00:00:12
When your sister, Aniah, dropped you off that evening, she did indicate that she would give you
00:00:19
a call when she got home, correct? Yes, sir, she did. And >> [music] >> Pure hell.
00:00:38
It's just the worst feeling ever to not know where your child is. I mean, we were doing everything we
00:00:46
could as parents in that moment to try to find her. 19-year-old [music] Aniah Blanchard
00:00:53
disappeared last week. >> Aniah Blanchard was reported missing 11 days ago. There has been no trace of her
00:01:00
since Blanchard is the stepdaughter of UFC fighter Walt Harris. Walt >> [groaning]
00:01:05
>> Harris! When she was missing, fighting was the furthest thing from my mind at that
00:01:17
point. >> [snorts] >> We just want our daughter home. We want our family If you have any information,
00:01:31
please, [music] please come forward. I was almost a shell of myself. You know, honestly, I didn't even know if
00:01:36
I'd fight again. But she always was the one that was like, "Don't stop." That's it. Keep pushing.
00:01:44
You know, keep pushing, keep pushing. I know it's hard. Everything for me moving forward is
00:01:49
about making her proud. I'mma always fight for my baby girl. She was a very happy girl that loved
00:01:59
[music] life. Very loving and giving. She always [music] put others before herself.
00:02:09
People could just really tell like that she had something about her that was special.
00:02:16
There's nothing in my mind other than finding Aniah. You don't sleep, you don't eat, you're
00:02:25
constantly thinking about where she is, what has happened. And it does not go away.
00:02:32
We were just trying [music] to keep each other sane to so we could keep moving forward.
00:02:37
So, it was a constant go, go, go. We're not stopping. [music] Aniah, I love you, and your mommy is not
00:02:46
going to give up till I find you. We're going to bring you home, Aniah. You're coming home, so don't worry.
00:03:15
>> [music] [music] >> I had Aniah on my birthday, June 22nd. That was just going to be something so
00:03:49
special in life for she and I to share the same birthday. >> [laughter] >> Her laugh,
00:04:01
infectious. Her spirit, irrepressible. Aniah Blanchard was just 19 when she vanished.
00:04:11
Her vibrant presence replaced by the terrifying silence of her absence. Aniah's mother, Angela Harris.
00:04:26
She just embraced people. She just loved people. You would walk in, and no matter how you
00:04:32
felt, how down you were, she could pick you up. Aniah's stepfather, UFC heavyweight Walt Harris,
00:04:45
was a rising star ranked ninth in the world in the fall of 2019. He says Aniah constantly inspired him.
00:04:54
You know, after wins, we celebrate. If it's a loss, she'd always pick me up, and she was always that rock, that voice
00:05:00
that kept me going. Aniah grew up in Homewood, Alabama, near Birmingham. Go Tigers!
00:05:12
It's practically local folklore that after every school softball game, >> [music]
00:05:17
>> Aniah invited the opposing team to join hers on the pitcher's mound to share high fives
00:05:23
>> [music] >> and the Lord's Prayer. And even if we lost, the other team lost, no matter
00:05:29
what, no hard feelings. >> [music] >> I think that was her whole thing. This is a way to connect people. Longtime
00:05:36
friend Hannah Crocker met Aniah in the sixth grade. She was [music] one of those people that
00:05:42
just wanted to make sure that, "Hey, you're doing okay? If not, let me help you out." Did folks ever think that you
00:05:48
two might be boyfriend and girlfriend? All the time. Is this your girlfriend? I'm like, "No,
00:05:54
this is my sister." [music] They were nearly inseparable, says Aniah's older brother, [music] Elijah
00:06:01
We grew up, you know, 17 months apart. We were always together, and she even followed me to college. Elijah headed
00:06:08
off to Auburn University in 2017. Aniah enrolled at nearby [music] Southern Union State Community College a year
00:06:15
later, finding an apartment just minutes from [music] her brother. I would call her every morning.
00:06:21
Um Sorry, it just got rough sometimes. Uh October 23rd, 2019, Aniah, Elijah, and
00:06:32
their mom, Angela, attended the funeral of a family friend in northern Alabama. Immediately after the service, the
00:06:40
siblings had to leave. Both had to work [music] the next morning back in Auburn,
00:06:45
185 miles away. She looked over at me. She said, "Hey, Mom, we really need to leave now because
00:06:51
it's getting late." I said, "Yeah, you're right. It's It's 7:00. You've got a 4-hour drive." And then she hugged me,
00:06:57
and I kissed her on the cheek, and I told her I loved her. Driving right past Birmingham, Aniah and
00:07:03
Elijah made a pit stop at home to see their stepfather, Walt. Three? He was training for his next fight.
00:07:15
That's one. Go. I didn't ever call them step kids. They were my children. It's just the way I saw it. You know, I
00:07:22
loved them like my own. The children's biological father, Elijah Blanchard Sr., a local pastor and
00:07:29
businessman, remained a close presence in their lives. He and Angela divorced in 2004.
00:07:36
Soon, she started dating Walt Harris. And then he met Aniah and Elijah Jr. for the first time.
00:07:44
You came into her life around age 3. [music] Tell us about how that bonding process
00:07:50
went. I think it started day one. Man, we did everything together. It was beautiful for me to watch their
00:08:01
bond grow over the years. They loved me like they knew me their whole lives. >> [music]
00:08:06
>> We just felt like a little family. Walt and Angela made it official, getting married in January 2010.
00:08:14
They eventually had two children of their own, Asa and Ayla. He was with them more than I was because I worked a
00:08:21
lot. Angela, a pediatric emergency room nurse, worked nights at a Birmingham hospital. So, it was Aniah who helped
00:08:30
Walt with the younger children. It was me and Aniah. She helped me basically raise her little brother and sister.
00:08:35
Coming from a strong Christian background, I wanted to be a good influence in their lives.
00:08:40
The kids certainly look up to their dad. At 6'5", 250 lb, Walt Harris has been a
00:08:47
towering presence in their lives. Walt! And in the bruising octagon cage of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the UFC.
00:09:02
Man, everything he throws is hard. Win, lose, or draw, Walt's family has always been in his corner. My family's
00:09:13
always been the reason why I fight, and they've always been the reason why I get
00:09:16
back up. And Aniah, she was the main catalyst for that. After the funeral, Aniah and Elijah's
00:09:23
visit with Walt [music] was all too short. A brief talk, a long hug, and they were
00:09:29
back on the road to Auburn, still about 2 hours away. When they left, Walt says he was left
00:09:38
with a growing sense of regret. >> [sighs] >> I struggle with it every day. Um I should have just told them to stay cuz
00:09:48
I felt like she was tired. I remember she said, uh "No, I'm fine. That I'll I'll be fine." Man, I hugged her, and I
00:09:54
told her I love her, and that was it. They made the drive without incident, arriving in Auburn around 11:00 p.m.
00:10:06
Aniah dropped off Elijah at his apartment. So, I just said, "I love you. Be careful, and just make sure you get home
00:10:12
safe." So, at 11:09 p.m., I texted her and said, "Are you close to being home?" She responded right back, "Yeah."
00:10:24
Aniah's college roommate, Sara O'Brien. She always let me know where she was at and when she would be home.
00:10:31
We actually shared each other's location on our iPhone. That's because, Sara says, Aniah had a deep-rooted fear.
00:10:40
Since the day I met Aniah, she always told me that that was her biggest fear to be kidnapped or murdered.
00:10:49
Like, as soon as she walked in, she would check every room. She would tell me multiple times, like,
00:10:54
she had nightmares about it happening to her. You don't She really never went anywhere
00:10:59
by herself at night. But that night, after dropping off her brother, she was alone with just 3 miles to go.
00:11:10
That's how far away she and Sara lived from Elijah. 3 miles, normally a 10-minute drive.
00:11:19
But nearly 30 minutes later, Aniah had not come home. Sara texted again. Did you go out without me?
00:11:29
About a minute later, came the reply. I'm smoking a blunt, lol. It was the word blunt, Sara says, that stopped her.
00:11:38
She had never heard Aniah use it. I said, "Who are you smoking with?" "Eric." I say, "Who is that?"
00:11:47
"I just met him." And I responded with, "Where?" It was 11:43 p.m. There would not be another response.
00:11:58
Sara checked her cell phone one last time for Aniah's location. She appeared to be at a nearby apartment
00:12:05
complex where lots of students lived. Sara went to bed, she says, thinking Aniah was hanging out with friends.
00:12:35
The next morning, October 24th, [music] Angela Harris took her children to school and reached out to Aniah to talk.
00:12:44
It was their early morning ritual. We FaceTimed every morning. That was kind of our thing, like, "Good morning.
00:12:50
What are you doing? What do you got to plan for the day?" So, when I called her at 8:00 a.m. and she didn't answer the
00:12:55
FaceTime, I thought, "Okay, well, you know, she's busy, so I'll give her a little bit longer." Sara was eager to
00:13:02
hear about Eric, the mystery man Aniah met [music] the night before. She went straight to Aniah's bedroom.
00:13:10
And she wasn't there. She would always come home. She wouldn't spend the night with anyone she just
00:13:18
met. Sara glanced at her cell phone, looking for Aniah's latest location, but there was none.
00:13:26
>> [music] >> Aniah's phone had gone dark. When did concern turn to worry for you,
00:13:35
Sara? When I called her, the lady that she baby-sat for, and she hadn't shown up that morning
00:13:43
because she never misses a day to baby-sit those kids. She loved them. She was like a mother to my kids.
00:13:56
Corinna Thomas, the working mother who depended on Aniah, said she was the most reliable nanny she ever had. Amazing. I
00:14:04
don't I don't [laughter] know how else to explain it. Like, every good quality that you want in a
00:14:10
person, she had. Like, every everything. She never once never once >> [music] >> didn't show up to take care of those
00:14:22
kids. And that's when I hopped in the car to look for Aniah's car. The longer I drove, the more worried I
00:14:30
got. I didn't see any trace of her at all. Sara decided to get Aniah's brother and
00:14:37
take a second look. Her roommate calls me and tells me that Aniah never even came home last night.
00:14:45
Aniah's missing. And then I told him what she said about Eric, that she was with him.
00:14:57
And he was like, "No, she didn't tell me anything about that." And my heart kind of just sank.
00:15:04
And this was completely out of her character. This isn't Aniah. Aniah wouldn't have run away.
00:15:10
Immediately, I called my parents and was like, "Uh Aniah's missing." And he says, "Mom,
00:15:17
we can't find Aniah." And I said, "Son, what are you talking about? You can't find her." Like, he said, "No, Mom, I'm
00:15:23
I'm in her apartment, and we can't find Aniah." Immediately alarmed, Angela and Walt took off for Aniah's apartment,
00:15:34
two excruciating hours away. We just got in his truck and just flew to Auburn. All types of things are going through
00:15:44
our head. What's happened? What's going on in Pure Hell? Walt, how did you process all
00:15:50
of this when you found out that your daughter was missing? That drive to Auburn was uh
00:15:57
the hardest the hardest day I've ever been through in my life, because I knew something wasn't right.
00:16:06
Elijah decided to check with Corinna Thomas again. Maybe Aniah showed up. I wasn't worried until
00:16:14
um until her brother messaged me. Hey, I'm Aniah's brother. I was wondering if you heard from my sister
00:16:20
today. No, I haven't. I called her a bunch of times this morning, and she missed
00:16:25
picking up the kids this morning. Yes, I'm at her apartment right now. We have been looking everywhere for her and
00:16:30
can't find her. And Aniah never left her dog, Blue, alone overnight. That was her [music]
00:16:37
baby. We just knew when we got to her apartment that, "Wait, there there's something really bad wrong here." Word
00:16:44
quickly spread to Aniah's friends. And I was like, "What I was just talking to her last night. What are you talking
00:16:49
about? I mean, I live 3 hours away from her." I was like, "I don't know where she is." Hannah Crocker dropped
00:16:55
everything and headed to Aniah's apartment. >> Once it was 24 hours, I was like,
00:16:59
"That's not Aniah." In my heart, I was like, "She's a female. Something happened."
00:17:06
Yeah, Auburn is a college town, >> [music] >> and it's a very safe place. Former Lee County District Attorney,
00:17:15
Brandon Hughes. This from the very beginning just felt differently, you know, based on the information we had.
00:17:20
It just didn't feel like this was a college student who decided to leave and blow off some steam. That just [music]
00:17:24
wasn't her personality. That's just not something she would have done. Aniah's disappearance was breaking news. Right
00:17:31
now, the search continues [music] for a missing 19-year-old. They're looking for
00:17:35
Aniah Blanchard. >> If you have any information on where she [music] is, call Auburn police. If you
00:17:40
have any leads on where our daughter is, Aniah Blanchard, please, please, please, go to the
00:17:46
authorities. Tell someone. She was last seen in a black Honda CRV 2017. Please, [music] if
00:17:52
you know anything, we have to have her back. We have to have her back. >> [music]
00:17:59
>> October 25th, with Aniah gone for 2 days, her Honda was spotted in an apartment complex in Montgomery,
00:18:06
Alabama, 55 miles from Auburn, and it was badly damaged. >> [music] >> Worse still, there was no sign of Aniah.
00:18:21
Corinna Thomas had to break the news to her children. And they said, "Aniah's missing."
00:18:28
And >> [snorts] >> And then they cried. And then they came up with their own plan to help find her. They got their
00:18:39
tablets. "Hey, Google, how many houses are in Montgomery?" And I was like, "Why are you looking
00:18:47
that up?" And he said, "Cuz we got to go see how many houses we have to go look for her at." They They just wanted to
00:18:52
find her. But nothing anyone did led to an Aniah sighting. Then a few days after she disappeared,
00:19:03
police discovered that after Aniah dropped off her brother, she stopped at this gas station, just 2 minutes from
00:19:10
her home. It's a Chevron gas station on College Street. Aniah entered the Chevron gas station
00:19:21
approximately 11:21 in the evening on the night of October 23rd, and she stayed there approximately a minute and
00:19:26
a half to 2 minutes before she left. Aniah bought a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips and a drink. That was
00:19:35
her thing every night, even at home growing up. She would snack right before bed.
00:19:42
We needed to know if anybody saw anything. What was she doing? Did she leave with anybody?
00:20:03
>> Investigators zeroed in on the Chevron gas station where Aniah was last seen on
00:20:08
video before she disappeared. They were looking for any leads to where she might be.
00:20:24
The community of Homewood, where she grew up, prayed for Aniah's safe return. >> [music]
00:20:39
[music] >> Ribbons and bows in Aniah's favorite color appeared everywhere. >> [music]
00:20:45
>> It has rocked us to our core. It's one of ours. Come home, Aniah. And when they weren't praying for her,
00:20:55
they were out trying to find her. Pretty quickly, people came together. It's like, "Hey, let's do searches here.
