text: August 1982 The summer was near its end. Carlos Rivera and I often hung out at Donald Thrope's home in horse county about 2 hours outside of Louisville. Carlos was an elite horse jockey and I helped out at the horse farm where he trained. At 23 years old he was one of the youngest elite horse jockeys . We've known each other since we were kids. Donald had given him the key to his house. This was the only place that we could get away from our family and friends and have some privacy or time to ourselves. We had just gotten out of the swimming pool after taking a swim. It was about 2:00 pm. We noticed that the clouds were starting to roll in and it looked like we were going to have a very bad storm. The phone rang and Donald said he was going to spent the evening at his home and would be there around 5:00 pm. We went into a closet area in the house where we had our little rendez vous. We feel asleep in each other arms. We woke up to gunfire in the bedroom. Then the TV was shot out. Then shots were fired into the closet area. Carlos put his body on top of me to protect me. A bullet went above his head and hit the wall. Then silence. From the closet there was a window. After a while, we saw a former jockey with a gun and knife walking into the garden. We didn't know it at the time but this is where Donald Thrope had ran to escape from the killer. Both of us were horrified. We quickly ran out of the house which connected to a trail which was going away from the house. The storm that had been threatening finally came. We hid in a bathroom in the park. Finally the storm ended. We heard someone walking outside. There was a light and we noticed that it was the killer walking around like he was trying to find us. He tried the door of the bathroom. Then we saw smoke in the distance. Once we saw him leave, we quickly ran to my house. Because of the bad weather, Carlos spent the night sleeping on the couch, just in case my parents or someone else in the family returned. The next day we found out that Donald Thrope had been murdered while we escaped from the house. The killer thought we were still in the closet, so he set the place on fire. Mark Boltz who was a former jockey was arrested for his murder. The two had had a long time feud over a woman who had long ago moved on and was married to someone else. The trial was a high profile one and was moved to Millesboro, Kentucky. This guy couldn't be tried in Louisville or Lexington. He was found not guilty of first degree murder, or arson. The jury believed the story that Mark told of a couple who broke into the house as being the killers of Donald Thrope. All of the jurors were convinced that this unknown couple also set the house on fire. One of the detectives working the case believed that Mark Boltz got away with arson and murder. He was correct. Five years later... "I thought that Donald was sleeping with my ex-girlfriend. I was going to storm the room and then I hear the front door open. I don't know who was in there but a man and a woman were in an upstairs bedroom laughing and hear the man say, "Loves and Kisses." This couple had been in the swimming pool but I was too far away to determine who the couple was. I thought it was Donald and my ex-wife." said Mark Boltz to the reporter. "You keep saying that there was a couple at the house, the night Donald Thrope was murdered, but there is no evidence of anyone being there. If there was, the fire eliminated any evidence of this. " "Well, yes the fire did eliminate evidence and this is why the unknown couple set the place on fire. You know Maxine there are a lot of people in the horse industry who hate me. Take your pick." "Do you have any idea who might have done this?" "I think it was someone in the horse industry. " Let me update you on what has happened since then. Frank and I decided not to go to the police and thankfully we had never told anyone that Donald Thrope let us use his home to get away from our families. A week after this happened, I went back to college. This terrible experience brought Carlos and I closer together. We got married a couple of years later and had a couple kids. Now we are grandparents. If Mark Boltz had caught us, we never would have lived another day.