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At first glance, when you come to this area in Oklahoma, it is very beautiful. It's serene, but we have missing people
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that are never found. There are homicides that are never solved. There's lots of dark secrets that live here.
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My name is Dakota Black. I'm a tracker and detective with the Pawatami County Sheriff's Office
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and I was brought into the missing person's case for Michaela Mi and as soon as we arrived on scene we
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started tracking the area and trying to locate her. We had multiple deputies and detectives
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in the woods looking for her. We were searching every place that we could potentially think of to try to
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locate Michaela. >> There's something strange. >> She might be in there. She might be. She
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may not be alive. >> I was not looking for an individual that was breathing. I was looking for my
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daughter's body. And I don't know why. >> Sometimes it's hard to not take cases personal. They tug at your heartstrings.
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And this one was one of those. What was it about this woman that fueled you this way?
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>> Just who she was? >> My sister Michaela is the strongest person I know. Has the biggest heart. Is
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the most caring. Wants to take care of everyone and put everyone before herself.
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>> I love you. >> I love you most. >> I love you more. >> Her main goal in life was to be around
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children, to help children, especially ones in need. Everybody that knew Michaela had nothing but love for her.
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We had a huge response from our community. Everybody really wanted her family. >> We just went out there looking for her.
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Didn't sleep for days. Didn't eat for days. It was raining, cold. We were just out there for days.
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>> Was there a part of you that say, you know, there's a chance we may not find her?
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>> Yes. It seemed day after day the chances were getting more slim of finding her alive.
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>> I just knew that she was gone. >> I can't imagine how scared she was. It's just sad.
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Sad that it ended the way it did. It didn't have to end this way. I was driven and I was not going to go home. I
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was not going to stop until this case was solved. The guys at the sheriff's office call
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her a cool dude with long hair because they say she's meaner than any of them in the gun range and in the field.
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>> That fence that's hanging, I had to go underneath that into the water. >> Her name is Lieutenant Dakota Black.
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She's a trained tracker and detective with the Padawatami County Sheriff's Office in Shaunie, Oklahoma. I go out to
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scenes when there's manhunts or trying to locate individuals. >> Her specialty is finding the missing,
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whether alive or dead. I have found them underneath piles of leaves and trees and
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abandoned homes, sheds. I've found them pretty much in any area you can think of. Often by her side, her partner,
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Deputy Haven, a trained therapy dog for kids and other family members caught in the crossfire of tragedy. Haven provides
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comfort and consolation, a consoling presence she herself would rely on in the coming months as she embarked on one
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of the most heart-wrenching cases of her career. >> This case will stay with me forever and
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it will be one that I always remember through my whole life because of how cruel it was.
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The last thing we said to each other was, "I love you." >> Friday, September 15th, 2023 began like
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most days for Andrea Mayavi, with a 7 a.m. phone call from her best friend and younger sister, Michaela.
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>> I wish I would have known. I would have said so much more. I'm grateful for that. At least I said I
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love you. >> The next morning, Saturday the 16th, the phone rang as usual around 7 a.m. Only
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this time, it wasn't Michaela. It was Michaela's husband, Frank Buyers. >> He's hysterical, crying, screaming, can
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barely understand what he's saying. And he says Michaela didn't come home last night.
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He ended up telling me that Michaela went on a date the Friday night before with a bald man in a white truck.
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They left and she never came home last night. At the time, Michaela and Frank were
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headed for divorce, says Andrea. They were still living on the same 10acre property in Mcome, Oklahoma, but in
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separate homes. So, at first, Andrea wasn't worried. >> My first thought is she's single. I hope
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she had fun. >> But Andrea's mood began to shift when her many calls to Michaela went to
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voicemail. >> By noon, I was worried. 1:00, I was really worried. >> Their mother, Barbara Harper, was also
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anxious. Michaela was supposed to help out at the family restaurant that afternoon, but she didn't show and
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hadn't called. Unheard of for Michaela. And the more I prayed about it, the more
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I realized that something serious had happened. >> Frank also reported Michaela missing to
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the Pawatami County Sheriff's Office that afternoon. >> My wife's been missing since late last
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night. She left at 5:30 and last time that anyone has heard from her has been at 8:00 p.m.
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>> And your name? My name is Frank Buyers. B Y R S. >> What's her name? >> Her name is Michaela Buyers.
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>> The deputy on duty, Dustin Richardson, felt he needed to put eyes on the ground. He got to Mcome around 400 p.m.
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His body cam rolling. >> He'd given me the information over the phone, but I just wanted to see where
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she was coming from and and see more of the details. Frank made a point of showing the deputy
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the last Facebook message he said Michaela sent him after she left assuring him she was quote fine and to
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back off. >> Did you see the guy at all? >> Then he told him the story about Michaela driving off with a bald man in
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a white truck. >> I was a six and 61. >> Okay. He was completely bald and he had
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a beard. If I if I had a guess of weight, I don't know, maybe 200. >> Deputy Richardson then asked if he could
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see the house where Michaela was temporarily living. >> Can I go take a look around?
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>> So, she's been staying in this little thing. >> Yeah. >> All locked up. >> But the shedlike home was locked. And
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Frank said he didn't have a key, but he did have something to say about their relationship.
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>> We have an open marriage where Oh, that's that's a brand new thing. I don't like it, but um I agreed upon it
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because I'm trying to fix our marriage. >> At that point, the deputy decided to take a quick drive to the school where
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Michaela worked as a teacher's aid. Maybe she had gone there. What's up, >> man? This uh Frank Buyers called in
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saying his uh wife was missing. >> He called his son, also a deputy, from the car.
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>> This guy is squirly, man. This Frank guy is squirly. >> The sensation was that there is nothing
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about this story that is really true. While the deputy was at the school, friends and family started
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showing up at the property, including Michaela's mom, Barbara. >> When I first got there, I didn't even
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speak to anyone. I was on my hands and knees crawling through brush out in the pasture.
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We've got to find where she's at. >> How are you? This is Deputy Richardson with his body camera rolling as he
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returned to the property late that afternoon. Frank had smashed open the lock to
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Michaela's place with a hammer. >> I looked and I I immediately saw empty shell casings from what appeared to be
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22 caliber. He told me that she sits in there and shoots out at animals, the coyotes and stuff.
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>> There's a few times I've heard her shoot. By then, more deputies had arrived.
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>> I had asked him where she kept that gun and he said it was in his house. >> Is it in there? Now,
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>> I had him walk me to his house >> and he walked inside and he pointed at it. I had pulled it from where it wasn't
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there. >> Like always >> and put it in my vehicle. >> The gun, according to the deputy,
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appeared to have been recently fired. >> That's pretty recent. I uh made phone calls to u get our
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criminal investigation team out there because I just it was off. There was something that needed to be looked into
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more. Hey, I'm on that I'm on that missing person thing still. It's suspicious as
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>> investigators ushered family and friends off the property and blocked the driveway. I remember walking back to my
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car and just screaming at God, asking him, "Why? Why did you do this? Let this happen.
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Just take me. Take me and let us find her and just take me." >> The missing person's investigation was
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now a possible criminal investigation. And that's when the call went out to lead detective, Lieutenant Dakota Black.
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>> We definitely needed to figure out what was going on. As soon as Lieutenant Dakota Black got
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the call that Michaela Mayavi was missing, she jumped in her vehicle and sped to Mcome.
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>> What was your immediate mission? >> To locate Michaela. We We needed to locate her. We didn't know where she
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was. >> It was 1366. Detective Black and her partner on the case, Detective Marcus
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May, now the under sheriff, put out a bolo alert. Be on the lookout. >> It was be on the lookout for a white
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male with a beard, bald head, driving a white truck. We wanted all of the local law enforcement and surrounding agencies
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aware that that we do have a situation developing over here. The tips from this rural area where everyone seems to know
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everybody came pouring in. >> Every white pickup truck with tanned windows was getting called into the
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sheriff's office. >> None of the sightings panned out, but the search took on a life of its own.
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>> Flyers were posted everywhere. Social media ads were everywhere. >> Michaela Miyave was beloved by
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everybody. They were demanding every resource possible to go find Michaela. >> And Dakota, this was a a woman with
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enormous heart. Right. >> Absolutely. She loved her family. She loved her friends. She loved children.
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>> Michaela fell in love with children when she herself was still a child. Her mom,
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Barbara, ran a daycare. >> We weren't just a daycare. We were the family. and she loved those kids,
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especially the babies. >> Sadly, Michaela was unable to have children of her own. But that didn't
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stop her. In her 20s, Michaela fostered and would eventually adopt these two kids, a brother and sister.
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>> She dropped what she was doing, went to and took classes, got certified to make sure that she could give those
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kids a home. She did. Around that time, an old high school classmate named Frank
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Buyers contacted her out of the blue through Facebook. Frank, who was divorced, had primary custody of four
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young daughters. >> Frank was telling her a story that the current girlfriend he was living with
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was abusing his four daughters. So, my sister took him and all four girls in and just started basically taking care
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of them. She felt like the kids needed her and she sure needed them. Probably the happiest I'd seen her in a
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long time with those girls. >> Frank and Michaela got married in 2022. They built their lives together in
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Mcome. Population 24. >> It's just country. It's 100% country. The kids are 100% country.
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Michaela was going to college to get her teaching degree while working at the local elementary school.
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>> When she would stand up for the kids and and if she saw a child that was dirty or
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wasn't taken care of, she would take it to the principal and you know bring awareness to it.
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>> I think that was her biggest thing in life was to help little innocent kids that needed adults help. She always felt
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responsible to do that. Countywide, dozens of people turned out in the cold and pouring rain to slug through mud and
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tickinfested woods in search of their beloved teacher. But one person at the heart of this
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mystery conspicuously appeared not to search. Michaela's husband, Frank Buyers. >> He never participated in a single
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search. He never volunteered to go out with any of the search parties to go out and try to find Michaela.
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>> It wasn't like, "Oh my god, my wife is missing." >> He never seemed like concerned about
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that. He seemed more concerned about himself. >> What were you noticing about Frank
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Buyers? >> The the lack of any human emotion. I mean, he he did not seem scared. He just
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wanted to know what we knew. He just it didn't seem human at all. Investigators were already zeroing in on Frank.
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>> We strongly suspected Frank. >> Three days after Michaela was reported missing, Frank Buyers agreed to be
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questioned by Detective Black at the sheriff's office. The interview was audio only.
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>> At this time, I just want her found. >> The detective tried to win his trust by
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playing the good cop. >> Again, I couldn't imagine. I mean, it's hard not knowing, you know, and when
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everybody's pointing a finger at you, I'm sure it doesn't make it any better. >> Yeah. I feel like I got to defend myself
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and tell everyone that, "No, this is what happened. This is the truth." >> She pressed him, but not enough to make
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him stop talking. >> Did you ask her about the date before she left? >> I did, and uh she told me it was none of
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my business. Same thing as if I went on a date, it's none of her business. Okay.
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So, she never said a name or anything. How she met him, how she knew him? >> No.
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>> After answering questions for two and a half hours, Detective Black let him go
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home. The search for Michaela continued. Barbara remembers crawling through brush
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wearing snake protectors when she says she had a premonition. >> I heard Michaela tell me, "Mama, I'm in
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a tin horn." And I said, "Oh my god, she just told me she's in a tin horn." >> Barbara frantically started looking for
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tin horns, pipes or culverts used to divert water under roads. But there was no sign of Michaela.
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Then came the call to 911 on day five that would prove her mother's intuition was right.
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>> Ma'am, I don't know exactly where I'm at, but I'm on Hamilton Road. I was searching with my friend for my cousin.
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that's missing Michaela Mi >> and I think that we just found her The chatter of locust permeated the air,
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an eerie sense of foroding. Michaela Mayavi had been missing for 5 days. >> I got a phone call from my friend and
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she said, "I need you to sit down." And she said, "They found someone and it's a
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female." And I'm like, is she dead or alive? >> Earlier that day, a cousin and her
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friend had been out searching about half a mile from Michaela's house when they were stopped in their tracks by a
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strong, sickening odor. The friend followed the intense smell down a ditch to a tin horn. He saw something sticking
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out. It was a hand. I was searching with my friend for my cousin that's missing, Michaela Mi.
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>> And I think that we just found her. >> It was the call Detective Dakota Black
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had been dreading. >> It was devastating to everybody. I mean, it was absolutely terrible.
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>> Just as Barbara had imagined, Michaela was in a large drainage pipe beneath the
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road. She had been drugged into the middle area and she was wrapped in the carpet.
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Uh she had one sock on her foot that had teddy bears on it and her shirt was actually pulled up over her face to
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cover it. I mean, it was hard. It was really hard. So dark in there. >> Detective Black wouldn't leave
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Michaela's side. The two women had been born one day apart in the same year, but
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that wasn't their only bond. >> I did feel a connection with Michaela. I have a history also. I've been in bad
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relationships. It could have been me on more than one occasion. I just got lucky.
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>> While the detectives were working the scene, Michaela's family gathered just up the road.
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>> You could hear hear them crying up there and they were trying to come down here
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where she was. >> But the crime scene was blocked off. I can't tell. >> We can't let you central.
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>> I can verify. >> Please. >> I never once doubted that it was her. >> If anyone goes to the tape without
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permission, they immediately go to jail. I don't know what to say. I'm sorry. >> Can you tell them we're here?
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>> Of course. Of course. Okay. I felt like I needed to see her because she had been out there for five
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days without me and I just needed to be with her and they wouldn't let me. She needed me.
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But it wasn't there. >> Michaela's remains were placed in the coroner's van for the journey to the
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medical examiner's office. My mom and I both realized that it was probably her in there
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and that we would never be able to hold her and hug her again. My mom started to chase the van.
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I just followed it down the road just as fast as I could and somebody hollered at
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me and asked me what I was doing and I said, "My my baby's in that van." Detective Black was so angry she had to
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hold herself back. >> I wanted to leave that night and go and arrest Frank, but I knew um it's better
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to move thoroughly than to act quick. >> The two investigators had already begun
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building a strong circumstantial case against Frank Buyers, the bullet casings in her home.
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His unlikely story that Michaela agreed to an open marriage. She wanted to start
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dating other people >> and left with a bald man in a white truck. >> She embraced the guy in a hug and then
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they got in the truck and left. And >> when you asked Michaela's family about this open relationship, what' they say?
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>> Absolutely not. They said there was absolutely no possible way that Michaela would have ever done that.
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Investigators learned from interviews and from Frank's own social media accounts that he was the one who was
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cheating. Frank Buyers is the biggest cheater. He was cheating on her as soon as he moved in. Every time he would go
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out of town, he was creating dating profiles. >> Frank worked for an environmental
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cleanup company cleaning up hazardous materials. He spent a lot of time on the road. He would meet women at gas
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stations. He would meet up with them at hotel rooms. He would text them while he was home
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with Michaela and hide it from her. >> He was communicating with females the day Michaela was murdered. And
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immediately afterwards, >> he was sending pictures to women the day of her funeral, asking, "How do I look
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in my tux?" Frank's cheating got so bad Michaela moved out about 3 months before her
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murder. >> She packed bag and she came and stayed with me for a week. I held her where she
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cried every night. She felt like a failure. >> But I avoided too. >> But Michaela's love for the little girls
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kept drawing her back. Says Andrea. >> I love you. >> I love you most. >> I love you more.
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>> I love you most. Michaela went back to the 10acre property, but not to Frank. She
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temporarily moved into that little structure behind his to stay close to the girls. Frank tried to win her back,
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promising to change, but the cheating continued. Detective Dakota Black would later discover this conversation in
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which Michaela told Frank she was done. >> I've never once been dead set for divorce until today. Michaela recorded
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it 2 days before her murder. >> I'm just saying you have officially lost me. >> Detective Black believes she recorded it
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to expose Frank's infidelity. >> I'm stating to you right now that you have officially
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broke the last string that was holding me to you. >> Okay? >> And you have nobody to blame but
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yourself for doing it. That Friday, September 15th, Michaela returned from work to pick up her things and leave for
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good. But Frank, it seemed, had other plans. Detectives would later recover these images captured on a home security
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camera on his phone. Detective Black believes he thought he had deleted them. >> Where is Michaela in this picture?
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>> This is Frank's home and she's coming through the front door. Michaela stayed
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for 14 minutes. The detective believes they were arguing. >> Here's Michaela again.
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She's leaving. >> This is the last picture of the series. Frank standing at the door of his home.
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>> And what do you believe happened after this last photograph was taken? >> I think this is when he exited his home
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and went to her home and killed her. I think this is when he killed Michaela. Within minutes,
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>> Michaela was shot in the head. >> Michaela had a gunshot wound right here in the front. She had one on the left
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side and then she had a graze wound on the same side. >> The last image she may have seen on this
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earth was her own husband holding a rifle and then the shot fired. >> Yes. It started as a simmering anger.
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>> And I just got to say this because I'm pretty angry. >> And grew into a raging fury. People
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wanted to know why Frank was still walking free. >> I'm sorry. The most difficult part was knowing that
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we were accumulating evidence to Frank's guilt in Michaela's murder, but we were
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unable to release that or share that with the public. >> We knew Frank was guilty. We knew Frank
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was not a good husband. We knew Frank was lying. We knew lots of things, but we couldn't prove everything. And I
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wanted to prove everything to make sure he stayed in jail. Detective Black spent 18-hour days at
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the office with her sidekick, Haven. >> Here, >> the therapy dog now there for her.
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Give me a sense emotionally how tough this was for you. >> It was tough mentally. I was drained. I
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was mentally exhausted. I had lost weight. I was tired. But I was not going to go home until this case was solved.