00:21:03
Let's do searches there." We would go in the woods. We would go behind people's houses. We would go
00:21:11
in the alleyways. We drove my truck in backwoods. We were all in people's yards. We must have
00:21:20
canvassed from Auburn to Tuskegee. Just me and her within the first two or three
00:21:25
days. The investigation quickly expanded across several counties, especially after Aniah's car was found 55 miles
00:21:35
away in Montgomery. You got to imagine we had there was just massive areas that we had to search.
00:21:41
There were dozens of agencies, state agencies, county agencies, local agencies, federal agencies, huge task
00:21:49
force. And reward money poured in. UFC President Dana White and light heavyweight champion Jon Jones each
00:21:57
contributed $25,000. It's a pain. It's a anxiety. And it's just so many emotions.
00:22:08
You're trying to hold hope that something positive is going to come out of it. But as the days go on, you your
00:22:13
hope just starts to dwindle and dwindle. Now missing eight days, hope was dealt a major blow.
00:22:24
Tonight, police in Auburn, Alabama, say there's evidence that a missing college student is a victim of foul play.
00:22:29
Evidence, you know, from within her vehicle is the reason that we are aware that, you know, she was harmed. And we
00:22:36
do consider this a a case where there's foul play involved. Police would not say what they found,
00:22:48
but Aniah's biological father, >> [music] >> Elijah Blanchard Sr., was not ready to
00:22:53
give up. >> That was hard for us. I'm a man of faith. And regardless of what the police
00:22:58
say, I still have hope that my Aniah is out there waiting on her father to get her.
00:23:03
Aniah's disappearance was taking more than an emotional toll on Walt Harris. He immediately canceled his upcoming
00:23:13
fight. Aniah was the only thing on everyone's mind. I wasn't able to focus at all. It was
00:23:31
chaos. There was sadness. I just wanted to be there for my family. It's like a dark abyss.
00:23:47
You're fighting that off. Then, after 14 days, the police announced they wanted this man.
00:23:58
He was seen at the gas station store at the same time Aniah was there. An eyewitness said he thought he saw him
00:24:07
force Aniah into her car before they drove off together. This is a person of interest.
00:24:15
>> Anyone who sees him is asked to call 911. Someone did. And the man the police were
00:24:24
looking for was not named Eric. He was Ibraheem Yazeed, a 30-year-old from Montgomery.
00:24:33
And he had a lengthy arrest record. He should be considered dangerous and would be potentially armed.
00:24:41
Police said Yazeed was charged earlier that year with kidnapping, robbery, and nearly beating a
00:24:49
77-year-old man to death. He was also accused of robbing and beating a second man. Despite the
00:24:57
serious charges, he was free on bond and had been staying in a hotel near the Chevron gas station.
00:25:06
How is this person free to walk into a gas station? How is he just minutes down the road from me? How is he in the same
00:25:14
gas station as my best friend? But he was. And that was at 11:22 p.m. Aniah's car was next seen a few minutes
00:25:25
later at another nearby gas station where Yazeed bought a small cigar. It would be a little more than an hour
00:25:36
before a license plate reader picked up Aniah's Honda near the entrance to I-85 heading south towards Montgomery.
00:25:48
Aniah's parents clung to hope. And they had faith that their daughter would be found alive.
00:25:55
They even prayed for Yazeed. You can stop now. You can You can change this. You can let her go. God will forgive
00:26:02
you. Police captured Yazeed the following day hiding in the woods 145 miles away in
00:26:14
another state. Police say he did not surrender peacefully. 30-year-old Ibraheem Yazeed was arrested
00:26:24
overnight in Florida on the charge of kidnapping in the first degree. Yazeed appeared in a Florida court the next day
00:26:32
with a swollen left eye. And court documents finally revealed what police found in the car.
00:26:39
It was blood and a lot of it. >> Court documents today say blood that was discovered in Aniah Blanchard's car was,
00:26:46
quote, "indicative of someone suffering a life-threatening injury." Yazeed waived extradition to Lee County,
00:26:53
Alabama, where Angela and Walt Harris would be waiting, hoping to find out where their daughter
00:27:00
was. Do you think someone accused of kidnapping should be allowed out on bond? Chat now on Facebook Index.
00:27:26
The Harrises were committed to facing Yazeed whenever he appeared in court. And each time
00:27:35
felt like the first time. As a father, as a guy, I'm imagining as well what might have been coursing through your
00:27:41
[music] veins. Then you see him, Mr. Yazeed, looking back at you guys. Anger. I remember shaking. I don't want
00:27:52
to climb across the the barricade. It made me really angry cuz he was just kind of smug. Like, "You You You're
00:28:00
tough. I'm tough, too." You know, like he was challenging me almost. It took all of Walt's training in the
00:28:07
ring and Angela's steady hand to keep him from ripping into Yazeed. She grabbed me. And she said, "Just
00:28:15
breathe." And I just started trying to hear her voice because I could not I wouldn't
00:28:20
take my eyes off of him. Like, "Okay, who's going to look away first?" type of deal.
00:28:25
Angela, how did you stay composed? I wanted him to know that I'm representing my daughter.
00:28:33
And that I'm not going anywhere. We're right here. And we're going to fight this all the way through. Yazeed
00:28:39
maintained his innocence. And the burden to find Aniah [music] mounted. Everybody was on edge because there's a
00:28:47
lot of pressure. There's pressure to to I'm the slow girl. >> [music] >> Angela and Walt Harris publicized their
00:28:56
daughter's disappearance on Dr. Phil. I love you, baby girl. Um we're looking for you. Um we're doing
00:29:03
everything that we can. And we're going to get you. I promise. And they're on television.
00:29:11
You're doing everything you can. But up to this point, it hasn't been enough. By then, the DA, Angela, and Walt had
00:29:19
grown close. If you want to call up, get frustrated and yell at me for an hour, cry with me for an hour,
00:29:29
I'm there. And that's what we were doing. A month after Aniah went missing, the DA
00:29:36
had news. Authorities now believed that this man, Antoine Fisher, who once served time for
00:29:44
murder, helped Yazeed dispose of evidence. He was charged with kidnapping. He soon cooperated providing
00:29:52
a road map to Aniah. Aniah's remains were located in Macon County, Alabama, which is
00:30:03
between Auburn and Montgomery. Obviously, we didn't know to a 100% certainty that that's who it was. You
00:30:11
know, there were several items of clothing out there. I saw a boot. I took a photograph of it. Hughes asked
00:30:20
the Harrises to meet at the DA's office. And they don't know why they're there. I showed the Harrises the photograph.
00:30:28
The Sorel boots, like this one, were a gift from Walt when the family visited New York City. Walt looked at the bone.
00:30:40
He just drops it on the table and said, "Y'all excuse me." My wife had come up there and she was
00:30:47
come up the back stairwell. She said she saw Walt just punching the wall. I mean, this is
00:30:57
a concrete wall. He's screaming and just punching this wall. That's hard. Talk about a parent's worst nightmare
00:31:12
when her body was found. Immediately, I just wanted to actually know if I could see my child.
00:31:22
I just want to see her. Um you know, we were told no. I just didn't want to go on anymore.
00:31:30
Walt broken confused >> [gasps] >> angry Um I just wanted to know why and what happened.
00:31:46
Hughes and the police returned to the woods to search for more evidence. Just literally crawling on hands and
00:31:55
knees looking for evidence, looking for anything that we could find. And what they found helped the Harrises finally
00:32:03
learn what happened to their beloved Aniah. How would you react if you came face-to-face with your loved one's
00:32:14
suspected killer? Take an in-depth look at the case at 48hours.com. A blood-soaked passenger seat.
00:32:32
A bullet hole in the door. The evidence tells a story of what happened to Aniah that night.
00:32:39
Investigators aren't certain how Yazid ended up inside the car with Aniah. Did he ask for a ride? Did he force her?
00:32:48
But the damage outside suggests [music] there was a struggle at some point as the car was moving.
00:32:54
Investigators say Yazid shot Aniah as she tried to escape. Aniah Blanchard was killed in a manner
00:33:03
of homicide. Cause of death was a gunshot wound. Was your faith shaken? Rocked? To have
00:33:16
our angel taken like that. I didn't know why God would allow it. But Walt ultimately found comfort in his faith.
00:33:25
It brought me back. It's helped me understand that God didn't do this. And on December 2nd, 2019 Aniah's murder
00:33:34
>> then District Attorney Hughes announced the person responsible was Ibrahim Yazid.
00:33:40
He was now being charged with capital murder. We're also seeking the death penalty.
00:33:46
Two days later, the Harrises were in [music] court when Yazid fought back. I got a right to do. But y'all have no
00:33:54
video, no audio of me shooting anyone. >> [clears throat] >> That's why I'm trying to see how y'all
00:33:59
going to find me over on hearsay, but y'all ain't presenting no evidence. Yazid seemed pleased when he was done.
00:34:10
The attitude, the smirks, the the looks. Wow. But maybe the most damning evidence
00:34:19
against Yazid comes from Antoine Fisher. Remember, he was facing charges of helping Yazid. Those charges were
00:34:28
dropped. Fisher told police that just hours after Aniah disappeared, Yazid showed up in Montgomery looking for
00:34:36
help. And he was driving what looked like Aniah's black Honda. Fisher said he followed Yazid to an
00:34:47
apartment complex. The same complex where police would find Aniah's Honda. Yazid then got into the truck Fisher was
00:34:55
driving, says lead detective Josh Mixon. They ended up behind a church near a cemetery. And when he looked in the
00:35:04
rearview mirror, he saw Yazid dragging something wrapped in a comforter. It appeared to be two legs. He dragged
00:35:12
it in the woods, come back, got in the vehicle. And he said, "Tell me that's not a body." Fisher says Yazid told him
00:35:20
he shot a girl, {quote} "when she went for the gun." Wow, it's indescribable how
00:35:26
someone could actually do those things to my beautiful daughter. And um so traumatizing to think about what she
00:35:34
went through. And hearing it in great detail it was painful. And then the Harrises would learn that
00:35:42
Yazid, in addition to being charged with nearly beating an elderly man to death,
00:35:48
was also being charged with shooting two other people the year before he's accused of killing Aniah.
00:35:57
What would you like to see happen? Justice. Definitely justice. I want justice for my daughter. But justice has
00:36:04
been delayed. The pandemic has slowed all of Yazid's criminal cases and his lawyer declined to be interviewed.
00:36:17
Walt, who had considered ending his career, found inspiration when Aniah came to him in a dream. She was sitting
00:36:25
in our living room. And there was just a beam of light on her. And she had her arms out. And I
00:36:32
hugged her and she said, "Keep going." And I just woke up like with a renewed figure. I
00:36:39
felt fresh. >> One. Two. Three. Keep pushing. Four. Inspired by Aniah Walt Harris bravely returned to
00:36:48
the ring. Incredibly, a fight was scheduled for October 24th. The anniversary of Aniah's
00:36:56
murder. When he first told me, I said, "Are you sure?" He said, "I'm sure." And so I
00:37:03
knew how important that this was to him and how important that this would be to her, to Aniah, and that she would want
00:37:09
him to do it. Walt flew to Abu Dhabi and spent two weeks in quarantine training in a hotel.
00:37:20
We love you, Aniah. Angela, meanwhile, remained home caring for their family. I miss her so bad. And holding a vigil the
00:37:28
night before [music] Walt's fight marking the anniversary for the last time they saw Aniah alive.
00:37:38
Your daddy's about to fight for you. The following day, the Harrises were on the
00:37:42
edge of their seats to watch Walt fight halfway AROUND THE WORLD. >> [cheering] [applause]
00:37:52
>> PERHAPS HARRIS PLAYING POSSUM A little bit. Walt started out strong. >> This Harris attacks the body
00:38:01
and now goes up top. But in an instant, the fight was over. Walt's actually grabbing his stomach. In
00:38:08
retrospect, Walt told us he needed more mental strength. He returned home and a few days later,
00:38:16
he released all that pent-up emotion. He just broke down and fell out on the floor crying.
00:38:27
And through all of her pain, Angela found her new calling. She started a non-profit
00:38:34
Aniah's Heart to teach safety and help search for missing people. I've done group sessions for education. I just did
00:38:43
one with some sophomores from Aniah's high school, a group of like 20 girls, teaching them about education and
00:38:48
safety. It was amazing. >> This is a a must. We have to have this law. It And she's campaigning for
00:38:55
Aniah's Law. A bill which, if enacted, allows judges to deny bond to serious violent
00:39:03
offenders. >> You have people committing multiple violent crimes and they just get out on
00:39:09
bond. It it's it's just not okay. I know one thing that I will not stop fighting for her.
00:39:21
Around Christmas 2019, nearly 2,000 people came together to celebrate [music] Aniah's life.
00:39:29
That beautiful smile she had, it could just light up a room. >> [music] >> Aniah was like when you looked at her in
00:39:38
her eyes, the way the way she made you feel. She [music] made you feel like she was okay.
00:39:46
We will miss you. We are so happy you were our >> [music] >> Aniah has been my best friend since I
00:39:59
met her in sixth grade. She'll be with the best memories ever, of course. She was a leader.
00:40:12
She would put people first even when she was sad or needed anything. I love you, Aniah. You are truly my
00:40:19
sunshine on rainy days. All of this stuff is true. She was really, truly [music] a special human
00:40:30
being. December 21st, 2019 [music] will be forever known as Aniah Blanchard Day in the city of Homewood, Alabama.
00:40:45
>> [music] [applause] [music] [applause] >> Where's Mom? I called her phone and it went straight
00:41:29
to voicemail. I've never seen my mom not answer her phone. [music] Where are you?
00:41:34
What are you doing? No response. Something's not right. Something wasn't right. My name is Zach Bock. I am
00:41:41
Raquel. My mom was Dee Warner. Dee was my mom. Raquel called me. She was at Mom's house
00:41:51
and she couldn't find her. Her cars were there. She wasn't there. There's no chance that she would not
00:41:57
drive the Escalade to wherever the hell she was going. Not my sister. [music] My mom was a very bubbly, outgoing
00:42:05
person. She made you laugh. There wasn't a day that I was in the office where we
00:42:09
weren't laughing. She's a very, very good businesswoman. She's [music] very smart. She could be very tough. You
00:42:16
didn't want to be on her bad side. >> [laughter] >> She was good sister-in-law. She spoke
00:42:21
the truth. You knew where you stood with her. >> She was always done up. Her nails were
00:42:25
done. Her hair was [music] done. Her eyelashes were done. Always ready to go and beautiful.
00:42:33
We reported her missing at night, Sunday night. Are you Dale? That's right. And your wife is missing? Well, I don't
00:42:47
know if she's missing or if she just left. That was not unusual for your mom to pack her bags and disappear for a day,
00:42:55
right? >> Right. This isn't the first time she's done this, guys. Why is this so
00:42:59
different? Because nobody knew where she was at. I don't know. I think I'm until
00:43:04
another day goes by as far as I'm concerned. I'm not You're not alarmed yet. I began searching and searching.
