Before we begin, one of the people involved in this story shares a name with a certain Amazon branded voice activated device. So we wanted to let you know in case you need to switch to headphones while listening to this episode.

Also, your regular host Jeremy Schwartz is taking a short break. So this bonus episode is being narrated by me, Lindsey Graham. No, not that Lindsey Graham.
Jeremy will be back soon.

From Airship, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American Criminal.
There are a lot of forces in this world, forces for good and for bad, seen and unseen. But few feel as impactful, as lasting, as powerful as a mother's love. You may have heard that a mother in distress could lift a car to save her children, as if motherhood is some kind of superpower.
But it is a common superpower. Everyone in the world has one experience in common. At one point or another, we have all had a mother.

Not everyone has the same mother, though. Our relationships with our parents vary from person to person, even among siblings. And so much of that relationship, of course, depends on the decisions and nature of that parent. 

Whether a mother is present or not, how she treats her children, how she punishes them, what her reasons were for starting a family in the first place. All of these things influence the people those children grow up to be. A mother can be something a person carries with them, like a talisman or even a grudge.

“Let's look at the story of Sante Kimes, a mother of two sons who each had very different relationships with her, depending on what she needed from them. Her eldest Kent was a young sidekick and butler. She made him take part in her shoplifting and insurance schemes and had him act as bartender for her dates.”

“Her youngest son Kenny had a more complicated position. He was conceived as Sante's best way to keep her healthy older partner Ken Senior from leaving. He wouldn't marry her and he wouldn't exclude his older children from his will, so Sante had a baby in order to create what she called her dynasty.”

“A way to assure she, through her son, would inherit her partner's fortune. So it was important for Sante to stay on good terms with little Kenny. She pampered him, kept him sheltered from outside influences, and trained him to rely on her guidance and support to make it through the world.
And when Ken Senior's money was all gone by the time he died, Sante pivoted. She manipulated her son into killing for her, underlining that her concern was never the happiness of her children, but her own comfort. To Sante Kimes, motherhood was just a means to an end.
But her story is, of course, an extreme exception. So many mothers, the majority, are devoted to their children. Some of them may be a little too much.
For these moms, the success of their progeny is paramount to their own happiness. Slides against their kids are slings and arrows aimed at their own hearts. Take Wanda Holloway, a woman from Channel View, Texas, who tried to hire a hitman to take out the mother of her daughter's cheerleading rival.”

“And then there's Today's Story, which takes place just 200 miles down the road from Channel View, in a town famous for being the birthplace of one of America's great art forms. And that art form, the history and pride behind it, is an important piece of what happened there, but it's not the defining factor. Instead, at the center of this story is that powerful force, a mother's love.

This is The Dance Mom Kidnapper.

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“Drill Team Dispute
Our story occurs in December 2016, but the first domino fell all the way back in September 1940, when the Kilgore College Rangerettes make their debut. Founded by Gussie Nell Davis, the Rangerettes are the world's first women's precision drill team. Dressed in blue skirts, red blouses, and white cowboy hats, the Rangerettes are an instant success.
On the surface, the women are athletic dancers who perform synchronized routines with military precision and wide smiles. But they are more than that. Gussie insists that her girls be perfect in every way, manners, discipline, endurance, appearance, and strength.
And they fulfill their founding purpose, to keep audiences in their seats and entertain during halftime at college football games. But they also lay down a legacy that will define generations of girls growing up in Kilgore. For the decades following their creation, the Rangerettes build their reputation, performing not just at college football games, but at NFL half-times, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and at five presidential inaugurations.”

“This image of Gussie's wholesome brand of perfection has had an enduring appeal. And while the Rettes, as they are affectionately known, were the first women's drill team, they didn't stay that way for long. Today, they are not even the only drill team in Kilgore.
The local high school has the High Steppers, and plenty of its members go on to try out for the Rettes. That's shopify.com/americancriminal. A Texas girl through and through, Kylie Motes has been a high stepper for her whole high school career.
Until she isn't. The high stepper's coach Colleen Clower likes to keep things fair and has a system to ensure that there's no favoritism when it comes to choosing girls. Everyone has to try out every year, even if they are previously on the team.
Three independent judges oversee these tryouts, scoring each hopeful on a set of individual skills. Those scores are then given to the school principal instead of Colleen, so she has no idea who's on the team till she's handed the list of top contenders. It's a rigorous and fair-minded process.”