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>> Frank used the time to defend himself on social media. I am innocent and everything will come out.
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He also appeared on local news. >> Even today I called her. I mean, I know she's not here, but
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it's just a fact that I have her number still and her phone still on somewhere and uh it just it would have been nice
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just to hear her voice. Many in the community tuned in to watch Frank Byer's interview, including
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Lieutenant Dakota Black. >> Did it make you angry? >> It did make me angry. It was sickening
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to see that a beautiful woman was gone from the world and that while he's on TV professing his innocence, he's still in
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communication with other women, trying to have intimate relationships with them.
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>> Detective Black tracked down scores of these women. Crystal Cantrell was Frank's girlfriend before he met
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Michaela. >> He's very good at making you believe him. And then he's kind of like a snake.
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Once he gets you in there, he bites you. >> Detective Black learned Frank wooed Crystal the same way he wooed Michaela
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with a false story that his daughters were being mistreated by his current girlfriend. And like Michaela, Crystal
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had a soft heart. I love kids, you know. I have kids of my own. So, I just felt really bad for them.
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>> Shortly after they moved in together, Crystal says Frank started to show his true colors. He isolated her from
00:29:31
friends and family and controlled her every move. They fought. One night, she woke up to see him looming over her,
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clutching a pair of handcuffs. >> I closed them so he couldn't use them on me. And then after that, he just got on
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my back and was choking me. He had wrapped his arms around me and had his hand on my throat and he just didn't let
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go. Crystal was able to get away, but was too afraid to report the incident to the police. She left Frank for good, but
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says it could have been her in that ditch. >> He would have killed me. If Frank ever harmed Michaela, she never
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told her mom and sister. Sometimes they saw bruises, but Michaela always said they were just from roughousing with the
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kids. I think if I think about it too much is where I will go down a dark hole and
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not come out because I did see the bruises and I just chose to believe and not question
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and maybe if I would have questioned it would come out differently. Bit by bit, Detective Black and her team
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built a profile of a murderer. >> So, this photo was taken at Walmart. >> Using the date on a Walmart receipt
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found on Frank's property, the detective was able to track down this security camera photo.
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What's in the cart? >> There is bleach, ammonia, and a mop. >> And mop, ammonia, and bleach equals
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what? in your mind as an investigator. >> Crime scene cleanup. >> They were also able to match the carpet
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in the ditch. >> I I'll help you. >> Oh, I got it. >> To one a neighbor had given Frank and
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Michaela for their dogs. >> You You gave him that carpet about eight or nine months ago.
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>> Frank took the carpet that was given to him by the neighbor and used that to roll Michaela's body in.
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They believe Frank killed Michaela around 400 p.m. and left her body in her home. He then picked up his girls after
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school and drove them around. Returning home about 8:00 p.m. That's when the detectives believe he started
00:32:06
to move her body. The kids reported in interviews once they returned home that Frank was
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outside most of the night. He he wasn't in his bed. >> Detective Black says there were fresh
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tire tracks leading to Michaela's little house. >> We believe that the tire tracks actually
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came from a vehicle backing up to load her body to take it to where she was located.
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>> The detectives believe Frank drove Michaela's body to the edge of the ditch. pulled her out and then let her
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body topple the 12 to 15 ft to the creek bed. They believe Frank then climbed down and dragged her into that pipe
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underneath the roadway. Once Frank got rid of the body, he concocted a plan to cover up his crime.
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>> So, she took her phone with her? >> Yeah, as far as I know, she took her phone with her. Remember, he told the
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deputy that Michaela had messaged him from her phone that evening telling him back off,
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but investigators would later find Michaela's phone in Frank's bedroom. >> Detective May confronted Frank in a
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second interview. So, I'm just trying to understand how if she left with her phone and was communicating with you
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through her phone on Facebook, how that phone was in your bedroom. >> I understand.
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>> Okay. I mean, I I don't I mean I I don't have an explanation, honestly. >> But investigators did have an
00:33:45
explanation. Michaela had two phones, an iPhone and a Moto G. Frank had both of them.
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>> The Moto Gone was an old phone of Michaela's that she hadn't been using for quite some time.
00:33:59
>> She just pushed in that hole, it pops the tray out. >> Frank knew how to get into that old
00:34:03
phone. >> So, there's a SIM card for those who don't know. That's what it looks like.
00:34:08
>> So, he switched the SIM card from her iPhone. >> Why does he do that? >> To gain full access to all of her
00:34:15
accounts. That's how he was texting himself, pretending to be Michaela. And in fact, it was him the entire time.
00:34:24
>> The evidence was mounting, but they were still waiting on two key pieces of evidence they had sent to the forensic
00:34:31
lab for testing. >> I needed a smoking gun that I knew was not going to let him out. I knew it was
00:34:37
going to keep him there. >> What have you just unwrapped here? >> This uh what do we have here? Is the
00:34:43
projectile recovered from the 2x4 inside Mava's bedroom. In addition to the shell
00:34:48
casings found on the floor in Michaela's home, they later found this bullet wrapped in what they believed was
00:34:56
Michaela's hair embedded in the wall. They hoped it would test positive for Michaela's DNA.
00:35:04
And then there were these boots. >> So these are Frank's work boots. They were recovered on the night of the
00:35:10
missing person's report uh from his bedroom. And what did you spot on these boots that was of interest?
00:35:17
>> So, we had found a substance that we believed could be blood, but he also works with lots of chemicals, so we were
00:35:24
unsure if that would be something that got on there while he was at work. >> 38 days after Michaela went missing,
00:35:31
they finally got the results. They weren't able to get a genetic confirmation on the hair, but the boots
00:35:38
were a different story. The substance on Frank's boots was blood. Michaela's blood.
00:35:46
>> As soon as we got that, we were like, "We're going right now." >> You had your man.
00:35:51
>> We had our guy. >> Yes. We were waiting for that arrest. >> So, it moved fast after that.
00:36:16
>> It was close to midnight. Flashing police lights lit up the darkness. 38 days after Michaela was reported
00:36:23
missing. Detective Black, Deputy Richardson, and a special ops team moved in to arrest Frank Buyers. I got with
00:36:33
the SWAT team, organized the take down, and went in and got him. You are under arrest.
00:36:45
>> He thought he was smarter than everyone, but he was outsmarted, right? >> Yes. I think he was surprised.
00:36:53
I swear I didn't do >> Lieutenant Black finally had Frank in her grasp and right where she wanted him
00:37:02
in handcuffs headed to jail. Detective May called Michaela's family with the news.
00:37:08
>> That was a hallelujah moment. That was about time moment. We couldn't get her back, but we knew he wasn't
00:37:16
walking free anymore. >> Detective May says they were done with Frank's lies. How you doing, Frank?
00:37:24
>> And they confronted him with the hard evidence they'd taken weeks to gather. >> Now's the opportunity
00:37:32
to let us know what happened. I I didn't do I mean, >> why was there blood on your boots?
00:37:40
>> I mean, I can't answer. I mean, I I I don't I don't know. I mean, honestly, >> Frank Buyers was charged with
00:37:50
firstdegree murder. The DA was seeking the death penalty, but the defense requested a deal to save
00:37:58
his life. 15 months after buyer's arrest, he agreed to plead guilty and serve life without parole.
00:38:11
>> Michaela's mom was bitterly disappointed. >> I feel that the plea deal was a copout.
00:38:19
The moment The second that she took her last breath, he chose that. And he got to choose what he got for
00:38:30
punishment, too. And that's not okay. It's not okay. >> The plea deal isn't the only thing
00:38:40
upsetting Barbara. She doesn't think Frank acted alone. >> You're absolutely convinced that Frank
00:38:47
had somebody help him. >> I'll go to my grave. been there. >> I think he had to have had an
00:38:54
accomplice. I don't think that he could have moved her body on his own at all. >> Physically, he could not have done it.
00:39:02
>> No, I don't believe so. I think we all agree that it would absolutely be difficult to move her, but people are
00:39:11
scared. They can do amazing things. >> What they're saying is not unreasonable. If the evidence is presented to us one
00:39:18
day that that uh that suggests that we will take it and we'll run with it to its fullest extent.
00:39:28
I come and I sit and I look at that place down there. I went down and hung all kinds of crosses and different
00:39:36
things. He didn't just take from us. He took from his own children. someone that
00:39:46
loved them, that put them first. >> It didn't have to end this way. He could have let her leave,
00:39:54
but he didn't. >> There's cold justice for Michaela. For detective Dakota Black Tracker, her
00:40:04
painful work continues. >> Michaela would want her life to mean something. Barbara is starting Michaela's Purple
00:40:16
Butterfly Foundation to fight against domestic violence. >> That was her goal, her mission in life
00:40:23
was when you see someone in need, help them. When I think of Michaela, I think of
00:40:30
sunflowers. I think of joy. She would love that though, you know. She would with all those sunflowers.
00:40:43
I sure miss her smile, her laugh. Oh, that laugh was something else. She was my best friend. I strived for
00:40:53
her to be proud of me because I looked up to her even though she was the little sister. I still lay in bed and talk to
00:41:01
her like she's still right there. Like she's watching over us every day. Welcome to Postmortem. I'm your host,
00:42:00
Ann Marie Green, and today we're discussing Michaela Mayavi, who was first reported missing by her husband,
00:42:07
Frank Buyers, in 2023. Now, he told police that his wife had gone out on a date with another man, saying that they
00:42:15
had an open marriage, but then she never returned from that date. An extensive search was launched and Lieutenant
00:42:23
Dakota Black, a tracker and detective with the Podawani County Sheriff's Office, was brought in on this case. So,
00:42:30
joining me now is 48 hours correspondent Peter Vans, who reported on this episode. Peter, it's always great to see
00:42:36
you. >> Hi, Anie. Great to be with you again. And of course, we want to remind uh the
00:42:40
viewers and listeners, if you haven't listened to uh this episode of 48 Hours, you can find it in your podcast feed,
00:42:47
the full audio version of it. So, go take a listen, then come on back for this conversation cuz we got questions.
00:42:55
Um and Peter has the answers. So, Peter, Michaela, and Frank Buyers, they're living in a small rural town of Mcome,
00:43:04
Oklahoma. Uh, Lieutenant Dakota Black described the area as beautiful and serene, and it certainly looks that way,
00:43:11
but also said there are a lot of dark secrets that live there, too. What did she mean by that?
00:43:17
>> Well, it's hard to believe, but Oklahoma has the highest rate of domestic violence of any state in the country.
00:43:24
And Dakota Black told us she in her own life has experienced violence in a relationship. And while Mcome only has a
00:43:32
population of less than 30 and keep in mind Michaela Frank and the girls they make up 20% of the population of Mcome
00:43:39
uh it's near an intersection of multiple interstate highways and Dakota Black said criminals moving through the area
00:43:47
are known to dump victims bodies there and there are people living in Pawatami County in poverty there some are off the
00:43:56
grid with no electricity or or running water toilets or even a roof over their head. There are some drug problems and
00:44:04
uh it's an open carry state. A lot of people have firearms and Lieutenant Black said they have missing people that
00:44:11
are never found, homicides that are never solved. And I do want to say that while the sheriff's office there is
00:44:18
small, they serve this large rural county with distinction and professionalism, and they were
00:44:25
outstanding in their efforts to find Michaela. That's the impression that I got just from watching the hour. Like
00:44:30
they just seem so on point and so um unbiased and completely focused on like where the evidence is driving them.
00:44:39
>> That's right. >> So let's talk a little bit about Michaela and Frank's relationship. Um
00:44:44
they were old high school classmates. They did not date in high school, but then many years later out of the blue,
00:44:52
Frank contacts her on Facebook and they start a relationship. Um they are married in 2022 and it's a large blended
00:45:00
family because Michaela, she already has two kids. Frank has four of his own daughters. But was Michaela's family
00:45:09
worried about the relationship that she had with Frank because there must have been red flags.
00:45:16
>> Yeah. Her sister Andrea said that at the beginning of this relationship, Frank
00:45:20
was a romantic person. One time he left rose petals in the bathtub, but that didn't last long. According to the
00:45:27
family, Michaela couldn't have kids of her own, but she had such a maternal gene and her family believes that these
00:45:33
four kids that Frank had were a really draw for her more than Frank himself. Um, detectives believe that Frank used
00:45:41
those young girls, his four daughters, to lure Michaela in. He told her that they had been abused by his then
00:45:48
girlfriend. And investigators would later determine that that was all a lie and a tactic he used to convince other
00:45:55
women to be with him as well. You might say it was Frank's business model and it
00:46:00
worked. >> What a way to describe it. >> And um her mother Barbara and her sister
00:46:06
Andrea say that they saw bruises on Michaela, but Michaela said they were just from roughousing with the kids and
00:46:13
the family believed her at the time. And looking back now, the family wish they had questioned her more about those
00:46:19
bruises. According to Barbara and Andrea, he was also a compulsive liar. And Frank had this pattern of cheating,
00:46:28
lying, and Michaela had left at least once. Let him know that's it. I'm not going to deal with this anymore. But she
00:46:35
came back. She always felt because of this devotion she had to those four children that she couldn't leave them
00:46:42
just in Frank's hands. Michaela's sister, Andrea, said that they were headed for divorce and Michaela had
00:46:49
temporarily moved to another structure on the property. But then on September 15th, 2023, Michaela returns home from
00:46:56
work intending to pick her things up and leave for good, but she was never seen alive again. Frank then reports Michaela
00:47:07
missing in the afternoon of September 16th and the responding officer, Deputy Dustin Richardson, went to the buyer's
00:47:14
property to check it out. Typically, police will wait longer than just a few hours for a missing person's report.
00:47:23
But why did Richardson decide to investigate this one, you know, relatively quickly?
00:47:27
>> Yeah, investigator Richardson, his instincts right away told him this just isn't adding up. He listened to Frank on
00:47:34
the 911 call and also spoke to Frank on the phone. And he just had a hunch that something seemed off. And when he got
00:47:42
there, Frank launched into his explanation as if he had a story planned out in in Richardson's mind that the
00:47:49
last time he saw Michaela, she was leaving to go on a date with a bald man in a white truck. And Frank also claimed
00:47:56
that they had an open marriage. And he said that they agreed to this arrangement to try to fix their
00:48:01
marriage. And we hear on Deputy Richardson's uh body camera footage that he thought Frank Buyers was squirly. You
00:48:09
know, as a audience member, I kind of went through like what does that word mean to me when I hear somebody squirly.
00:48:15
I think of them as kind of like a fast talker. Someone's got an answer to everything, but nothing's adding up.
00:48:21
>> Squirly is a great word. Uh and it just means you can't trust him. There's something about him that's just not
00:48:26
right. >> And uh and that's what what he picked up on right away. Right. So, he goes to the
00:48:32
school where she works, where Michaela works as um a teacher's aid, and then he goes back to the buyer's property, and
00:48:39
Frank at this point has smashed open the lock to the structure where Michaela was
00:48:44
living temporarily when she sort of like moved out of the first structure cuz she
00:48:48
doesn't want to be with him. Um, this is all starting to look kind of more and more suspicious to Richardson.