00:43:12
>> We were running around >> looking at all the credit cards to see if there was a charge on it.
00:43:17
>> Dee Warner hasn't been seen since late April. She's just a mess that day. A complete
00:43:28
mess. Hyperventilating and throwing up and crying. The FBI searched Warner's Franklin
00:43:35
Township property. They've looked everywhere. >> 5 6 700 acres. We all went on foot.
00:43:44
The first year was a struggle. Authorities say they are constantly following up on tips. It's been more
00:43:53
than two years since Dee Warner's disappearance. There's not a day since she left that I don't wonder what
00:43:59
happened to her. When you're driving through here, are you still wondering where Dee is? Yeah, you know, sort of
00:44:07
haunts you. She was reported missing more than three years ago. She never would have left
00:44:14
like this, never. Never. Never. When do you miss [music] your mother the most? When life gets hard.
00:44:29
Do you think Dee Warner was murdered? >> Yes. Wholeheartedly. Absolutely. We had been struggling because everybody
00:44:38
said you don't have a body. You don't have a [music] body. I know a no body homicide is very hard. Maybe you'll find
00:44:45
the body. Maybe you won't. But don't sit around waiting for Santa Claus to come.
00:44:50
You got to solve this case. >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> I remember riding my [music] bike around
00:45:44
there, riding the four-wheelers around there, just being a kid. That was where I I grew up. So, it's home. It'll always
00:45:51
be home to me. But, it's home in a different way now. It was Sunday, April 25th, 2021. A spring morning in the
00:45:59
farmland of Lenawee County, Michigan. Raquel Bock drove the short distance from her house to her childhood home for
00:46:07
her weekly breakfast with her mother, Dee Warner. Sundays we would go to my mom's first thing. Raquel says that when
00:46:15
her mom was not there and not answering calls or texts, it just didn't feel right. If my mom could glue her phone to
00:46:23
her hand, she would. If I didn't respond to a text message in 5 minutes, I was getting another one. Hello. One of Dee's
00:46:31
cars, a Hummer, was parked at the farm office just down the road. What about your mother's car that she drove all the
00:46:38
time, the Cadillac? >> It was parked in the garage. So, all your mother's cars are there?
00:46:44
Yes. [music] And she's not responding to any kind of calls or texts? >> No. The fertilizer sprayer, usually parked
00:46:53
in a barn, was gone. And Raquel's stepfather, Dale Warner, was out on it working. Was that normal? Yeah. It was
00:47:02
pretty normal for him to work any day, any time of day. >> [music] >> Raquel went down the road to Dee's
00:47:10
brother, Greg, and his wife, Shelley's house. She said, "We can't find her." And I'm like, "What do you mean you
00:47:17
can't find her?" They said, "Her car's here. We have called everybody. We don't know where she's at." First thing I did
00:47:24
was call her number. If she was somewhere, she would answer my phone call. And then I texted her.
00:47:30
And did you >> Raquel and her aunt, Shelley, went driving to look for Dee. They returned
00:47:38
to her house with only more questions. There were blankets [music] laying on the couch and tissues. Tissues
00:47:46
everywhere. Everywhere there was these tissues. They looked upstairs in the bedroom and
00:47:53
bathroom for clues. Her makeup bag was gone. Her curling iron and all of that stuff was gone. Later, they learned
00:48:00
Dee's phone and passport were missing, too. The feeling that I had in my stomach was nothing but fear.
00:48:07
Zach Bock, another of Dee's four children from her first marriage, soon came over to join the search. He went
00:48:15
down to the farm office to look for any sign of his mom. There's cameras here in
00:48:20
the office. I'll look at the cameras. There was a security camera inside the office and a few more outside. I never
00:48:28
saw her walk to the office. I never saw her drive a vehicle. I didn't see her. And there was something else out of the
00:48:37
ordinary. Their 9-year-old sister, Lena, Dee and Dale's only child together, had
00:48:43
stayed at her cousin's house the night before and Dee hadn't yet called or come to get her.
00:48:49
Lena went everywhere with my mom. They were very, very close. And would she ever leave Lena behind with Dale? Never.
00:48:59
I called my siblings. We met up at my house and we called the sheriff's department.
00:49:06
By now, it was late in the day on Sunday and the Lenawee County Sheriff's Office
00:49:11
sent a deputy to talk to Dale. The conversation was recorded on a body camera. I am Deputy of Lenawee County
00:49:20
Sheriff's Office. How are you, sir? Good. This and other body cam footage has been adjusted at times for clarity.
00:49:28
She was sleeping on the couch. Dale told police he had last seen Dee that morning
00:49:34
before he went out to work. And then this morning 6:00 I got up and you know, she was snoring away. I text
00:49:41
her and she didn't answer, so I figured, well, she's still sleeping. Dale seemed
00:49:45
to believe his wife was alive and well and that she left intentionally. Well, her hair curler was gone,
00:49:54
her hair dryer was gone, the makeup bag was gone. I went in and seen all that stuff gone.
00:49:59
I was real concerned. He said she might be using another phone. I told the other
00:50:05
kids she's got a second phone. Do you even have the phone number? No, it's a secret phone that she doesn't know that
00:50:11
I know she has it. Dale also told police that Dee had been upset and suffering from a migraine the night before after
00:50:19
an argument with two of her employees. I think all last night she was really upset.
00:50:26
She was talking to bad things as far as employees and one employee decided to quit.
00:50:35
We got three different businesses here, so the tensions are high all the time. Dale and Dee ran three main businesses
00:50:41
from their farm. Zach was their bookkeeper. My mom ran essentially the office for all three
00:50:49
businesses. There was a trucking business with about 15 employees that Dee managed. She always referred to it
00:50:56
as her trucking business. And there was the farm itself and a chemical company that sold fertilizer and seed. Which was
00:51:05
the most successful? Which did the best? 100% the trucking company. [music] Stephanie Vogel worked for Dale and Dee
00:51:13
and describes Dee as a good business person, tough, generous and hard working. But Raquel says that running that
00:51:20
trucking business was not easy for Dee. I know that she had a hard time getting respect from some of the farmers because
00:51:28
she was a woman and younger and pretty. Dale told police that conflict between Dee and their employees was nothing new.
00:51:37
She ran all the vacations and quite a few of them. She's pretty wired, if you know my wife.
00:51:42
I I don't know, but she's in your face and tell you how it is. On Saturday, the day before she went
00:51:49
missing, Dee had texted Stephanie asking her [music] how to block the driver who
00:51:55
had quit from the company's Facebook page. I told her how to do it. That was at 4:34.
00:52:05
On Saturday afternoon, April 24th. Yep. And then at 4:44 I said, "Did you tell Zach?"
00:52:13
At 7:43 I said, "How are you?" And she never answered. That's the very last time you ever heard
00:52:23
from Dee Warner. Dee's sister-in-law, Shelly, wondered if the pressures [music] had just become too much for Dee. You're
00:52:37
thinking at that point she might have taken her life? I did. We were worried because of
00:52:43
everyone's report of her emotional behavior. She had been upset and had an argument on Friday and Saturday. The
00:52:50
crescendo was building up. There might have been a breaking point. Can you think of a day when no one knew
00:53:12
where your mother was? A full day? No. After hearing nothing from Dee Warner, some of those closest to her feared she
00:53:22
may have harmed herself. And they noticed that Dale, her husband, didn't seem very worried. She will cool
00:53:30
off and come back home. Dale had told police that Dee, when upset, had a history of spending the
00:53:37
night elsewhere. So I called her back, so somebody picked her up. And he said he thought she might come
00:53:43
back eventually. I mean, I don't know what else to do other than wait a day or so and see what she she shows up.
00:53:51
But the sheriff's office did not wait for Dee to show up. They came out on Monday and Tuesday to conduct interviews
00:53:58
and search the property. On Thursday, four days after Dee disappeared, they searched the farm
00:54:05
again and Dale agreed to talk to them at length at the kitchen table. This started on Saturday morning.
00:54:14
Dale now told investigators that he and Dee had had a fight on Saturday. He said
00:54:20
she had accused him of talking about her behind her back to the employees she had
00:54:25
fought with, which Dale denied. Did she hang up the phone? And I had no more contact with her the rest of the day. I
00:54:33
tried calling her several times and she wouldn't answer. He said he didn't talk to Dee again
00:54:38
until [music] that evening at home when their fight continued. She says, "You don't care about me.
00:54:44
Nobody cares about me. What does it matter if I'm even here?" Dale and Dee had been partners in life
00:54:51
and business since they started their first company together in 2005, the year before they got married. Was
00:54:59
this a love match? Did you feel that way? >> No. She had a desire for success. Yes. I believe that's what her
00:55:08
attraction was. I really do. They weren't an obvious pair. Dee's family [music] and friends say she
00:55:16
loved to have fun, dress up, go out and dance. Dale, they say, just seemed to work a
00:55:23
lot. I don't know what she seen in him. I really don't. He doesn't like to do things with her.
00:55:32
I went on a cruise with her because he didn't want to go. Dale was fairly quiet, kind of distant from all
00:55:39
of us kids. When he did communicate, it was usually he kind of like to poke at people where he knew what hurt the
00:55:46
worst. Raquel says Dale helped feed Dee's insecurities. I don't think she ever felt
00:55:55
good enough. Like she felt like she had to prove constantly everything in her life, her
00:56:00
looks, her her money, her businesses, everything. Dee's family later learned she had been
00:56:07
having an affair. It didn't surprise them, they said, given the state of her marriage. But police say her affair
00:56:15
partner was out of town the weekend she went missing and could not have had anything to do with the case.
00:56:23
A week after her disappearance, Dee's brother, Greg, organized a search of the land around her home. We all went on
00:56:32
foot and we walked a probably 5 6 700 acres. Wow. We we came up with zero. By now, Dee's family was growing
00:56:44
suspicious of Dale. On the day Dee [music] went missing, Dale told each of them what happened,
00:56:51
but they say they all heard slightly different versions. She had a bad migraine headache.
00:56:59
She was laying on the floor. He gave her a massage. She went to sleep. He picked
00:57:04
her up and put her on the couch about 12:30. He got up about 6:00, 6:30. He left, but
00:57:11
she was snoring on the couch. Zach says Dale told him he had had a fight with Dee. He said that they had a
00:57:18
really big fight the night before. But Raquel says Dale told her the fight was no big deal. He said that they had a
00:57:26
little fight the night before >> [music] >> and she was all mad and she won't answer
00:57:30
him now. And there was another odd detail in the story Dale told Dee's family and police
00:57:38
that Sunday. The only thing that's really strange, too, is this time she put her wedding ring in my desk.
00:57:48
Yeah, she's never done that before. Raquel, Zach and Greg all say he showed them that ring on Sunday, too.
00:57:57
Seeming to offer it as proof that Dee had left intentionally and maybe for good.
00:58:05
But Greg says that ring is worth [music] as much as $40,000 and leaving it behind didn't sound like
00:58:13
Dee. That's not my sister. Not only would she not give him the wedding ring back, she probably would
00:58:20
have thrown a Molotov cocktail in the house on her way out. As time passed, the family's suspicions
00:58:26
that Dale had harmed his wife only grew. About 6 weeks after Dee went missing, Greg says he confronted Dale about how
00:58:36
he thought the investigation was progressing. I asked him point-blank, "Dale, what do you think about your wife
00:58:43
who's still missing? She just disappeared into thin air?" And he said to me, "Well, it it could be
00:58:50
a little faster, but I think they're doing a good job." And that's when I I told him. I said,
00:58:56
"You know what? You're a liar." And uh and I told him, "I'll get you." You told him that? Yeah.
00:59:11
But believing Dale had something to do [music] with Dee's disappearance was very different from being able to prove
00:59:18
it. The Michigan State Police and the FBI helped the county sheriff conduct a large-scale search of their properties
00:59:26
again in October. But there was still no sign of Dee, alive or dead. We had been struggling
00:59:34
because everybody said you don't have a body, you don't have a body. In February 2022,
00:59:41
10 months after Dee had gone missing, Shelly was watching an episode of 48 Hours featuring an investigator named
00:59:50
Billy Little. You don't have a body, so what? You don't get to get away with murder because you're good at disposing
00:59:57
of bodies. And so I thought, oh my gosh, I I got to have Greg see this. So he watched it. And immediately when he said
01:00:06
that, he said, get me that guy's number. Every time you go by here, does it hurt
01:00:34
a little bit? >> It it hurts a lot every time. Greg Hardy was convinced Dale Warner was
01:00:40
behind his sister's disappearance. Did she love living here? She did. Although the sheriff's office had
01:00:47
conducted at least seven searches and interviewed Dale several times, Greg was growing impatient by what he saw as
01:00:55
a lack of progress. Authorities, says Greg, told him that without a body, it would be difficult to
01:01:02
charge Dale with murder, >> [music] >> which is why Greg called Billy Little. Maybe you'll find the body, maybe you
01:01:10
won't, but don't sit around and wait for Santa Claus to come. You got to solve this case.
01:01:15
Missouri-based attorney and investigator Billy Little made his first trip to Lenawee County in the spring of 2022.
01:01:24
My goal is always to just discover the truth, find out what happened. The nice thing about the truth is it
01:01:30
doesn't have a side. Billy Little got to work on his own investigation and learned from Dee's
01:01:37
family that the couple argued frequently, especially about money. This was not a happy marriage, a
01:01:43
marriage of endless love. Dee's adult children told him their mom had often talked about divorce, but that
01:01:52
she didn't want to split custody [music] of their little sister Lena with Dale. Still, the day before [music] Dee
01:01:58
disappeared, they say something had changed. Had you really seen your mother like that before?
01:02:06
Upset, yes, but this was just very different. She was like almost calm. Dee's kids say that she had finally had
01:02:16
enough and was going to tell Dale that night she wanted to sell the profitable trucking business and end her marriage.
01:02:24
This was Dee's life. Why did she want to sell the business? Because it had become too difficult
01:02:32
emotionally and personally for her. That's how bad the marriage had gotten. Greg told Billy Little that he thought
01:02:41
Dale was moving money between the businesses after Dee disappeared. Greg had already filed a civil suit to
01:02:48
protect Dee's interests and to get more information about what Dale was doing. Call it a gut feeling if you'd like,
01:02:55
whatever you'd call it. In court documents, Dale says he did move money on the advice of
01:03:01
professionals. The more Billy Little learned, he says, the more he liked the family, became
01:03:08
convinced that Dee was no longer alive. The evidence that she's dead is the absence of evidence that she's alive. No
01:03:18
surveillance cameras, no electronic signature, her phone's not found, her bank accounts were never accessed, cash
01:03:24
wasn't taken from the house, even the ring. She didn't even take that. Greg and Billy Little tried to increase
01:03:34
the pressure on Dale. Friends had started a social media campaign called Justice for Dee, and
01:03:42
Greg paid for this billboard that he says he wrote sarcastically saying, Help Dale find Dee.
