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[Music] Welcome back to Postmortem. I'm your host, Ann Marie Green, and today I'm
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joined by 48 Hours correspondent Peter Vans and journalist Sheila Flynn. We are discussing the murder of Christ Krug, a
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Colorado mother of three. Sheila, you actually reported on this case for the Daily Mail and you were also in the
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courtroom during the trial. Um, so we're going to get into that and we're really,
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really appreciative that you're here to give us your perspective on this case. >> Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here.
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Hopefully I can help. >> And Peter, it's always great to have you here with us to break down uh this 48
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hours episode here on Postmortem. >> Yes. In in honor of the Daily Mail, I'll say hello and welcome Sheila.
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>> Is that that's your best British accent? >> Uh, it's pretty good. I lived there for
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a while, so I I'm all right. >> It's better than mine, so we'll take it. So before we get into it, a reminder to
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everyone. If you haven't actually listened to this 48 hours episode yet, head on back to your podcast feed.
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You'll find the full audio version of this in your feed right below this podcast. So go take a listen and then
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come on back for this conversation. So in December of 2023, Christile's husband, Dan Krug, requested a welfare
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check on his wife, uh who wasn't responding to his text messages or his phone calls. Krug also told police that
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there was an alleged stalker that had been threatening them. When police arrived at the couple's home, they found
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Christile dead in the garage. An autopsy later revealed that she had been bludgeoned to death in the back of the
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head and she'd also been stabbed in the heart. There was a tremendous amount of police body cam footage from the crime
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scene for this case and we use it a lot in the hour. And we see also just how emotional Krug was at the scene.
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>> Peter, when you watched that video, what did you think about his behavior at the
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scene? >> I had never heard anything like that before. Here was a man you could hear
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before you saw him on these body cams. He was shouting and wailing as he ran down the street. It seemed so unnatural.
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And by the time he got in front of that house and he was bent over and he was wretching and making all of these
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sounds. It was an extraordinary performance and we know now it was a performance and but
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it was completely over the top. You know, I first viewed it actually sitting just feet behind Krug himself who was
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sitting as a defendant in court at the trial. And you know, Peter used the word performance. It seemed so much like a
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performance to me. Just very overblown, not asking why. Just almost seeming like
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he was trying to make himself seem scattered, like he didn't know what to do as he wailed. And it was really
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interesting to watch him watch that without any reaction as he was on trial for Christile's murder.
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>> I'm glad that both of you guys said that because when I watched the video, I felt
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like I was judging him, but I just wasn't convinced with his behavior, the way he was sort
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of hunched over. And then we see that he's actually with a victim's advocate. Her name is Heather Ace. So, she's seen
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people in situations like this many, many times. Um, and we want to play for uh the listeners here some unaired
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footage from Peter your interview with her and she talks about when she actually first started to suspect Krug.
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>> The car ride from his house to the police department seemed like an eternity and it felt as if
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something had switched. I I was starting to look at him a little differently, especially since he was
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very adamant about telling the children. And he wasn't asking any other questions. He wasn't asking where was
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she? How what happened? And I turn and I look at him and I get this weird feeling. And
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it's a it's a it's a feeling of are you really crying? Are are you really is this happening?
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Did you do this? You didn't know. You didn't do this, Heather. You're watching You watched too many 48 hours episodes.
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You're watching too much TV. This is This man has lost his wife. Why are you thinking that? But it was it was a gut
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instinct. How interesting. But Peter, it's not just a gut instinct. He's not asking any
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questions about what happened to his wife. >> Yeah. Bizarre behavior. and she followed
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her instincts which was great. Heather has a lot of wisdom in all of this. At one point she said, you know, he had
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really settled down. Then he started to make this very strange whimpering sound and she felt it was invented that it
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just wasn't uh genuine. So, to bring people some of the background that we already know about if you watch the
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hour, for months before her death, Christile had been receiving threatening text messages and photos that appeared
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to be coming from an exboyfriend, Anthony Holland. Christile brought her concerns to Detective Martinez, who at
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the time chose not to contact Anthony. Uh, he said that they were compiling enough evidence against him to actually
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obtain an arrest warrant. You both interviewed Anthony. What was your impression of him?
