00:00:05
since Aaron's body had been found in a desert mine authorities were finally able to charge someone for her murder
00:00:12
and Chris Lee was suspect number one before finding Aaron's body police were able to arrest Chris for possession of a
00:00:22
potato gun he had made bail and was told not to leave San Bernardino County this
00:00:29
way authorities could keep tabs on him as they continued to search for Aaron investigators knew Chris was
00:00:37
staying at Isabel meckley's horse ranch before he was picked up for the potato gun so they made their way to the ranch
00:00:44
after they found Aaron's Body by the time investigators arrived Chris and his family were gone breaking
00:00:52
the conditions of his bail Christopher Lee and aoli did disappear and nobody really knew where
00:00:59
they went the family they were planning to leave the area how are they going to do this
00:01:07
they were were they going to move themselves were they going to contract a moving company we needed to know that
00:01:14
information and so that's when Cliff asked me if I could I could assist with potentially trying to locate Lee in
00:01:19
coordination with San Bernardino NCIS special agent Clifton Randolph Jr and NCIS analyst Ashley delfen scoured their
00:01:28
military database to gather everything they could on Chris and zeroed in on where he might have
00:01:37
gone but since Chris had just been honorably discharged getting an exact location proved to be difficult if you
00:01:46
move in the military usually there are contractors that can move you and those are military records part of your
00:01:53
permanent change of station however with outside contracted military moves takes a little more digging to locate
00:02:04
how someone is going to move once a marine moves on their own accord into civilian life the military
00:02:11
no longer keeps track of them so NCIS Personnel sifted through more than just military records well if he left 29
00:02:20
Palms how did he leave we did a little bit of research and found that he had rented a car and appeared to have driven
00:02:29
up to Washington State and then crossed over into Alaska eventually NCIS was able to
00:02:37
pinpoint where Chris had gone back to his hometown of Anchorage Alaska soon after local authorities arrested Chris
00:02:46
after finding him driving his mother's car while searching the vehicle they found blue climbing rope several knives
00:02:55
and a handmade Grant during all of this investigators made sure to keep lore Aaron's mom
00:03:05
updated it probably wasn't 30 minutes after I got that phone call saying that it was definitely Aaron that I got
00:03:11
another phone call saying Chris was arrested in Alaska Anchorage Alaska is Christopher
00:03:19
Lee's Hometown he was a small boy here once playing in the snow learning survival techniques like hunting and
00:03:27
fishing as a teenager he played football football and his High School varsity team once Chris graduated he prepared to
00:03:34
leave snowy Anchorage to join The Honorable Marine Corps it's also here in Anchorage Alaska where Chris Lee was
00:03:43
arrested for murder I think he was confident enough that they would never find Aaron's body that he could just go
00:03:51
on with life I'm CBS News correspondent Natalie Morales and this is 48 hours NCIS episode 5 weapon of
00:04:08
choice numb you felt numb you just go through the motions you just do what you have to
00:04:16
do Laura had been preparing to hear the worst for weeks when she and her husband
00:04:22
Bill finally got the call that they found her daughter's body she did her best to stay strong for her other
00:04:29
children you know it's midnight and we're bill and I discussed you know there's no
00:04:33
reason to wake them up a few of her kids still lived in the house few had moved out and started their own families they
00:04:41
might as well have a good night's sleep so we decideed we'd wait until the next morning to call them the weight of it
00:04:47
all was unbearable a few weeks after they confirmed it was Aaron's body in the Min
00:04:55
shaft Laura and her family were able to properly greet leave in the middle of September of
00:05:05
2014 we had a candl light vigil at the barn where she had kept her horse a final goodbye in honor of Aaron
00:05:14
Corwin's life the barn was located at the East Tennessee Riding Club in Oakridge it's
00:05:20
small tucked away off the side roads there were posters hung all over the walls collages of Aaron and her favorite
00:05:29
things in life her animals and her family it was dusk everyone held a candle and sat on the
00:05:37
bleachers anyone who wanted to share a few words about Aaron was invited to do so a couple of her friends spoke one of
00:05:45
the youth leaders from church spoke and the minister that baptized her as a child said the prayer over it John
00:05:56
Aaron's husband was there as well but he didn't say anything he held his candle looking
00:06:02
stoic Beyond her friends and family Aaron's tragedy touched so many there were so many people hundreds of people
00:06:10
there I hugged so many necks of people I didn't know the support that we got from complete strangers is
00:06:19
just unbelievable lur was able to see the beauty and strangers empathizing with her it gave her strength in the midst of
00:06:28