01:03:50
It went up at a big intersection near Dale's farm, where Greg says drivers from the trucking company would be sure
01:03:58
to see it every day. Help Dale find Dee. Um it was part of almost psychological operations.
01:04:08
But Little says he and Greg were mostly focused on trying to find evidence to help build a murder case without a body.
01:04:16
You've got a lot of equipment, you've got a lot of chemicals. There are a lot of ways to dispose of a body on a farm.
01:04:23
And they continued to search relentlessly for any trace of Dee. You can see there's a silo right over there.
01:04:30
That's the location where the buildings were. This property, about 3 miles from Dale
01:04:36
and Dee's home, is one of the places that stood out to Greg. Six months after Dee disappeared, there was a fire where
01:04:45
the old farmhouse used to be, and Greg says the neighbors told him they thought Dale, who owned the property with Dee,
01:04:53
had set that fire. The fire was determined to be a controlled burn, which are common in the area.
01:05:01
Police searched this site in October 2021, just a few days after that fire. It's
01:05:08
not known what, if anything, they learned. Greg and Billy Little came here themselves the next year.
01:05:16
We used a drone to fly not only this site, but every site we could find around here. We flew a couple thousand
01:05:22
acres of drone footage. They found nothing conclusive, but that old farm was just one site they thought
01:05:31
was suspicious. There's basically three [music] or four major sites that bother me.
01:05:37
There was a field near Raquel's house that Dale had farmed. Which one? Where is It's right around the corner here.
01:05:45
And another field two towns over that Dale had access to. And many more places Greg wanted police
01:05:54
to check further. And isn't the really hard part about this, Greg, is there's just so many places?
01:05:59
>> There are so many places. In August 2022, [music] the Michigan State Police took over
01:06:05
Dee's case. Greg and Billy Little had pushed for this because they say the state police
01:06:11
had more experience and [music] resources than the county sheriff. After the state [music] police took over
01:06:26
the case, they interviewed Dale again and pressed him on his story. Dale told them that [music] the argument with that
01:06:33
employee just before Dee disappeared was partly about Dee taking money from the business.
01:06:51
But police did not have evidence that Dee had stolen money. In September, the family filed another suit to have Dee
01:06:59
Warner declared legally dead. Greg says he wanted to be able to file a wrongful death suit against Dale one day.
01:07:08
The family waited for news [music] on the criminal case. And then It was pretty crazy because we had a meeting
01:07:15
with the prosecutor the same day, and she gave me no indication. On November 21st, 2023, two and a half
01:07:23
years after Dee [music] Warner went missing, the news came that her husband, Dale,
01:07:30
was under arrest. Stephanie was preparing for her mother's funeral when she got the call.
01:07:39
Raquel's boyfriend called me, and he said Dale was arrested [music] for murder. And I fell to my knees at the funeral
01:07:47
home. Just so happy. Dale Warner was charged with the murder of his wife, Dee. Mr. Warner does enter a plea not guilty.
01:07:59
He pleaded not guilty, and Dee's [music] family braced themselves for a long legal battle ahead.
01:08:09
However long it took, we wouldn't stop [music] fighting. You had to testify. Were you nervous? Yeah.
01:08:35
I mean, all you do is tell the truth, [music] so that's what I kept telling myself.
01:08:42
On May 1st, 2024, just a little more than 3 years after Dee Warner disappeared, her friends and family
01:08:49
gathered here at the Lenawee County District Court for the first day of Dale Warner's preliminary hearing. All rise,
01:08:57
please. It would be up to Judge Anna Frushour to decide if the case should move to trial. I was worried because
01:09:04
there is so little physical evidence. There is >> [music] >> no body, there are no body parts. Dee
01:09:12
had been recently declared dead in civil court, but Dale Warner's defense attorney, Mary Chartier, said this was a
01:09:19
fact prosecutors would need to establish themselves in the criminal case. Whether Ms. Warner is dead is something
01:09:27
that the the government needs to prove. Raise your right hand, please. Do you swear to tell the truth?
01:09:31
>> state was determined to show that while there was no body, there was also no evidence that Dee was still alive. Since
01:09:39
April 24th, 2021, have you seen Dee Warner? No. Have you heard from Dee Warner? No.
01:09:48
In the months leading up to Dee going missing, and prosecutor Jackie Wise worked to show there was no evidence
01:09:57
that Dee had taken off on her own. She's got a second phone. She asked Stephanie
01:10:02
Vocal about that secret phone that Dale claimed his wife had. Did she ever discuss getting a second phone with you?
01:10:11
She did. She had asked me to look into pricing and trying to find one for her, yes. Okay, so up until April
01:10:19
25th, 2021, did you ever purchase that phone? No. Could she have bought the phone on her
01:10:25
own? Yeah, she could have bought it on her own, but she would have had somebody else set it up.
01:10:31
She was not tech-savvy. People would call Daniel Drewyor. Michigan State Police Detective Daniel
01:10:38
Drewyor is the lead investigator on this case. Do you swear to tell the truth? >> He testified about the exhaustive
01:10:45
searches law enforcement did to find [music] any trace of activity from Dee over the 3 years she had been missing.
01:10:54
We did search Warner's for healthcare records, phone records. We searched numerous vehicles. We got records for
01:10:59
social media. We did several land searches. All their searches came up empty, but Dee's daughter Raquel had
01:11:08
noticed something curious at the Warner home. On the stand, she said that on the day
01:11:14
her mother disappeared, she saw tire tracks by the back of the house. There were two tracks that led up to the
01:11:22
sliding glass door. There were [music] no security cameras pointed at this part of the property,
01:11:29
but the prosecution suggested that the tracks Raquel saw were left by Dale using the farm's [music] JCB front end
01:11:37
loader to remove Dee's body from their home. When parking the front end loader, the JCB, in this spot, the bucket
01:11:45
attached to it fits between those two pillars, and you can set it on the deck up against the back door.
01:11:51
Remember, Dale said his wife was asleep in the living room when he left that morning, close to those sliding doors.
01:12:00
I see you in the house. You were so sick. In his 2022 interview with police, Dale had an explanation for
01:12:07
those tracks. He said he thought he used the loader to go back to the house and get his worksheet for the sprayer at
01:12:15
around 6:30 a.m. So I had to run and grab my name sheet, my load sheet. I don't remember for
01:12:21
sure. Like I got to JCB, the loader, pull it around by the house, and I run in and I had to grab
01:12:27
something out of the house, and I run back out and hop in the loader, back back out. No evidence that Ms. Warner is
01:12:32
dead, and no evidence that she was murdered was found, correct? >> Yes, ma'am. The defense emphasized there was no
01:12:38
evidence Dale Warner had anything to do with Dee's disappearance. And in fact, his statements about what
01:12:46
he was doing that morning were supported by security videos around the farm. The
01:12:52
videos played in court show Dale at 7:00 a.m. using that front end loader. At 7:45 a.m., police say he texts Dee,
01:13:03
"Going to be spraying. Call you later." He is seen 3 [music] minutes later driving a sprayer onto the road and
01:13:11
returning at 8:13 a.m. So you have the sprayer records for the John Deere, and then did you actually even do a sprayer
01:13:18
reenactment? We did, yes, ma'am. Consistent with what Mr. Warner said, right? Consistent with the time that
01:13:24
occurred on that morning, yes. The defense also argued that Dale had not acted like a guilty man. Are you
01:13:32
Dale? He allowed police to search his properties and spoke to them many times after Dee disappeared.
01:13:40
Only parts of a few of those interviews were played in court, but his attorney said that Dale had [music] repeatedly
01:13:46
denied harming Dee. Of all the phone calls and interviews with Mr. Warner, >> [music]
01:13:53
>> he never once said I he harmed his wife, correct? >> Correct. He was always adamant that he did not,
01:14:00
correct? Yes. Over and over, the defense underscored the lack of physical evidence in the
01:14:07
case. Do you have a murder weapon in this case? No, ma'am. Big pool of blood, anything like that? No, we have no
01:14:13
forensic evidence of that nature, no, ma'am. They honed in on Mr. Warner from the beginning.
01:14:18
In her final statement to the judge, Mary Chartier [music] argues that there is no basis for the charges.
01:14:26
If he murdered his wife, where on Earth is Ms. Warner? Since 4/25/2021, nobody has heard from or seen Dee
01:14:38
Warner. Prosecutor Jackie Wise maintained that the state's case was strong. All we're required to prove at this
01:14:46
stage is probable cause to believe that Dale Warner killed Dee Warner, and probable cause standard has been met.
01:14:55
The decision was now with the judge, and Dee's supporters were worried. Would Dale now face the murder charge at
01:15:03
trial, or would he walk out as a free man? The thought of him getting out was just
01:15:09
[music] scary. Do we have enough? All rise, please. How nervous were you before the judge
01:15:34
issues the ruling? So I was horrible. It was so horrible. I felt like I could just
01:15:43
curl up in a ball and uh On June 7th, 2024, Judge Anna Frushour returned to court
01:15:55
with her decision. She first spoke about Dee. Dee Warner was a woman with a big heart
01:16:02
and a temper. She cared for her children, and grandchildren, and employees. There was nothing in the evidence that
01:16:08
suggested she would disappear intentionally, especially from her children. And there was nothing she
01:16:13
heard, the judge said, that made her feel differently. The statements by Dale Warner of a secret phone She's got a
01:16:20
second phone. and someone coming to pick up Dee Warner She's with someone somewhere. were not supported by any
01:16:26
facts or evidence in this case. But there was enough evidence, she said, to believe that Dee Warner was dead and
01:16:33
that her husband was likely the one behind it. There's probable cause that Dee Warner died by homicide at the hands
01:16:40
of the defendant, Dale Warner. All rise. This is reality. They think that there's
01:16:46
enough evidence that he killed our mom to go to trial. Dale Warner has been ordered to stand
01:16:53
trial for the murder of his wife, but Billy Little knows the real work is still ahead. My fear for getting past
01:17:01
her preliminary hearing is probably a one out of 10. Um my fear of getting a conviction at
01:17:06
trial is probably an eight out of 10. It's a high bar. Yeah. Law enforcement was still searching for
01:17:16
physical evidence, >> [music] >> and in August 2024, 2 months after that preliminary hearing
01:17:23
concluded, that's exactly what they found. Breaking news in the case of Dee Warner.
01:17:30
Dee's family heard about it first. I received a a message that said, "We need to have a an emergency meeting with
01:17:40
the detectives." They met detectives at Greg and Shelly's farm. Police told them
01:17:45
they had gone back to a property that Dale and Dee owned and taken away a large metal tank that was used to store
01:17:53
fertilizer. According to a search warrant, that tank had a non-factory weld on the back and a
01:18:00
sign on it that said, "Out of service. Do not fill." When the tank was scanned, investigators
01:18:09
finally found what they had been looking for. It was my mom. Well, it was a body in a tank. It took just
01:18:20
days, authorities say, to confirm that the body inside that tank was Dee Warner.
01:18:28
Her death was ruled a homicide. And how did she die? Uh they're not sharing that with me.
01:18:36
Authorities are not granting any interviews about this case before the trial, but that warrant also says that
01:18:42
security video from the day Dee was reported missing showed Dale in one of the farm buildings searching for
01:18:50
something near the welding equipment. For 3 years, police have been looking for Dee's body underground, and now they
01:18:59
had come to believe that she might have been concealed above ground. The tank was in this agricultural
01:19:06
storage building right behind me. And was this cylinder right in here? Yeah, it was parked here. So Dale would
01:19:13
have access to all this. >> Greg says he has no doubt now that Dale killed Dee and hid her body.
01:19:23
All these things point one single direction clearly without any question. And that's a Dale. That's correct.
01:19:30
Dale's defense attorney declined to speak to 48 Hours on camera, but she told us that Dale maintains his
01:19:37
innocence and said in this email they're prepared to vigorously fight for him in
01:19:43
court and present his defense. Isn't it likely that Dale's going to argue, well,
01:19:50
that was a cylinder sitting out in a barn. Anybody had access to that cylinder. Someone could have come into
01:19:57
his own barn and put your mom? Absolutely. I mean, he he can say anything. Raquel says finding her mom's body after
01:20:10
these three long years gave the family a sense of peace. I wanted to shout from the rooftops
01:20:18
to everybody that she didn't leave us willingly. D's family later dressed in a private
01:20:28
burial soon after her body was identified. Her daughter Lena, now 12, was with them.
01:20:36
The one thing that she knows for sure that was her mother there. That her mother didn't leave her.
01:20:43
It was real. It's like you get hit in the stomach every time. I miss her laughter and
01:20:53
her comfort. You miss her? Very much. I miss her every day. Raquel and Zach say they miss their
01:21:04
mother deeply and that her death has changed them in profound ways. I'm now 3 years sober
01:21:13
and shortly after she went missing I started my own real estate company. I stopped being scared of failing on
01:21:23
something cuz there was nothing left to lose. He's my mom's [music] spirit. Very
01:21:32
hard working and driven and determined. Your children will grow up hearing about
01:21:44
D. Yeah. What will you tell them about your mother? Oh. My mom enjoyed being a grandma so much.
01:21:59
They will always remember how she would have been there. My mom would have been there for everything. [music]
01:22:17
CBS next Saturday, a young girl found dead in a swamp. Did this look [music] like an accident or something else?
01:22:23
Something entirely different. >> A decades-old mystery with a surprising answer.
01:22:27
>> Oh, no. Oh, no. I never would have guessed how this ended. 48 Hours is all new. CBS next Saturday 10:00 9:00
01:22:34
Central and streaming on Paramount Plus. It's a small town. It's rural America in every way.
01:23:05
This is the family next door. Very connected, very loving, very bonded. They spent a lot of time together.
01:23:17
The happy American couple. Eric ran a successful contracting business. He was involved [music] in his boys
01:23:29
sports activities. He was very [music] good to the boys. And he taught those boys so much.
01:23:42
Kouri was a real estate agent that also would buy and fix up and [music] flip homes.
01:23:48
She was smart. She was savvy. She knew how to connect. She was [music] absolutely in love with
01:23:54
Eric and absolutely in love with her boys. Eric and Kouri were probably at the best
01:24:04
[music] place they've ever been in their marriage and seemed genuinely happy with
01:24:08
each other. They had it all. I mean it was one happy family. At 3:00 in the morning I got a phone
01:24:19
call and it was Kouri and she said, "Get up here. Something's happened to Eric."
