In 2016, Seth Herter moved into an apartment on Nottingham Avenue in the placid St. Louis Hills neighborhood.
Technically, a 73-year-old man named Richard Krechel rented the place, but a neighbor says Herter was a roommate. A third man was there so much he practically lived with them, too, the neighbor says. The other tenants in the building didn't know any of their names at first, so they gave the men nicknames. Krechel was "Humpty Dumpty" for his grouchy demeanor. They called Herter "Pony," after spotting the image of a horse affixed to his scooter. The third man was just "Numero Tres," a sort of featureless nickname because they knew little about him.
Herter had a hard time keeping apartments. "People hate me," he explains. "I've always been a very polarizing person for some reason." He notes multiple times a neighbor or a landlord "took a disliking" to him, including one building owner who spotted him practicing with his sword in the backyard. Inevitably, Herter and Krechel would have to leave. (Krechel refused to speak to the RFT, saying he had been summoned by the grand jury and was prohibited from speaking about the case.)
In typical fashion, the four-unit flats on Nottingham soon saw tension.
The neighbor says she reported Herter for smoking in the non-smoking building, and he grew angry. It turned pretty nasty. The woman eventually got a restraining order, including in her application an audio recording of Herter singing outside her door that he hoped she died of cancer. (She asked for her name not to be used, because she still fears Herter.)
Ugly as it got, something about Herter struck her as sad. "There was part of me that felt really bad for him," she says. "He seemed lost to me."
Sometimes, she would see him behind the building, dancing with his sword or just dancing alone. "Almost like he was in a trance. Like a trance — that's what it looked like to me."
The neighbor did not like Krechel, either. Of the three men, only Numero Tres seemed like a decent guy, she says. She eventually learned his name was Tim, but that was about it. She assumed he worked on a road crew or something, because he would come home wearing a reflective vest.
The trio moved out over the holidays, leaving behind a cache of religious items that management left on the curb. The neighbor would see Herter cruise past on his scooter from time to time, but she did not know about the murder until being contacted by the RFT.
Even then, the name of the victim, Christopher McCarthy, did not ring a bell. News stories about the killing did not include a photo or hardly any details about him. But as soon as a reporter forwards a photo, she instantly recognizes him. He was Numero Tres. Tim.
It was after fleeing his apartment's maintenance man that Seth Herter pulled his victim's SUV into the parking lot of the Colonial Inn, located in the tiny town of High Hill, Missouri, population 195.
Two motels sit along its entrance to Interstate 70, which is about 80 minutes west of St. Louis. The Colonial is the more beat up of the pair. The dominant sound is that of trucks roaring past less than 100 yards away. A rusty snack machine sits unplugged out front, and the office is protected by bulletproof glass.
The motel's beleaguered manager, Yasir Imran, says Herter arrived in the late afternoon. He does not remember the date, but it was almost certainly May 3.
Imran says Herter seemed twitchy, agitated.
"You see people who are on meth?" the manager asks. "It was like that."
Police say Herter was covered in blood, but Imran says he doesn't remember that. He thinks he was wearing brown pants and a baseball cap.
Initially, Herter was $10 short of the $36 fee and tried to bargain the price down, pleading (falsely) that he had driven all night from Texas. Imran refused and says Herter left but returned about two hours later with the money. He rented him Room 116.
That evening, he saw Herter pacing at the edge of the parking lot, seemingly talking on the phone, before disappearing inside the room. The next morning, the young man came to the office and said the battery of the SUV was dead. He needed a jump. Imran said he would be out.
The police moved in just moments later. Imran remembers two patrol cars swooping into the lot, the officers bolting out and ordering Herter to the ground.
More police arrived. After a while, one of the officers told Imran that Herter was wanted for murder.
"I was shocked," Imran says. "I thought he was on some drugs or something."