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>> He was a very uh downto-earth individual. There's a sadness about him. Christile uh was somebody that um he
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deeply cared for. They'd met in high school, but they were such different people. Christile was this intellect, a
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a truly genius level intellect. An engineering future awaited for her. She was very ambitious. she was going to go
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to university. And um Anthony on the other hand had no plans. He had no academic interest. These two split up
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and it haunted him. He he just felt like a big part of his life was missing. >> Anthony is just very very earnest, very
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honest, genuine, softspoken. Uh and he just really loved Christ. And when he describes to me, you know, they
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had met, they were both working at J C Penney as teenagers, and he described their first date and their first kiss as
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magical. And it almost sounded like he was recounting scenes from a teen movie. And when I saw him testify at her trial,
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he was so anxious. He was clutching fidget toys. And you could tell he was really trying to do Christile's memory
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well up on the stand as well as stand up for himself. And he told me that he stared down. And I could see this that
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he stared down Krug uh at the defense table. Kind of going, "Man, you tried to frame me for murder." And he thanked me
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later after I ran a story, an interview with Anthony about his past. Then Christile, he thanked me for sharing her
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story as well as his because it was his great love. >> So seeing as you know she had been his
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his great love. Sheila had Anthony actually contacted her over the years. >> He had you know I think in that way
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sometimes you reach out with whatifs etc. He sent a few messages, I believe the last, I think in 2016, just saying
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seeing how she was doing. Nothing malicious or anything. You know, he had kind of a rockolid alibi. He he
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literally and figuratively had the receipts. >> Yeah. It's it's an incredible twist in
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in this story that on the day that Christile was murdered, he'd gotten up and uh he now thinks this voice in his
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head was Christile sending him a message. He got this urge to go to a Kohl's department store and to buy a
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sweatshirt. And when I did the interview with him, I didn't realize he was wearing that very sweatshirt and he had
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the receipt and it proved that he was 500 miles away in Utah and could not have been um in Colorado uh not not in
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the area at all, not in the neighborhood to have committed this murder. And he thinks somehow Christile's uh spirit um
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helped save him, exonerate him in in this case. >> Wow. So more and more often with these
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cases though, we are able to use uh surveillance footage or you know body cam footage, but it it's not often that
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we have so much of the victim before the crime. In the hour we see Crystal's interview with police when she's
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reporting that someone is stalking her. She seems to be taking all the right steps to protect herself and her family.
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Do you think that she would have maybe eventually uncovered the truth that it indeed was her husband behind these
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threatening text messages? >> You know, I think she absolutely would have. She was so smart and it was so
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frustrating to see her in that footage talking to the detective with everything laid out before him. I mean, she had
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spreadsheets and colorcoded files and mountains of evidence, and he joked that she had done his job for him, and she
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had I mean, she did everything. And she had even told her stepmom's sister, I can't even rule out my husband. This is
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someone used to using the scientific method to solve problems. And she had done that looking at the facts of this
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case. And we know now because Dan Krug, whether that was a this was a slip up or
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whatever, he actually admits during the course of one of these interviews that she had mentioned to him that he could
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be the stalker. And think about that cuz it wasn't that long after she revealed that to him that she ended up being
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murdered. >> I mean, she was she was petrified as well. She, you know, she broke down in
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tears in a parking lot to her mother once. She was, you know, re-upping her shooting skills. She was arming herself.