00:48:57
What is it that is bothering him? Well, Richardson asked Frank if he had a gun because they had discovered some
00:49:04
shell casings inside Michaela's shed where she lived. And Frank said yes. And he shows the gun to Richardson. Well,
00:49:11
Richardson noticed he was able through his training to tell that the gun had been recently fired. And Frank told him
00:49:18
that, well, these shell casings on the floor of Michaela's shed were from Michaela, get this, shooting at coyotes
00:49:25
on the property. He claimed she would sit inside her shed with the door open and and and fire at coyotes, which was
00:49:32
ridiculous to her family because she hated guns. >> And uh the shell casings were found that
00:49:39
they were going in a direction that showed that the shooter was not firing outside of her shed, but rather into the
00:49:47
shed, which told Richardson, "We may have a homicide scene here." >> Right. this guy's something's off about
00:49:53
what he's telling police. So, this missing person's investigation pretty quickly turns into a criminal
00:50:00
investigation. There's a massive search that's launched. And we are introduced to Lieutenant Dakota Black. She is
00:50:08
leading the charge. She is a detective, but she's also a tracker. What exactly is a tracker? Well, Dakota Black told us
00:50:16
that she is trained to look for signs that a normal detective might not see. Uh, she found people in all kinds of
00:50:24
places like trees and houses that didn't belong to them. And she's trained to use
00:50:29
her power of observation to look for the little clues, like evidence that someone
00:50:34
had once been through an area, details that others might miss, helping to locate missing people, fugitives, or
00:50:41
suspects. People always think of a tracker too from the old cowboy movies and saying, "Yes, someone was just here
00:50:47
45 minutes ago. She's not that precise, but she's close and she has a way about her that she notices things that others
00:50:55
don't." >> Well, listeners may also associate the term with a CBS show that we have called
00:51:00
Tracker, starring uh Justin Hartley. He's a sort of a bit of a lone wolf, this character. Lone wolf, wolf for
00:51:06
hire. Um but Lieutenant Dakota Black is not. She's an essential part of a team at the county sheriff's office, right,
00:51:14
Peter? >> Absolutely. Cops have always told me, you know, that they stay emotionally
00:51:18
detached, sort of like a doctor treating a patient, but Dakota Black keeps her heart right on her sleeve, and that
00:51:25
extra caring, that devotion really works for her. And during one interview with producer Liza Finley, Dakota Black
00:51:32
teared up. She cried as she thought about the horrors that Michaela went through and how in her own life she had
00:51:40
been threatened. I had never seen this level of emotion from a law enforcement detective ever in my career. And that
00:51:48
passion pushed and pushed her to get this case solved. >> And as I understand it, Dakota's whole
00:51:55
team was kind of singing her praises. >> Absolutely. Her colleagues, they have so
00:51:59
much respect for her. Dakota Black is a woman in her early 30s and she's working
00:52:05
with a lot of male colleagues. Um, some of whom uh she's in charge of and she said, "You can ask all the guys. They
00:52:12
call me a cool dude with long hair because I'm meaner than any of them and they know to listen to me." And Dakota
00:52:20
Black brings her own dog, Haven, to serve as a comfort dog to victims and for herself. if they ever make a TV show
00:52:28
about her. Here's a detective with a comfort animal in her office. And we have Dakota Black talking about her dog,
00:52:35
Haven. >> Um, she works with victims of um, homicides. She also works with victims
00:52:40
of domestic violence and sexual assault and then as well as with children. And she works with a lot of victims every
00:52:46
year. Her first year we had her, she worked with over 300 victims. They can cry on her, they can love on her, they
00:52:53
can hug her. Um sometimes she will lick them, you know. Um but she just provides
00:52:59
comfort for them and that's what her name represents which is a safe place. So that's what she does for our victims
00:53:05
and she does a good job. >> I was really struck by the professionalism and the humanity of this
00:53:12
whole team in Padawatami County. Dustin Richardson had been working at the sheriff's office for only four years at
00:53:18
the time of Michaela's case. And because of his great work, he was recently promoted to detective. And the under
00:53:25
sheriff is Marcus May. He's a terrific guy. And then the sheriff, Freeland Wood, who runs all of this, introduced
00:53:31
himself at the shoot and said he was so happy that 48 was covering this story. I'm telling you, the Pawatami County
00:53:38
Sheriff's Office has a peer support group to help police, first responders deal with the trauma that they
00:53:45
experience on the job. and they told us, "We see things that no one should have to see." And that weighs very heavy on
00:53:52
them. So, it's a tiny sheriff's department with a big heart and a lot of very professional, seasoned
00:54:00
investigators cuz they've got a lot on their hands in this rural county. Welcome back. As search efforts were
00:54:09
underway with dozens of people turning out to try to find Michaela, there's one person who's absent. It's her husband,
00:54:19
Frank Buyers. After Michaela had been missing for 5 days, she was found in a large drainage pipe under a road and she
00:54:28
is wrapped in a carpet. Investigators quickly zero in on Frank Buyers as the primary suspect. Meanwhile, Frank
00:54:37
continues to spin his narrative of being the grieving husband, and he actually goes on TV. So, I want to play a clip
00:54:44
from a TV interview that he did with a local uh Fox affiliate, Fox 25. Just take a listen to this.
00:54:51
>> Even today, I called her. I mean, I know she's not here, but it's just a fact that I have her number
00:55:04
still and her phone still on somewhere and uh it just it would have been nice just to hear her voice. You know, Peter,
00:55:12
I was looking to see if I was seeing any real tears coming out of those eyeballs
00:55:17
of his because often, you know, often sometimes people make crying noises, but they're not actually crying,
00:55:23
>> right? Yeah. This is one heartless, uncaring, phony. Uh this uh emotion that he had
00:55:29
there was all fake. He had crocodile tears that didn't really flow. Um Frank was so comfortable lying on TV. He says
00:55:38
her phone's still on somewhere, but in reality, he had her phone the whole time before investigators took devices into
00:55:47
evidence, so he knew exactly where it was. >> So, you know, days turn into weeks.
00:55:54
There's no arrest. Michaela's family, they are livid. Frank is still walking around. So, I'm really curious, what
00:56:03
sort of evidence were investigators looking for before they felt comfortable making an arrest?
00:56:08
>> They wanted a piece of forensic evidence that would leave no doubt that Frank was
00:56:13
the killer. And Lieutenant Dakota Black told us towns people knew it was Frank, but investigators needed to find that
00:56:20
beyond a reasonable doubt kind of evidence. So, they started digging into Frank's social media, and there was a
00:56:26
treasure trove of information there. He had multiple dating profiles and multiple Facebook accounts. They found
00:56:33
comments from from women with screenshots on text messages with Frank. And one disturbing find, Frank was
00:56:41
actually texting other women on the day of Michaela's murder. >> Even on the day of her funeral, Frank
00:56:50
sent a photo of himself to multiple women asking something along the lines of, "How do I look in my tuxedo? They
00:56:58
also tracked down another girlfriend he had assaulted and she said he used the same tactic on her with the story of
00:57:06
Frank's four daughters being abused. So they found lots of stuff that really told them about how this man operates.
00:57:13
>> Right. And we see in the hour something else that they found. Um they recovered
00:57:20
footage from a home security camera. And really, I mean, detectives believe that
00:57:25
this is sort of the last that anyone would have seen of Michaela. Yeah, I'm telling you, technology now is solving
00:57:34
so many of these cases. Um, investigators were never able to find the actual physical security camera that
00:57:41
recorded these images, but Frank used an app on his phone to view the images, and
00:57:46
he thought, according to investigators, that he had deleted them. But when investigators did the forensic
00:57:52
extraction on Frank's phone, they were able to find these images. The first image you see is Michaela coming into
00:58:00
his home and she's there for about 14 minutes. The next image we see her leaving the home. The last image is
00:58:09
Frank standing at his door looking out like he was about to follow Michaela back to the shed where she was living
00:58:17
where investigators believe he confronted her and shot her. >> Investigators also used a Walmart
00:58:26
receipt to track down security camera photos. Frank Buyers is seen buying bleach, ammonia, a mop, and according to
00:58:37
Dakota Black, all of this looks like a possible, you know, toolkit to clean up a crime scene.
00:58:43
>> I mean, go to Walmart and buy all those things. Frank even called the police while he was at that Walmart buying
00:58:50
those cleaning supplies. >> And then there's also the carpet, right? And what um investigators find out is
00:58:57
that the carpet that Michaela was wrapped up in, that was a carpet that a neighbor had given to the couple for
00:59:04
their dogs. Um so the evidence is adding up here, but they had hopes that a specific bullet that was found embedded
00:59:13
in Michaela's wall would also test positive for her DNA. >> That's right. And they weren't able to
00:59:19
get a a genetic confirmation on hair that was stuck to that bullet, but a dark substance that was found on Frank's
00:59:28
boots was Michaela's blood. That's when they went in for the arrest. >> 38 days after Michaela was reported
00:59:37
missing, Frank Buyers is arrested and he's charged with firstdegree murder. His defense, though, negotiates a deal
00:59:44
to take the death penalty off the table. Then 15 months later, he agreed to plead
00:59:51
guilty and serve life without parole. Michaela's mother really feels like this is a copout because he chose to take
00:59:59
Michaela's life and then he gets to choose his own punishment. >> And I understand Barbara's frustration
01:00:07
with the death penalty being taken off the table. Moving forward, they have now turned their grief, the family, into a
01:00:15
charity. They have started Michaela's purple butterfly nonprofit to fight against domestic violence. And they
01:00:22
raised money by selling handmade crafts made by women affected by domestic violence to build transition housing for
01:00:29
victims. And once 48 hours learned of Michaela's case, we really wanted to honor her by telling this story.
01:00:38
>> Well, you absolutely did. Um, what I kept on thinking over and over again was
01:00:42
just how remarkable she was in her daytoday life. She was transforming the lives of his daughters, her own
01:00:51
children, the children at school. And I think about all that was lost, the future impact that she would have had
01:01:00
because of one selfish person's actions, >> right? She was a guardian angel to those
01:01:05
four kids. And when Frank took her life, he really impacted theirs so profoundly.
01:01:11
And we wish the best for those children. >> Yeah. And you know, once again, just
01:01:15
spotlight on domestic violence. Those red flags, that gut feeling, listen to them. It may end up saving, you know,
01:01:23
your life or the life of somebody that you love. Um, Peter Vansen, always lovely having you here. Thank you so
01:01:29
much. >> Thank you, Emry. And to our listeners, if you like this episode, please rate and review on Apple
01:01:37
Podcast or Spotify. This is a once in a lifetime case. All I did was I pieced things together.
01:02:15
I got the call from my inspector. He didn't have a lot of information. So, it was more or less like go down
01:02:23
there and figure out what we have. You don't often see body parts being discovered.
01:02:33
>> So, this is odd. >> Yes, absolutely. Absolutely odd. >> Do you have any idea what you're getting
01:02:39
yourself into? >> Not at that point. Like, it could be a boating accident. I don't know. You know, I at that point
01:02:47
I did not know. When I get there, I make my way down to the beach and I stop cold.
01:02:56
It was probably about 30 ft up the bluff. There was just no way for that to get there by accident. And that's when I
01:03:05
knew we had a homicide. >> You don't know who this victim is. >> She was definitely an African-American
01:03:11
female. Don't know who she is. I don't know obviously who any suspect is. I know nothing. I I had nothing.
01:03:22
I needed to know what happened to her. What brought you here? >> We came just to do a welfare check.
01:03:38
>> My name is Norah Donigan and I was a patrol officer. >> Who lives here? >> Shade Robinson.
01:03:46
>> Her friends hadn't heard from her. Not first. >> Miss Robinson, Milwaukee police, please
01:03:54
answer the door. We're going to come in otherwise. >> Okay. I don't hear anything.
01:04:02
>> So, they seen her on Monday morning at 9 and 10:00. >> Shade was very excited about a date that
01:04:09
she was going to be having. >> Nobody seen her since the date. Right away, alarm bells were going off
01:04:17
for me. >> We needed to figure out who this date was. >> You can't stop thinking about this.
01:04:26
>> No. >> There was just something odd about everything. Maybe the timing of them.
01:04:34
>> Missing person, body part found. >> I had a weird feeling. I reached out to the sheriff's
01:04:41
department. Detective Donner from the Milwaukee Sheriff's Department. I just said, you
01:04:49
know, I've got this girl who's missing and I'm curious. Do you think that this could be related?
01:04:57
She said she thinks that that's going to be her girl. I got chills. Along the Wisconsin shoreline of Lake
01:05:56
Michigan sits a rocky wooded area called Waramont Park. >> It's not somewhere that you find a lot
01:06:05
of people. On April 2nd, 2024, >> what's up, man? >> A young man out for a walk with a friend
01:06:15
made that gruesome find. >> They're walking that black. See that leg right there?
01:06:22
>> Lead Detective Joe Donner of the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office says she knew she had a homicide, but nothing
01:06:28
else. >> You have a leg. Where's the rest of her? At that point, I didn't know. >> So, you have human remains,
01:06:40
no weapon, no suspect. >> Where do we go from here? >> That that was a question I asked myself
01:06:48
most of that night. >> But with the help of Milwaukee police detective Norah Donigan, Donner had a
01:06:54
suspicion who her victim might be. Shane Robinson, a 19-year-old college student.
01:07:02
On the evening of April 1st, 2024, she had plans to go on a date, but had not been seen since.
01:07:11
Donner soon learned that Shade's car had been found behind an abandoned building
01:07:17
3 miles from Shotti's apartment, set on fire. >> This is Shade's vehicle. >> This is pretty much completely
01:07:24
destroyed. >> It is. It definitely negated any type of DNA, fingerprints, anything like that,
01:07:31
>> though. The car was heavily damaged. It still revealed a great deal to the fire
01:07:36
investigator. >> The passenger side smelled heavily of a petroleum distillate. >> So, what did that tell them?
01:07:42
>> That it was more than likely an arson. >> And though the car's interior was destroyed, investigators were able to
01:07:49
recover something crucial. So, underneath the driver's seat, Shade's purse was tucked under there. To me, it
01:07:58
definitely eliminates a robbery, right? >> And when investigators opened the trunk
01:08:03
of Shade's car, they made a distressing discovery. We found her pants, her underwear, her
01:08:12
jacket, and her shoes. >> This is the clothes she was wearing that night. And the jeans, it was apparent
01:08:19
that somebody else had taken them off. They were turned inside out, and the underwear were still attached to them.
01:08:25
So yeah, it was definitely a red flag. >> Another red flag was something Detective
01:08:31
Donner and her team noticed about the driver's seat. Something that suggested someone else had driven Shade's car.
01:08:39
>> We take note of the seat positioning because that'll give height indicators. I was able to determine about how far
01:08:45
back that seat was. I then went to a dealership and found an identical model. >> With the driver's seat in the same
01:08:53
position as the one in Shade's vehicle, Detective Donner grabbed a deputy who was about Shade's height. And when she
01:09:00
sat in the car, she couldn't touch the pedals. Um, her arms were straight out and she's like, "There's no way I can't
01:09:07
drive like this without perching on the very edge of the seat." >> Donner also had a taller detective sit
01:09:14
in the vehicle. And based on her experiment, Donner says the last person to drive Shade's car had to be at least
01:09:22
six feet tall. >> There's no way Shade was the last person in that driver's seat.
01:09:27
>> No. >> No. >> The day after finding the remains on the beach, investigators contacted Shade's
01:09:34
mother, Sheena Scarro. >> I'll never forget that day. Like, what's going on? Sheena immediately sent Fashad's
01:09:44
16-year-old sister, Adriana, to come home early from school. >> We drove over to my mom's house and they
01:09:51
were all very obviously upset. >> But Shade's family hoped that this was a mistake and Shade would be found alive
01:10:01
and well. The officer asked Adriana to share Shade's cell phone location from her Life 360 app. What is Life 360?
01:10:11
Unlike Find My iPhone that gives you where your phone is right now, Life 360 gives you historical data and it uses
01:10:19
GPS, so it tends to be far more precise than the cell records. >> And I pulled up the location. I saw that
01:10:28
her phone had died at 4:35 a.m. at Waramont Park. And when I saw that, it was like
01:10:40
that was a very unusual place for her to be. And when I said that, the detective, his
01:10:46
face like dropped and he was like he just like Yeah. He shut down kind of. I I knew
01:11:00
something wasn't right. Somebody had hurt my baby. This your video. DNA tests hadn't yet determined if Shade
01:11:31
Robinson matched the remains found along Lake Michigan. In the meantime, investigators began tracing the last
01:11:39
known hours of her life. Younger sister Adriana saw Shade on Easter Sunday, the day before her date.
01:11:47
>> We had worked together that morning. She picked me up. >> Shade and Adriana worked as servers at a
01:11:53
country club. >> She was one of the best workers they had. It was one of Shade's two jobs on
01:12:00
top of being a full-time student at a local technical college. >> She wanted better for herself. She
01:12:06
wanted better for me. >> The hard work was paying off with the 19-year-old able to rent an apartment
01:12:12
and buy a car all on her own. Shade was set to graduate with an associates degree in criminal justice the following
01:12:20
month. Adriana says Shadeai hoped to then enlist in the military. and she was looking to join the Air Force. So, she
01:12:28
had been meeting with recruiters. That's how much she wanted to do everything that she
01:12:34
dreamed of doing. >> After working at the country club on Sunday, March 31st, 2024, Adriana and
01:12:43
Chaday headed to their grandparents house for Easter dinner. >> It was a really, really good night. And
01:12:50
then she took me home. Whenever she dropped me off, it was always like a hesitation. We always be like, "Love
01:12:57
you." And that night, I still remember it was like a different kind of hesitation.
01:13:04
>> The next morning, SA facetimed her mom, Sheena. >> She was just glowing through the
01:13:10
FaceTime. She just looked so beautiful. She was in a bubbly mood. She didn't mention anything to me about going on a
01:13:17
date that evening. >> Security cameras in Shade's building captured her leaving her apartment at
01:13:23
9:00 a.m. that morning. 15 minutes later, Shade arrived for her shift at the restaurant Pizza Shuttle. Former
01:13:30
owner Mark Gold. >> Everybody loved her immediately. And that's that's kind of rare, I think, in
01:13:35
a restaurant or any business. And she's a great worker. She comes in on time. She smiles. Every time she would work
01:13:42
with me, I'd say, "What's up, Shade?" And she'd go, "The sky, Mark." She always said it, and now I miss it.
01:13:50
Shade left Pizza Shuttle at 5:00 p.m. and texted a man she'd recently met, Maxwell Anderson.
01:13:58
>> They are discussing where they're going to meet up for their date. >> Shade's text messages show they chose
01:14:04
the Twisted Fisherman. Armed with that information, investigators then headed to the
01:14:12
restaurant and obtained security camera footage of Shade and her date together. Detective Joe Donner examined the
01:14:20
footage for clues. >> What's sort of standing out to you as you watch this video? Why is it
01:14:25
important? >> You know, it's the demeanor. He does a lot of talking to the bartender. Doesn't
01:14:31
do a whole lot of talking to her. Um or even like turning and looking at her. It just it's
01:14:38
seems a little unusual for a date. There's not a lot of interaction. Around 6:30 p.m., Shadeai and Maxwell
01:14:47
Anderson left the restaurant together. With the help of Shade's Life 360 app, the detectives knew just where the pair
01:14:55
were headed. >> I'm so glad that that she had that app. >> So, when you found out Shadeai had it on
01:15:01
her phone, you must have thought, cold mine. >> Yeah. Score big time. According to her
01:15:08
Life 360 app, Shadeai then went to a nearby bar called Dukes on Water. When investigators headed there, they found
01:15:17
this security camera footage of Shade Day and her date arriving together at the bar. Again, Detective Donner took
01:15:25
note of the pair's dynamic. So, they are playing beer pong uh with this couple, and honestly, this is the only time that
01:15:34
it looks like she's having fun. I noticed that she seemed to be smiling and enjoying herself.