her nightmare the body of a pregnant Oak Ridge woman has been found 19-year-old Aaron Corwin had been missing for nearly
00:06:36
2 months friends remembered Aaron as a shy teenager Who Loved animals we need to remember that she's a person first
00:06:41
she's a daughter a sister a wife a friend Beth Ford Roth who covered aon's case for public radio remembers how
00:06:50
media Outlets all over the country clung to this story when you see a photograph
00:06:55
of Aaron Corwin you know why because she was sweet naive pregnant Marine wife a teenager from Eastern Tennessee a family
00:07:05
who loved her there was the obvious salacious nature of it all but Beth believes it was more than
00:07:14
that she's a small town girl she doesn't have a lot of experience with men and this is a crazy situation that she found
00:07:21
herself in she looked to the wrong person to help her get out of it most of us have fallen for the wrong person when
00:07:28
we were young most of us have made rash and dramatic decisions in our teenage years but most
00:07:35
of us get to learn and grow from them I think if women are honest with themselves and they look back at how
00:07:43
innocent or naive they may have been at that age it could have been any one of us but
00:07:49
we got to move on we got to suffer the Heartbreak and then move on and Erin never got that chance she'll never get
00:07:55
that chance police and NCIS had done their part and now it was up to the judicial system to
00:08:05
do theirs it was time to get a conviction and hopefully some justice for Aaron lore remembers the grueling
00:08:14
wait for trial to start it took almost 2 and 1/2 years for the trial to happen started October
00:08:23
2016 during that time Chris Lee had been held in a San Bernardino County Jail he
00:08:29
was arraigned and pleaded not guilty to murder before the start of the trial lore headed back to San Bernardino to be
00:08:37
there in person her sister accompanied her Aaron's Father Bill would not attend I don't think I could have contained
00:08:45
myself unable to do that that would have put more stress on my wife she had enough stress with going to the trial
00:08:51
herself but to worry about how I would handle it would not be any better I attended every moment of the trial
00:09:01
the San Bernardino County Superior Court is only 60 miles outside of LA and 90 M
00:09:08
outside of 29 Palms the courthouse itself looks like any major municipal building massive and old with large
00:09:17
imposing pillars at the front the courtroom looks like a church rows of wooden pews facing forward
00:09:25
toward the bench where the judge presides Chris walked in wearing a white button-down shirt a blue tie khakis and
00:09:35
a clean shaven face Chris sat down calmly on the defense side of the courtroom lur thought he looked
00:09:43
different Chris lost a ton of weight lur had met Chris years ago during the investigation so when she first saw
00:09:52
Chris enter the courtroom she was shocked by his appearance I don't know that I would
00:09:57
have recognized him if I was just walking down the street and saw him he almost kind of looked
00:10:04
[Music] scary based on court transcripts there was a long list of witnesses who were
00:10:18
called to testify for the prosecution this included Aaron's mom lore her husband John her hometown best
00:10:26
friend Jesse and the malakis Aon neighbors who live downstairs Laura's family expected her
00:10:34
to report back about the trial daily but some of the information was so dense it
00:10:39
was hard for her to keep all the facts in her head during a break in the proceedings
00:10:45
Laura and her sister looked around the room they noticed a woman sitting behind them just a few feet away riding on a
00:10:52
notepad fervently it was reporter Beth Ford Roth that first day it just poured out of me
00:11:01
Beth published daily updates from the trial on her blog to sit so close to aon's family members she was their
00:11:11
daughter their wife and then also to sit in the same room with the man who ended
00:11:16
her life and it was I was filled with so much emotion I didn't know what else to
00:11:20
do so I wrote it down Beth had initially started as a public radio reporter covering the case but she had become so
00:11:29
attached to Aaron's story she decided to continue reporting on it through a personal blog she created called Justice
00:11:38
for Aaron Corwin Laura's sister approached Beth after court one day and said thank you
00:11:44
because of her blog lur did not have to retell every detail of the trial to the rest of the family instead she could
00:11:52
just send them over to Beth's website when I was attending the trial and writing the blog my older sister was
00:11:59
following it on the blog she hadn't heard the story before and she called me one night after the day of the trial and
00:12:06
she said oh my God Bethy that could have been me and I said I know it could have
00:12:11
been me Beth attended trial every day she said in a strange way the courtroom reminded her of a wedding instead of the
00:12:21
bride's family on one side and the groom's family on the other it's it's laur's family and friends on one side
00:12:27
and on the other side it's the family friends of Christopher Lee the defendant not far from her was the
00:12:37
