From A Scene to A Mansion And Then Into A Dumpster - Part I

 Irene as a young dancer at The Radio City Music Hall stage

She was born April 17, 1916, in Louisiana, and she died on July 5, 1998 in New York. Her birth name was Irene Zambelli, but her nick name was "Zambi" by her fellow dancers because it rhymed with "Bambi". After eight years as a ballet dancer she "struck gold", so to speak, as the real estate mogul Samuel Silverman, who was more than a decade older than her, wanted to marry her. Later on she has called the marriage one of "convenience for both of us". He had many connections in high places, and he earned a lot of money which Irene came to like as a useful "tool" to obtain what she wanted out of life, especially after he died from cancer in 1973.

The couple owned apartments, also in excotic places like e.g. Honolulu. One of their houses was a large gray stone five-story mansion on East 65th Street in New York. This magnificent mansion, which was where she herself lived, she changed into what might be called a "luxurious bed-and-breakfast", not for the money, but for the company, now that she had become a widow without any kids or relatives. However she had a dog, the boxer, George, and she went into prize dog breeding which was a grand interest of hers.

At one point she started to take classes at Columbia University, and it was obvious that she liked being with younger people, to have fun and to be fun. People saw her as a charming eccentric who liked lavishing people she liked with champagne and rides with her in her limo. Once she "did a Mae West-entrance", so to speak, by showing up at a party with 10 young, muscular men as her personal backdrop.

In 1998 when she was 82 years old, she was still sprightly and fun to be with. She lived life to the full, enjoying herself as best she could with her arthritis and back pain. That being so, it's very sad to think of how all of this was ended when she accepted a new lodger in her so very special bed-and-breakfast-mansion. Somehow this tall and quite handsome guy, using an alias and not his real name of Kenneth Kimes, made her believe that he was a friend of one of her old friends. Some notes she made after accepting him indicates that she had her suspicions, which may have been aroused when a very eccentric looking, somewhat older woman, started to visit him and more or less moved in with him. Unfortunately, she didn't act upon that suspicion which meant that she fell victim to an intricate murder plan of Kenneth Kimes and his mother, Sante Kimes. 

When Kenneth was arrested he had Irene's keys, cassettes of her tape-recorded calls, several wigs, masks, handcuffs, $30,000, date rape drugs and some loaded firearms. As to Irene, then the body of this sprightly, charming and fun-loving woman had ended up in a dumpster in New Jersey, and she was never found again .... 

https://mail.murderpedia.org/male.K/k/kimes-kenneth-photos.htm

 

https://gb.readly.com/magazines/crime-monthly/2025-04-03/67e73d3ddc3d31c3af4e7dfa 

 

Wikipedia