Daughter’s Drama of Sleeping With Death.

Waking up to find someone has been murdered under your roof is the stuff of nightmares, but it’s a terrifying reality for people. The show tells the stories of people who wake up to discover a friend or family member was killed during the night without their knowledge.

The murder of Jennifer’s father is just one of the cases featured in Sleeping with Death. This new series tells the stories of people who woke up to find a friend or family member murdered during the night, without their knowledge. Each episode will explore what may have led to the tragedy, and how the victim’s loved ones coped in the aftermath.

Sleeping with Death premieres on November 6th at 9 pm ET/PT on Oxygen.

On February 13, 1988, 17-year-old Jennifer Eaton woke up to find that her home in Des Moines was unusually messy. Normally, her father – a 41-year-old public school teacher – kept their apartment spotless.

But not today; plants were uprooted, cassette tapes strewn about, and garbage bags thrown around the kitchen. She went into his room to wake him up. But he was dead – brutally stabbed to death in his sleep.

Jennifer said, “His face was all beaten up. He had a big stab to the heart.” She was in shock and called her mother. Jennifer’s mother came and told Jennifer to call the police. The 911 call was received at 7:10 am.

The police observed indicators that a confrontation had transpired in the house upon arrival, but there were no clues of forced entry. John Quinn, a preceding special agent for the Iowa DCI commented on the evidence found, saying “it seemed clear that something had gone awry, that there was some sort of sexual encounter planned. And he ended up dead.”

The crime scene team collected evidence, and fingerprints, and searched for witnesses. They also discovered that a knife was missing from the kitchen block – which they believe to be the murder weapon. A neighbor reported hearing Ken’s apartment door open at 3:30 am.

The investigators’ main questions were how Jennifer could have slept through the commotion and why she called her mother first instead of emergency services.

The police station searched Jennifer to see if she had any injuries from the possible struggle. There were none found. She then explained her relationship with her father to the investigators; he had told her about his sexuality years earlier.

“I was in seventh grade when my dad came out to me as gay,” she told Sleeping With Death. “It was tough for me to accept at first, but then I realized that he is who he is and there’s nothing I can do about it. As long as he’s happy, that’s all that matters.”

Because of his job as a public school teacher, Ken hasn’t been able fully come out yet publicly, friends told the producers.

Investigators’ certainty about her lack of involvement in the murder increased as they tracked Ken’s movements on February 12th with Jennifer’s help. He had planned to see a show with his friend Bernard and then go out to local bars that night, but Jennifer went out separately with her boyfriend and got home before Ken arrived.

When she came inside, she locked the door behind her. Around 3:30 am, Jennifer heard  Ken come home and other voices too; he went to her room and said he had people with him.

He said, “I love you, see you in the morning,” Jennifer told.

Investigators asked Jennifer what was missing from the apartment. Jennifer made a list that included a VCR and tapes, as well as clothing, including her dad’s Hard Rock Café t-shirt collection.

Jennifer also shared information about Ken’s longtime boyfriend Ed: “He was the love of my dad’s life,” she said.

The six-year relationship ended suddenly and messily a few weeks before the murder. Detectives spoke to Ed, who said he saw Ken around midnight at Brass Guard, a local bar. They had a brief conversation, during which better feelings evidently were not stirred up.

People have given investigators tips about Ken, even though the LGBTQ community has few legal protections. According to “Sleeping with Death,” one person said they saw him arrive on the gay circuit around 2:30 am in his car. The witness then saw two men pull up behind him in a vintage black Camaro.

The descriptions of the men in the car did not at all fit Ed, eliminating him as a potential suspect. Police then hypothesized that maybe two people were assaulting gay men throughout Des Moines.

However, on February 15th, researchers found evidence serendipitously in a dumpster about 13 kilometers from where the crime took place.

As the garbage collector removed bags from the bin, one opened and spilled its contents onto the ground. Clothes, VCR tapes, a cell phone, and a bloody knife lay strewn among the rubbish. After inspection, it was determined that these items belonged to Ken.

The detectives on the case honed in their search to a black Camaro near where the missing items were found. On February 16, they saw a black 1968 Camaro at a warehouse and took down its license plate number.

They ran it through their system and found that it was registered to James Michael “Billy” Green, 20, who had to plead guilty to theft in 1985.

The detectives chose to conduct surveillance on their two primary suspects. Jennifer confirmed that her dad had one just like it in his collection which went missing after he was killed when they photograph Green wearing a Hard Rock Cafe Houston T-shirt.

However, to have a foolproof case, the investigators needed something to tie the men directly to the murder and not Ken indirectly. They then turned to fingerprint evidence: luckily, they already had Green’s from his prior criminal record and Titus’ from his time in the military.

Green and Titus were both arrested on February 21st after their fingerprints matched evidence found in or near Ken’s apartment. Both men gave the same story when interrogated separately: they had pretended to be interested in sexual encounters with Ken, but beat and robbed him instead.

In a police recording, Green said, “I took a knife and said, ‘Where’s your money?‘” Ken fought back. At his apartment, Titus distracted his victim while Green searched for valuables. He took a knife from the kitchen before the situation turned violent.

“He’s getting up off the bed, pushing me,” Green continued to tell. “I st*bbed him.”

Both men were handed a mandatory life sentence after being convicted of first-degree murder.

If you’re curious about the case and what Jennifer told Green during her visit to him in prison in 2005, watch “Sleeping with Death” on Sundays at 7/6c on Oxygen.

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