prosecutor my name is sha dhy I'm a deputy district attorney with sanino County and I was the trial prosecutor on
00:12:43
the case of people versus Christopher Lee sha Doty has been an attorney for over 20 years and has exclusively worked
00:12:51
on homicide cases since 2009 as soon as he heard of Aaron's case it moved him Dory asked to be a signed to the case
00:13:01
the theory of my case is that chrisly was uh about to discharge from the Marines that he had planned and told his
00:13:08
wife that they were going to move their family back to Alaska but there was a hitch as a result of his relationship
00:13:15
outside of his marriage with Aaron Corwin she had become pregnant and she had told him he was the Father which
00:13:21
would interrupt not only his marriage but his plans Chris Lee backed himself into a corner and the only way out was
00:13:29
to to kill Aaron prosecutor dty appeared to have a plethora of evidence at his disposal he started by showing the video
00:13:38
footage from inside the mine where Aaron was found and then it sort of stayed on that
00:13:48
image and it was kind of hard to make out because of the fact that Aaron had been there for 6 weeks in the Heat and
00:13:57
jurors were covering their mouths I I was looking down Erin's mother was looking down even the defense attorney
00:14:06
would look up and then look down but Beth noticed one person who didn't look away Christopher Lee was forward looking
00:14:15
like this the entire time and I was thinking I never met Aaron I can't look at this the jurors never met her they
00:14:22
can't look at this at the very least he had a friendship with her and he was almost like looking at his handy work
00:14:30
with pictures and visuals prosecutor DH was able to ensure that the jury would see the gruesome end Aaron met they
00:14:39
stayed on a photograph of her hand and you could see the nail polish you couldn't really recognize her
00:14:49
but you saw the fingernail polish and all of a sudden it was like oh yeah she's a 19-year-old girl Beth kept an
00:14:55
eye on Chris Lee through it all he just did not show any emotion that someone who was friendly with Aaron let alone
00:15:06
someone who had an intimate relationship with her would have had it I I couldn't
00:15:11
believe it but then a guilty man doesn't know how an innocent man would [Music] act prosecutor DH continued on
00:15:22
establishing Aaron as a sweet young girl who could be easily influenced then went through through
00:15:29
each piece of evidence in great detail the fact that Chris's story changed multiple times during initial
00:15:37
questioning before Chris was even brought to the station he was caught lying to the police when they first
00:15:44
asked him questions outside of his apartment building they inquired about his neighbor Aon Corwin and Chris Le's
00:15:52
initial response was I don't even know her I know who she is but that's about it later that day uh they found out that
00:15:59
there in fact was a relationship and he more than knew her once Chris was brought in for questioning he admitted
00:16:07
to the affair with Aaron in that same interrogation he would get tangled up in another
00:16:14
lie at first Chris stated he did not cross pass with Aaron at all that day she went missing he just happened to be
00:16:22
in the desert doing his own thing but then there were the tire tracks found by her abandoned car
00:16:30
when investigators looked at those they looked visually similar to Chrisley's Jeep they told him that they had that
00:16:35
evidence and asked him if he wanted to change his story Chris changed his story again he at that point said I didn't see
00:16:45
her that day I did see her car in that same interrogation Chris was asked if they would find anything suspicious in
00:16:52
his search history if they checked and chrisly indicated that he had been searching for the best way to get rid of
00:16:58
a dead body during the interrogation Chris claimed that he and some fellow Marines
00:17:04
had a benign conversation about how to dispose of a body Chris said his internet search was out of pure
00:17:13
curiosity Chris started to describe the different tactics he had found online here's a bit of that recording from the
00:17:20
interrogation room oh there results what' you find out um pigs pigs mhm what does it say pigs do thinking are you
00:17:29
serious I've never heard of that Chris said one of the best ways of getting rid of a body was feeding it to pigs Chris
00:17:39
continued on with his findings describing one scenario that was particularly relevant to the trial He
00:17:46
also mentioned burning a body with tires or getting a body extremely hot and then
00:17:51
later in the interview indicated that tires can become extremely hot when they're set on fire and remember tires
00:17:58
were found at in the mine shaft with Aaron's body and a propane tank the same mine Chris had talked about earlier with
00:18:05
friends in town he was excited about having discovered these mines that he felt no one knew anything about but it
00:18:12
wasn't just tires and a propane tank found in the mine authorities also found a soda bottle with DNA
00:18:20
evidence and on the mouth of the Sprite bottle was both Chrisley's DNA and Aaron
00:18:25
Corwin's DNA this matching DNA evidence was especially damning bit by bit all the
00:18:34
