00:00:00
[Music] My mom was calling the cops almost on a regular basis. Nothing nothing was done and she was
00:00:18
terrified. He's calling her every vile name he can think of. Sitting outside of her house, stalking her. She had found
00:00:26
something in her jeep, a tracking device. She had found cameras inside the house. He has no idea what I go through
00:00:34
every single day with him. No idea. I remember her saying, "I don't know what else to do. I don't know where else to
00:00:42
turn. It's been getting worse. And it's been getting worse. I don't want him anywhere
00:00:49
near me." You're describing a life lived in fear. Yeah. Every time she was out of my sight, I
00:00:57
was so scared for her. [Music] I know this is going to be difficult for you. Take me back to October 8th. When
00:01:06
did you realize something wasn't right? She left the house that day at 20 after 7. An was working at the kennels. I
00:01:19
texted an a quick note. I didn't get a response. Then the sirens went off in town. Law
00:01:27
72. I'm approaching the kennel now. I do see one vehicle out front. One vehicle.
00:01:37
And living in a small town, you're always kind of nosy and want to know what's going on.
00:01:44
How far out is my assistance? I got on my phone. I don't like this. And I looked and it
00:01:52
said Mississippi Ridge boarding kennels. Shots fired. [Music] Hello. And I immediately was hysterical.
00:02:05
Angie because Angela Pritchard was my sister. Angie, what do we got? I don't know what we got
00:02:15
here. They said possible shots fired. We actually got behind an ambulance on the
00:02:20
way up there. Law center 21. We are going to enter the building. 21. Law center 21. We got We got lady down.
00:02:33
Lady down. And I got out of the car. Scene clear. Scene clear. I went running down the
00:02:43
hill. There was police officers there. And I remember walking up to him and I said, "Um, is she alive?"
00:02:53
and they said no. I immediately fell to the ground and I remember saying something like I knew something like
00:03:02
this was going to happen. Um I knew it was I knew it was law to make sure you get an out point out for a
00:03:10
suspect. You leave no rock unturned. You leave no building unchecked. Obviously, we're going to throw every
00:03:21
resource that we have at our disposal to apprehending him. There was a knock on the door. I said,
00:03:28
"I'm not answering the door. He has a gun. [Music] [Music] On the morning of October 8th,
00:04:23
20122, the serene Mississippi River town of Belleview, Iowa, population about 2500, woke up to a
00:04:32
calamity. News of an apparent homicide, the first in nearly a decade. Why don't you secure that out building? Dozens of
00:04:41
investigators from six different law enforcement agencies were combing the crime scene at the Mississippi Ridge
00:04:48
boarding kennels with body cameras rolling. The woman who ran the kennels, Angela Pritchard, 55, had been gunned
00:04:56
down. He knew how to get in the front door. Her sister, Wendy Buddy, believed she
00:05:04
knew who was responsible. Angela's husband, Chris Pritchard. In that moment, did you know it was Chris?
00:05:14
100%. 100%. I knew it was him. Wendy says Angela had been trying to leave him for months and lived in fear he would
00:05:23
kill her. This appeared to be an asalant that knew her very well. Ryan Kedley and
00:05:30
Dustin Hennington are special agents with Iowa's DCI, the Department of Criminal Investigation. Belleview's
00:05:38
small police force with just several officers. Invited the state police to lead the investigation. While Angela's
00:05:46
family was convinced Chris Pritchard was the killer, the special agents had to connect all the dots. We had received
00:05:54
word that there was a 911 call on the morning. Tell me about that 911 call. 911, where's your emergency? It's
00:06:01
essentially the that you're listening to the end of her life on the 911 call. Please get out of
00:06:07
here. Just I have customers coming in. Please 911. Please get out of here. Okay. Where are
00:06:17
you at? Those were the last words spoken by Angela and the first clue investigators
00:06:27
had to identify her killer. She says the name Chris on this call. Who is Chris? Chris Pritchard, her estranged husband.
00:06:37
Ma'am, where are you at? As the dispatcher continues to ask, "What's your emergency?" You can faintly hear
00:06:44
somebody say when you listen to this 911 call, how do you process what you were hearing? On a personal level, it's a
00:06:56
very difficult thing to listen to someone's end of life moments. On an investigative level, that was a pivotal
00:07:04
piece of evidence in the opening stages of the investigation. You guys turn ahead.
00:07:11
It was a very violent scene. Passing by the kennel door on the right, and this is the area where we uh initially get a
00:07:20
firstirhand glimpse of of Angela's deceased uh body here on the floor. Pools of morning light illuminated pools
00:07:29
of blood surrounding her body. Angela was lying face down in the kennel's washroom where she bathed the dogs.