01:15:41
>> Shade and Maxwell Anderson left the bar together around 900 p.m. >> She's walking fine. Um, doesn't seem to
01:15:50
be impaired. >> I think it's interesting that they're walking together, but not until the very
01:15:55
end. He kind of reaches over, >> right? That's the only like real physical contact other than briefly
01:16:02
while they were playing beer pong that I see them have. >> From there, Shade's date got in the car
01:16:09
with her. The Life 360 app shows Shade arrived at Maxwell Anderson's house around 9:30. 3 hours later, the app
01:16:18
shows Shade's phone left his house. Jade's car began traveling toward her apartment, but instead of going home,
01:16:27
the car drove past the building. Multiple surveillance cameras would go on to capture Shade's car with fogged up
01:16:35
windows, driving around for hours. Did there seem to be any kind of like rhyme or reason to where this vehicle
01:16:45
was going that night? No, I know. It seemed to be going all over the place. >> Then at 2:53 a.m., the Life 360 app
01:16:55
shows Shadeai's phone arriving at Waramont Park, where the battery on her phone would later die. When the
01:17:02
investigators checked for security camera footage from a nearby building, they made a chilling discovery. The
01:17:10
grainy footage shows someone, possibly a man, dragging something to the lake. This is the path that he took. And then
01:17:21
he would go down >> right around here. >> Yeah. And this is where he disappears off of camera. It drops off right there.
01:17:28
That's where we lose sight of him. >> Roughly 90 minutes after first going out of view, the shadowy figure walks away
01:17:38
from the lake, but now carrying something. The final time that it comes up, you do
01:17:46
see a large backpack on their back. >> Who do you believe that figure is? Maxwell Anderson.
01:17:56
>> Who is the last person Chad Robinson was seen with? >> Maxwell Anderson. >> Who is this person? How do you know my
01:18:05
daughter? Had you ever heard the name Maxwell Anderson? >> No. >> There were so many questions like how
01:18:27
they knew each other, what his motives were. >> The night Shade Robinson disappeared was
01:18:32
not the first time she had met Maxwell Anderson. Three days earlier, Shadeai, seen here on security camera footage,
01:18:41
walked into a bar. The owner told 48 Hours that Shade was looking for a job. While there, she met the bartender, 6'1,
01:18:52
33-year-old Maxwell Anderson. They exchanged numbers and Maxwell walked Shade to her car.
01:19:00
>> It seemed like he was trying to be a gentleman to this girl he was trying to impress. What did you learn about
01:19:06
Maxwell Anderson, his background? >> I learned that he had been in the service industry for a while. He owned a
01:19:14
home down on the south side of Milwaukee, was in the Navy for a brief amount of time.
01:19:20
>> Why did he leave the military? >> I I believe it was a general discharge. >> But the man Shade would go on a date
01:19:26
with also had a criminal record that included operating a vehicle while intoxicated, disorderly conduct, and
01:19:34
more. It was a little disturbing, like a history of violence towards his own family.
01:19:40
>> And in 2019, he'd also been accused of violence towards a total stranger. According to this police report,
01:19:48
Maxwell, seen in this video filmed by a bystander, beat a man who tried to intervene during an argument Maxwell was
01:19:56
having with a girlfriend. He was arrested for battery, but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.
01:20:03
This guy's got a temper and he doesn't really seem to care who he takes that temper out on.
01:20:08
>> You're thinking about what could have happened with Shade? >> Yes. >> But could he be responsible for Shade's
01:20:14
disappearance? Detective Donner needed proof. >> Just spending the evening with her,
01:20:20
right? >> It's not enough, >> right? >> With the help of Shade's Life 360 app, Donner knew Shade had driven to
01:20:27
Maxwell's house on April 1st. I wanted to I wanted to get into his house and we definitely had enough to do
01:20:35
that. >> On April 4th, Donner got a search warrant to enter Maxwell's home and she
01:20:42
sent another team to watch him. >> So, they begin to follow him. We prefer to not have the resident in the house.
01:20:50
It's just safer. >> Within minutes, the team realized Maxwell was heading home and they had to
01:20:57
act fast. >> Right. let's take him into custody. The deputy and the detective said that yeah,
01:21:03
they definitely felt him shaking. >> Maxwell Anderson later asked for a lawyer and was never interrogated, but
01:21:10
when investigators finally entered the house, they were surprised. >> There was no big bloody crime scene
01:21:19
>> and no sign of a cleanup either. >> It was very apparent that the dismemberment didn't happen there.
01:21:26
Investigators did find something of interest. >> A lot of knives. A lot of knives. There were, I believe,
01:21:34
like 51 found in the kitchen alone. >> Anything that could have been used to dismember a body,
01:21:40
>> I suppose. Uh, none of those knives were were used. After searching the house,
01:21:46
Detective Donner was still missing key elements like a weapon, crime scene, or even a single piece of direct evidence
01:21:54
in Maxwell Anderson's home tying him to Shandai's disappearance. >> It seemed like every
01:22:02
hopeful, you know, lead. I got disappointed each time. >> Detective Donner started looking into
01:22:10
other possible suspects. While Maxwell Anderson seemed like a really good suspect, I wasn't going to
01:22:16
focus on him. >> And she even considered the possibility that the remains on the beach belonged
01:22:22
to someone else. >> What if this isn't her? So, I still checked missing databases.
01:22:29
>> But Shade's loved ones were certain Donner was on the right track. They sent a message covering Maxwell Anderson's
01:22:37
yard with balloons and signs, all in Shade's favorite color, pink. Increasing the pressure on the
01:22:45
investigation was the shocking discovery of more body parts across the county. >> And more human remains believed to be
01:22:52
those of the young woman. The remains seemed to be from the same victim. As law enforcement searched for more
01:22:59
remains, so did volunteers, including Kiki and Arinda, family friends of Shade. They were already searching. Why
01:23:08
even get involved? I didn't see enough police out here. We came by and the area was empty, but we were like, "Okay,
01:23:15
let's go back and double check and see if we could find anything else." While searching a wooded area, Kiki found a
01:23:21
blanket that belonged to Shade. The next day, Arinda discovered a human bone next
01:23:27
to train tracks. Both were found in areas investigators had already searched. >> Could you understand why people might
01:23:35
feel a little frustrated when they hear that? >> Absolutely. Detective Donner was also
01:23:40
frustrated. That's when this woman, Khloe Wright, stepped forward. >> It was like hearttoppping. I mean, it's
01:23:49
just like this can't be real. >> Khloe had dated Maxwell for more than a year, and she was stunned to hear her
01:23:57
ex-boyfriend was a suspect. This type of gruesome, graphic murder, I just didn't see from him.
01:24:09
>> Chloe and Maxwell broke up a year earlier. She told us he was never physically abusive, but he could be
01:24:16
verbally abusive. >> He made comments about like my body weight often, um me not being
01:24:22
attractive. He wasn't a great boyfriend. >> This sounds toxic. >> It was very toxic. Khloe describes
01:24:30
Maxwell as a secretive person, but he did share one secret with her. Investigators were very interested to
01:24:37
learn. I remember it was like winter when he had brought it up and he was like, "If
01:24:42
we're still together, come spring, I'm going to take you to this secret beach." And then
01:24:48
eventually he took me there. But Maxwell was so protective of his secret beach that when Khloe drove them there, he
01:24:56
would only give her stepby-step directions. >> He didn't want me to know the name in
01:25:02
case we broke up. He didn't want me bringing other people to his secret spot. >> But she remembered where it was.
01:25:09
>> The police were like, "Okay, you direct us." Repeating the directions Maxwell
01:25:13
had always given her, Khloe led investigators straight to his secret beach, Boramont Park.
01:25:22
Just having that proof that he knew about it and was familiar with it to a level that he referred to it as a secret
01:25:29
beach. That that was pretty big. >> What do we think happened here? >> This is where he dismembered her.
01:25:38
When you think of that special place, special to him, what comes to mind? >> Shade.
01:25:46
>> Yeah. Think about Chad. >> On April 12th, 2024, Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball
01:25:57
made an announcement. >> The severed leg has been preliminarily identified as belonging to Miss
01:26:06
Robinson. That same day, Maxwell Anderson was charged with firstdegree intentional
01:26:13
homicide, mutilation of a corpse, and arson. He would plead not guilty to all charges.
01:26:22
DNA testing would later confirm the other remains were also Shade. On what should have been Shade's 20th
01:26:32
birthday, her family held a memorial for her. It would take a year before they would see the man accused of killing
01:26:41
Shade brought to trial. In May 2025, Maxwell Anderson's murder trial began. Detective Donner knew it
01:27:10
would be a tough fight with a circumstantial case. >> They really wanted that gotcha piece of
01:27:16
direct evidence, you know, and it never came. >> Use your common sense and search for the truth. Prosecutor Ian
01:27:25
Vance Kerzanne took the jury through the last minutes of Shade's life. >> She was murdered by Maxwell Anderson.
01:27:33
Her body was dismembered by Maxwell Anderson in a vicious and gruesome manner and then Maxwell Anderson
01:27:41
attempted to make her disappear from this world. >> The prosecutor showed the jury this
01:27:47
grainy footage of Anderson's home captured on his neighbor's security camera. It's hard to see, but
01:27:54
investigators say it shows Maxwell and Shade in silhouette arriving at his house and turning on the light of his
01:28:02
second floor living room. Then through the upstairs window, moving shadows can be seen. Investigators had poured over
01:28:11
the footage, hoping to find proof of Anderson murdering Shade. >> Do we have any idea what's happening
01:28:18
now? >> I don't. But Detective Donner did notice something that happened hours later.
01:28:25
>> I'm only seeing one person leaving. Um, and I note that that one person that is
01:28:31
leaving is the same height as the fence in the gate, >> which is pretty tall. >> Is 6 foot.
01:28:36
>> 6 foot. >> Investigators suspect Maxwell had already killed Shade by that time.
01:28:43
>> Max had nothing to do with these crimes. Maxwell Anderson's defense attorney,
01:28:48
Anthony Cotton, told the jury that Anderson, being the last known person with Shade, proved nothing.
01:28:55
>> We don't dispute any of that timeline that they went out together and went back to Max's house. But that doesn't
01:29:00
mean he killed her. >> And he dismissed the footage collected by the prosecution.
01:29:05
>> All of this video, all the hundreds of hours of video, you can see the car, but
01:29:10
you can't ever conclude that he is the one who is driving this vehicle. It's a pure speculation.
01:29:15
Cotton highlighted what he called the serious holes in the state's case, mainly the lack of motive and the
01:29:23
unknown cause of death. >> There is absolutely no reason for Max to commit a crime like this. Why would he
01:29:30
ever do something like that? >> Cotton pointed out that authorities can't even say how Shade died because
01:29:37
some of her remains have not been recovered. CBS 58 reporter Adam Refe says the defense's case seemed to be
01:29:45
effective with courtroom watchers. >> There was talk as this trial wore on that not all the evidence is there. If
01:29:53
it was Maxwell Anderson, how did he do it? And where is that murder weapon? >> But what would the jury think?
01:30:01
>> Did any of you think, "Oh, this is a slam dunk." >> We spoke to four of the jurors. Becca,
01:30:07
>> I feel like Marilyn Nikki and Mel, who says she was unimpressed with the footage of Shade's
01:30:14
car that the prosecution presented. >> I was like, "Where the hell is this going? Why are they showing us this?
01:30:22
Who's driving? We don't know." Like, there's no definitive proof. >> But there was one video that did make an
01:30:28
impression. This footage of a man leaving the scene of Shade's burning vehicle. You can hear a bystander calling out.
01:30:44
>> Marilyn, the jury 4 woman says the footage reminded her of the mystery person on the beach.
01:30:51
>> You know that is the same silhouette that we saw walking the streets of Milwaukee.
01:30:57
>> The man then gets on a city bus and you can see his face crystal clear. It was
01:31:04
Maxwell Anderson. >> What does he have with him? >> He has that large backpack still.
01:31:10
>> The backpack, pants, and shoes Anderson is wearing on the bus were never recovered. His gray jacket was
01:31:17
eventually found in his neighbor's garbage can. When the jacket was tested, it had Shade's DNA inside the hood and
01:31:26
on the zipper pull. Now, could it be maybe explained away? Sure. I mean, she did go to his house.
01:31:35
>> Why would you throw it in a trash can two houses away from your home? >> Exactly.
01:31:40
>> State calls Khloe right. >> Chloe Wright, who chose to testify off camera, spoke about her ex-boyfriend and
01:31:48
his secret beach. >> He looked at her like, "I'm going to kill you right now. Don't you say a
01:31:54
word." >> You all noticed that. knows that >> she played a very vital role, I think,
01:32:00
in >> But jurors would soon learn about a safe found in Shade's apartment. Inside,
01:32:07
marijuana and what appeared to be methamphetamine pills. Although the pills were never sent to the state crime
01:32:14
lab for conclusive testing, the defense seemed to suggest more should have been done to see if Shade's murder was really
01:32:22
connected to those drugs. I felt that it was irrelevant to the case because there was never ever any
01:32:30
evidence that pointed to her as being a substance abuser. They're just trying to
01:32:35
distract us. >> So, it never crossed your mind once that maybe this was a drug deal gone wrong or
01:32:41
>> never. No, >> never. >> Investigators had tested Shade's remains. Did they find any drugs in her
01:32:48
system? >> No. Caffeine was the only thing found. Jurors say it was actually one of the
01:32:55
last pieces of evidence that they saw that made the biggest impact. Photos found on Maxwell Anderson's phone that
01:33:02
he had taken and deleted. The photos are of Shade at his home. >> She is uh face down. Her arm is over her
01:33:15
face. You see the hand of a white male grasping what would be her right breast. Do you believe Shade was deceased or
01:33:25
alive in those pictures? Do you know? >> I do not know. My my assumption is that
01:33:31
she was deceased. >> To see the way he treated her like like an object. It was really
01:33:42
disturbing. I mean, I personally felt like I had lived the last few hours of Shotti's
01:33:48
life with her. And you were walking kind of her footsteps throughout the night, and
01:33:55
to see her end up like that was disgusting, humiliating, just horrible. We went all back into the
01:34:04
jury room and there was a lot of quiet, a lot of hugs, and just everybody was just kind of sick.
01:34:11
>> That did it. That did it. The state has no more witnesses. The state rests. >> Okay.
01:34:18
>> And then Maxwell Anderson's defense rested without calling a single witness. >> Is it still your decision not to
01:34:25
testify? >> That is my decision. >> The jurors headed to deliberate, but they didn't deliberate for long. After
01:34:33
breaking for the night, the jury had a verdict in less than an hour. We want to come in here and we want to
01:34:40
make a statement with how fast we make this decision. >> We the jury find the defendant Maxwell
01:34:47
Anderson guilty of firstdegree intentional homicide, guilty of mutilating a corpse, guilty of arson of
01:34:55
property other than building. >> Guilty of Shade Robinson's murder >> as to count.
01:35:01
>> But two months later, Maxwell Anderson decided to tell his story. >> Mr. Anderson, what would you like to
01:35:08
say? >> Look at the birthday girl hooking on her birthday. Look at her. >> Oh yeah, baby girl.
01:35:35
This is the most heinous crime this court will see. It doesn't get more serious than this.
01:35:43
Shade Robinson's family was determined to see that Maxwell Anderson would never be free again. They spoke directly to
01:35:51
the judge at his sentencing, 17-year-old Adriana. >> When Maxwell Anderson murdered my
01:35:57
sister, he redefined my definition of misfortune. He made it to where I cannot meet any person without the fear that
01:36:04
they're going to harm or kill me because all my sister did was meet someone and as a result he ended her
01:36:10
life. He tried to erase her existence and her value. Now I no longer have the opportunity to try and give her
01:36:19
everything she gave me. >> Shade's father, Carlos Robinson, told the court what justice would be for him.
01:36:28
To lose your child in this manner is unthinkable. What he has done is inconceivable.
01:36:38
He deserves the punishment that he gave to my daughter. Everything that he did should be done to
01:36:48
him. To me, that's justice. Sheena, wearing Shade's favorite color, pink, on her eyelids, wanted answers
01:37:01
from her daughter's killer. >> You disrespectfully spread my daughter across Milwaukee
01:37:08
like a piece of trash. How dare you >> and she made a heartbreaking plea. >> I'm going to respectfully request that
01:37:17
you confess where my daughter's crown is. Shade's crown, her head, which has still never
01:37:25
been found. >> You've already done the worst. You can at least give us that much.
01:37:33
>> But if Shade's family was hoping for answers, they were disappointed. >> Mr. Anderson, what would you like to
01:37:39
say? >> Maxwell Anderson finally chose to speak. I would like to start by saying that
01:37:48
from the bottom of my heart, my deepest and most sincere condolences go out to Shade's family as well as everyone else
01:37:55
affected by this tragedy. That being said, your honor, I did not commit these crimes.
01:38:05
I hope and pray that further investigations not only prove my innocence, but find and deliver true
01:38:13
justice. You would think that he would tell us the things we wanted to know and finally
01:38:18
feel some remorse after sitting in jail for these months and then he didn't. >> Anything else you wish to say?
01:38:25
>> No, ma'am. >> Judge Laura Crell read a statement Anderson made to an investigator after
01:38:31
his conviction. He regretted he did not walk Miss Robinson to her vehicle when she left
01:38:37
his apartment, and he believed it was at that point she was abducted by an unknown asalant. Quote, "Either from the
01:38:44
alley or from my backyard," unquote. When asked how he accounted for his presence in the area where Miss
01:38:51
Robinson's vehicle was set on fire, Mr. Anderson said that he was set up. >> You're hearing this stuff and you're
01:38:57
like, >> "No, >> nope." What do you think happened that night? >> I believe that they went back to his
01:39:06
house. I think he may have wanted to take things further than she was comfortable
01:39:13
with and that maybe she rejected him and his rather well doumented temper came out.