01:24:23
>> [music] >> He went to sleep and never woke up. She was a complete wreck. She's sitting on the couch. She's just
01:24:31
bawling. Were they giving you a sense of how he may have passed? Um so the paramedics
01:24:37
said aneurysm so we were all believing aneurysm. >> [music] >> I had talked to him the day before. He
01:24:42
looked horrible. He said, "My chest hurts." So the last time you're seeing him alive
01:24:50
you don't think Right. The lead detective and a another officer came to our house and said they were
01:24:57
going to close the case. They're done. It's an accidental overdose. They communicated that Eric had
01:25:06
died of a fentanyl overdose. In the weeks and months after Eric's passing, how would you describe Kouri,
01:25:14
her state of mind emotionally? How was she handling things? It probably took her
01:25:20
2 months to go back in her own bedroom. It was devastating to her. She writes a children's book.
01:25:31
She did this to help her work through the feelings with her children. The book I think was 100%
01:25:39
beneficial to the boys. Then you can take a sigh of relief. It's over. We're done. We can start living
01:25:46
again. And then I got a phone call. >> [music] >> Kouri was just arrested in Salt Lake.
01:25:53
A Summit County woman who wrote a children's book about coping with grief following her husband's death now
01:25:59
accused of being the one that actually killed him. I think she felt that this would be
01:26:06
treated as an accidental overdose and nobody was going to be the wiser. He told his family,
01:26:13
"If I die, you need to take a look at her because I think she's trying to kill me."
01:26:19
They're going to have to prove that she got the drugs and that she somehow gave them to him. And unless they can connect
01:26:26
those dots, they're going to have a hard time proving murder in this case. >> [music]
01:26:50
[music] [music] >> In the early morning hours of March 4th, 2022, Lisa Darden was attempting to console
01:27:27
her daughter, 31-year-old Kouri Richens. She was sprawled out on the floor just sobbing.
01:27:35
Kouri had just learned from emergency personnel that her husband Eric was dead. She was tore up. Her brothers
01:27:43
Ronnie and DJ were also there. She was a complete wreck. I just started crying. According to Lisa, that night Kouri had
01:27:52
poured Eric a drink to celebrate a new opportunity at her real estate business, the purchase of this mansion. She told
01:28:00
me she made him a Moscow Mule. That's a drink made with vodka and ginger beer. She said they went to bed about 9:00,
01:28:08
9:15. She went and laid with Ash. Ashton, the 9-year-old, has always had major nightmares.
01:28:19
And when she went back to get in her bed, he was cold. She went to push on him and he didn't
01:28:26
respond. It was after 3:00 a.m. and Lisa says Kouri immediately called 911 and at the
01:28:34
dispatcher's instructions performed CPR. When first responders arrived, they started working on Eric, but it was too
01:28:43
late. It's just unbelievable. You're you're in shock that something like that, you know, could happen.
01:28:49
It was those first responders who initially suspected Eric had died of an aneurysm. The father of three young sons
01:28:57
was just 39. How were the boys? Did the boys know what was happening? They knew something was happening and they could
01:29:05
see the ambulances and cops coming in. Very distraught. They all just sat there on the couch and just cried together.
01:29:13
The sad scene was a far cry from the happy family they once were. Kouri and Eric met in 2009 at a local
01:29:22
Home Depot. Back then, Kouri was a cashier. Eric worked in construction and was a frequent customer. I heard that he
01:29:31
wanted her number for a long time. He was kind of afraid to go get it, so he had to have a friend run in and go get
01:29:35
it from her. Eric asked her out and they hit it off. When Kouri said, "I'm dating
01:29:40
this guy." What did you think? Uh Kouri was terrified of me meet me. Oh, really? Why? [laughter]
01:29:47
Because I'm the big brother and tough. Yeah. Yeah. But DJ and Ronnie say Eric fit right in.
01:29:56
I thought he was a great guy. In 2013, Kouri and Eric got married and had the boys. First Carter, then Ashton,
01:30:07
and finally Weston. Lisa says fatherhood came easily to Eric. He taught those boys so much. They idolized their
01:30:15
father. And he idolized the boys as well. Kouri's family got to know the Richens,
01:30:23
including Eric's two sisters, Katie and Amy. They'd come up for birthdays here and there and we're all very friendly.
01:30:31
Eventually, Eric started a stone masonry business and Kouri started her own real
01:30:35
estate company, buying houses, fixing them up, and selling them for profit. Greg Hall was her marketing director and
01:30:43
good friend. Kouri had something that a lot of people don't. A lot of times you find an individual that is intelligent
01:30:50
but no common sense, or common sense and no intelligence. She had both. She was a
01:30:56
brilliant young lady. How many houses would she have on average that she was working on or
01:31:03
trying to flip? At one time? Yeah. I would say on average three. So it was kind of a constant rotation of
01:31:12
buying a home, fixing it up, selling it. >> Yes. And Eric's business continued to
01:31:18
flourish. They both lived very well. And they both bought and spent what they wanted. In their spare time, Eric loved
01:31:26
to hunt and together they traveled the world. It sounds like on the surface, Eric and Kouri seemed to have it all.
01:31:33
Would you say that was so, Lisa? >> yes. I don't know that I can even begin to overstate how close this family was.
01:31:39
This was a huge loss. Greg Skordas is the spokesman for Eric's family. He was this beautiful son and
01:31:47
and brother and to have that taken away from you, I I can't imagine much worse than that.
01:31:54
Not long after Eric's funeral, an autopsy revealed the cause of his death. It wasn't an aneurysm. It was a lethal
01:32:03
dose of fentanyl. Fentanyl is many, many times more potent than oxys and the other pain medications that we typically
01:32:10
use. It's a very dangerous drug. But how did fentanyl get into Eric's system? Kouri's family believes his recreational
01:32:22
drug use could be to blame. Nearly every day, they say, Eric would take a gummy with THC, the psychoactive ingredient in
01:32:30
marijuana. It was always just just to relax at the end of the day. And according to Ronnie,
01:32:37
Eric did not always get the gummies from reputable sources. Just about every trip
01:32:42
that I've been on with him, he'd buy just from someone off the street. Lisa says Eric also sometimes took pain
01:32:48
pills. Hey, do you have any pain pills? Hey, can you call and get uh hook me up?
01:32:53
He certainly wasn't an opioid or an illegal drug user. Kouri's family thinks Eric had taken something he didn't know
01:33:00
was laced with fentanyl and that his death was a tragic accident. Eric's family strongly [music] disputes
01:33:09
this claim. He didn't die of a self-inflicted drug overdose. [music] Eric's family wondered if Kouri may have
01:33:18
been involved. >> They said, [music] "This doesn't smell right." No question the family thought that
01:33:23
right from the beginning. >> [music] >> In the months following her husband's tragic death, Kouri Richens struggled to
01:33:42
find her footing on her own and to navigate life as a single mom. Kouri was still completely distraught.
01:33:50
Even now, she's never had time to grieve. She's doing her best to move on. She didn't know of a way of doing
01:33:58
that. Kouri's brother, Ronnie, says it was also hard for the couple's three young sons. The boys, it's still hard
01:34:05
for them. They lashed out a little bit cuz they couldn't quite understand what was going on. And they needed some help
01:34:11
and Kouri needed some help. Eventually, Kouri found a way to turn her grief into
01:34:15
action. In March 2023, 1 year after Eric's death, Kouri came up with the idea to write that children's book about
01:34:24
coping with loss, Are You With Me? She promoted it on a local TV show, Good Things Utah.
01:34:31
I just wanted some story to read to my kids at night. And so, you know, I was like, "Let's just write
01:34:37
one." The self-published book follows the story of a child who lost his father but is reminded his presence still
01:34:44
exists all around. In the book, Eric is portrayed as an angel who is always close by. "Yes, I am
01:34:52
with you on Christmas." Kouri writes. >> [music] >> "You can't see my smile, but it's there.
01:34:58
I'm here and we're together." Like dad is still here. It's just in a different way.
01:35:07
Kouri's mother, Lisa, says writing the book was therapeutic. I think the book was a great thing.
01:35:13
It helped them. >> It helped them all. Her family says it finally seemed as though Kouri and the boys would be able
01:35:20
to move forward. It seemed to make the boys really happy. While the family was working to get back
01:35:26
on track, police had been investigating Eric's death. And just weeks after Kouri's appearance on TV to promote her
01:35:34
book, New at 10, this has been a talker all day today. A Summit County woman who
01:35:39
wrote a children's book about coping with grief following her husband's death now accused of being the one that
01:35:44
actually killed him. >> On May 8th, 2023, Kouri, the grieving wife, >> This is the home where police found Eric
01:35:51
Richens dead on >> was now the prime suspect in her husband's death. He must have been in a panic.
01:35:59
>> I was shocked. She can't be arrested. A Utah mother has been charged with murder.
01:36:05
Kouri was charged with aggravated murder and taken into custody. Court documents allege she committed
01:36:11
homicide by the administration of a poison. Greg Skordas, the spokesman for Eric's
01:36:18
family, suspects Kouri put a lethal dose of fentanyl in the drink she made Eric that night, the Moscow mule. The dosage
01:36:27
that he was given that night was of such a high level that no person could have survived it. Skyla Zarrow was her
01:36:35
attorney at the time. Did police ever test the glass that she gave Eric this cocktail and
01:36:43
They seized a number of items from the home and there was no fentanyl that was found
01:36:49
on any glassware. Kouri's family says they struggled to make sense of the charges. Kouri denies
01:36:57
any involvement in her husband's death. For anybody who knows Kouri, just knows she could not have done this.
01:37:05
She'd never do this. Lisa says her daughter and son-in-law had a great relationship.
01:37:11
>> Nobody's perfect, but they're pretty close. And like many couples that have disagreements, they were able to
01:37:17
overcome their differences. He didn't want Kouri to work. He wanted her to be a stay-at-home mom and she's
01:37:24
very independent and that wasn't going to happen. Another issue, says Kouri's brother,
01:37:29
Ronnie, was the amount of time Eric spent away on hunting trips, [music] sometimes 4 or 5 months a year. It just
01:37:37
kind of irked her because that this is biggest passion in his life is hunting and she might want
01:37:42
him home a little bit more and so, you know, they might get in a fight about that.
01:37:46
And then, according to Kouri's mother, Lisa, there was alleged infidelity on Eric's part. She says she heard about it
01:37:54
first from Kouri and then from Eric. It was a text about trust, how I trusted him as a son-in-law, as a father, as a
01:38:03
husband, and how could he do this? >> [music] >> Kouri's family says the couple went to
01:38:08
counseling, determined to work through their issues. Skordas, who denies Eric ever cheated on Kouri, says Eric had a
01:38:15
different reason for wanting to make his marriage work. >> [music] >> He was going to do whatever he could to
01:38:21
make it work because he he lived for those boys. He would have done anything for those boys. Let's let's go to
01:38:26
counseling. Let's try to keep the family together. Skordas says at one point Eric
01:38:30
had considered divorce but ultimately decided against it. He says to protect the boys in case the relationship didn't
01:38:38
work out, Eric put his estate into a secret trust >> [music] >> without telling Kouri and named his
01:38:44
sister Katie in charge. But in the months leading up to Eric's death, Ronnie says the couple seemed
01:38:52
better than ever. How were they doing [music] as a couple, as a family? >> Yeah, fantastic. They were
01:38:58
um probably one of the best spots I've ever seen them in in quite some time. Everyone's having fun, laughing, joking,
01:39:06
you know, it's it seemed really great to me. So why would Kouri want Eric dead? Court documents allege Corey was having
01:39:13
an affair and planned a future with her paramour. Along with that, a life insurance payout might have been a
01:39:20
motive. Skordas says Eric's family agrees. This is cold-hearted greed. At the time of Eric's death,
01:39:30
there were at least six life insurance policies on him totaling nearly $3 million. dollars.
01:39:38
Court documents allege that in January 2022, 2 months before Eric died, Corey forged
01:39:45
Eric's signature to get yet another policy worth an additional $100,000. Corey is also accused in court documents
01:39:55
of stealing from Eric's personal accounts and misappropriating money distributed from Eric Richens' business
01:40:02
[music] dating back years. According to Skordas, Corey didn't just want the money, she desperately needed
01:40:10
it. Court documents allege her house-flipping business was drowning in nearly $2 million of debt.
01:40:18
She was in way over her head. She needed some money in a hurry. It was a significant amount of money.
01:40:25
Skordas says a premarital agreement stipulated Corey [music] had given up claim to Eric's business assets except
01:40:33
that if husband should die prior to wife while the two are lawfully married. >> [music]
01:40:40
>> He was worth much more to her dead than divorced. She felt that there was easy
01:40:45
money and fast money to be made by not having her husband around anymore. Corey's attorney Skye Lazaro strongly
01:40:52
disputes any allegations her client forged Eric's signature, mishandled finances, or stole from Eric. As for the
01:41:00
claim Corey was in debt and needed the money, she says that's simply not true. She was in the business of flipping
01:41:07
houses. This is what they did. Lazaro says taking on debt from lines of credit was part of how the business of flipping
01:41:14
houses worked and the money would be paid back when a home sold. It's not as if she had all these
01:41:22
conventional loans that she owed people money on. It sure looks like a large number, but we're talking about business
01:41:29
transactions with people who she did business with. Eric and Corey sat down every month and
01:41:37
did the bills together. At all times, Eric knew what was going in and what was coming out.
01:41:43
Lisa says Eric not only knew about the finances, but he was also very supportive of Corey's new business
01:41:50
opportunities like the purchase of the mansion they were celebrating the night he died.
01:41:55
>> Eric saying, "Let's have a shot. Come on, let's celebrate, Corey." It was that night Skordas says Eric's
01:42:01
family believes Corey gave him the Moscow Mule laced with fentanyl. And he says Eric's family believes it
01:42:11
wasn't the first time Corey had tried to poison her husband. The time he died wasn't the first time
01:42:19
we believe that she tried to kill him. Just outside Salt Lake City in the shadow of Utah's Wasatch
01:42:43
Mountains home to famed ski resorts including Park City is the property that Corey Richens was
01:42:53
planning on flipping. The deal she and Eric were celebrating the night he died, says her attorney Skye Lazaro. It's a
01:43:01
decently good size home. Lazaro showed us the nearly 10-acre estate. Where are we? Give us a sense of why this is
01:43:10
significant real estate. >> is the Heber Valley. Right over the hill is Park City, all the major ski areas,
01:43:18
and then to the right is Deer Creek Reservoir. So, this really sits between major recreational areas.
01:43:26
>> It looks ginormous. It's massive. The 20,000-sq-ft mansion and its 4,000-sq-ft guesthouse
01:43:37
were originally built in 2017, but never finished. The project was abandoned for
01:43:42
2 years until Corey discovered it. I think this was kind of her dream when she got into this idea of flipping
01:43:51
houses was to be able to do properties like this. Lazaro says Corey used financing from a group of investors to
01:44:00
make an offer on the house for $3.9 million. The plan was to develop this, turn it into a recreational hotspot
01:44:07
given this is probably one of the most beautiful places in the world, and hopefully sell it at a profit.