evidence was mounting up against Chris for prosecutor D there was no way Chris could explain all this all the
00:18:43
circumstantial evidence uh was somehow explainable it would make him essentially the unluckiest man in the
00:18:50
world from changing his story to the tire tracks that matched his Jeep to the DNA evidence placing him at the scene of
00:18:59
the crime things were not looking good for Chris then the defense decided to do something very unusual put their
00:19:08
defendant Chris Lee on the stand as their one and only witness here's Beth Ford Roth
00:19:16
again when his name was announced there was sort of this electricity in the courtroom
00:19:23
because no one had any idea that he was going to testify with the defense having only one witness
00:19:33
who happened to be the defendant himself it seemed there was hardly a case to be
00:19:38
presented it didn't make any sense to Beth why they'd bring Chris Lee to the stand the evidence against him was so
00:19:46
overwhelming what could he possibly say maybe they're just trying to make him human enough it was shocking to say the
00:19:55
least Beth wasn't wrong the defense tried to humanize Chris in front of the jury Chris seemed ready to take the
00:20:06
stand he was wearing his his crisp white shirt and a blue tie and khaki pants and
00:20:12
his hair was cut short and he was handsome and he had a Charisma about him that wasn't captured in any photograph
00:20:22
I'd seen before the defense started to question Chris Lee asked about his child Hood what his Hobbies were to make him
00:20:31
seem like you know he could be anyone's kid although his Hobbies were things like blowing things up they were trying
00:20:38
to make him seem like a oh gosh golly kind of guy and he loved his wife and he loved his daughter and he loved his
00:20:44
country and that's the only thing that meant anything to him was to be a marine and to protect his country the
00:20:52
questioning went on like this for a while nothing about the actual case nothing about Aaron the defense pushed
00:21:01
for the jury to sympathize with Chris the young patriotic Marine I I had a good feeling in this case just based on
00:21:09
how the evidence played out that he was going to have to testify and he was going to have to either explain away all
00:21:14
the circumstantial evidence against him or admit that he did it but come up with
00:21:18
some reason for why he did it and that's exactly what happened the defense attorney asked
00:21:27
Christopher Brandon did you kill Aaron Corwin and Chris said yes I did that was the first time that he
00:21:40
admitted he had done it the courtroom was still reeling from Chris admitting that he killed Aaron it
00:21:55
was at this stage of the trial when everything came out in the open it was like slow
00:22:01
motion to admit to the crime within a half hour of taking the stand after lying about it for years
00:22:12
was just I I mean my hand was shaking trying to take notes and trying to stay in the moment and realize this was
00:22:20
actually really happening he was confessing there was the truth according to Chris Lee and then there was what
00:22:28
really happened Christopher Brandon Lee made sure to match his story with the evidence that was
00:22:37
found according to Chris Lee on Saturday June 28th Aaron met Chris by the Marine
00:22:43
base she climbed into Chris's passenger seat there was a particular place Chris wanted to take Aaron he had scouted the
00:22:52
spot less than a week earlier but it was a long drive and he wanted to be sure he
00:22:57
had the route down because they weren't heading to an official trail head they were on their way to a remote abandoned
00:23:05
mine Aaron had told her friend Jesse over text she was excited this all seemed very romantic to her he was
00:23:14
planning a trip with Aaron maybe he told her it was a big surprise but he actually was going to tell her that they
00:23:22
shouldn't be together anymore and he was moving back to Alaska and he was going to stay with his wife
00:23:29
Chris says he got the breakup over with in the car basically he claimed that he told Aaron
00:23:37
when I moved to Alaska it's over between us and that they listen to music for 2 and 1 half hours until they reached the
00:23:45
point where the mine was despite breaking up with Aaron they continued on with the trip Chris Lee told the jury
00:23:54
that he took Aaron out to this area because he wanted to blow up a mine shaft which was sort of curious because
00:24:04
why would Aaron be excited about accompany him to blow up a m shaft it's not every girl's dream to watch this you
00:24:12
know hunk a man shoot a propane tank and watch it blow up Chris said Aaron was not phased by the breakup she just
00:24:22
wanted to spend time with a person she was in love with it was going to be a chance just for the two of them to spend
00:24:29
the day together alone Aaron didn't get a chance to get out often to use the car
00:24:34
and and this was a chance for her to spend time with him and to be together Chris drove to a mine in the desert he
00:24:42
unloaded the car a propane tank lighter fluid a torch when they reached that area Chris
00:24:51
tried to blow up a propane tank this is his way of explaining why there was a propane tank down in the mine
00:24:59