“And in the spring of 2015, Kylie Motes auditions for the high steppers for the final time. But despite making the cut in previous years, Kylie's scores aren't as high as some of the other girls, and she doesn't make it. Colleen is sad to see that her longtime member has been left out.
So, she sends Kylie a text message telling her she's heartbroken, inviting her to work as a manager for the team instead. She won't be performing, but at least she can still be involved. Kylie doesn't respond to the text, and Colleen figures that the matter is closed.
But of course, it is not. Shortly after the new team roster is posted, Kylie's parents, Nancy and Kyle, submit a formal complaint to the school board. They allege that at least one of the so-called impartial judges colluded with Colleen to exclude Kylie and any other taller girls to ensure height uniformity on the squad.”

“This is a more reasonable accusation than it might sound. Precision drill teams are all about synchronized movements, uniform performance. So it would not be surprising to find out that they have some kind of height requirement.
But they don't. At least there's not any official proof of it. Still, the Motes family insist that their daughter has been damaged by being left off the team.
Her senior year is ruined. Every football game, every performance, every milestone will be unbearable because of what Kylie's been robbed of. But after hearing the accusation of corruption, the school principal and the district superintendent reject the claims.
They allow the original judge's scores to stand, excluding Kylie from the team. But the fight is not over. That August, right as the school year's about to begin, Nancy and Kyle Motes bring their complaint to the school board, who decide that Kylie should be allowed on the team after all.
The drama doesn't end there, though. This decision creates a lot of tension in the Kilgore drill team community. The Rangerettes are part of the town's identity.”

“No one can understand why the school board is getting involved in this matter when they've never sought involvement with the team before. Nor can anyone work out why they are allowed to overrule qualified judges, all of whom are former Kilgore Rangerettes. Colleen is put out by the whole affair.

Not necessarily because she doesn't want Kylie on the team, but because the board's decision makes the accusations about her seem legitimate. Still, she wants everything to be fair, so she invites every girl who tried out for the High Steppers to join the team too. It's only right.
Three students accept the invitation in addition to Kylie. But according to Nancy Motes, her daughter is ostracized by the other girls on the team and even gets bullied because of what's happened. So after all the efforts she went to, to ensure Kylie was on the drill team, Nancy pulls her daughter out of Kilgore High and sends her to Pine Tree High in the nearby town of Longview.”

The new school has a precision drill squad of their own, but Kyleigh doesn’t join. Maybe she doesn’t want to face a repeat of the last few months, or maybe she just never cared that much to begin with. Whatever her reason, she settles in for a quiet senior year.

So after a lot of sound and fury, all is well in Kilgore. Kyleigh graduates in the spring of 2016 and goes off to college in Arlington. With more than 100 miles distance between them, Kyleigh probably figures her mom won’t be meddling in her life anymore.

Well, that’s the theory anyway.

Act Two: Nancy and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

It’s the afternoon of December 29th, 2016. Nancy Motes has been out running errands for most of the day, and figures she’s earned a coffee, so she pulls into a Starbucks. As she’s waiting for her drink, she spots a pair of women talking quietly at a table across the store. She vaguely recognizes them as mothers of Kilgore High School students. What with the sound of frothing milk and servers chattering away behind the counter, she can’t hear what they’re saying. But from the way they both looked over at her just now, she can guess what they’re talking about.

Nancy knows people still gossip about what she did.

When the barista calls out her name, Nancy snatches up her drink and storms out to her car. She’s sick of everyone in this damn town.

Ever since Nancy waded into the politics of the Hi-Steppers, she’s been minorly infamous in Kilgore. Well, famous might be wrong word. People talk about her, at least. And it’s not just the stuff with the high school drill team – it seems anything involving her daughter’s happiness can make Nancy act a little intense.

It’s important to underline that this is gossip, but rumor has it that Nancy once spread a story about her own daughter Kyleigh getting pregnant. Supposedly, she was trying to stop Kyleigh’s then-boyfriend from breaking up with her. When he dumped her anyway, Nancy drove to the kid’s house and tried to block him in his driveway with her car.

Again, substantiating that any of this actually happened is tricky, but it’s important that you know about it anyway. Because gossip is an important factor to what Nancy is about to do. Who says what and about whom matters. It matters to Nancy, it matters to her neighbors, and it matters to their children. In this specific instance, the story about Kyleigh’s supposed pregnancy got around to Patrick Shore, Kyleigh’s boyfriend after the

first guy. His mother heard it from a woman named Dana Blair. Those are a couple of names you’ll wanna remember.

As she’s driving out of the Starbucks parking lot that day, Nancy happens to spot Patrick driving by, and without even thinking about it, she starts following him. She’s heard that since he broke up with Kyleigh, he’s started dating a new girl, Briana. And for whatever reason, she’s decided that what she needs to do is tail Patrick until he meets up with Briana, then take a photo of the young couple to send to Kyleigh. In Nancy’s mind, seeing Patrick with a new girl will help her move on from the relationship.