01:44:13
>> How much did she think she could make off of this house? Her and Eric sat down
01:44:16
with an accountant one time and he said, "If you can get it done and stay under budget, you could walk away with $12
01:44:23
million." Wow. It's a It's a big turn. Yes. From 3.9 to 12 million. Yes. There's a lot of
01:44:31
excitement. I remember how excited she was. Greg Hall worked with Corey. He says it was a solid investment.
01:44:39
>> have been a real easy flip. They wouldn't have had to to sit on that for long. As far as you know, Eric was on
01:44:44
board with this plan. >> But that's not what Eric's family remembers, says their spokesman Greg
01:44:53
Skordas. I don't think he was ever in favor of that. He was on board with supporting his wife. That doesn't mean
01:44:59
he agreed with it. In fact, the house is mentioned in this legal filing containing notes from an
01:45:06
investigator who interviewed Eric's family after his death. They said Eric and his wife were arguing about buying
01:45:13
the property. And that wasn't all Eric's family told investigators. According to that same
01:45:19
filing, they made numerous allegations against Corey including that they suspected his wife had something to do
01:45:26
with his death. They advised he warned them that if anything happened to him, she was to blame.
01:45:34
They also told investigators they believe Corey had tried to poison Eric before on two separate occasions.
01:45:43
According to the filing, Eric's family said the first attempted poisoning was in 2019 when Eric and Corey and six
01:45:50
friends were on vacation in Greece. They said Eric became violently ill after Corey gave him a drink.
01:45:57
Ronnie says he heard it was all a misunderstanding. Eric was on medication and that medication you're not allowed
01:46:04
to drink on. He asked the waitress uh to bring a a virgin drink, a drink without alcohol. She didn't do it.
01:46:13
It made him very, very sick. Corey called his doctor, figured out what to do, and then later that night he
01:46:18
was back in and fine. Everyone that was there will tell you the exact same thing.
01:46:24
According to that same filing, the second time Eric's family said Corey tried to poison Eric was the month
01:46:30
before Eric died on Valentine's Day 2022. They said his wife brought him a sandwich which after one bite, Eric
01:46:39
broke into hives and couldn't breathe. Corey's family denies she ever tried to poison him. They ordered a sandwich and
01:46:46
the sandwich was bad. He went and took a nap and then went and coached one of his
01:46:51
child's games. Aside from an assertion by the family, there doesn't seem to be anything else
01:46:59
out there that supports that. Eric's family also called into question Corey's behavior following her husband's
01:47:07
death. According to court documents, Eric's family told investigators 2 days after
01:47:14
Eric died, Corey punched Eric's sister Amy in the neck and face when Amy tried to stop her from opening
01:47:24
a safe they said contained between There was an argument that broke out and Eric's sister said that she owns the
01:47:33
house. Everything is put into a trust and she owns the house. Remember, Eric had created that trust
01:47:39
and kept it secret from Corey when they were going through those marital problems. Until Eric's death, Corey knew
01:47:47
nothing about the trust according to court documents. If Eric had any sort of documents, he'd have them in the safe.
01:47:54
So, she went in to go see what was in there. Amy came after Corey and I, you know,
01:47:58
Corey defended herself. The two of them started pushing and I was standing in the middle of them. All they did was
01:48:03
push. Both of them were trying to swing over the top of me. So, the narrative that's been pushed that it was poor Amy
01:48:09
that got assaulted was nonsense. The brothers say Amy stormed off and called the police. A month later, Corey was
01:48:16
charged with assault and later pleaded no contest. Her husband's just passed away. She's
01:48:24
highly emotional. Everybody's highly emotional. Things got a little heated between them.
01:48:31
Two families two very different stories about what they believe happened to Eric. But with accusations flying back
01:48:43
and forth, what did the evidence show? The state has to prove that she did this, that she got the drugs, and that
01:48:52
she somehow gave them to him. She had apparently contacted a drug dealer, a known drug dealer in that area, and
01:49:00
purchased fentanyl and had done it on more than one occasion. >> tion. >> [music]
01:49:21
[music] >> All right. Can you tell me who Corey is and how I can get back to his office?
01:49:25
Have a seat, please. In June 2023, Kouri Richins appeared in court before Judge Richard Maurozić for a bond
01:49:34
hearing. The issue before the court is whether defendant Kouri Richins should continue to be held without bail during
01:49:42
the pre-trial period. It was the first time since Richins had been charged in her husband's death that
01:49:48
the public got to see her. And for the entire 4-hour hearing, she sat in handcuffs next to her attorney, Skye
01:49:56
Lazaro. I cannot imagine how difficult it was for Kouri to sit there and listen to everything that was talked about at
01:50:02
that hearing. To convince the judge why Richins should not be released, prosecutors Patricia Cassell, You know,
01:50:09
we have three witnesses. Brad Bloodworth, Detective, what was the sheriff's office? and Joseph Hill
01:50:14
presented evidence and called witnesses to make their case Richins had poisoned her husband. It had all the elements of
01:50:23
a mini trial. In order for the judge to make a determination to detain someone at a
01:50:28
bail hearing, the state has to prove substantial evidence. Prosecutor Joseph Hill called to the
01:50:34
stand cell phone expert Chris Koto Dramos. >> Sir, can you step in front of Britney
01:50:39
and we'll get you sworn in? He asked him about Google searches he says Richins made on her phone. Were you able to
01:50:45
observe uh internet searches on that phone? Yes. Those searches, which were detailed in
01:50:53
court documents, included "Can deleted text messages be retrieved from an iPhone?" "Can FBI [music]
01:51:00
find deleted messages?" "What is a lethal dose of fentanyl?" I don't know that these searches mean as
01:51:10
much when you look at the timing of when they're done. Lazaro says there's an innocent explanation. Those searches
01:51:18
were conducted after Eric's [music] death. I think it's more to answer questions relating to what she was being
01:51:25
accused of. The state also called to the stand the lead investigator on the case,
01:51:31
Detective Jeff O'Driscoll. I was assigned to be the lead lead detective in this case in April of this
01:51:37
year. Prosecutor Bloodworth questioned Detective O'Driscoll about where Richins may have gotten fentanyl. He
01:51:44
specifically asked about an interview the detective conducted with Carmen Lauber, who said she worked for Richins.
01:51:50
She's referred to as CL. CL is an associate of the defendant. Uh she cleaned houses for the
01:51:57
defendant's business as well as her personal home at times. Detective O'Driscoll said CL had a
01:52:04
criminal history with drugs. At the time of their interview, she was on probation
01:52:09
for multiple drug distribution charges, according to court records. She has not been charged in connection with Eric's
01:52:17
death. In our interviews, CL told us that in early 2022, the defendant reached out to her either
01:52:25
by phone call or text message requesting that she procure fentanyl for what the defendant reported was a investor who
01:52:33
had a back injury. Detective O'Driscoll testified that CL told him she purchased 15 to 30 fentanyl
01:52:41
pills and then sold them to Richins. CL told us that after purchasing the pills,
01:52:47
she returned home. She said that either later that night or the next day, the defendant met her and did a
01:52:54
hand-to-hand exchange of pills for cash. That transaction, says Detective O'Driscoll, took place on February 11th,
01:53:01
2022, 3 days before Valentine's Day, when, according to court documents, [music]
01:53:08
Eric's family said Richins had tried and failed to poison Eric with that sandwich. But there was more. But I now
01:53:16
shift to a second drug buy. Detective O'Driscoll said CL told him Richins contacted her again approximately a week
01:53:26
later. The defendant reached out to her again by text or or call and said that she wanted some more fentanyl that was
01:53:35
stronger than the previous batch. This time, Detective O'Driscoll said CL told him Richins paid by check.
01:53:43
>> And the defendant came to the door and wrote her a check from her business, from the defendant's business, for
01:53:48
$1,300 for the purchase of the fentanyl. Just a week later, Eric was dead. We dispute all of those allegations.
01:53:58
In her cross-examination, Lazaro asked Detective O'Driscoll if there could have been another reason for that $1,300
01:54:05
check. It could very well be that Kouri was paying her for cleaning houses, correct?
01:54:10
I don't want to speculate, but it could be, despite what CL said, correct? Okay.
01:54:18
Lazaro says because Carmen Lauber is a convicted felon, she's not credible. >> As she was on probation at the time, I
01:54:25
think anytime you have an informant type situation, uh it can call into question the veracity
01:54:33
of their statements or the motive for what they're saying. In her cross-examination of Detective
01:54:38
O'Driscoll, Lazaro attempted to show how CL might have felt pressured to tell investigators what they wanted to hear.
01:54:45
You began the interview by explaining to CL essentially how dire of a situation she is in, correct?
01:54:55
I don't have the interview memorized, but I know we talked about that, yes. Okay. Well, you told her that she was on
01:55:01
probation to drug court for four first-degree felonies, correct? Correct. You essentially tell her
01:55:08
that she has a potential of doing a considerable amount of state and federal prison time, potentially. Yes. Is that a
01:55:15
common tactic in law enforcement to be able to leverage charges for information? Lazaro also asked the
01:55:22
detective what evidence there was to back up CL's claims that she had sold fentanyl to Richins.
01:55:28
>> And because CL's working for the defendant, there's communication, correct? Correct. But Detective
01:55:33
O'Driscoll said he saw no text messages where Richins allegedly asked CL for drugs. We didn't find any. Was anyone
01:55:42
with her that could collaborate that she saw CL hand Kouri drugs? Not that I know of.
01:55:52
48 Hours attempted to contact CL for comment. We received no response. They have to prove that she
01:56:01
obtained drugs and gave them to her husband. And unless they can connect those dots,
01:56:08
they're going to have a hard time proving murder in this case. >> [music] >> As Kouri Richins' bond hearing came to a
01:56:29
close, her attorney, Skye Lazaro, was hopeful her client would be granted bail. This is a case in which there
01:56:36
doesn't appear to be any smoking gun. These cases are generally more favorable to the defense. Good morning.
01:56:43
The prosecution closed its case to deny Richins bail with a victim impact statement from Eric's sister, Amy.
01:56:50
I'm here today to represent my brother, Eric Eugene Richins. Eric is gone, and I am broken-hearted.
01:56:58
None of our lives will ever be the same. Eric died under horrendous circumstances.
01:57:04
I am tormented by the thought of what he endured. Please do not allow Kouri to hurt Eric's
01:57:09
memory, our family, friends, and community anymore. We have been through enough.
01:57:17
Judge Richard Maurozić spent very little time making his decision. Richins would
01:57:22
remain in custody. The circumstances of this case weigh soundly against granting
01:57:28
pre-trial release of any kind. Richins' family was disappointed. They say her time in jail while waiting for
01:57:36
her trial has taken its toll. I hear her on the phone. [music] I hear her sobbing.
01:57:43
In September 2023, Richins' family says she had a medical emergency in custody while taking prescription medications
01:57:52
and needed to be rushed to the hospital. What did she say happened to her? That they gave her the wrong medicine and it
01:57:59
caused a seizure. Richins made a full recovery, but while she was away, jail officials say they found this
01:58:06
handwritten letter in her cell that was never sent. The document, later filed in
01:58:11
the court record, has become known for the words scrawled at the top of the page, "Walk the dog." Prosecutors say
01:58:18
it's from Richins to her mother. I take care of her 16-year-old dog. Mhm. And her thing is, be sure you walk her.
01:58:26
She's so worried about this dog. In November 2023, prosecutors filed this motion asking the court for a no-contact
01:58:34
order to deny Richins access to her mother and brother. In the motion, they say the letter is
01:58:41
evidence of witness tampering. They say Richins gives her mother instructions on
01:58:47
what her brother, Ronnie, should say in court. The letter instructs Lisa Darden to
01:58:53
induce the defendant's brother, Ronald Darden, to testify falsely, the motion states. To me, this letter is an attempt
01:59:02
to get a witness to testify to something that isn't true. By spoon-feeding the witness the
01:59:09
testimony that he's supposed to give. In the letter, Richens writes that her defense will need to establish that Eric
01:59:16
bought drugs while traveling abroad. We need some kind of connection. Here is what I'm thinking, but you have to talk
01:59:22
to Ronnie. He would probably have to testify to this. In the letter, it appears that she's
01:59:29
laying out a little bit of her defense. For example, your name is brought up. Eric told Ronnie he gets pain pills and
01:59:36
fentanyl from Mexico. Almost like she's laying out a case. Mhm. Saying, "Tell Ronnie
01:59:43
Richens goes on to write, "Ronnie should have texts from Eric talking about getting high as well. Reword this
01:59:50
however he needs to to make the point. Just include it all. The connection has to be made with Mexico and drugs." Is
01:59:59
she giving you instruction in this letter? I don't know. I don't know one way or another. Um
02:00:06
most of that, unfortunately, I can't speak about. The things that are in the letter are true things and everybody
02:00:14
who's in her circle already knew this. But Corey has a different explanation. She says the letter is fiction. In
02:00:23
separate phone calls from jail that were recorded and later entered into the court record, she told her mother and
02:00:29
Ronnie that the letter was part of a book she's been writing and that it's private.
02:00:35
The judge denied the motion for no contact saying the state had failed to prove witness tampering. It isn't
02:00:42
witness tampering cuz it didn't go anywhere. And it was never communicated to anyone.
02:00:49
As the families wait for the trial, they say their focus is on Eric and Corey's three sons.
02:00:56
The family is concerned about the boys. That's the main focus, the boys. That's who's important
02:01:03
here right now. Both families say they hope to gain custody. The boys are currently living with a member of Eric's
02:01:10
family. Lisa says they're only allowed to speak to their mother twice a week on a video call. Just heart-wrenching as to
02:01:19
what they're going through. Lisa, Ronnie, and DJ have been denied private visits with the kids. But Lisa
02:01:26
says she does what she can to support them and attends all their sports practices. And the reason I can do that,
02:01:33
it's a public place. I can't be stopped from going there. I still get to see him. I still get a
02:01:38
hug and kiss and that keeps me going. Besides the murder case, which could carry a sentence of 25 years to life,
02:01:47
Corey faces another criminal case for fraud and forgery charges. And there are multiple ongoing civil cases regarding
02:01:54
the fate of Eric's estate. Both sides believe the other is after the money. Both families are concerned about the
02:02:01
boys. >> You could say that. You could say that. I wouldn't. We believe that the defendant's family is
02:02:06
concerned about the money that they can get. >> Whoever ends up with the boys ends up
02:02:11
with the money. That's all they want. It's not right. Until that's resolved, both families are
02:02:19
waiting for the trial to start and are hoping for a verdict that delivers their version of justice. What is the family
02:02:27
doing to stay strong now? You know, the family has the family. They have each other. They feel like the state has put
02:02:33
together a good case and they're going to stay united and and support each other no matter what happens in this
02:02:39
case. She's innocent. She's been thrown in jail over something that she hasn't committed. Are you both confident that
02:02:44
Corey will be found not guilty, Lisa? I am. 100%. >> 100%. She'll be out. New CBS next. A young romance is cut
02:03:08
short when a mysterious car wreck leaves a man dead. >> His car was way over there and his body
02:03:12
[music] was way down here. >> There was footprints and tire tracks. She believes that this was no accident.