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This was all discussed in court when they were outlining witnesses on the stand as well as the prosecution. So to
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know that she was in fear and literally carrying a gun at the time of her death and just always looking over her
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shoulder and still died, it was it was really tragic and infuriating. Dan was aware that uh she had armed herself um
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when she was attacked and authorities came into that garage. Her gun was inside her purse. She may have felt a
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little bit of safety going into that garage. Dan obviously knew the garage. He knew her her habits and he was able
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to uh to ambush her. And all of that gun training and all that preparation uh ended up being for nothing cuz he he got
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to her first. You mentioned that she had mentioned that she couldn't rule out her
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own husband. Most people don't say that about, you know, their partner. I'm kind of curious
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about how Christile's family felt about Krug. Did they give you any indication as to whether or not they liked him or
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not? >> They did in the interview. Uh her mother, Linda, in particular, didn't really like him from the beginning, and
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she just had a bad feeling about him. He was very awkward in family um gatherings. He at times could be uh
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quiet. And I asked them, "Did you ever just mention it to her that you were concerned about it?" They said, "No,
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she's very smart. Um we we wanted to leave that decision up to her as to who the person, her partner in life would
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be, but from the very beginning, it just didn't feel right to them." >> They said in court that they were aware
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that the marriage was disintegrating. Um, and I just think what united them in the weeks running up to Christile's
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death was this stalker. I mean, there was family testimony during trial that at a family birthday party in the weeks
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before Christile's murder. Dan was really playing up the stalker angle. He kept looking out the window in case the
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stalker might be surveilling them or in in the vicinity. And I I just think that
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his behavior looking back now must anger them so much more seeing that deceit. I
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want to talk about the footage of Krug's police interrogation. We see the very the moment really where the tables turn
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on him where police reveal that Anthony has an alibi. And I want to play a clip from the show.
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>> What if I told you that we had already spoken with Anthony and there's no way
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that he was in town today? [Music] And I have nothing and I'm terrified to bring my children
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home. >> What are you terrified of? >> If it wasn't him, was it? What gets me in all of this is um I covered the Lacy
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Peterson murder case many years ago and at the time we did a story about deception and signs of deception. One of
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them is whisper talking and you noticed it there. It's in that audio. It is dramatic. He's talking and all of a
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sudden it just falls off and you'll you you hear him speak in this whisper talk which is which is for these these
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psychological experts a sign that that he's lying and telling a story. Um the frustrating part in all of this too is
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that they had to release Dan after this interview even though he was their number one suspect and at that point
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they were pretty convinced that he is the killer. He knew they were on to him and that whisper talk just said it all
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to me. >> You know, even throughout his police interviews that we saw during the trial,
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he was always presenting himself as completely harmless and non-threatening. He's very tall, very skinny. He was
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stooped, slouched on the couch, hunched over, um moving gingerly, you know, holding a cup of coffee or water as if
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it was going to hurt him. uh just constantly putting out this vibe of I'm harmless, don't look at me. And even
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there when he was still protesting his innocence, who could it be pretending to be afraid? Uh it was all it was all a
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facade. Welcome back. Well, after a digital forensics expert traced the stalker's
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messages to Krug's office wifi and uncovered chilling searches on his phone, like, "Do people really go
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unconscious when hit in the head?" Police move in to arrest him. It's rare that we see this moment, uh, you know,
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the hands up, you're under arrest moment, but we actually get it from multiple angles here.
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>> We get it from six different angles. This is like this is like a Hollywood movie at this at this point. And as more
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and more local law enforcement gets into the get into the body cam technology, we're seeing uh incredible moments like
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this unfold before our eyes. The tragedy, he was out at that supermarket because his daughter was going to be
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performing in the Nutcracker that night and they wanted to get some flowers. Um,
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on the day of the murder, Dan insisted to police that he wanted to be the one who told his three children that their
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mother was dead. Well, at the time of arrest, you flip the script here and Detective Martinez, who had uh such
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enormous frustration during the course of this investigation and some self-doubt whether he should have acted
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earlier to pursue Anthony Holland, reach out to him earlier. He finally had a moment where he's looking at it and he
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says basically, "Hey, you want me to tell the kids that you murdered their mother or someone else?" And it was, I'm
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paraphrasing there, but it was it was such a powerful moment there. Uh, and I I felt good for the detective that he
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finally got one jab of the sword at this at this creep. >> Absolutely. Um, let's go to the trial.