00:07:38
By photograph as I Ryan Keedley photographed the scene. She has a very large significant gunshot wound to the
00:07:46
chest at close range. At I would say very close range. There has to have been some very very high emotions involved in
00:07:53
that. You have Angela Pritchard, deceased here. You have Chris Pritchard, a person of interest, nowhere to be
00:08:01
found. How do you track him down? The special agents spotted a barely visible blood trail leading out of this room and
00:08:10
then into the dog kennel area through this door. We believe our asalent traveled from that area through here,
00:08:19
left some blood evidence, and then likely went out this door uh directly in front of us. We're certainly trying to
00:08:25
keep an open mind and determine that, okay, if Chris didn't do this, well, then who did? Digging into Chris
00:08:32
Pritchard's life, the special agents soon learned about his volatile history with Angela, which included violence and
00:08:39
violations of a restraining order. But at this point, all of the information seems to be consistent with Chris being
00:08:46
the guy that we need to locate. As uh we continue to work the investigation, we began to establish our
00:08:54
timeline. Some of the first video that places him on this property comes from this home over here. That's correct.
00:09:01
Investigators reviewed the footage starting at midnight the day of the shooting. For hours, there was nothing
00:09:08
to see. But just after 4:00 a.m., there was something to hear. You can hear dogs start to bark. We had
00:09:20
determined that was most likely the point at when he arrived uh at the kennels. Pennington believes Chris Pritchard
00:09:28
entered the kennels and lay in wait for nearly 4 hours. The first video that they really got was Angela coming down
00:09:36
to work in the morning. And right up here, you're going to see Angela start to pull down to the uh entrance at the
00:09:43
Mississippi Bridge boarding kennels. Pulling up to the kennel at 7:34. Um you can see her get out of her
00:09:50
vehicle and she's gathering her belongings and then walking into the kennel itself. Angela Pritchard had less
00:09:56
than 6 minutes to live. At 7:39 and 43 seconds, we hear a gunshot go off in the video.
00:10:05
At any point, do you clearly see Chris on any of these surveillance cameras? Yes, we believe we see him leaving.
00:10:14
About 2 minutes after the gunshot at 7:41, the man they now suspected to be her killer, Chris Pritchard, appeared,
00:10:23
actually walking from the kennel area down to the fence area here behind me. That makes us believe that this is the
00:10:30
first area that we need to check. Outside the kennels, miles of thick woods stretched to the horizon, an area
00:10:38
the northeastern Iowa locals call the wilderness. It was rugged terrain. Chris Pritchard knew well, says Wendy. He
00:10:47
knows the outdoors. I knew that he could probably survive out there for quite a while in hiding.
00:10:57
We have every resource at our disposal to try and do this manhunt. We have canines. We have
00:11:04
airplanes. We have drones. This is your worst nightmare. Yeah. Yeah. Everything you've been trying to prevent come true.
00:11:12
Everything I've been trying so hard to protect her and to keep her safe. And he got her. He got to her.
00:11:31
[Music] You've got a fugitive out there on the run, potentially armed. The manhunt for
00:11:44
Chris Pritchard was widening. There's hundreds of acres here of farmland and woods, and we have the Mississippi River
00:11:51
not far away. So knowing that he could have went any direction really makes the search difficult. Fanning out from the
00:11:58
kennels, heavily armed officers search nearby neighborhoods, house to house. You guys know Chris Pritchard, don't
00:12:04
you? Barn to barn. Is that the guy they're looking for? Right there. Chris Pritchard. Is he been known to come out
00:12:10
here every once in a while? Yeah. I haven't seen him though today. [Music] Angela was a mother and a grandmother.
00:12:25
She was What kind of mother and grandmother was she? I don't know that you would find somebody better than
00:12:33
her. You hear a lot of people say people put their kids in front of themselves. That was truly her. Angela Pritchard's
00:12:41
world revolved around family, especially her two sons and six grandchildren. They were the loves of her life, her
00:12:51
kids and her grandkids. Look at how high we are. And with almost equal billing, Angela's five huskys. She always was an
00:13:01
animal lover. Angela's sons, Josh Close and CJ Hancock. She was beautiful inside
00:13:08
and out. She liked to make everybody happy, especially her family. She loved you so much. Yeah. She loved to spoil
00:13:15
the grandkids rotten. They could do no wrong in her eyes. She loved doing arts and crafts. She still decorated our tree
00:13:23
with the ones we made when we were kids. And making memories with their mom later
00:13:28
in life was Chris Pritchard, the very man investigators were now chasing. Wendy Buddy and her husband Jim
00:13:37
had known Pritchard for years. I would have trusted him with our children. He was nice, friendly, sincere, a hard
00:13:47
worker, fun to be around. Pritchard, a longtime Bellev resident, was an established electrician in town.