02:03:17
>> There's so many things missing [music] from the story. 48 Hours is all new. CBS
02:03:22
next and streaming on Paramount Plus. Every year marks another year, you know, that there's
02:03:42
no closure. Yeah, I'm still having insomnia 30 years after the fact. I wish I had solved the crime for the
02:03:57
families. We tried. This is the I Can't Believe It's Yogurt I was a cop for 32 years at Austin PD.
02:04:21
I'll always be associated with that case. There's no getting away from that. I just hope one of these days we can put
02:04:29
this thing to bed. Jonesy. Yeah. Uh you hear about the call at 2900 West Anderson? Yeah, I'm headed over there.
02:04:40
The call occurred at 11:27 p.m. Homicide four. Homicide four. Did you get my in route there?
02:04:53
I was the lead investigator on the I Can't Believe It's Yogurt Shop murder case.
02:04:58
On December 6th, [music] 1991, there was a robbery, fire, and murder committed. That's all right. I'll make the call
02:05:08
myself. The victims were Jennifer and [music] Sarah Harbison, Eliza Thomas, and Amy Ayers.
02:05:21
I can still see them. I can still see the inside of that place. That stuff's indelibly burned in my
02:05:29
mind. There has never been >> [music] >> in Austin a more grisly, ugly crime. There's four girls in there
02:05:39
and they're all beautiful girls and they're very young. They're cleaning up. They lock up the yogurt shop and then we
02:05:45
believe it to be two individuals [music] came in. They forced them to the back room at
02:05:51
gunpoint. >> [music] >> I lost my sister, Eliza Thomas, in the yogurt shop murders. I was 13. [music]
02:06:01
Yeah, I was 13 when my sister died. The whole city was in shock. Everywhere we drove, there were these
02:06:12
billboards with a picture of my sister on it. And so it's like you just hold on to anything you can
02:06:19
to get through these moments that are [music] so impossible. We went where the case took us.
02:06:27
Open the door! Police! We were going to charge some people and get them in jail or clear them from this case.
02:06:35
>> [music] >> I don't know how many murders I've tried. It's unlike anything I've ever
02:06:39
done before. It's nothing but one unexpected [music] twist after another. Do you believe that there is right now
02:06:47
some evidence [music] that could lead to the killers? Yes. Yes. I know who did this. I just don't know his name.
02:06:55
Is this uh end of the beginning or the beginning of the end? >> [music] [music] [music]
02:07:38
[music] >> So, what is all of this here? These are my notes. It's been more than 30 years since John
02:07:56
Jones began the painstaking search for the killers of four teenage girls in an Austin yogurt shop. Oh, that's the
02:08:06
big book. This one is really from day one. He has long since retired from the Austin Police Department and moved out
02:08:14
of Texas. But copies of some of the case files moved with him. Hypnosis, polygraph, confessions.
02:08:23
You know, I noticed this sitting here. Yep. We will not forget. You have it? Nope. Can't. The images of
02:08:33
December 6th, 1991 remain all too vivid. I can definitely still see it. What do y'all got out there? I'm in route there
02:08:41
on 35. This side of fire and we got fire inside business. It started with that call from dispatch.
02:08:52
Okay, I'm copying the fire part you cut out on the first part of that call. To go to a scene of a fire that would
02:08:58
turn into something far worse. Yeah, apparently a double homicide is three fatalities.
02:09:07
Assistant fire marshal, en route. AND THEN ABOUT HALFWAY OUT THERE THEY CALLED ME AGAIN on the radio and said,
02:09:19
"We found a fourth body." A local TV news crew happened to be filming Jones on a ride along that
02:09:26
night. What place of business is this here? This is the I can't believe it's children.
02:09:35
Okay. Fire department had just knocked down the fire. I mean, there was still a lot of water in there, a lot of smoke
02:09:43
still. It was all muted grays and blacks. There is no color in there with the exception of the girls.
02:09:54
The girls were quickly identified. Two had been working at the shop, closing up that night. Eliza Thomas [music] and
02:10:01
Jennifer Harbison were both 17 years old. Jennifer's 15-year-old sister, Sarah, and their [music] friend,
02:10:09
13-year-old Amy Ayers, had met them there to head home. >> [music] >> The four girls had been gagged, tied up
02:10:18
with their own clothing, and shot in the head. Investigators would learn that [music] at least one of the victims had
02:10:25
been sexually assaulted. The yogurt shop had also been set on fire, destroying potential evidence. There was smoke and
02:10:34
soot on every surface, so >> [music] >> kind of made fingerprinting kind of difficult. This was a crime like none
02:10:41
Austin had seen before. Jones knew he needed help and from the scene contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and
02:10:49
Firearms, the FBI, and the Texas Department of Public Safety. Soon as we knew what type of guns we were looking
02:10:58
for, that information went out nationwide. >> [music] >> Gunshot wounds showed two different
02:11:05
types of guns were used, leading investigators to believe that there were at least two killers on the loose. What
02:11:13
were the two guns? A .380 and a .22. And we recovered all of the rounds. The weapons, though, were not found, and a
02:11:21
task force worked to come up with potential suspects. Well, they were from all spectrums. I mean, we looked at
02:11:27
everybody from family members to drifters. And while police tracked down leads, the
02:11:36
families and the city of Austin grieved. The Harbison family lost their only children, daughters Jennifer, a
02:11:45
hard-working high school senior, and [music] Sarah, who was enjoying sports and clubs as a high school freshman.
02:11:53
Their mother, Barbara, spoke with us in 1992. My life was sort of focused around them
02:11:59
for from here until eternity. Someone took eternity away from me. I lost my daughter.
02:12:06
I lost my first dance. Bob Ayers is the father of the youngest victim, Amy, a country girl with a love
02:12:13
for animals. >> [snorts] >> I won't see her graduate. I won't see her become a veterinarian.
02:12:22
She was a daddy's girl. I remember the shock. Sonora Thomas, 13 years old when her
02:12:30
only sibling, Eliza, was murdered, had a hard time dealing with the loss of the sister she looked up to.
02:12:38
I remember fantasizing for days that my sister had somehow escaped [music] and run away and that she was going to come
02:12:45
back. And so that's what I was kind of holding on to. Her parents struggled as well.
02:12:52
My family never talked about my sister after she died. Never? No. It's too it's too painful.
02:13:05
Sonora did as best she could, picking up some pieces of her sister's life. Eliza,
02:13:11
an animal lover, had a pig she planned to enter in a livestock show. Just a few months after the murders, Sonora took
02:13:19
over those duties. Third place, Sonora Thomas. While Sonora may have seemed to be coping, the
02:13:26
reality, she says, was far different. You had to grow up quickly. Very quickly. I would say I fell apart under
02:13:36
that pressure. We knew they were hurting cuz, you know, we were hurting, too. Here you go. Open your little mouth.
02:13:43
Jones, a parent himself, felt the family's grief. He promised to do all he could to help them. We told them what we
02:13:51
could and I assured them that we would keep them apprised of everything that was happening, and and we did. Jones
02:13:58
also made a pledge to the families involving the shirt he wore on the night of the murders. I kind of made a promise
02:14:04
to them the next time they saw me with that green and white shirt on that that was a signal to them that, you know, we
02:14:12
knew who did it. And Jones seemed assured they would find the killers. You know, we stayed in constant contact with
02:14:19
the Behavioral Science Unit at uh the FBI in Quantico. They said that I should, as the face of the
02:14:26
investigation, project an air of confidence that would cause the the bad guy to shiver in his boots.
02:14:33
So, look in the camera and be confident. And when we followed him working the case in 1992,
02:14:40
he did just that. You know, let me just say this, whoever you are out there, you're going to be mine one of these
02:14:46
days. Where you at? Okay. I'm right here. But trying to figure that out was daunting.
02:14:53
342 people that have been listed as suspects. But we're looking at pages and pages of
02:15:00
suspects here. One of those early suspects was a teenager named Maurice Pierce. He was arrested 8 days after the
02:15:07
murders at a mall near the yogurt shop, carrying a .22 caliber gun, the type used in the murders. The .22s
02:15:17
were unmatchable. So, you can't say it wasn't his gun. No. But there was no way to prove that it
02:15:25
was his gun. Um he gave a statement. As a matter of fact, I took his statement. And
02:15:34
he implicated three other boys. Jones says Maurice Pierce [music] claimed that he was driving a getaway car and that
02:15:41
three acquaintances, Forest Wellborn, Michael Scott, and Robert Springsteen, [music]
02:15:46
were involved in the murders. But Pierce's story began to fall apart. It started to crater when
02:15:55
we wired him up to go talk to Forest. And we were listening in on the wire and it was pretty obvious Forest
02:16:05
didn't know what Maurice was talking about. And when Wellborn, Scott, and Springsteen were brought in for
02:16:12
questioning, they, too, denied any involvement. It was decided [music] there was just not enough evidence to
02:16:19
charge them. Let's stop right here. Right here. And the search for other suspects
02:16:25
continued. Get down on the ground. Get down. Get down. Get Get down. Get down. >> [music]
02:16:44
>> Two months after the yogurt shop murders, with no viable suspects, police were chasing leads no matter where it
02:16:52
took them. We're into vampires, uh the occult, graveyard and rats. The task force became aware of a
02:17:01
counterculture-type group of local residents known to be into the supernatural. They go out and dance and
02:17:08
take pictures on tombstones. And investigators began to hear that this group might be connected to
02:17:15
something far more serious. The the tips were that they were talking about uh murders.
02:17:23
Talking about the yogurt shop murders? >> The yogurt shop murders, yes. There was [music] one woman in
02:17:29
particular whose name kept coming up in connection with these tips. She got stopped at Oakwood Cemetery. The task
02:17:37
force planned a raid on her home, hoping to see if any evidence might be found there.
02:17:46
UNLOCK THE DOOR! POLICE! POLICE OFFICER. POLICE OFFICER. GET DOWN. GET DOWN. GET DOWN.
02:17:57
POLICE! IT WAS creepy in there. But as [music] it turns out, a lot of that stuff was
02:18:07
rat bones and theatrical parts. But it was a good lead. [music] So, we finally figured out that
02:18:14
they're just living to make believe life. Just Sergeant Hook could be out the task
02:18:19
force. The raid may have been a bust, but it wasn't long before the task force had its eyes on another person of
02:18:27
interest. This sketch shows a man that multiple eyewitnesses told police they saw
02:18:32
sitting in a car outside the yogurt shop on the night of the murders. And it was somebody we really wanted to
02:18:39
talk to. So, we put it out there. And the response they got came from an unexpected source. Couple other
02:18:47
investigators from the Sex Crimes Unit came up and go, "We have a sketch looks just like that."
02:18:55
3 weeks before the yogurt shop murders, a young woman in Austin had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted. Police
02:19:02
had released [music] this sketch of three men wanted in connection with that crime.
02:19:08
One of those suspects [music] bore a striking resemblance to that man witnesses reported sitting in a car
02:19:15
>> [music] >> outside the yogurt shop. You know, I just kind of went when I saw the
02:19:22
the composite. A tip came in that the men wanted in the kidnapping and sexual assault case had
02:19:29
fled to Mexico. Two were caught and arrested. One who resembled the person of interest in the yogurt shop sketch.
02:19:38
The development made national news. When they got caught in Mexico, we went down there to interview them.
02:19:47
Jones' team questioned the men, and so too did the Mexican authorities. But the Mexican government announced to
02:19:55
the whole world that they confessed and they were going to try them for the murders down there. They confessed to
02:20:00
the yogurt shop? >> Yes, they did. But Jones learned those confessions had details that didn't match the crime
02:20:07
scene. Even the caliber of guns they claimed to use was wrong. There was too many inconsistencies in
02:20:14
the confession. So Jones' team re-interviewed the men, and he says this time they recanted
02:20:22
[music] just about everything. It made Jones and other investigators wonder if [music]
02:20:28
those confessions were coerced by the Mexican authorities. The once promising lead fell apart.
02:20:39
It was depressing. Over the following years, there would be other confessions. Ones that were
02:20:46
willingly given. So you know, we faced six confessions. Six people who confessed? Yeah, written.
02:20:54
That confessed to this crime? >> Yes, they did. And they didn't do it. >> Nope. In 1994, after nearly [music] 3 years of
02:21:04
leading the investigation, John Jones was moved out of the homicide division. He says [music] it was a mutual
02:21:11
decision. Austin police wanted fresh eyes working the case, and Jones felt it was time to move on.
02:21:19
Other detectives took over, and as time passed, [music] the victims' families were left wondering why no one had been
02:21:26
arrested. Amy Ayers' mother, Pam, spoke [music] to us in 1996. They're probably out there
02:21:34
>> [snorts] >> leading a life as normal as they've ever had. And ours is [music] never going to be
02:21:39
the same. That same year, Eliza Thomas' mom moved away from Austin and the painful
02:21:47
reminders. Running into people who were constantly asking how the case was going was very
02:21:54
hard on me and especially my daughter, Sonora. Sonora's life had taken a downward
02:22:01
spiral. >> [music] >> In my high school years, things really deteriorated. Drugs, using alcohol,
02:22:08
being hospitalized, going to a boarding school for, you know, disturbed teenagers, things like
02:22:14
that. The case seemed stalled until October 1999. Some breaking news, Austin police have
02:22:22
arrested four men in connection with the yogurt shop murders of 1991. [music] There were finally arrests, but would it
02:22:30
answer the question on the billboard that had been haunting Austin for nearly [music] a decade?
02:22:51
After nearly 8 years, Austinites are getting some [music] answers in the case of the yogurt shop murders.
02:22:57
I want to start off by thanking y'all for joining us here today. For almost 8 years, we've all waited to
02:23:02
hear the words that our police department is close to a point of solving a crime that has haunted our
02:23:10
very souls. Today, we finally get to hear those words. When four men were arrested in the fall
02:23:18
of 1999 for the yogurt shop murders, relief was felt citywide. Sarah, Jennifer, Amy,
02:23:29
Eliza, we did not forget. The girls' families struggled to take it all in. There had been so many false leads
02:23:42
for such a long time. It was hard to know how to think about it and then how to feel about it.