shaft according to Chris he threw the propane tank down the mine and a lit torch so that it would blow up but it
00:25:08
didn't blow he had forgotten to put the lighter fluid on the torch so it didn't burn hot
00:25:14
enough and that was just one more sign for him that his life was not going the way he wanted it to and he felt
00:25:22
desperate and so he decided to play Russian Roulette remember Chris was supposedly
00:25:29
still very depressed it wasn't abnormal for him to drive around with a gun in the back seat as he liked to hunt and
00:25:36
shoot at rattlesnakes and coyotes in the desert after ending his relationship with Aaron and having failed to
00:25:44
successfully blow up the propane tank allegedly this was the last straw now when he first explained all of
00:25:52
this he said he only brought this 22 rifle well there were enough gun experts out there to say you can't play Russian
00:26:00
roulette with a rifle it has to be a revolver so suddenly there was a revolver there so he took the revolver
00:26:06
and he he told Aaron I'm going to play Russian Roulette and Aaron said well I I can't watch this and so she in 110
00:26:14
degree weather with sandals on walked into the mine shaft there were actually two mines in
00:26:23
the area near Chris and Aaron there was one that was a horizontal mine shaft that was more like a cave but then there
00:26:29
was another mine that was like a deep Rabbit Hole Chris said the horizontal mine shaft is the one Aaron walked
00:26:36
into and that she just waited in there and then came back out when he was unsuccessful with ending his life
00:26:45
playing Russian roulette after hearing The Gunshot that's when Aaron walked out into the sun Aaron came over to
00:26:54
Chris and wanted to go home home during Chris's testimony Beth was sitting behind lore in the
00:27:05
courtroom I watched sort of the back of her head just trying to imagine what is going through her mind Laura's eyes were
00:27:14
fixed on Chris as he spoke over the course of the trial prosecutor Shawn Doty had a feeling that the defense
00:27:21
would call into question aon's character tried to dehumanize her as they had humanized
00:27:28
Chris DH made sure to prepare lore for something like this Sean had prepared me he said that
00:27:37
he you know may put some allegations against Aaron and I had said from the very beginning that if they're
00:27:47
going to try to dig up dirt on Aaron they're going to have to make something up but I never dreamt they would make up
00:27:54
what they made up in Chris's testimony Aaron became so upset from watching him play Russian
00:28:03
Roulette that she broke down he said she told him that she wanted a life with him
00:28:08
and his daughter that the three of them could run away together Chris talks about how he and Aaron went on this ride
00:28:16
and everything and um how Aaron was talking about them getting together as a family and he says
00:28:26
well I'm not going to do that to my daughter aon's like well but I I love her and he
00:28:32
actually said he was jealous of the relationship that Aaron had with his daughter and it was at this point in
00:28:42
Chris's jealousy that he allegedly pieced together the story he found out something terrible something that would
00:28:49
throw him into a fit of rage something that had warranted murder Chris asks Aaron or he says he
00:29:00
asked her whether or not she had been molesting his daughter and Aaron I guess according to his
00:29:11
version kind of stammered a little bit and then he got louder and asked her again and she supposedly said
00:29:20
yes the courtroom was shocked silent Beth sitting in one of the front rows shook her head and disbelief Chris
00:29:29
testified that at that point 2 hours from you know the nearest phone no cell reception 110 degree
00:29:38
weather that pregnant Aaron Corwin 19 decided to confess that she had molested his
00:29:47
daughter with no way of of rescue or no way of responding if he was going to act
00:29:54
negatively that she blurted out this is what I did the jury now fac their decision with
00:30:04
new damning information did Aaron abuse Chris Le's daughter and anybody that knows Aaron
00:30:12
knows that there is no way there's just no way absolutely no way Aaron would do anything like
00:30:21
that next time on the final episode of 48 Hours NCIS is there any truth to Chris's
00:30:36
story from CBS News and CBS Studios this is 48 Hours NCIS original reporting by 48 Hours
00:30:45
producer Paul Arosa Anthony Batson is the senior producer for 48 hours Jamie Benson is the senior producer for
00:30:53
Paramount audio special thanks to 48 Hours executive producer Ard CBS studi senior vice president Rob luchow and
00:31:02
Paramount audio vice president Megan Marcus our podcast was written and produced by Jay venables Isabelle Kirby
00:31:10
mcgaan Cara shillan Max Johnston Megan adoli and Ian Enright additional reporting and recording by Isabelle
00:31:19
Kirby McGowan Jay venables and Megan adoli our executive producers are Megan adoli and Ian Enright theme and music by
00:31:29
epidemic sound original music from goat rodeo with additional music from Paramount Final Mix by Rebecca Sidell
00:31:38
Ian Enright is our fact Checker our production manager is Megan adoli I'm Natalie Morales if you're
00:31:46
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