00:13:56
Soon, Angela found her calling to be a kennel owner, to do something with animals. I was thrilled for her. It
00:14:06
really seemed like everything was falling into place. After dating for nearly 2 years, they moved into this
00:14:13
Belleview home and even got married here in March 2019. The newlyweds were over the moon for about 8 months. When did
00:14:24
things change? I truly think that things started to change when um he lost his job. He got fired. fired and charged
00:14:34
with firstdegree theft, a felony, after he allegedly stole $36,000 worth of supplies from the
00:14:41
electric company where he worked. She was just beside herself. What are we going to do now? We need that income.
00:14:48
Awaiting trial, Pritchard was out on bail and out of work, says Wendy. He wasn't looking for work. He was
00:14:56
definitely um drinking more. As the months went on, it just was like, "Wow, he's really kind of changing." Pritchard
00:15:04
finally took some odd jobs and helped Angela at the kennels. But in the summer of 2021, Wendy says Angela discovered
00:15:13
her husband was using methamphetamine. And then I knew that things are are really getting bad.
00:15:23
The simmering tension reached a boiling point on April 18th, 2022. She said, "Chris hit me." She said, "He's drunk.
00:15:33
He's on drugs." So, I told her, "We're going to call the cops." Belleview police responded, the call recorded on
00:15:41
police body cam. He hit me and then I just I came in the house. She was crying. She was visibly shaking. She had
00:15:52
a mark on her face and she said, "I'm so scared." Police didn't have to go far to find
00:15:58
Pritchard. He was in the garage. State of Iowa law requires that somebody go to jail on physical domestic. I can't
00:16:06
believe I'm going to jail. Well, she's got a mark on her face. Chris Pritchard was arrested and charged with domestic
00:16:14
assault. He's very, very, very messed up. We've seen him change right in front of
00:16:20
our eyes, haven't we? Chris spent the night in jail and was released awaiting trial, staying with family. Angela
00:16:27
sought and received a temporary no contact order. So, he can't come back here. Nope. The no contact order now
00:16:35
exists, protecting your sister. But a few weeks later, it's lifted. Even after it happened, she said, "I I don't want
00:16:44
this. I want our marriage to work." Each had been married before, but had hoped this would be their last marriage, says
00:16:52
Wendy. Angela withdrew the no contact order. I believe he said everything that needed to be said for her to drop that
00:17:01
order. The drinking will stop. He will be home more. Promises he failed to keep, says Wendy. She said, "I'm scared
00:17:10
of him, especially if he's been drinking." Wendy says Angelo was furious when she
00:17:17
found a tracking device in her car and two hidden cameras in the house. I told her, "You need to get a divorce. You
00:17:27
need to be done with this." An ang Chris Pritchard seemed to have vanished in the vast wilderness. Even the police
00:17:37
dogs had lost his scent, says Dustin Henning. How do you find somebody that doesn't want to be caught? This is where
00:17:43
our local resources really help us. Right from the start, Hennington had coraled state and local law enforcement
00:17:49
agencies, even farmers and hunters, to help determine where he might be. I'll let you know if I see anything or hear
00:17:56
anything. If we thought that Chris was going to make his way, say, back to Belleview, what's the most likely path?
00:18:02
Where are his friends at? It's a small town. Everybody talks. Cattle farmer Jeff Junk and girlfriend
00:18:11
Kim Klene were once close friends with Chris Pritchard. Neighbors called them about the rumor racing through town.
00:18:18
Pritchard had shot his wife, Angela. Get out of here. I I didn't believe it. A Jackson County Chief Deputy stopped by
00:18:26
Junk's house to warn them. Pritchard was on the run and might be looking for help
00:18:32
from his friends. Then there was a knock on the door. [Music] The knock on the front door, the one
00:18:59
they'll always remember, came around 8:15 that October night. Kim Klein says she and boyfriend Jeff Junk were not
00:19:08
expecting company. When the second knock happened, I says, "I believe it's Chris
00:19:14
and you need to answer the door." So, you open the door and what is it that you see on the other side? I see Chris.
00:19:24
Chris Pritchard, their old friend, now a hunted fugitive suspected of murder, was
00:19:30
standing in the dim light holding a shotgun. Jeff goes, "You need to hand that gun to me." And he did. No problem.