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No cameras were allowed in the courtroom until closing arguments. Uh, but Sheila,
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you were there in person for pretty much most of the trial. >> Mhm. >> What was Krug's demeanor like? A, and
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was there family there to support him through the trial? >> There was, you know, he his demeanor was
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very similar to how it was in police interviews and on that footage where he stooped over, he moved slowly,
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presenting himself as harmless, meek, sitting there quietly at the defense table. Um, his older brother was there
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for much of the trial. His elderly father was one of the last witnesses called and he and his elderly mother
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were there for the verdict as it was read. His brother seemed shell shocked when he addressed the judge. But Chris
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Steele's family, meanwhile, was there right behind the prosecution every day at the trial, active, engaged, just
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supporting her every step of the way. The prosecution's biggest hurdle in this case was really the lack of DNA evidence
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tying Krug to the murder. The murder weapon was also never recovered and investigators didn't find Crisil's blood
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on Krug's clothes or in his car. That is something you would expect uh when someone has, you know, a stab wound. So,
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it it begs the question just how is it possible to have no DNA evidence in a case like this where there's clearly a
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lot of blood. >> Well, for all the mistakes that he made, perhaps it's blind luck in his case. It
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is something that, you know, the prosecutors and Sheila knows this very well, they all want a CSI moment in a
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case like this. You know, the DNA, her DNA found in his car to really lock this down for jurors. But in this case, um,
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there just wasn't that. >> And you know, that was a cornerstone of the defense really, that there was no
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DNA. And how could that be? I mean, investigators were told that he by his children that he was wearing the same
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clothes that morning that he was when he came after she was murdered. So truly, how did he manage it? But I always
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wondered, I mean, Krug worked for the Department of Health here in Colorado. who knows what he had access to. And
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when you think about it, even though he made a number of really elementary and unbelievable mistakes when it came to
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digital evidence or emails or phones, he did have a lot of time to plan this over
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a matter of months as he was carrying out that stalking campaign. Well, let's talk about the digital evidence. I mean,
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I don't know when people are going to learn like your Google searches will become part of the case against you. The
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Google searches first off were incredible where he was asking about, you know, basically I'm paraphrasing uh
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what does it take to knock somebody out and if you strike somebody on the back of the head, which of course is what
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happened to his wife when they were able to determine that messages had been sent
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from his company wifi system. That is as good as a fingerprint. That who else could have have done that? Now, the
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defense tried to say, well, the person that was stalking him may have been in the building at the time and that's how
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this occurred. But they really had him on that. Also, they were able to determine that there was a a iconic
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picture in the course of this where the alleged stalker had taken a photograph of Dan as he was getting inside uh a
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vehicle. Well, their digital expert was able to determine that that had been that picture had been taken on Krug's
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phone at in selfie mode on a timer, and they were even able to figure out the bumper that was was used to hold the
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phone to take that photograph. >> It would be laughable if it hadn't involved the loss of a life. I mean,
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it's just astonishing. He bought a burner phone, but with a gift card that was registered to himself. He also in
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one of the really wow moments of the trial on October 2nd when he sent a text one of the threatening stalker messages
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to Christile. She didn't answer and it was the first stalker message he sent. And when she didn't answer, he clearly
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was worried that the message wasn't getting through. So he texted his own cell phone test and then responded to
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that text with his cell phone to the burner. Yeah. So, I mean, he absolutely absolutely kind of condemned himself
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with that interaction >> clearly. Um, and a a jury uh finds him guilty. Uh, he's found guilty of
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firstdegree murder as well as stalking and impersonation. Sheila, what was the reaction like in the courtroom when the
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verdict was read? On Krug's side, his uh parents, his mom slumped into his dad. A
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supporter put a hand on her back. They were just clearly in disbelief and bereft. On the other side of the
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courtroom, people were tearful for different reasons. You know, they later spoke about how they felt this was some
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semblance of justice for Christ. After he was convicted, we get more fascinating video uh and we include this
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in the hour of a jail house call that Krug makes to his family. We want to play for you now an extended clip of
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that call that was not in the show. >> We are in a digital and monitored age. They never produced a single photograph
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of me with phones. They never produced a single photograph of me buying anything.