01:39:21
>> And Donner suspects Anderson would have killed again. >> I think this was his first time killing.
01:39:29
I could be wrong, but that's my opinion. I do firmly believe though that it probably wouldn't be his last if he
01:39:37
hadn't been caught, given what he did to her body. Chloe wonders if she could have been one
01:39:44
of his targets. A year after they broke up, she says Maxwell sent her a message on Instagram
01:39:53
>> and it was ignore time is over. 5 hours later, Maxwell Anderson met Shade Robinson when she applied for that
01:40:03
job. >> It's got to give you the chills. It's eerie. >> Before sentencing Anderson, Judge Cllo
01:40:11
took a moment to share her own thoughts about the loss of Shade Robinson. She was a girl that I would hope all
01:40:19
young ladies strive to be. >> Hey guys. She was loved in the community by almost everyone that touched her.
01:40:29
>> We love you forever. >> You stole a truly shining light is what it sounds like.
01:40:36
>> And then she gave the man who stole that light the maximum. >> You shall be sentenced to imprisonment
01:40:43
for life. I am ordering that you will not be eligible for extended supervision. life without the possibility of parole.
01:40:54
>> Thank you guys for supporting us. >> Outside the courthouse, Shade's loved ones thanked the city of Milwaukee for
01:41:01
keeping her memory alive. >> I do appreciate the city of Milwaukee cuz they have shown my daughter a lot of
01:41:07
love. >> A mural of Shade sits beneath her beloved pizza shuttle. Sheena has launched a program in Shade's honor to
01:41:15
help crime victims and she has partnered with a Wisconsin state representative to
01:41:20
create a task force to examine and prevent the disproportionately high levels of violence against black women
01:41:27
and girls. In May of 2024, Adriana dressed in a pink cap and gown accepted Shade's
01:41:36
degree at what should have been her big sister's graduation. Seeing her live her life as such a hard
01:41:44
worker who never let anything stop her. I knew that she would want me to do that
01:41:48
after I lost her, that she would want me to keep living. And so I'm going to remember her by
01:41:55
following in her footsteps and fill the hole that she left. Although I know I can never live up to anywhere near her
01:42:02
shoes. >> I don't know about that. >> I do. in Waramont Park, the site where this
01:42:10
tragic investigation began. Shade's family and friends unveiled a memorial bench. It's in the area Detective Donner
01:42:19
has searched dozens of times in the hopes of fulfilling Shade's loved ones deepest wish of laying all of Shade to
01:42:28
rest. >> Do you think we'll ever find Shadi's crown? >> I think so. When the lake is ready to
01:42:35
give her back. Welcome to Postmortem. I'm 48 Hours correspondent Natalie Morales, filling
01:43:26
in for Anie Green, who is on the other side of the mic to talk about her latest report on the murder of 19-year-old
01:43:33
Shade Robinson. Thanks for joining me, Anmarie. Thanks, Natalie. I'm looking forward to talking about this.
01:43:39
>> Now, this all started when the Milwaukee Fire Department responded to a vehicle
01:43:44
that was set on fire in April of 2024. Turns out that car belonged to Sha Day, but nobody could get a hold of her.
01:43:53
Well, that same day, a body part from an unidentified female washed up on a remote beach on the Wisconsin shoreline
01:44:01
of Lake Michigan. And Emory Shade's friends also hadn't heard from her since she went on a date the night before.
01:44:08
Right. Yeah. And in fact, it was one of her co-workers at Pizza Shuttle that really raised the alarm. She was
01:44:15
concerned that Shade hadn't showed up for work. She's such a good employee. She would never just not show up. She
01:44:20
just couldn't let it go. And she was the one who contacted police. >> Well, good for her for for following
01:44:25
through with that. And you you also talk about in this hour as we see how much security footage played a part in in
01:44:35
helping you know police put the pieces of this puzzle together. Absolutely. I mean I think we all know that there's a
01:44:43
lot of you know surveillance cameras around security cameras ring cameras. We know that we're on camera a lot, but in
01:44:50
this case, it wasn't just sort of the places that you would expect, like the lobby of her apartment building, but
01:44:56
that remote area of the park, Wart Park, was just it was remarkable that they even had video from there. And Shade in
01:45:04
particular left kind of digital breadcrumbs pretty much everywhere. And that is part of what led to police
01:45:13
honing in on Maxwell Anderson so quickly. There are eyes in the sky everywhere as we can see throughout this
01:45:19
hour. We're going to talk about it all. But first, I want to remind our listeners and our viewers, if you
01:45:24
haven't listened or watched this episode yet, please go ahead and do that right now. Go check it out and come on back
01:45:30
and join our conversation. So, Ann Marie, at first while watching the episode, I thought that this was going
01:45:37
to be one of those dating app horror stories. Turns out though that Shadeai actually met Maxwell Anderson in person
01:45:47
before their date, right? I mean, this is the old-fashioned way, right? Um, she was looking for yet another job. She
01:45:55
already had two jobs and she was looking for a third one at the bar. Uh, she meets him there. He's working there. And
01:46:02
so, yeah, why not think it's okay to go out on a date? This is a young woman who
01:46:07
has everything going for her. She's unbelievably driven. She wants to enter the Air Force. She's finishing up uh her
01:46:14
education. She's going places. And this one person, you know, ruined everything.
01:46:19
Such a tragic turn. She had everything and would seem to be doing everything right. The first person we meet in this
01:46:26
episode, she's so fascinating, is the detective, Joe Donner. And you know, I wasn't quite sure what to make of her
01:46:33
fashion sense. I mean, she's incredible. it. She's like something out of another
01:46:38
era almost and and that is deliberate. That is by design. Um she is just one of those people that's really into 1940s
01:46:47
and 1950s fashion and the aesthetic of the time. She actually owns a vintage clothing
01:46:52
store and she does these like online social media sales where she, you know, well, she'll show like the latest haul
01:46:59
that she's gotten and people all over the world tune in to buy stuff from her. Um, she does these, I guess, pinup
01:47:07
contest. We're not talking burles stuff, right? We're talking about people who dress like in the era. Her pinup name is
01:47:14
misdemeanor. How appropriate is that, Natalie? Um, and so, yeah, she's got this whole fascinating other side to
01:47:22
her, but boy is she a damn good investigator. >> She sure is. And when she gets down to
01:47:28
business, she really gets down to business as we see. Now, it was Detective Donner who took you to that
01:47:35
remote beach, showed you around. Uh, what was it like? The beach is an interesting spot. It's quite desolate.
01:47:42
Though there's a road leading down there, there's a big fence. You can't drive down there. You have to know the
01:47:48
pathway to take to get down there. And certainly people come down there to walk their dogs or maybe just to get away,
01:47:54
but you would have to really know that that spot is there to venture down there. I wouldn't go down there and I
01:47:59
wouldn't go down there alone. She also took you to the place where they have Shadeai's burned vehicle. Yeah. So,
01:48:07
seeing the car, I mean, it was almost a little emotional because it is absolutely charred. But even though
01:48:14
Maxwell Anderson tried to get rid of every stitch of evidence, he fails to get rid of some really crucial evidence,
01:48:23
three pieces of crucial evidence. Where the driver's seat is situated, that doesn't change. So, they know that, you
01:48:30
know, Shade probably wasn't driving that car. But then her purse is found basically intact. I mean, it's singed,
01:48:36
but it's found underneath the car seat. And the clothes she was wearing that night, those are in the trunk of the
01:48:42
car. And finding that car really helped to speed up this investigation as well. Yeah, that was what was so fascinating.
01:48:48
I never thought about that clue of measuring the seat distance and that being a a big clue into the height of
01:48:55
the individual who last drove the car, which would turn out to be really important in helping solve this case.
01:49:01
And I should say that the other officer, right, uh Donigan, who was the one who was called to do a check on her
01:49:08
apartment, she was crucial. She said to us that that day she was getting ready for work and like the news was on in the
01:49:16
background and she kind of heard about a body part being found, you know, and then she gets this call to go to the
01:49:23
apartment and like immediately she has this gut reaction. She went on a date. She's not here now. I heard about this
01:49:30
this news report about a body part and she was also really significant in speeding up the investigation because if
01:49:39
it had not moved forward as quickly as it did, uh Donna really feels like there's a good possibility that a lot of
01:49:46
that really crucial video would have been lost. Let's also talk though about Shadeai's younger sister Adriana. I mean
01:49:54
her ability to offer up data on Shadeai via Life 360 the app. I mean, it proved to be invaluable, right?
01:50:00
>> Yeah, exactly. Um, Detective Donner calls Adriana the quiet backbone of the family. And I don't know how Adriana was
01:50:11
able to keep a level head in the middle of all of this chaos. I've never ever ever met an adult, much less a teenager,
01:50:21
with the type of presence that this young girl has. I'm glad it came through in the hour. She's remarkable and she
01:50:30
was able to provide the information about the life 360 app. She could show them um where Shade had gone. She could
01:50:37
show them that she had been at Maxwell Anderson's house at around 9:30. She could show according to the Life 360 app
01:50:44
that at 2:53 the phone arrived at Waramont Park. All of these things were crucial. that Life 360 app. That was
01:50:52
something the minute my kids got their driver's license. I put it on their phones because it goes beyond the find
01:50:59
my feature. You can actually track if they're going and driving above the speed limit. It gives you an alert. So,
01:51:06
it's an incredible tool. Yeah. I had never heard of the app before. I have since put it on my phone. Yeah.
01:51:12
>> Um because it really is um remarkable the amount of detail. It helped investigators literally kind of like
01:51:21
walk the path that Shadeai did um to figure this whole thing out. >> Well, this brings us to the man who was
01:51:28
then charged with Shade Robinson's murder, Maxwell Anderson. Tell us about him. So, this guy's, you know, as you
01:51:36
can imagine, an interesting character. He's 33 years old. Shane was a teenager. She's 19. We spoke to his ex-girlfriend
01:51:44
Khloe. And Khloe also was very young when they started dating. Perhaps praying on their vulnerability.
01:51:52
>> Exactly. Even before he met Shade, he had a criminal record, operating a vehicle while intoxicated, disorderly
01:51:59
conduct. And you saw in the hour that he was arrested for battery against a bystander who tried to intervene. He he
01:52:06
was apparently having an argument with one of his girlfriends and he ended up pleading guilty to a lesser charge for
01:52:13
that. >> What was really fascinating and and kind of alarming in my opinion was when
01:52:18
detectives did search his apartment, they found he had a large collection of knives in his apartment, which I mean
01:52:27
that really raised my eyebrow. Yeah. 51 knives in the kitchen alone. Um I like to cook. I have a lot of knives, but I
01:52:36
certainly don't have a collection like that. >> No, I know. And and you know, I'm I'm
01:52:41
pretty sure investigators were hopeful that amongst those knives, they would find something that maybe he played a
01:52:47
role in this case, and that that simply wasn't the case. Khloe says that he sort
01:52:51
of fancied himself a handyman, but he was always starting projects that he would never finish. But there were two
01:52:58
projects she said that he did finish in the time that she knew him. and they were both secret compartments. And she
01:53:05
sort of described how you would like touch something and then a a compartment would pop out. Um we we didn't know what
01:53:11
he was hiding in those compartments. The other curious tidbit, investigators found tons of women's clothing in his
01:53:22
house. Random items. Um you know, shirts, pants, not necessarily like all intimate items. Um, Khloe wonders if
01:53:31
some of the clothes might be hers. They also found the ID of a woman. They did track the woman down. She's alive and
01:53:38
well. Um, a couple of other interesting things about that house. The house is actually sort of split. He owns the
01:53:45
house, but he lived on the second floor and then there was a tenant on the first
01:53:50
floor. Apparently, the tenant complained a lot about the noise. Uh, Anderson, Maxwell Anderson had um dogs. He would
01:53:59
complain about the dogs making too much noise upstairs. The tenant was home the night Shade went over there and never
01:54:06
heard a thing. >> Did investigators have a theory as to how Shade Robinson could have been
01:54:12
killed without making any sort of noise? Strangulation perhaps? It's a silent death. Yeah, I was going to say that
01:54:19
could have been, you know, a way someone could have been killed without making a
01:54:23
lot of noise and and certainly without a lot of blood, which is also something else that they didn't find. Um, you
01:54:30
know, he goes on the date with her April 1st. He's arrested by April 4th. On April 12th, 2024, the sheriff's
01:54:39
office announced that the remains found on that remote beach were identified as belonging to Shadeai Robinson. And on
01:54:48
that same day, Maxwell Anderson was formally charged with firstdegree intentional homicide, mutilation of a
01:54:55
corpse, and arson. He would plead not guilty to all the charges. Now, one of the worries for detective Joe Donner was
01:55:03
that there wasn't any direct evidence linking Maxwell Anderson to the case, but it didn't seem an jury really needed
01:55:12
that so much, right? >> No, it was really the last piece of evidence that sealed his fate. We spoke
01:55:19
to a number of jurors, but one juror, Becca, talked about seeing those photos that Maxwell Anderson had taken on his
01:55:25
phone and then deleted. They are photos of Shade. You can see his hand on her. he's touching, you know, intimate areas
01:55:32
of her body. And that basically did it for these jurors. I want to read a little bit of what Becca had to say
01:55:39
about this. She said, "I mean, I personally felt like I had lived the last few hours of Shade's life with her.
01:55:46
And to see her end up like that was disgusting, humiliating, just horrible." >> Yeah. To think that to not know if she
01:55:55
was dead or alive when those photos were taken. They seem staged almost like a trophy, but then he deletes them. I
01:56:02
mean, that tells you a lot if you're a juror, right? >> It was perhaps the most powerful piece
01:56:07
of evidence that the jurors saw, >> right? That along with, you know, we did see the footage of the man on the beach
01:56:15
with a backpack. Yeah. >> Also, then you saw the surveillance footage of the man leaving the burnt car
01:56:23
and then you see clearly Maxwell Anderson's face when he hops onto a city bus. I mean, thank goodness that
01:56:30
security footage was very crisp and clear. You could clearly see his face. >> Oh, absolutely. Well, and then it turns
01:56:37
out the defense didn't call any witnesses. So, the jury didn't take very long to deliberate. Anderson was found
01:56:44
guilty of intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse, and arson. Although he continues to maintain his
01:56:51
innocence at his sentencing, Shadeai's mother, father, and sister, they weren't having any of that.
01:56:57
>> No. Um, they were very outspoken. Shad's mother is, you know, really, she's been
01:57:03
dealing with a lot of stuff even before the disappearance and the murder of her daughter. um she's been dealing with
01:57:10
sort of health stuff and so it it really took a lot out of her and she has kept the fight going but it wasn't just the
01:57:19
family members that spoke. Maxwell Anderson's father also spoke. Um he was crying. He said Shade's family he
01:57:28
thought about them every single day. He said that he loved his son and that he hoped for a path for his son uh that
01:57:36
would allow his son to become a positive influence in some way. There was also members of the community that sent in
01:57:43
letters because like the whole city was moved by this murder. And there was one particular letter from an anonymous
01:57:51
person that even the jurors said had a significant impact on them. And I just I'm going to read some portions of this
01:57:58
because I think it really captures the way the entire city of Milwaukee felt about Shade. Shade Robinson was not a
01:58:05
torso. She was not evidence. She was a full living radiant human being. She had dreams, plans, and a future she was
01:58:14
building with pride. She had people who loved her and that still love her more than words can hold. and she had a right
01:58:22
to live, to breathe, to laugh, to grow old. That right was stolen. And it continues, "But here's what you couldn't
01:58:31
take. You could not mutilate her soul. You could not silence the scream of justice. You could not prevent an entire
01:58:39
community from rising up in Shade's name." >> So beautiful and so moving. I love that
01:58:44
the judge read that letter. It's not surprising because I really felt like she became the daughter of the entire
01:58:54
city. People either saw something in her that they felt was also in them or in, you
01:59:03
know, a young woman that they know, whether it was a daughter or a friend. Um, and they really rallied around this
01:59:09
family, which I thought was significant, Natalie, because the reality of it is is
01:59:15
that there often are times when young black women are victims of crime and they don't get the same level of
01:59:21
attention, right? And I just want to read a statistic out. >> This is Columbia University study in
01:59:27
Wisconsin. Black women are 20 times more likely to be murdered than white women.
01:59:31
It's the worst statistic in the country. The other thing is that Milwaukee is home to Jeffrey Dawnmer. And when you
01:59:41
think of of Dawnmer's crimes, there's a sickening feeling that comes with it. And this reminded Milwaukee of that
01:59:49
sickening feeling. Um, and just as a kind of a side note, when we um traveled there to do some of our interviews, we
01:59:58
stayed in this really nice old hotel. It was built sort of in the I think it's in
02:00:03
like 1920s, 1930s. But I kind of like cracked a little joke with the guy at the front desk and asked him if there
02:00:09
were any ghosts. And then I struck up a conversation with someone in the elevator and I mentioned that I was
02:00:15
inquiring about ghosts. And he said, "Well, you know, you know what happened on the fifth floor?" And it turns out
02:00:21
the hotel we stayed in was a hotel that Jeffrey Dawnmer killed one of his victims in. But I gotta tell you, I
02:00:28
slept with the lights on. I would have too. >> Yeah. >> Oh my gosh. I'm surprised you slept at
02:00:34
all. >> Yeah, I know. >> Back to Shade. As we know, her remains, they were spread all over the county. We
02:00:42
learned from some friends that they even found a blanket that had belonged to Shade as well as they found what they
02:00:50
believed was a a human bone in an area that investigators had already searched. Um, you talked to Shadeai's sister
02:00:59
Adriana as well about the ongoing search for Shade's remains. I wanted to play a
02:01:03
little piece of that. >> Does it bother you that, you know, parts of your sister are still missing?