Somewhere along the way, Nancy realizes that Patrick might recognize her, which she doesn’t want. But she just happens to have a short brown wig with her in the car, so she slips that on to cover her dirty blonde hair, and shoves a cap on top to keep it in place.

But after donning her disguise, Nancy loses interest in Patrick. She decides that she wants to find Briana by herself. The only problem is that Nancy doesn’t know where Briana lives. So she pulls over on a quiet street and opens up Facebook on her phone. A quick search shows her that Briana is good friends with 18-year-old Alexa Blair.

Now Alexa is the daughter of Dana Blair – the woman who supposedly told Patrick and his mom about the invented pregnancy scare. So to Nancy, that makes Dana kind of responsible for Patrick and Kyleigh breaking up in the first place. And both Briana and Alexa had been Hi-Steppers at Kilgore High School – the team Kyleigh didn’t make. More importantly, though, Nancy knows where the Blairs live, and she figures that Alexa will have Briana’s address. So Nancy puts her phone away and drives the mile or so to the Blairs’ house.

Nancy knows all about the Blairs. Plenty of people in town do. Dana’s been the director of the Kilgore Rangerettes since the early 1990s. Before that, she was their choreographer, and before that, she was a Rangerette herself. Alexa is currently a freshman at Kilgore College. After a lifetime of training, she made the Rangerettes this year and is gearing up for their big performance at the Cotton Bowl in just a few days’ time.

It’s about 6pm when Nancy parks at a nursing home just around the corner from the Blairs’ place. And although she’ll later claim she was only planning to ask Alexa for Briana’s address, what she does next suggests that’s not the whole story.

Nancy is already wearing a wig and baseball cap. She also grabs a gun from her glove compartment, and leans into the back seat to pick up a roll of duct tape and an oversized Christmas card shaped like a snowman.

Feeling prepared, she walks down the block to the Blairs’ home and rings the doorbell. Dana answers, and seems surprised to find a woman standing there in a cheap wig, holding a snowman Christmas card over the bottom half of her face like it’s a mask. But when Nancy asks if Alexa’s home, Dana’s southern hospitality kicks in and she steps aside to invite Nancy in. Then she calls up the stairs to her daughter, who’s busy packing for their trip to Arlington.

When the 18-year-old appears a few seconds later, Nancy drops the card and holds up her gun. The first thing she does is order both women to hand over their phones. She asks if either of them know who she is. When they both shake their heads, she tells them, “You’ll know what this is about very soon.” Then she tosses the duct tape to Alexa and instructs her to bind her mother’s hands. When that’s done, Nancy herself tapes up Alexa.

With both of the Blairs tied up, Nancy goes through Alexa’s phone, looking for Briana’s address. When she can’t find it, she looks up and announces that she and Alexa are going to go for a drive together. Stalling for time, Alexa asks if she can go upstairs to put some shoes on, which Nancy allows. But when Alexa doesn’t come back, Nancy figures she better go up to check on her.

At this point, Dana seizes her chance. She bolts out the front door and starts screaming for help. Meanwhile, Nancy comes back downstairs with Alexa, and both of them are surprised that Dana’s gone. But Nancy decides she doesn’t have time to go chasing after her. She grabs Alexa by the arm and drags her outside, then pulls her down the street towards the nursing home.

By this stage, Dana’s managed to flag down Lori and Travis Wilcox, a pair of neighbors who are backing out of their driveway. Travis gets out to accompany Dana back to her house, while Lori drives off in the direction Dana saw Nancy taking Alexa.

Lori catches up to Nancy just as she’s pulling out of the nursing home, and follows her, both of them driving at top speed through the rush-hour traffic. Lori calls 911 while she’s driving, tells the operator what’s going on, and reads out Nancy’s license plate number. But she’s forced to stop when Nancy blasts through a red light. By the time the light changes again, Nancy’s car has disappeared.

Just when Nancy’s sure she’s shaken off the tail, her phone rings. It’s her husband, Kyle, asking when she’ll be home for dinner. Acting like nothing strange is happening, Nancy tells him that she’ll be home shortly, then hangs up. She hands a phone over to Alexa and tells her to call her home and find out if the police are there.

Of course, Dana has called the police, and a patrol car was close enough that an officer’s already on the scene. They’re getting information from Dana while a group of concerned neighbors stand around, anxious to help.

Suddenly, the ringing of the Blairs’ landline cuts through the chatter. Dana rushes forward and picks up the phone. It’s Alexa. Dana feels her stomach unclench just a little. Her daughter is still alive.