02:23:49
But there were finally names and faces to blame. Maurice Pierce, Forrest Wellborn, Michael Scott, and Robert
02:23:57
Springsteen. To the task force, they were familiar names and faces. They were the same young men that John Jones and
02:24:06
his investigators questioned just 8 days after the murders. Did you do this? I have no comment. And
02:24:14
ultimately released for lack of evidence. I was confident and remain confident to
02:24:20
this day that we got as far with them as we could then. But that doesn't mean that there wasn't
02:24:27
something develop later that would cause them to actually go out and arrest them.
02:24:31
So I was going, "Yes, good job." I was ready to dig out the hideous green and white
02:24:38
shirt. But before that shirt could come out of the closet, the one he promised the
02:24:44
girls' families he would wear when the case was solved, Jones wanted to know more about what led
02:24:50
to the arrests. There was no physical evidence. Nothing. Joe James Sawyer was appointed as Robert
02:24:58
Springsteen's attorney. What made them go back and charge these guys? >> Because the new officers, when they when
02:25:06
they reopened the cold case, convinced themselves that we let them slip through our
02:25:12
fingers. We had to have had the murderers in the beginning. In part, they decided that because they
02:25:20
had nothing else. There was no new physical evidence suddenly tying any of the four men to
02:25:27
the crime. But what police did have were two newly obtained confessions. [music]
02:25:33
One from Michael Scott and another from Sawyer's own client, Robert Springsteen.
02:25:41
Michael Scott's confession came first. He was questioned over 4 days. Come on, Michael, you're doing good.
02:25:48
Tell us. Let's do this today. Let's do it. Seeing girls I remember one girl screaming terrified.
02:25:54
Scott told investigators that he and the others only intended a simple robbery. He said they cased the yogurt shop
02:26:01
earlier that day, and then after dark, he said, they came back armed with two guns. I had gun go off.
02:26:11
I only pulled trigger once. I hear another gun go off. Investigators claimed that Springsteen
02:26:18
later corroborated much of what Scott said. But after intense questioning, he went
02:26:27
further. Springsteen told them he shot one girl and raped her. He was so tired of this. He'd already been questioned.
02:26:43
He'd already been uh through that mill. He thought, "You know what? I'll tell you any damn thing you want." Sawyer
02:26:49
maintains his client is innocent and says the confession was coerced. In 2009, Robert Springsteen explained to 48
02:26:59
Hours why he would admit to doing something so horrible, something he says he didn't do. I was berated and berated
02:27:07
and berated by the police officers until they obtained what it was they wanted to
02:27:12
hear. They were not going to allow me to leave, and I I basically they they broke
02:27:17
me down. >> ask you, did you have anything to do No. I had nothing >> at the yogurt shop? No, never. Even
02:27:24
though Joe James Sawyer didn't have Michael Scott as his client, he says he has serious concerns about his
02:27:31
confession, too. Is that the gun you shot somebody with, Mike? I don't Is that the gun you walked up
02:27:38
behind somebody with and shot in the head? I frankly couldn't believe it. They [music] terrorized him,
02:27:45
and he was afraid to say no. Forrest Wellborn denied having anything to do with the murders, but police
02:27:52
[music] were convinced he was the lookout that night, and Michael Scott placed him at the scene.
02:28:01
Hi, I'm Erin Moriarty with CBS. I spoke to Wellborn in 1999 in jail shortly after his arrest.
02:28:09
Were you there that night? >> No. Were you there as a lookout? No. I mean to say
02:28:18
You had nothing to do with this. Nothing at all. Wellborn had been questioned multiple
02:28:24
times by investigators over the years, and he never wavered. He, like the others, first came on police radar when
02:28:31
in 1991, just days after the murders, Maurice Pierce had been [music] caught with that .22 caliber gun at the mall
02:28:40
near the yogurt shop. Pierce told the detectives back then that he had given the handgun to
02:28:46
Wellborn, and that [music] it had been used in the yogurt shop murders. Why would he say that?
02:28:53
I don't know. Welborn has always [music] maintained his innocence, despite pressure from the
02:28:59
police. They get right in my face and you know, tell me everything I said was a lie.
02:29:06
Remember, false confessions in this case were nothing new. Jones said that [music] six written
02:29:13
false confessions were obtained when he was in charge. So, when he learned that the two confessions [music]
02:29:20
were all the new investigators seemed to have, it gave him pause. I go, "Well, maybe I shouldn't get that
02:29:27
shirt out just yet." It wasn't long before the case against the men began crumbling. Charges against
02:29:35
Forrest Welborn were dismissed after two grand juries failed to indict him. And later on, charges were dropped against
02:29:43
Maurice Pierce for lack of evidence. Everything fell apart except the cases against Michael Scott and Robert
02:29:50
Springsteen. And with Scott and Springsteen's confessions, the victims' families felt
02:29:56
prosecutors had a strong case. These young men have been implicated and they have confessed and they can withdraw it,
02:30:04
but the truth is they actually were there and they actually did the murders. In 2001, nearly 10 years after the
02:30:26
murders of Eliza Thomas, Amy Ayers, and Sarah [music] and Jennifer Harbison, the
02:30:32
yogurt shop murder trials began. Both defendants, Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott, [music] faced the death
02:30:39
penalty. The only thing that ever tied Robert or Mike Scott [music] to that crime scene were their
02:30:45
confessions. >> [music] >> Confessions that both defendants said were coerced. The two were tried
02:30:53
separately. [music] Springsteen's trial was first. Neither of the men would testify against one another. So,
02:30:59
instead, prosecutors used their confessions against one another, reading parts [music] of the confessions to the
02:31:07
juries. Springsteen's lawyer, Joe James Sawyer, was frustrated that he couldn't cross-examine Scott.
02:31:15
I thought the trial was massively unfair to my client and that it was being done
02:31:19
systematically and with deliberation. The trial lasted 3 weeks. The jury deliberated for 13 hours.
02:31:28
If it please your honor. And then, reached a verdict. We, the jury, find the defendant Robert
02:31:34
Springsteen IV guilty of the offense of capital murder. Guilty. Springsteen was condemned to death row.
02:31:43
In 2002, [music] Michael Scott went on trial. He was convicted as well. He [music] was
02:31:49
sentenced to life in prison. But the case didn't end there. 15 years after the murders came a shocking turn of
02:31:58
events. [music] In a 5-4 decision, the court behind me said that Michael Scott's constitutional
02:32:03
rights were violated during his trial and therefore should get a new one. Both Scott and Springsteen's convictions were
02:32:11
overturned on constitutional grounds. The Sixth Amendment gives defendants the right to confront accusers.
02:32:18
>> [music] >> And remember, in Scott and Springsteen's trials, their confessions were used
02:32:23
against one another, but they weren't allowed to question each other in court. And
02:32:31
the relief the relief was incredible. But that relief for the defendants came as a devastating blow to the victims'
02:32:40
families. We later spoke to Eliza Thomas's mother, Maria, about that moment. Every time I hear those words, that
02:32:50
their rights were violated, I just feel like I'm going to go insane. Their rights are violated.
02:32:58
Our girls were murdered. It ruins your sense of fairness. It ruins your sense of
02:33:07
that we live in a just world. Even though their convictions were overturned, Scott and Springsteen were
02:33:14
[music] not released. A new district attorney, Rosemary Lemburg, was determined to retry them.
02:33:21
>> [music] >> In an effort to find more evidence, her office had ordered DNA tests on vaginal
02:33:27
swabs taken from the victims at the time of the murders. It's called Y-STR testing and was
02:33:35
[music] fairly new in 2009 when we spoke with DA Lemburg. This technology searches for male DNA
02:33:44
only. A partial male DNA profile was obtained from one of the victims believed to have
02:33:51
been sexually [music] assaulted. And no one expected what it would reveal. Does that DNA match any of the
02:33:59
four [music] young men who were originally accused and two of them who've been convicted? It does not.
02:34:07
The DNA did not match any of the original four suspects, including Scott and Springsteen. And that's significant
02:34:16
because Springsteen, in that confession he said was coerced, told investigators he raped one of the girls.
02:34:26
CeCe Moore is a DNA expert and genetic genealogist [music] whom we asked about the case and the
02:34:32
role of Y-STR DNA in criminal cases. It is a tool that can eliminate almost everyone. It should eliminate
02:34:43
everybody but the suspect. If their Y-STR does not match, they did not contribute that. Because where that
02:34:53
DNA was found, yes, in this case, it's very important. The district attorney was focused on
02:35:00
finding the source of that [music] DNA. She wondered if Springsteen and Scott had another partner. I remain really
02:35:08
confident that both Springsteen and Scott [music] were responsible for killing those poor
02:35:13
girls. But in 2009, with [music] no matches on that DNA, Lemburg dropped charges
02:35:20
against Springsteen and Scott. After nearly 10 years behind bars, they were released, but not exonerated,
02:35:28
leaving open the possibility they could be retried at a later time. This was a difficult decision
02:35:37
and one I'd rather not have to make. The question remained, though, whose DNA was it?
02:35:44
I know who it is. Killers. >> [music] >> You're convinced that that That is a certain truth.
02:35:49
Amber Farrelly was part of both Scott and Springsteen's [music] defense teams. She came up with a theory that the
02:35:55
mystery DNA might belong [music] instead to two never-identified men who witnesses reported seen sitting in the
02:36:04
yogurt shop just before it closed. Those two men were described wearing fatigued-colored
02:36:14
jackets. They were very slouched over, whispering, like they were It was a very close conversation in a booth.
02:36:22
Officials tried to track down those two men [music] as well as the source of the
02:36:26
DNA. And then, in 2017, an Austin police investigator searched a public online DNA database to see if he
02:36:36
could get a hit. [music] And unbelievably, he did. I thought, "My God, we actually
02:36:43
have a chance a shot to solve this crime after so many years." I really thought this was it. I really
02:37:06
thought we had a chance to solve it. US Congressman Michael McCaul, like so many others from Austin, hoped that the
02:37:14
recently uncovered DNA in the yogurt shop murder case might finally bring answers to the victims' families.
02:37:22
We'll never forget that tragic day. It's stained in my memory. 25 years after the murders, the Austin
02:37:31
Police Department went searching for a match to the Y-STR DNA that had been found on the yogurt shop victim believed
02:37:39
to have been sexually assaulted. And in 2017, they got a break. On a public DNA database used for population studies,
02:37:50
investigators thought they had found a match. I've seen DNA prove homicide cases. The
02:37:57
DNA evidence is is really the key here. But that sample from the crime scene was
02:38:05
not a complete DNA profile. It was just Y-STR, the male portion of DNA, and it was not a very detailed sample, having
02:38:15
just 16 markers. 16 STRs is not a very powerful match. There could be millions of people with that same profile. So, in
02:38:26
genetic genealogy, we usually use 67 or 111 markers or maybe even more. But isn't it a place to start? It is. It's
02:38:35
not absolute, but if there's nothing else to work with, it is certainly something to look into. Still, it seemed
02:38:43
to be the most promising lead in years, but there was a problem. The seemingly matching sample on the public database
02:38:51
had been submitted anonymously by the FBI. That meant it came from a federally convicted offender, arrestee, or
02:38:59
detainee, but had no name attached to it. When Austin authorities tried to get that
02:39:05
name, the FBI would not provide it, citing privacy laws. There are some restrictions on privacy, so it gets into
02:39:13
some very sort of you know dicey issues. Frustrated, officials reached out to Congressman McCaul for help. And so I
02:39:22
pressed the FBI very hard. Finally, in early 2020, the FBI agreed to work with the Austin Police
02:39:30
Department to see if further testing could be done on that YSTR DNA from the crime scene. I was very excited about
02:39:39
it. The idea that we could bring this case to a to closure for the families and bring those responsible to justice.
02:39:48
More advanced testing [music] came up with additional markers, 25 instead of the original 16.
02:39:56
But as so often happened in this case, what seemed so promising turned into disappointment.
02:40:04
Some of the additional markers did not match the FBI sample. In other words, what seemed to be a match was not. In a
02:40:13
letter to Congressman McCaul, the FBI [music] explained the new results, quote, "Conclusively exclude the male
02:40:21
donor of the FBI sample. As such, the FBI YSTR profile is not an investigative lead."
02:40:31
And that was the greatest disappointment because we really thought we had it. If
02:40:36
it didn't match that individual, doesn't it still mean there's somebody out there? This DNA belongs to somebody,
02:40:42
right? >> It does. It does. Um and that's why we're we're not going to rest till we find the match. How important
02:40:50
then is this DNA profile that exists to solving this case? I mean, it's um it's everything.
02:40:59
With DNA research advancing so quickly, there's real hope that one day that sample of DNA obtained [music] 30 years
02:41:09
ago may finally solve this case. Still, it will not erase the pain or the loss of lives. Every year that goes by, I get
02:41:21
farther and farther away from my sister. I know. And I worry about losing memories.
02:41:32
Sonora Thomas struggled for years with panic attacks and physical pain until with the help of therapy, she realized
02:41:40
it was connected to the murder of her sister Eliza. With a unique understanding of what
02:41:45
trauma victims experience, Sonora wanted to help others like her and became a therapist. There's so many
02:41:54
moments, you know, when your heart is open, you know, you're joyful, but there's also this loss that's always
02:42:01
accompanying your life. Sonora found it helpful to look for ways to remember Eliza. When we got married, we had a
02:42:09
flower and an empty chair at our ceremony and my sister was mentioned. Compounding Sonora's pain, her mother
02:42:17
died in 2015. Maria Thomas passed away with so many unresolved [music] questions about the
02:42:25
murder of her daughter. There is a kind of torture that continues by the fact that it's
02:42:32
unsolved and it's ongoing. It's always there. >> [bell] >> John Jones is still haunted by the fact
02:42:44
that the case is unsolved and by what he saw that gruesome night. He has suffered from PTSD through the
02:42:53
years. I had completely shut down. Uh to where all my energy was directed at at the case. It took a toll on you,
02:43:04
didn't it, John? Even 30 years afterwards. Well, yeah. It would on anybody. I think. Not as much as the families,
02:43:12
you understand. I know. Whatever pain I'm having pales in comparison to what they what they're going through.
02:43:26
>> [singing] >> These days, Jones finds solace singing in his church choir. I can relax when
02:43:32
I'm in church. Leave the world behind? Leave outside? No, I I know it's just past the door.
02:43:41
And when he's [music] in that outside world, the families of Amy Ayers, Jennifer and Sarah Harbison, and Eliza
02:43:49
Thomas are never far from his thoughts. I feel bad for them. That it's still not solved.
02:43:58
But Jones has hope. He has kept that shirt he wore the night of the murders. Only worn once. The shirt he promised to
02:44:06
never wear until the case was solved. More than [music] 30 years later. Still sitting in there. Still sitting here.
02:44:13
It is. And sometime soon, John Jones looks forward to wearing it again. [music] I just hope one of these days we can put
02:44:26
this thing [music] to bed. For the family's sake. >> [music] [music] [music] >> 48 Hours. Don't miss an episode.
02:45:09
>> [music] [music] [music]