02:01:09
>> Yeah, it definitely does. I have this necklace and another one which is a star
02:01:15
that I wear every day that has some of her ashes in it. So, it's like a part of her is with me,
02:01:21
but knowing that a part of her isn't with anyone, that it's floating around somewhere, decomposed,
02:01:30
it's like she hasn't been allowed to to to stop fighting. Like, her battle is not over. Like,
02:01:40
she's never going to be able to rest in some sense. Heartbreakingly, you know, as we saw in the sentencing, um
02:01:49
Shadeai's mother asked Maxwell Anderson to confess where her daughter's crown was. And we're talking about her head,
02:01:57
of course. Um he though maintained his innocence, but we do hope that Shade's family will
02:02:04
will get an answer someday. And I know that's that search is ongoing. Yeah, this is the kind of continued heartbreak
02:02:10
for everyone who cares about Shade that all of her has not been found. Before we
02:02:17
go though, let's end on something that is so hopeful and positive and uplifting I think and that is that Shadeai's
02:02:25
legacy is her younger sister Adriana. Adriana, as we mentioned, such a a bright light in this world. Well, she
02:02:33
accepted Shadeai's graduation diploma um for her associates degree, but she also
02:02:40
has some big news, right? Yeah. So, Adriana is in the top 5% of high school kids in Wisconsin. She's been accepted
02:02:49
to Harvard. She has a 99% scholarship. She doesn't know what she's going to do, where she's going to go. But when I say
02:02:56
I've never met anyone like this, um, I wish her all the luck in the world. I she I don't think she needs it. I expect
02:03:06
great things from Adriana and I cannot wait to watch her continue to strive and rise and accomplish and be all the
02:03:15
things that we all know she can be, but also that her sister knew she could be. >> Well, that is a hopeful way to end this.
02:03:23
And uh thank you again for uh your incredible reporting and Marie on this one. Appreciate it.
02:03:29
>> Always great talking to you, Natalie. >> And if you liked this episode, please
02:03:32
rate or review on Apple Podcast or on Spotify. My name is John O'Hare. I am a police
02:03:52
officer with the Broomfield Police Department. >> Officer, how did this case begin for
02:03:57
you? >> On December 14th of 2023. I was dispatched to a welfare check at the Krug household.
02:04:06
>> Springfield dispatchers meeting. >> Hi there. Uh my name is Dan Krug. >> Dan Krug was calling and asked that we
02:04:12
check on his wife Christile. My wife isn't responding uh to text messages or phone calls.
02:04:22
>> Said that he had not been able to reach her for about 3 hours. >> We've had threats against us. We have
02:04:27
both been targeted by a stalker. >> Dan said that this alleged stalker had made threats to both him and his wife
02:04:37
Christile, >> which is why I'm Yeah. >> I'm nervous that she's not answering me.
02:04:42
>> Yeah. The first thing I did was walk right to the front door, kind of peek inside.
02:04:49
Everything looked orderly, quiet. I gave it a wild knock. My thinking at the time was it's very
02:04:57
possible she's not even home. So, I wanted to see if I could peek into the garage.
02:05:04
Quickly realized that I'm not tall enough to see in those windows. I went back to my patrol car and I
02:05:12
pulled it into the driveway so that I could get my push bumper close to the garage and use it as a as a step up. I
02:05:19
stepped up on it and looked in the window. I immediately see Christile apparently
02:05:25
lifeless. She had some type of wound to the head. >> 151 send medical. I got a female down in
02:05:32
the garage. >> Rodale police. Romefield police. >> Immediately I just checked for any signs
02:05:44
of life at that point. Does she have a pulse? She does not. >> 151. >> I immediately started CPR. There was a
02:05:51
stab wound on her chest. >> Send the next unit emergency, please. >> As the paramedics arrived, I opened the
02:05:56
garage door and a woman came up and I believe this woman was Christile's mother.
02:06:02
>> I arrived. >> I need you to stay out, please. I said, "That's my daughter." >> She came running up to me and said,
02:06:09
"Cristile is dead." >> It's just shocking. >> Oh my god. >> You don't want that to be your reality.
02:06:20
>> Oh my god. This can't be true. This can't be true, can it? >> It was chaos. >> I heard screaming coming from the top of
02:06:30
the hill. >> My house. >> Hey, stay back. Stay back. Stay back. Stay back. my house.
02:06:34
>> I understand. >> I see a man come running down the hill. >> This is Dan. This is her husband.
02:06:47
This man just lost his wife. And he is beside himself. I'm with Dan and he's on the floor and
02:06:57
he's crying. They all just kind of said, "I can't believe this happened. He did it." The
02:07:03
stalker did it. >> We were on heightened alert. We were very, very concerned for Dan's safety.
02:07:09
>> This is after Christile was murdered. You're worried that Dan may be next in this in this stalker's sights.
02:07:15
>> Correct. We thought Dan Krug was next. >> The community was very alarmed. >> Is this a murder?
02:07:21
>> There's a killer out there and we're going to go after him. Hey, hey, hey. It's a weird feeling standing there when
02:08:17
somebody's being told, "I'm sorry, but your loved one has died." Victims advocate Heather Aates is
02:08:23
trained to comfort those in emotional agony like Dan Krug who dashed home from work and learned his wife Christile had
02:08:31
been found murdered in their garage in suburban Broomfield, Colorado on December 14th, 2023.
02:08:40
>> This man has been going through a stalking case with his wife. He's being stalked as well and now she's gone. As
02:08:48
investigators searched the crime scene for clues, Heather drove Dan to the police station.
02:08:56
An officer's body camera recorded the ride. >> He was crouched over to the side of the
02:09:02
passenger door, and it was very much. I'm comforting Dan by rubbing his back. >> Dan and Christile had been married for
02:09:14
16 years. The couple, both 43, had three young children. >> What did he say in the car?
02:09:21
>> In the car, he was pretty focused on the kids. He was very adamant about wanting
02:09:25
to be the one to tell his children. >> Under the command of Broomfield Police Chief, Aniia Hempleman, investigators
02:09:33
were doing everything in their power to find the killer. >> We immediately uh started doing
02:09:39
interviews, talking to neighbors, canvasing. Several hours had passed since Dan Krug's emotional ride to the police
02:09:48
station. He had settled down and he told detectives there was nothing out of the
02:09:54
ordinary that morning. >> Mornings are very routine in the house. >> He said they got the kids to school and
02:10:03
Christile seemed fine when he left for his job at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. While I
02:10:12
was driving, uh, my my phone dinged. >> Dan said Christile texted him asking if he could pick up one of the kids after
02:10:22
school. But when he texted back and asked what time, he said Christile never responded.
02:10:30
>> And that that was weird. >> So weird. So out of character for Christile, Dan called police and asked
02:10:38
them to check on her. I got a female down in the garage. >> There are not words that can describe
02:10:44
what you feel as a parent at that point. >> It's probably some parents worst nightmare.
02:10:53
>> These are some memories, aren't they? >> Christile's parents, Lars and Linda Grimsrooude.
02:10:58
>> She was an engineer. She had incredible skills in math, sciences, chemistry, physics, but she also had the talents in
02:11:07
the arts. She loved to just get out and live life. >> Throughout her life, Christile spent
02:11:12
countless hours working with her dad on classic muscle cars in his colorful garage.
02:11:22
We'd work on the cars. We'd race the cars. Christile always felt very comfortable coming over here. If we
02:11:27
needed to talk or whatever, this is where we would sit and just en enjoy each other's company.
02:11:33
But those fun, casual conversations suddenly turned disturbing in the fall of 2023 when Christile first told her
02:11:42
father that she was living with intense fear. >> She sat here and told me that she was
02:11:47
being stalked. And that just shocked me when I asked her, "Well, have you talked
02:11:52
to the police?" >> Christile had called the police and met with Broomfield detective Andrew
02:11:58
Martinez. She came into the interview room and just kind of took over and just told me everything without hesitation.
02:12:06
>> Their conversation was recorded. >> I keep trying to remind myself this is intending to be terrorizing. This is
02:12:12
intending to scare me. >> Christile told Martinez that on October 2nd, 2023, she received an unsettling
02:12:20
text from someone named Anthony who said he would be coming to the area and asked
02:12:25
if Christile wanted to hook up. And how does she respond to that? >> She did not respond.
02:12:32
>> The following day, Christile told Martinez she got more texts from Anthony that included obscenities and said, "You
02:12:40
should kill yourself. Don't waste my time. >> Somebody who wants to hook up now is
02:12:45
saying, "Go kill yourself." How do you interpret that that second text? >> It's a pretty extreme reaction to not
02:12:53
getting a response. Christile told Martinez she knew an Anthony from her past. Anthony Holland,
02:13:00
a boyfriend she dated for about a year after high school and into college. The two broke up in the fall of 2000. Lars
02:13:09
and Linda say back then Anthony made a good impression. >> Very friendly, very courteous. He always
02:13:16
had good manners. >> In 2002, out of the blue, Anthony contacted Christile. According to
02:13:24
Christile, Anthony never seemed to take no for an answer, contacting her again in 2005, 2010, and 2016 via Facebook.
02:13:35
>> He's like, "We're meant to be together." I said, "This is really creepy for me.
02:13:38
You need to stop." >> Christile deleted Facebook and thought she'd heard the last of Anthony Holland.
02:13:45
>> But then came the text in 2023. >> Like, this was alarming. He's never said this kind of stuff to me before. Over
02:13:54
the next two months, Christile said she received alarming message after message through text and email. They included
02:14:01
threats to her and Dan, including this disturbing photo of Dan getting out of his car at work, which prompted Castile
02:14:10
to first come forward and call police. A few days later, this text to her. Saw you at dentist. See you soon. That
02:14:19
suggests he might be surveilling them both. Right. >> Correct. >> This now is escalating.
02:14:26
>> The harassment uh is just constant and she's just believing that every corner
02:14:31
presents some sort of danger for her. >> To gather evidence and locate Anthony Holland, Detective Martinez was required
02:14:39
to file search warrants with the phone and email companies. A slow process. Getting that information takes time.
02:14:47
Sometimes those companies are reluctant or they sloww walk getting that information to you. Correct.
02:14:52
>> Yes. >> Christile had been searching for Holland on her own. She hired a private
02:14:58
investigator and eventually located him living in Utah about 500 miles away. Christile shared her discovery with
02:15:06
Detective Martinez, who chose not to contact Holland. I explained to Christile that we wanted to gather as
02:15:14
much evidence as possible and ideally obtain an arrest warrant so when law enforcement does go to Anony's door, we
02:15:21
can take him into custody and not have to walk away. >> But Lara says Christile had been losing
02:15:28
patience with the investigation. >> She made the comment that she felt uh they had abandoned her, that they
02:15:35
weren't doing things aggressively enough. Christile had taken steps to protect herself and her family,
02:15:43
including installing security cameras. >> She was scared. I said, "Well, this sounds serious enough that uh you need
02:15:50
to start carrying. You'll use one of my guns for for right now." >> Is this the very gun that you
02:15:56
>> that that is the the actual gun that she initially then carried? >> Dan was also interviewed. The threats
02:16:03
were taking a toll on him as well. I went to the grocery store briefly on Tuesday
02:16:15
and someone behind me dropped a can and I panicked. So what am I doing? I'm panicking
02:16:24
and I'm doing a lot of protecting my wife. So I'm not I'm not doing good. >> Dan told Martinez the stalker had a
02:16:35
nickname. We call him Kickman. >> Where'd that name come from? >> Kickman Dan had told me was because the
02:16:43
suspect email that was initially contacting Christ was aholland [email protected].
02:16:52
>> As the weeks went by and Martinez's investigation continued, Lars and Linda say the constant threats were ruining
02:17:00
their daughter's life. >> It was just heartbreaking. She was just in tears. She was just like, "What am I
02:17:06
going to do? How am I going to live?" >> Did she feel she was being hunted down by by Anthony?
02:17:12
>> Yes. >> Christile also shared her fears with siblings Jenna Ericson and Josh Adamson.
02:17:19
>> She was terrified. >> Did she ever express to either of you the fear that this man I think is going
02:17:27
to kill me? >> Yes. She said, "It's either going to be me or him that's dead, and I'm going to
02:17:32
do everything in my power to make sure it's not me." When Christ was found dead in her
02:17:52
garage, Detective Martinez had only one suspect in mind. My initial assumption was that Anthony Holland had uh gone to
02:18:01
her home and murdered her. >> Within hours, local police descended on Holland's home in Eagle Mountain near
02:18:11
Salt Lake City. >> So, you're alone in a house. What do you hear? >> Pounding out the door
02:18:18
>> like >> Yeah. >> big time. >> So, I go to the door. I see like eight cops. I had no idea what was going on.
02:18:29
>> Where's your ID at my room? >> Have you ever heard of the name Crystal Krug? >> They asked me if I knew Crystal Krug and
02:18:39
I told them I did know her. >> She was my very first girlfriend ever. >> When was the last time you talked to
02:18:44
Crystal? Has it been a while? A minute. >> Um, it's been a minute. Yeah. >> When was the last time you had reached
02:18:51
out to Christ? >> It was around 2014 2016. Anthony says he'd reached out to Christile on Facebook years before.
02:19:00
>> What are you thinking? Why would they come over all the way here to ask me about Christile?
02:19:05
>> I thought it was for that message where I said I missed her. That's the only thing I could think of cuz I was like, I
02:19:10
haven't contacted her since then. >> They didn't tell you that Christile Krug had been murdered.
02:19:15
>> No, they did not tell me. >> Police were there to gather information from their suspect, not give it.
02:19:22
>> They asked me where I was that day. Can I prove where I was? >> Anthony had made a purchase just hours
02:19:28
earlier at a coal store near his home. >> What'd you buy? >> A sweatshirt. This one right here.
02:19:34
>> And he still had the receipt. The purchase was made at 12:16 p.m. Investigators say Christile was attacked
02:19:43
around 8 a.m. >> Turns out that was one of the most important purchases you have ever made.
02:19:50
>> Cuz it was my alibi. because there's no way I could have made it from Colorado
02:19:57
back to Utah to buy the sweatshirt. It was an eight hour drive. Anthony also showed police some of his employment
02:20:05
records. They proved he'd been in Utah all along, never traveling to Colorado, as the messages from Christile stalker
02:20:14
led cops to believe. I had a bunch of receipts from my work showing the days that I worked and they took those took
02:20:24
my receipt from Kohl's and went to the squad car and made a phone call. Came back in and told me I was free to go.
02:20:33
>> You had a better day. Okay. >> Back in Colorado, Dan was still face tof face with investigators. He told them
02:20:43
his theory of the crime. >> So in my brain, the story that I have is someone came to the door.
02:20:53
Maybe she went outside to get a package and they must have come in. And she's she's a fighter. She's
02:21:05
she is strong. She would have fought Earlier in the interview, Dan requested he tell the children what had happened
02:21:18
to their mother. >> Your kids do not know yet. >> Okay. >> Here arrive in the hall.
02:21:27
I should >> You want to tell them? >> I just don't know. >> Okay. Watching their response is just
02:21:40
heartbreaking. >> Investigators were working every angle. They checked those security cameras
02:21:47
Christile had installed on the house. >> The doorbell camera, the side camera, and the side house camera were all
02:21:55
manually turned off >> except for that one Nest camera near the garage. Police canvased Dan and
02:22:02
Christile's neighbors in search of anything their home security cameras might have recorded.
02:22:08
>> So, I saw you had a Ring doorbell camera. You mind reviewing that camera? >> Oh, goodness. Absolutely.
02:22:12
>> If possible, if you guys can review the last 3 to 5 hours. >> They also enlisted Randy Pilac, a
02:22:19
digital forensic examiner with the Broomfield Police Department to take a closer look at those disturbing messages
02:22:26
to Christile. I think it was probably four hours, 5 hours after the murder was reported to us.
02:22:33
>> Now that the stalking case had become a murder investigation, Pilac was able to
02:22:38
file new expedited requests for information. He quickly discovered that messages from two accounts used to
02:22:46
harass Castile had been sent from the same location. >> Both came back to the same IP address.
02:22:53
That IP address was the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which is where Dan worked.
02:23:03
The messages to Christile threatening her, threatening her husband had been sent using the Wi-Fi system at Dan's
02:23:11
office. For the first time, detectives believe Christile's stalker could be sitting
02:23:19
right in front of them. Could he be her killer as well? >> The entire air was just kind of
02:23:26
evacuated out of our investigations room and we realized that we need to focus on
02:23:32
Dan and where he's been and what he's been doing. >> Martinez along with detective Jennifer
02:23:39
King Sullivan confronted Dan. >> Who do you think killed her? >> I think it's K. I think it's Anthony.
02:23:48
>> What if I told you better? We had already spoken with Anthony. There's no way that he was in town
02:23:53
today. And I have nothing and I'm terrified to bring my children home. >> What are you terrified of?
02:24:15
>> If it wasn't him, who was it? But even as Dan claimed ignorance, the detective
02:24:21
saw that his body language told a different story. >> What were you seeing with Dan? He took a
02:24:28
defensive posture. He sat back in the couch a little bit. He crossed his arms. Kind of like I have nothing to explain.