But Alexa’s not calling to say she’s been let go. Her kidnapper has ordered her to call and find out what’s going on.

Dana swallows hard. She tells Alexa that yes, there’s one police officer here, but she can make him go away if that’s what Nancy wants. As Alexa’s relaying that message, Dana presses a button to put the call on speaker. But she fumbles with the handset and accidentally hangs up instead.

In the car, Alexa announces that the line’s gone dead, which sends Nancy into a panic. She quickly throws Dana’s phone out the window onto the road, then smashes Alexa’s cell and tosses it, too.

Back at the Blairs’ house, Dana frantically dials Alexa’s cell phone over and over, but she can’t get through. She relives the moment when her finger slipped and she disconnected the call. What a stupid mistake. As she tries dialing again and again, she can’t stop the fears from creeping in. She wonders where her daughter is now, if she’s scared, and if they’ll ever see each other again.

Act Three: “Oh, are you still breathing?”

It’s December 29th, 2016 in Kilgore, Texas. Right around 6:30pm, Nancy Motes is weaving through traffic as fast as she can. In the passenger seat beside her is 18-year-old Alexa Blair, her wrists duct-taped together.

Just a minute or two ago, Nancy threw Alexa’s phone out of the window. Now she can barely keep her eyes off the rearview mirror. Every car she sees, she wonders if it’s following her. Maybe it’s an undercover cop, or another nosy neighbor.

Wanting to distract herself, Nancy shifts her attention back to Alexa, who seems remarkably calm, given what’s happening. Nancy wants to know what her deal is, and starts asking her questions. She knows Alexa’s a Kilgore Rangerette, and asks if she thinks that makes her perfect. Is that why she’s so calm – because of the famously brutal Rangerette training? From there, Nancy’s questions become more personal. Does Alexa have a boyfriend? Who’s her best friend in the world? What about Brianna Duffield – does she know her?

Nancy peppers Alexa with questions right up until she pulls the car into a storage facility parking lot. She hops outta the car, then pulls Alexa out of the passenger seat and towards the large building.

As they’re walking away from the car, Alexa looks around in the dim light of the early winter evening. All she can see is high walls on every side of the property, all of them lit with bright spotlights. Before she can make out anything else, Nancy prods her around to face the slim roller door of a locker. Nancy fiddles with the lock for a moment, and Alexa wonders if she should try to run while her captor’s distracted. But then the lock opens, the door glides up, and Nancy shoves Alexa inside, sliding the door closed behind them.

There’s a single lightbulb in the claustrophobic space. It sways back and forth slightly as Nancy crouches down and duct tapes Alexa’s ankles together. The teenager feels her breathing get heavier as she feels the tape go around and around. Then Nancy orders Alexa to lie down on the cold concrete floor, which she does, closing her eyes and saying a silent prayer.

Alexa feels a weight on her chest. Nancy is kneeling on her. She hears Nancy’s voice. “This is for my daughter, Kyleigh Motes.” Alexa has just enough time to register that that name sounds familiar before she feels hands around her throat. Nancy squeezes, choking the air out of Alexa as the teen struggles for breath. It doesn’t take long for Alexa to lose consciousness.

When she comes to, she keeps her eyes shut tight. Her throat feels tight and sore, but she’s distracted by the noise of someone moving about the room. Then she hears Nancy’s voice again.

“Oh, are you still breathing?”

Alexa’s eyes snap open and she watches Nancy stoop down to get close to her once more. But instead of strangling her again, Nancy just rips a strip of tape from the roll and smooths it down over Alexa’s lips. Then, without another word, she opens the door, ducks out into the parking lot, and rolls the door back into place, leaving Alexa alone in the dark.

Alexa listens to Nancy’s footsteps getting further away, then to the sound of a car starting up and driving off. When she’s sure the coast is clear, she starts moving. She sits up and rips the tape from her ankles, then uses her teeth to peel it from her wrists. She throws open the locker door and runs into the empty parking lot.

Once again, all she can see is fences on every side of the property – eight feet high at least. And most of them are topped by barbed wire. But there’s one stretch that isn’t. That’s her way out. From the ground, the wooden fence looks impossibly high. But Alexa’s been training as a precision drill performer practically her whole life. She’s spent hundreds of hours doing incredibly demanding routines filled with high kicks and leaps. An eight-foot fence won’t defeat her.