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They never produced a single piece of hard evidence. Just identity theft. That's it.
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That's it. And we're in a world today where that's enough. DNA exoneration doesn't mean
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because someone can do things with a cell phone. Not a single photograph, not a single drop of blood,
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not a single scrap of DNA. Not a single recording. Identity theft is all it takes to destroy somebody.
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>> This almost sounds like an attorney performing closing arguments. It's quite dramatic with all those pauses and such.
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>> They don't have that hard physical evidence, but the evidence that was presented was compelling um to this jury
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and uh I think to the community. You know, you could tell that his brother who got up, Jeremy, who spoke at trial
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during victim impact statements, you could tell that he was caught off guard, that he still had no idea how to handle
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this because the point he made was that the family hadn't been privy to all the evidence until it was presented at
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trial, that they were holding on to a glimmer of hope. That hope had been very quickly shattered once they saw the case
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that was presented. And his brother also expressed anger at Dan for doing this to
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his family and putting them through it and talk about driving his elderly parents home as they collapsed against
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each other in the car. So, not only did he put his children through it, now he's
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putting his parents and extended family through it and continuing to do it is gling.
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>> Yeah. So Dan Krug, he is sentenced to life in prison um without the possibility of
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parole on the murder charge and an additional nine and a half years for the stalking and impersonation counts. And
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Sheila, you were talking about the victim impact statements um at at sentencing. And Christile's
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sister-in-law also got up and made a victim impact statement and and she talked about what the children will have
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to deal with. >> She did. She actually read out statements from the kids themselves who
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spoke of their grief. And it was not just Christile's sister-in-law and the children speaking. It was a long line of
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friends and family members. Whether they were school friends of Christ's or friends she'd met in adult dance classes
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or cousins, relatives, siblings, everyone spoke of what a bright light she was, how smart, how quick, how she
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would amuse them with self-deprecating humor. And you could see how much Christile touched so many people's lives
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and how angry they were that she was so needlessly stolen. >> Yeah. Um, how's Christelle's family
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doing? They are um they're such incredible people. Um Lars um Christile's dad is Norwegian. Uh he's
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from a family of engineers. Christile followed in that tradition. In that uh workroom they have at the house where he
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has these these old vintage cars. They used to work on them together. Lars can rebuild an original Corvette carburetor.
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He's a brilliant guy. He misses her so desperately as he looks around that that uh shop. He can hear her voice. He can
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see her there. Um they're trying to continue that tradition with the children. Lars is and he's desperate uh
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and and will never let her memory die. >> The kids, the oldest is about 16 now. And you know what they do have around
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them is a very large and loving extended family. And the crowds who stood up for
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Christile for victim impact statements were just I think the tip of the iceberg. And the judge even acknowledged
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at sentencing what a pleasure it was despite being an awful, tragic and bittersweet circumstance to get to know
00:27:10
about Christile and her family. So I I guess despite this horrific situation, the kids are lucky in that regard to
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have all of them around her, all the people who turned up at the trial for Christile and the many others out there.
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>> Absolutely. It's a community that they will need moving forward and it, you know, it makes me feel at least a little
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good to know that they are well loved and well protected and supported. Um, well, Peter, Sheila, this has been a
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great conversation. Thank you so much. Thanks, Anmarie. >> Thank you. >> If you like this episode, please rate
00:27:46
and review us on Apple Podcast or on Spotify. [Music]