02:24:39
I think his head is spinning thinking about what else are they going to find? The mystery continues. And I ask you,
02:25:09
>> if you were watching these facts unfold in front of you in a movie, what would
02:25:13
you say happened? There has to be some. >> Moments after detectives told Dan Krug
02:25:23
they had eliminated Anthony Holland as a suspect, Dan calmly insisted he was not
02:25:29
the one who stalked and murdered his wife Christile. >> I loved her. There has to be someone
02:25:36
else. But I don't know who that is. Martinez and King Sullivan didn't believe a word of it and were struck by
02:25:49
how stoic, how unmoved Dan was. >> He had no reaction. Um, and really no explanation.
02:25:58
>> Help me make sense of it. >> I don't know. I'm not the one who does this. I don't have a narrative or a
02:26:07
story that I can offer you. Within minutes, Dan Krug had gone from sympathetic victim to murder suspect.
02:26:17
>> I I I get the narrative you're putting together, >> but it alleges that I would do this to
02:26:23
my children. >> I love and adore my children. >> It's a pretty frightening idea that the
02:26:31
biggest threat to you and your safety is actually living in the same house as you.
02:26:37
>> We need to process you for physical evidence. Okay. He knows that we're on to him. We just
02:26:46
didn't have enough evidence at that point to take him into custody. >> On his way out, Dan kept insisting the
02:26:53
real killer was still on the loose and he made a desperate plea. >> He took my children's mother
02:27:06
for Christmas. They're never going to get over that. I don't care if you capture them. I
02:27:15
don't care if you kill them. Find out. Don't just assume this man. Keep looking.
02:27:23
>> When did you find out that Dan was now a person of of interest in this case? >> I think at his interview, so that same
02:27:32
day when they held him, they held him pretty late. An autopsy revealed what happened to
02:27:39
Christile. She had been attacked from behind with a blunt object, bludgeoned to death in the
02:27:46
head and rolled over and then stabbed in the heart. >> With Dan now the prime suspect, the
02:27:54
detectives wanted to know more about his relationship with Christile. According to Christile's parents, it wasn't good.
02:28:02
>> She said, "Well, I'm sleeping on the couch, Mom." But you knew there was trouble in paradise, right?
02:28:07
>> Yeah. And especially in that those last few months. >> Christile's family says those troubles
02:28:12
were caused by Dan's fiery temper. >> What set him off? >> It it could be it could be anything, but
02:28:18
it was usually if he was losing control. >> Christile's sister, Jenna Ericson, says
02:28:24
she could always tell when Dan was angry. >> His face would get really red when he
02:28:29
would was getting frustrated. I vividly remember seeing his face get red. They had a thing where they'd go, "Okay, walk
02:28:36
away. You need to walk away." And so, you know, they were trying to manage it. >> But in the weeks before her death,
02:28:44
according to her parents, Christile was getting ready to leave Dan. >> She didn't want to have this marriage
02:28:51
anymore. >> She had decided that she needed to get a divorce. As the detectives methodically built
02:28:58
their case, more evidence was uncovered on Dan and Christile's cell phones by digital forensic expert Randy Pilac,
02:29:07
including texts from the morning of the murder. >> So on Crystal's phone, we see text
02:29:12
messages to Lars, Detective Martinez, and then a text message to Dan, >> the one Dan said he received while
02:29:20
driving to work about picking up one of the kids at school. But Pilac discovered
02:29:25
those texts had been set on a timer. It was a new feature on the phone Cile had.
02:29:32
Who do you believe pre-programmed those messages? >> Uh, Dan Crew. >> And he did it to do what?
02:29:40
>> To hide his actions. >> Pilac says the messages were pre-programmed before Dan left the house.
02:29:48
>> And we believe Christile was deceased. That for him then would establish an alibi that well I had already left and
02:29:56
my wife is alive, right? She's texting me. >> Correct. >> All while Dan casually arrived at work.
02:30:05
Pilac discovered more damning evidence from Dan's phone. Internet searches like what happens when you're knocked
02:30:13
unconscious? Do people really go unconscious when hit in the head? and how hard for head trauma to go
02:30:21
unconscious. >> All searches were the day before the murder. It was rather damning.
02:30:31
>> Just 2 days after Christile had been murdered, detectives Martinez and King Sullivan felt they had enough evidence
02:30:39
to charge Dan Krug with stalking and murdering his wife. We began following him.
02:30:47
>> Coming up to the stop sign now. >> How many cars we talking about? >> Probably eight cars.
02:30:53
>> We're like, "That's him. He's alone in the car." >> Hey, be ready to pop that once he gets
02:30:57
it into park. >> We follow him all the way to the grocery store. >> Pulling in King Supers parking lot.
02:31:02
>> We wait for him to park. We quickly converge on his car. >> Go, go, go, go, go, go.
02:31:11
>> Show us your hands. Show us your hands. on your face. Hands on your face. >> Hands on your face.
02:31:18
>> So, we surround him. >> Pull him out of his car and tell him he's being arrested for the murder of
02:31:25
his wife. >> I asked him just one question. >> Do you want me to tell your kids that
02:31:39
you killed their mother or do you want somebody else to? That's quite a line that goes back to
02:31:46
when he said he wanted to tell his kids that their mother was dead. >> After I asked that question, he just
02:32:00
said that he wanted to speak with his attorney and then looked away from me. >> All right,
02:32:05
>> good luck. >> And I shut the door and he went to the county jail. You >> get one leg up and then kind of swing
02:32:11
around. I felt a huge relief. They got him. It felt like a burden had been lifted that
02:32:19
he had been arrested. And soon Christile's family would come face to face with the man detectives say
02:32:28
murdered her. >> He looked right at me and smiled at me. >> And here for the first time, Dan's side
02:32:37
of the story. When deputy district attorneys Kate Armstrong and Stephanie Fritz were
02:33:03
assigned to prosecute Daniel Krug, they say they were struck by his downright stupidity in belieing ing he could get
02:33:10
away with murdering his wife by impersonating her ex-boyfriend. >> The audacity with which he thought he
02:33:18
could manipulate not only his family, his loved ones, but also the police department.
02:33:23
>> And some of this is sophisticated, is it not? >> It's sophisticated, but not too
02:33:29
sophisticated because we were able to figure it out. >> The trial began in April 2025.
02:33:39
When he first came in, he smiled at me like he was saying, "Hey, thanks for being here for me." I believe my facial
02:33:47
expression made it very clear that I was not on his side. >> The prosecution laid out Christile's
02:33:55
final hours of life for the jury. >> On December 14th of 2023, Christile Krug started her day like any other day. She
02:34:04
took her younger two children to school. And when she returned, >> Crystal pulled back into her garage. She
02:34:12
gets out of the car when she is attacked from behind. >> And did she ever see him approaching, do
02:34:19
you think, or was this an ambush? >> It was an ambush. She had uh two or three skull fractures as she's laying on
02:34:26
the floor bleeding. He pushes her over, gets over her, and stabs her just above her heart.
02:34:32
>> And why do you suppose he had to do that vicious last stab? I think it was rage.
02:34:38
I think it was control and power that he wanted to exert over Crystal. >> Dan had been losing that control for a
02:34:46
long time, say prosecutors. Their theory of the crime is that Dan sent Christile
02:34:52
those disturbing messages in an attempt to drive her closer to him and not leave, hoping she'd see him as her
02:35:01
heroic protector. >> It was not working. the stalking was not leaving her back to him. I think it then
02:35:09
turned to I'm still losing her kind of a if I can't have you, nobody can. >> The prosecution says that in the last
02:35:20
days of her life, Christile had begun to suspect that her stalker was possibly her husband.
02:35:30
We know from Dan's own interview that she confronted him and said, "I can't rule you out as the stalker."
02:35:35
>> She said that right to my face that she wanted to know if it was me. And I told her
02:35:43
>> he felt the walls closing in. >> Closing in. He was going to lose Chris Steele anyway. He was going to be
02:35:48
exposed as the stalker. So, he did that last fatal act and murdered her. Prosecutors say Dan tried to outsmart
02:35:57
investigators, pre-programming those text messages on Christile's phone before he left the house, assuming he
02:36:06
wouldn't be caught. >> Were we not able to discover that that was a delayed send text, it would have
02:36:13
appeared as though Crystal was still alive when he left the house. >> At trial, the long list of digital
02:36:20
evidence against Dan was laid out. the threatening texts, the emails, the internet searches. Also included that
02:36:30
photograph of Dan arriving at his office attached to a menacing email seemingly sent by Anthony Holland to Castile.
02:36:40
But there was one problem. According to the state's digital expert, who took this picture, do you believe?
02:36:46
>> Uh Dan. Dan took this picture. Pilac discovered that the phone which snapped that photo was in selfie mode
02:36:56
using a timer. A fact that Kate Armstrong reminded the jury about in her closing argument.
02:37:03
That's when the judge allowed cameras into the courtroom. >> The phone was propped on the back of
02:37:09
this vehicle next to him. The defendant took this photograph and then he sent it
02:37:13
to his wife. >> We respectfully disagree with the prosecution in this case. Defense
02:37:19
attorney Philip Geel argued the murder investigation was poor. The blunt object used on Christile's head and the knife
02:37:27
used to stab her were never recovered by police. The defense also zeroed in on the fact that Christile's phone was not
02:37:36
tested for fingerprints or DNA. >> Why not the phone? And the prosecution wants to believe, well, you know, there
02:37:43
may not be a lot to be found there. Well, you won't know if you won't try. Geel said other forensic tests supported
02:37:50
his claim that Dan is innocent. >> They submitted the chest swabs. And you know whose DNA wasn't there? The person
02:37:58
who lived in the house, the person who ate in the kitchen with them, the person who shared the living room, that idiot
02:38:05
right there. There is absolutely no physical evidence on Mr. Krug's clothing. There's no blood found on that
02:38:11
car inside or out. It searched three times. In week three of the trial, the jurors
02:38:19
began deliberations. After a day and a half, verdicts were reached. >> Please rise for the jury.
02:38:27
>> Judge Priscilla Low read the verdicts. >> We the jury find the defendant guilty of
02:38:33
murder in the first degree. We the jury find the defendant guilty of count number two stalking extreme
02:38:41
emotional distress. Krug was also found guilty of stalking with credible threat and criminal
02:38:48
impersonation. >> Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. And at that point, I think I started breathing
02:38:55
again. >> Krug was later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole
02:39:00
on the murder charge and an additional 9 and a half years for the stalking and impersonation counts.
02:39:10
But right after his conviction in a video call from jail, >> how are you? >> Uh, been better.
02:39:18
>> Daniel Krug told his family that the jury got it wrong, saying the real killer remained at large and that his
02:39:26
children could be the next targets. >> I need them safe. I don't know where or who
02:39:38
did this, where he is or who he is. I need my children out of Colorado. As Daniel Krug began serving his life
02:40:06
sentence, he continued making video calls to his parents and brother in the days immediately after his conviction.
02:40:14
The man who viciously murdered his wife, terrorized his own children, and lied to
02:40:20
everyone was seeking sympathy from his side of the family. Yeah, I'm probably sleeping like 16 hours a day because of
02:40:28
the depression. >> Mhm. >> I sleep, I read, and I cry. That's about it. >> Okay.
02:40:34
>> Despite overwhelming digital evidence against him, Krug fell back to his old ways, lying to his loved ones, now
02:40:43
claiming he was wrongly convicted. >> They never produced a single piece of hard
02:40:52
evidence. His brother Jeremy gave Krug a much needed reality check that the foundation of the family's loyalty had
02:41:02
started to crack. >> Support is dwindling. You know, mom and dad want to believe
02:41:11
you very much. I want to believe you very much. Right? There's a lot that's come out. Um, and as imaginative as I
02:41:20
can be with finding explanations and ways to theorize how that, you know, this or that could have been the the
02:41:27
reality. Um, some of it is beyond even my creativity. The case that ended with a murder had
02:41:38
begun with stalking and criminal impersonation of Anthony Holland, which begs the question, what if Detective
02:41:45
Martinez had acted on the information Christile and the private investigator had uncovered?
02:41:51
>> They should have found me right away. They should have found me. They should have came to my house. They should have
02:41:56
approached me. They should have talked to me. But Detective Martinez chose not to call, telling us he didn't have
02:42:04
enough evidence to do so and was concerned a phone call could exacerbate the situation.
02:42:11
>> Is this something where you've kicked yourself about this? >> Uh, this case has uh haunted me since um
02:42:19
it occurred and the outcome of this case has haunted me for the past two years. And if you could get in a time machine,
02:42:29
perhaps you make that call today. >> Absolutely. >> And Christile's parents sympathize with
02:42:36
Martinez and believe their daughter was doomed no matter what the outcome of his
02:42:42
investigation. >> Inevitably, I think he was going to kill her. When someone sets their mind to do
02:42:51
something like that and that's what the plan was, I don't think that would have uh stopped the murder from happening.
02:42:59
>> Christile's death has left a hole in the lives of those who experienced her love
02:43:04
and joy for life. >> I've had lots of other girlfriends and I've never been in love with anybody
02:43:10
else like her. >> She was the love of your life. >> Yeah. Jenna hopes her sister Christile's story
02:43:18
will serve as a cautionary tale. >> If it can help just one other person who's in a dangerous situation like she
02:43:27
was in that it gives them the strength to make a move because it can escalate and it can escalate really really fast.
02:43:36
>> What was lost when she was taken from us? >> Her light. you know, light. >> It's a That's a tough one to talk about
02:43:50
because there's uh there's so much. >> I wanted to jump out of that car and say, "Hey, Bubba."
02:44:02
Laura still passes his time restoring parts for vintage cars. That fatherdaughter hobby is now being passed
02:44:11
down to Christile's children. >> They're in here. They run that same electric screwdriver and they can tear a
02:44:18
carburetor apart. >> So, in that way, you're honoring her memory, aren't you? >> Well, that's the whole idea. Yeah. Yeah.
02:44:23
That's the whole idea. She She would get such a kick out of seeing the kids doing
02:44:28
the stuff that she was involved in. I look at my grandkids and I find a moment of peace because I see her.
02:45:20
Welcome back to Postmortem. I'm your host, Ann Marie Green, and today I'm joined by 48 Hours correspondent Peter
02:45:27
Vans and journalist Sheila Flynn. We are discussing the murder of Christ Krug, a
02:45:34
Colorado mother of three. Ashila, you actually reported on this case for the Daily Mail and you were also in the
02:45:41
courtroom during the trial. Um, so we're going to get into that and we're really,
02:45:46
really appreciative that you're here to give us your perspective on this case. >> Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here.
02:45:51
Hopefully I can help. >> And Peter, it's always great to have you here with us to break down uh this 48
02:45:58
hours episode here on Postmortem. >> Yes. In in honor of the Daily Mail, I'll say hello and welcome, Sheila.
02:46:04
>> Is that that's your best British accent? >> It's pretty good. I lived there for a
02:46:08
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
02:46:14
everyone. If you haven't actually listened to this 48 hours episode yet, head on back to your podcast feed.
02:46:20
You'll find the full audio version of this in your feed right below this podcast. So, go take a listen and then
02:46:27
come on back for this conversation. So, in December of 2023, Christile's husband, Dan Krug, requested a welfare
02:46:34
check on his wife, uh, who wasn't responding to his text messages or his phone calls. Krug also told police that
02:46:42
there was an alleged stalker that had been threatening them. When police arrived at the couple's home, they found
02:46:49
Christile dead in the garage. An autopsy later revealed that she had been bludgeoned to death in the back of the
02:46:56
head and she'd also been stabbed in the heart. There was a tremendous amount of police body cam footage from the crime
02:47:04
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.
02:47:17
Peter, when you watched that video, what did you think about his behavior at the
02:47:21
scene? >> I had never heard anything like that before. Here was a man you could hear
02:47:27
before you saw him on these body cams. He was shouting and wailing as he ran down the street. It seemed so unnatural.
02:47:35
when by the time he got in front of that house and he was bent over and he was wretching and making all of these
02:47:42
sounds. It was an extraordinary performance and we know now it was a performance and but
02:47:53
it was completely over the top. You know, I first viewed it actually sitting just feet behind Krue himself who was
02:47:59
sitting as a defendant in court at the trial. And you know, Peter used the word performance. It seemed so much like a
02:48:06
performance to me. Just very overblown, not asking why. Just almost seeming like
02:48:12
he was trying to make himself seem scattered, like he didn't know what to do as he wailed. And it was really
02:48:20
interesting to watch him watch that without any reaction as he was on trial for Christile's murder.
02:48:26
>> I'm glad that both of you guys said that because when I watched the video, I felt
02:48:32
like I was judging him, but I just wasn't convinced with his behavior, the way he was sort
02:48:38
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
02:48:47
people in situations like this many, many times. Um, and we want to play for uh the listeners here some unaired
02:48:55
footage from Peter, your interview with her, and she talks about when she actually first started to suspect Krug.
02:49:02
>> The car ride from his house to the police department seemed like an eternity, and it felt as if
02:49:12
something had switched. I I was starting to look at him a little differently, especially since he was
02:49:20
very adamant about telling the children. And he wasn't asking any other questions. He wasn't asking where was
02:49:29
she? How what happened? And I turn and I look at him and I get this weird feeling. And
02:49:37
it's a it's a it's a feeling of are you really crying? Are are you really is this happening?
02:49:47
Did you do this? You didn't know. You didn't do this, Heather. You're watching You watched too many 48 hours episodes.