So, despite the fact that she was strangled into unconsciousness just minutes ago, Alexa uses her incredible strength to scale the fence and drop down onto the grass on the other side. She looks around, gathering her bearings, and sees that she’s in a quiet residential neighborhood. Perfect. She runs down the sidewalk, slowing down to look in people’s front windows until she spots exactly what she’s looking for: a young mother feeding a baby. She’s sure that if there’s anyone she can trust to help her, it’ll be this person.

Alexa knocks on the front door, and when the woman answers it, she explains what she’s been through in the last hour. And because this is Kilgore, the woman actually recognizes Alexa. She knows she’s a Rangerette, knows exactly who her mom is. And she knows that this girl isn’t lying. Not a Rette. She opens the door wide and waves Alexa in, showing her where the phone is.

Alexa dials 911 and within minutes, an ambulance has arrived. Once they’ve confirmed that the teen’s mostly okay, the paramedics take her straight to the police station to give a statement.

By this stage, local law enforcement have already started working the case. Thanks to Lori Wilcox, the neighbor who gave chase in her car, detectives have identified Nancy Motes as the kidnapper. As Alexa answers questions at the station, officers show up at the Motes family home to bring Nancy in.

Nancy gives the performance of a lifetime, telling the detectives that she’s got no idea who the Blairs are. Why would she kidnap someone she’s never met? she asks. She also denies owning a wig. She’s never even worn one, she says. Still, the cops take Nancy in on suspicion of kidnapping, and let Alexa go home with her parents to try and get some sleep.

For now, at least, it’s the end of a bizarre, terrifying day for the Blairs. And the beginning of Nancy Motes’s infamy.

The day after her kidnapping, Alexa packs her bag and travels with her mom and the rest of the Kilgore Rangerettes to Arlington, where the team are scheduled to perform at their signature event: the New Years Day Cotton Bowl Classic. The Rangerettes have been performing pre- and halftime shows at the game since the 1950s, and despite what she’s been through, Alexa refuses to give up her chance to take part. She’s been training for this moment for years, and she won’t let it be taken away from her.

So on January 1st, 2017, Alexa Blair takes to the field at AT&T Stadium, soaking in the roar of the crowd. The whole time, there’s one person watching her more closely than anyone else: her mother.

Back in Kilgore, Nancy Motes is granted bail, and spends the next two years denying she had any involvement with what happened to Dana and Alexa. In April, 2019, her trial rolls around. Charged with two counts of aggravated kidnapping, Nancy’s staring down sentences ranging from probation all the way up to life in prison if she’s convicted. So she changes her tune and pleads guilty. In exchange, she’s given just five years behind bars.

But her legal troubles aren’t over. The Blairs bring a civil suit against Nancy, seeking between $200,000 and a million in damages. Nancy isn’t required to appear in court for the civil trial, but tells her story through a taped deposition. She’s never really able to articulate what it was that made her target the Blairs that December day. Looking back, she admits that her behaviour was crazy. After all, she really didn’t know the family at all. But they were prominent faces of the Kilgore Rangerettes, which represent the best of precision drill teams – a dream Nancy felt had been stolen from Kyleigh.

In Nancy’s mind, she just was a mother looking out for the wellbeing of her daughter. But by the time Nancy kidnapped Alexa, Kyleigh Motes was over 100 miles away, living her best life at college. She’d moved on from whatever pain she might have felt at being cut from the Hi-Steppers. But her mother still carried the wounds. And made the misguided, criminal decision to take violent revenge on avatars of the people who hurt her.

In the end, the judge finds Nancy guilty and awards the Blairs $575,000 in damages. It’s a bill Nancy finds waiting for her when she’s paroled in November 2021, having served half of her five-year sentence.

In the years following her release, Nancy maintains a low profile. Her flirtation with murder seems to have been a one-off – a lapse in judgement caused by, to hear her tell it, motherhood.

If you enjoyed this episode, you should go check out our American Criminal series called ‘To Kill A Cheerleader.’ And before you go, don’t forget to rate American Criminal on your favorite podcast app. Leave us a review while you’re there. Both those things help other people find the show, which helps us out a lot.

We used many different sources while preparing this episode. One we can particularly recommend is the 2022 Texas Monthly article ‘The Positively True Adventures of the Kilgore Rangerette-Kidnapping Mom’ by Katy Vine.

This episode may contain reenactments or dramatized details. And while in some cases we can’t know exactly what happened, all our dramatizations are based on historical research.

American Criminal is a co-production of Airship and Evergreen Podcasts. It’s hosted, edited and executive produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz. Audio editing and Sound Design by Sean Rule-Hoffman. Music by Thrumm. This episode is written and researched by Joel Callen. Managing Producer, Emily Burke. Executive Producers are Joel Callen and Lindsay Graham.