02:49:54
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
02:50:00
instinct. How interesting. But Peter, it's not just a gut instinct. He's not asking any
02:50:07
questions about what happened to his wife. >> Yeah. Bizarre behavior. and she followed
02:50:11
her instincts, which was great. Heather has a lot of wisdom in all of this. At one point, she said, you know, he had
02:50:17
really settled down. Then he started to make this very strange whimpering sound,
02:50:21
and she felt it was invented, that it just wasn't uh genuine. So, to bring people some of the background that we
02:50:29
already know about if you watch the hour, for months before her death, Christile had been receiving threatening
02:50:35
text messages and photos that appeared to be coming from an exboyfriend, Anthony Holland. Christile brought her
02:50:43
concerns to Detective Martinez, who at the time chose not to contact Anthony. Uh he said that they were compiling
02:50:50
enough evidence against him to actually obtain an arrest warrant. You both interviewed Anthony.
02:50:58
What was your impression of him? >> He was a very uh downto- earthth individual. There's a sadness about him.
02:51:06
Christile uh was somebody that um he deeply cared for. They'd met in high school, but they were such different
02:51:13
people. Christile was this intellect, a a truly genius level intellect. An engineering future awaited for her. She
02:51:22
was very ambitious. she was going to go to university. And um Anthony on the other hand had no plans. He had no
02:51:29
academic interest. These two split up and it haunted him. He he just felt like a big part of his life was missing.
02:51:38
>> Anthony is just very very earnest, very honest, genuine, softspoken. Uh and he just really loved Christile.
02:51:48
And when he described to me, you know, they had met, they were both working at J C Penney as teenagers, and he
02:51:56
described their first date and their first kiss as magical. And it almost sounded like he was recounting scenes
02:52:02
from a teen movie. And when I saw him testify at her trial, he was so anxious. He was clutching fidget toys. And you
02:52:12
could tell he was really trying to do Christile's memory well up on the stand as well as stand up for himself. And he
02:52:21
told me that he stared down. And I could see this that he stared down Krug uh at
02:52:26
the defense table. Kind of going, "Man, you tried to frame me for murder." And he thanked me later after I ran a story,
02:52:35
an interview with Anthony about his past. And Christile, he thanked me for sharing her story as well as his because
02:52:42
it was his great love. >> So seeing as you know she had been his his great love. Sheila had Anthony
02:52:49
actually contacted her over the years. >> He had you know I think in that way sometimes you reach out with whatifs
02:52:57
etc. He sent a few messages, I believe the last, I think in 2016, just saying seeing how she was doing. Nothing
02:53:05
malicious or anything. You know, he had kind of a rockolid alibi. He he literally and figuratively had the
02:53:11
receipts. >> Yeah. It's it's an incredible twist in in this story that on the day that
02:53:18
Christile was murdered, he'd gotten up and uh he now thinks this voice in his head was Christile sending him a
02:53:26
message. He got this urge to go to a Kohl's department store and to buy a sweatshirt. And when I did the interview
02:53:33
with him, I didn't realize he was wearing that very sweatshirt and he had the receipt and it proved that he was
02:53:40
500 miles away in Utah and could not have been um in Colorado uh not not in the area at all, not in the neighborhood
02:53:49
to have committed this murder. And he thinks somehow Christile's uh spirit um helped save him, exonerate him in in
02:53:59
this case. >> Wow. So more and more often with these cases though, we are able to use uh
02:54:07
surveillance footage or you know body cam footage, but it it's not often that we have so much of the victim before the
02:54:14
crime. In the hour we see Christile's interview with police when she's reporting that someone is stalking her.
02:54:20
She seems to be taking all the right steps to protect herself and her family. Do you think that she would have maybe
02:54:29
eventually uncovered the truth that it indeed was her husband behind these threatening text messages?
02:54:36
>> You know, I think she absolutely would have. She was so smart and it was so frustrating to see her in that footage
02:54:43
talking to the detective with everything laid out before him. I mean, she had spreadsheets and color-coded files and
02:54:51
mountains of evidence. And he joked that she had done his job for him. And she had I mean, she did everything. And she
02:55:00
had even told her stepmom's sister, I can't even rule out my husband. This is someone used to using the scientific
02:55:08
method to solve problems. And she had done that looking at the facts of this case. And we know now because Dan Krue,
02:55:15
whether that was a this was a slip up or whatever, he actually admits during the
02:55:20
course of one of these interviews that she had mentioned to him that he could be the stalker. And think about that
02:55:28
because it wasn't that long after she revealed that to him that she ended up being murdered.
02:55:35
>> I mean, she was she was petrified as well. She, you know, she broke down in tears in a parking lot to her mother
02:55:42
once. She was, you know, re-uping her shooting skills. She was arming herself. This was all discussed in court when
02:55:49
they were outlining witnesses on the stand as well as the prosecution. So to know that she was in fear and literally
02:55:58
carrying a gun at the time of her death and just always looking over her shoulder and still died, it was it was
02:56:04
really tragic and infuriating. Dan was aware that uh she had armed herself um when she was attacked and authorities
02:56:14
came into that garage. Her gun was inside her purse. She may have felt a little bit of safety going into that
02:56:21
garage. Dan obviously knew the garage. He knew her her habits and he was able to uh to ambush her. And all of that gun
02:56:29
training and all that preparation uh ended up being for nothing cuz he he got to her first. You mentioned that she had
02:56:36
mentioned that she couldn't rule out her own husband. Most people don't say that about, you
02:56:43
know, their partner. I'm kind of curious about how Christile's family felt about
02:56:49
Krug. Did they give you any indication as to whether or not they liked him or not?
02:56:53
>> They did in the interview. Uh her mother, Linda, in particular, didn't really like him from the beginning, and
02:56:59
she just had a bad feeling about him. He was very awkward in family um gatherings. He at times could be uh
02:57:08
quiet. And I asked them, "Did you ever just mention it to her that you were concerned about it?" They said, "No,
02:57:14
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
02:57:21
be, but from the very beginning, it just didn't feel right to them." >> They said in court that they were aware
02:57:28
that the marriage was disintegrating. Um, and I just think what united them in the weeks running up to Christile's
02:57:38
death was this stalker. I mean, there was family testimony during trial that at a family birthday party in the weeks
02:57:46
before Christile's murder. Dan was really playing up the stalker angle. He kept looking out the window in case the
02:57:54
stalker might be surveilling them or in in the vicinity. And I I just think that
02:58:02
his behavior looking back now must anger them so much more seeing that deceit. I
02:58:08
want to talk about the footage of Krug's police interrogation. We see the very the moment really where the tables turn
02:58:14
on him where police reveal that Anthony has an alibi. And I want to play a clip from the show.
02:58:21
>> What if I told you that we had already spoken with Anthony and there's no way
02:58:25
that he was in town today? And I have nothing and I'm terrified to bring my children
02:58:40
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
02:58:54
Peterson murder case many years ago and at the time we did a story about deception and signs of deception. One of
02:59:01
them is whisper talking and you noticed it there. It's in that audio. It is dramatic. He's talking and all of a
02:59:08
sudden it just falls off and you'll you hear him speak in this whisper talk which is which is for these these
02:59:16
psychological experts a sign that that he's lying and telling a story. Um the frustrating part in all of this too is
02:59:23
that they had to release Dan after this interview even though he was their number one suspect and at that point
02:59:30
they were pretty convinced that he is the killer. He knew they were on to him and that whisper talk just said it all
02:59:37
to me. >> You know, even throughout his police interviews that we saw during the trial,
02:59:43
he was always presenting himself as completely harmless and non-threatening. He's very tall, very skinny. He was
02:59:50
stooped, slouched on the couch, hunched over, um moving gingerly, you know, holding a cup of coffee or water as if
02:59:59
it was going to hurt him. uh just constantly putting out this vibe of I'm harmless. Don't look at me. And even
03:00:09
there when he was still protesting his innocence, who could it be pretending to be afraid? It was all it was all a
03:00:16
facade. Welcome back. Well, after a digital forensics expert traced the stalker's
03:00:24
messages to Krug's office wifi and uncovered chilling searches on his phone, like, "Do people really go
03:00:31
unconscious when hit in the head?" Police move in to arrest him. It's rare that we see this moment, uh, you know,
03:00:40
the hands up, you're under arrest moment, but we actually get it from multiple angles here.
03:00:46
>> We get it from six different angles. This is like this is like a Hollywood movie at this at this point. And as more
03:00:52
and more local law enforcement gets into the get into the body cam technology, we're seeing uh incredible moments like
03:00:59
this unfold before our eyes. The tragedy, you know, he was out at that supermarket because his daughter was
03:01:05
going to be performing in the Nutcracker that night and they wanted to get some flowers. Um, on the day of the murder,
03:01:11
Dan insisted to police that he wanted to be the one who told his three children that their mother was dead. Well, at the
03:01:19
time of arrest, you flip the script here and Detective Martinez, who had uh such
03:01:25
enormous frustration during the course of this investigation and some self-doubt whether he should have acted
03:01:31
earlier to pursue Anthony Holland, reach out to him earlier, he finally had a moment where he's looking at it and he
03:01:37
says basically, "Hey, you want me to tell the kids that you murdered their mother or someone else?" And it was, I'm
03:01:44
paraphrasing there, but it was it was such a powerful moment there. Uh, and I I felt good for the detective that he
03:01:52
finally got one jab of the sword at this at this creep. >> Absolutely. Um, let's go to the trial. No cameras
03:02:02
were allowed in the courtroom until closing arguments. Uh, but Sheila, you were there in person for pretty much
03:02:08
most of the trial. >> Mhm. >> What was Krug's demeanor like? A and was there family there to support him
03:02:14
through the trial? >> There was, you know, he his demeanor was very similar to how it was in police
03:02:23
interviews and on that footage where he stooped over, he moved slowly, presenting himself as harmless, meek,
03:02:31
sitting there quietly at the defense table. Um, his older brother was there for much of the trial. His elderly
03:02:39
father was one of the last witnesses called and he and his elderly mother were there for the verdict as it was
03:02:47
read. His brother seemed shell shocked when he addressed the judge. But Chris Steele's family, meanwhile, was there
03:02:55
right behind the prosecution every day at the trial, active, engaged, just supporting her every step of the way.
03:03:02
The prosecution's biggest hurdle in this case was really the lack of DNA evidence
03:03:07
tying Krug to the murder. The murder weapon was also never recovered and investigators didn't find Priscile's
03:03:14
blood on Krug's clothes or in his car. That is something you would expect uh when someone has, you know, a stab
03:03:22
wound. So, it begs the question just how is it possible to have no DNA evidence in a case like this where there's
03:03:31
clearly a lot of blood. >> Well, for all the mistakes that he made, perhaps it's blind luck in his case. It
03:03:38
is something that, you know, the prosecutors and Sheila knows this very well, they all want a CSI moment in a
03:03:43
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,
03:03:52
there just wasn't that. >> And, you know, that was a cornerstone of the defense really, that there was no
03:03:59
DNA. And how could that be? I mean, investigators were told that he by his children that he was wearing the same
03:04:06
clothes that morning that he was when he came after she was murdered. So truly, how did he manage it? But I always
03:04:15
wondered. I mean, Krug worked for the Department of Health here in Colorado. who knows what he had access to. And
03:04:23
when you think about it, even though he made a number of really elementary and unbelievable mistakes when it came to
03:04:30
digital evidence or emails or phones, he did have a lot of time to plan this over
03:04:36
a matter of months as he was carrying out that stalking campaign. >> Well, let's talk about the digital
03:04:43
evidence. I mean, I don't know when people are going to learn like your Google searches will become part of the
03:04:51
case against you. The Google searches first off were incredible where he was asking about, you know, basically I'm
03:04:57
paraphrasing uh what does it take to knock somebody out and if you strike somebody on the back of the head, which
03:05:03
of course is what happened to his wife when they were able to determine that messages had been sent from his company
03:05:11
wifi system. That is as good as a fingerprint. That who else could have have done that? Now, the defense tried
03:05:19
to say, well, the person that was stalking him may have been in the building at the time and that's how this
03:05:23
occurred, but they really had him on that. Also, they were able to determine that there was a a iconic picture in the
03:05:32
course of this where the alleged stalker had taken a photograph of Dan as he was
03:05:36
getting inside uh a vehicle. Well, their digital expert was able to determine that that had been that picture had been
03:05:43
taken on Krug's phone at in selfie mode on a timer. And they were even able to figure out the bumper that was was used
03:05:52
to hold the phone to take that photograph. >> It would be laughable if it hadn't
03:05:57
involved the loss of a life. I mean, it's just astonishing. He bought a burner phone, but with a gift card that
03:06:03
was registered to himself. He also in one of the really wow moments of the trial on October 2nd when he sent a text
03:06:13
one of the threatening stalker messages to Christile. She didn't answer and it was the first stalker message he sent.
03:06:21
And when she didn't answer, he clearly was worried that the message wasn't getting through. So he texted his own
03:06:27
cell phone test and then responded to that text with his cell phone to the burner. Yeah. So, I mean, he absolutely
03:06:38
absolutely kind of condemned himself with that interaction >> clearly. Um, and a a jury uh finds him
03:06:47
guilty. Uh, he's found guilty of firstdegree murder as well as stalking and impersonation. Sheila, what was the
03:06:53
reaction like in the courtroom when the verdict was read? >> On Krug's side, his uh parents, his mom
03:07:01
slumped into his dad. a supporter put a hand on her back. They were just clearly
03:07:06
in disbelief and bereft. On the other side of the courtroom, people were tearful for different reasons. You know,
03:07:13
they later spoke about how they felt this was some semblance of justice for Cris. After he was convicted, we get
03:07:21
more fascinating video uh and we include this in the hour of a jail house call that Krug makes to his family. We want
03:07:30
to play for you now an extended clip of that call that was not in the show. >> We are in
03:07:38
a digital and monitored age. They never produced a single photograph of me with phones. They never produced a
03:07:49
single photograph of me buying anything. They never produced a single piece of hard
03:07:58
evidence. Just identity theft. That's it. That's it. And we're in a world today where that's
03:08:13
enough. DNA exoneration doesn't mean because someone can do things with a cell phone.
03:08:30
Not a single photograph, not a single drop of blood, not a single scrap of DNA. Not a single recording.
03:08:47
Identity theft is all it takes to destroy somebody. >> This almost sounds like an attorney
03:08:57
performing closing arguments. It's quite dramatic with all those pauses and such.
03:09:03
>> They don't have that hard physical evidence, but the evidence that was presented was compelling um to this jury
03:09:10
and uh I think to the community. You know, you could tell that his brother who got up, Jeremy, who spoke at trial
03:09:17
during victim impact statements, you could tell that he was caught off guard, that he still had no idea how to handle
03:09:23
this because the point he made was that the family hadn't been privy to all the evidence until it was presented at
03:09:31
trial, that they were holding on to a glimmer of hope. That hope had been very quickly shattered once they saw the case
03:09:39
that was presented. And his brother also expressed anger at Dan for doing this to
03:09:45
his family and putting them through it and talk about driving his elderly parents home as they collapsed against
03:09:51
each other in the car. So, not only did he put his children through it, now he's
03:09:56
putting his parents and extended family through it and continuing to do it is gling.
03:10:02
>> Yeah. So Dan Krug, he is sentenced to life in prison um without the possibility of
03:10:09
parole on the murder charge and an additional n and a half years for the stalking and impersonation counts. And
03:10:15
Sheila, you were talking about the victim impact statements um at at sentencing. And Christile's
03:10:21
sister-in-law also got up and made a victim impact statement and and she talked about what the children will have
03:10:28
to deal with. >> She did. She actually read out statements from the kids themselves who
03:10:33
spoke of their grief. And it was not just Christile's sister-in-law and the children speaking. It was a long line of
03:10:41
friends and family members. Whether they were school friends of Christile's or friends she'd met in adult dance classes
03:10:48
or cousins, relatives, siblings, everyone spoke of what a bright light she was, how smart, how quick, how she
03:10:56
would amuse them with self-deprecating humor. And you could see how much Christile touched so many people's lives
03:11:04
and how angry they were that she was so needlessly stolen. >> Yeah. Um, how's Christelle's family
03:11:11
doing? They are um they're such incredible people. Um Lars um Christile's dad is Norwegian. Uh he's
03:11:24
from a family of engineers. Christile followed in that tradition. In that uh workroom they have at the house where he
03:11:30
has these these old vintage cars. They used to work on them together. Lars can rebuild an original Corvette carburetor.
03:11:38
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
03:11:46
see her there. Um they're trying to continue that tradition with the children. Lars is and he's desperate uh
03:11:53
and and will never let her memory die. >> The kids, the oldest is about 16 now. And you know what they do have around
03:12:02
them is a very large and loving extended family. And the crowds who stood up for
03:12:08
Christile for victim impact statements were just I think the tip of the iceberg. And the judge even acknowledged
03:12:16
at sentencing what a pleasure it was despite being an awful tragic and bittersweet circumstance to get to know
03:12:24
about Christile and her family. So I I guess despite this horrific situation, the kids are lucky in that regard to
03:12:32
have all of them around her, all the people who turned up at the trial for Christile and the many others out there.
03:12:38
>> Absolutely. It's a community that they will need moving forward. And it, you know, it makes me feel at least a little
03:12:45
good to know that they are well loved and well protected and supported. Um, well, Peter Sheila, this has been a
03:12:53
great conversation. Thank you so much. Thanks, Anmarie. >> Thank you. >> If you like this episode, please rate
03:13:00
and review us on Apple Podcast or on Spotify.