00:19:37
Jeff and Kim knew they had to call the police, but until they could do that safely, Kim says they were playing
00:19:45
along. Chris told them he'd been running all day from the cops and their dogs. Jeff
00:19:52
said, "Hey, dude. You, you know, you shot your wife." "Oh, yeah. How's she doing?" The couple told him Angela was
00:19:59
dead. Did he express any remorse? No. Nothing. Nothing. He was sitting here laughing and drinking and they were
00:20:07
talking about old times. The moment felt so surreal. Kim says she snapped a photo
00:20:13
just to show that no, he wasn't having any remorse. He never talked about her the rest of the night. And then I took
00:20:21
the one when he was passed out. And the time was finally right, says Jeff, to text the chief deputy who had stopped by
00:20:30
earlier. I said, "He's up here and he has passed out. Come, come get him." When police arrived around midnight,
00:20:39
Chris was still in the lazy boy chair, out cold. He didn't know what was coming. What the is wrong with you guys?
00:20:48
He says, "Christ, I'm sleeping." He's verbally belligerent to officers that have arrested him. Looks like he's got a
00:20:54
cut to his left thumb. Special agent Hennington collected the evidence Chris Pritchard had left behind. A 20 gauge
00:21:02
shotgun and his torn clothes. He took Angela's possessions, money, a cell phone with him. I think we're good to go
00:21:11
in. Special Agent Kedley escorted Pritchard to the Jackson County Jail. Do you want your seatelt, Chris? I want a
00:21:17
bull in my head. Shortly after 1:00 a.m. on October 9th, a despondent Chris Pritchard was
00:21:29
booked into the county jail, eventually charged with firstdegree murder and robbery.
00:21:37
After hours on the run through Iowa's wilderness, I'm going to have you look right at me. Okay.
00:21:44
Pritchard found himself surrounded by concrete and steel, largely put there by the weight of a single
00:21:53
word. Please get out of here. Wendy says the day Pritchard ended her sister's life followed months of
00:22:03
increasingly erratic behavior and escalating rage, which Angela had documented. Tell me about this journal
00:22:13
and her words that lived on. She was the sticky note queen. Dozens of Angela's brightly colored sticky notes told a
00:22:21
dark story. The scribbled entries became Angela's diary of domestic abuse. August
00:22:28
23rd text message calling me names saying it's going to get real ugly. He's been stalking me and watching me. Very
00:22:38
scared of him. I think Chris is capable of anything. Booze and drugs every day. Said he doesn't give a if he goes to
00:22:46
jail. Always looking over my shoulder to see if he's around. Her words to me are, "I'm done. This is
00:22:55
it. We're not living in the same house." Wendy invited her sister to move in with
00:23:01
her. Angela gratefully agreed. I was like, "You have a shadow now because I'm not leaving.
00:23:08
You're stuck with me. The next day, Angela requested a second temporary no contact order granted September 1st,
00:23:17
2022. A no contact order means just that, no contact of any kind with the protected person. In the state of Iowa,
00:23:26
a single violation requires a mandatory arrest. But that doesn't stop Chris. No.
00:23:33
Once that second no contact order got put in place, I would say that's when things went really downhill. And it was
00:23:40
in place when Angela went back to the home she once shared with Chris Pritchard to pick up a few things, says
00:23:47
Wendy. I was with her. You were with her along with police. The Belleview police
00:23:52
were there just in case Pritchard showed up. The court had ordered him to move out temporarily. We walked in the front
00:23:59
door. The house was destroyed. There was ink and paint thrown everywhere. Picture frames
00:24:10
broken. Furniture was destroyed. He had actually taken the mattress off her bed and
00:24:17
rubbed it in dog feces. Guns and he placed them all over the house to intimidate her. I mean, we both
00:24:25
just started crying. [Music] This is in clear violation of the restraining order. What did the police
00:24:33
do? The police said there's nothing we can do. This is his house. Nothing we can do is what they say to you. This is
00:24:39
his house as well. Under Iowa law with a no contact order in place. Belleview police should have taken Pritchard's
00:24:48
guns, but for reasons unknown, he was allowed to keep them. Wendy and Angela's sons say throughout September the
00:24:56
frightening violations continued. Not physical assault, but psychological terror. Sitting outside of her house,
00:25:05
following her, texting her, stalking her, going and cutting the grass at the kennels while she wasn't there.
00:25:13
Belleview police arrested Pritchard just once on September 15th for sending Angela a text message. another violation
00:25:21
of the no contact order. He spent one night behind bars before posting bail. The next day, says Wendy, he resumed his
00:25:31
flurry of offenses. He had been driving by her house multiple times. One night, says Wendy, Pritchard drove by six times
00:25:42
in 1 hour. I don't feel safe anymore anywhere. my sisters, my house, my son's stores in town. You have a ticking time
00:25:53
bomb on your hands. Yeah, pretty much. And that's what it felt like. But instead of making arrests, the Belleview
00:25:59
police were making excuses. St. Angela's sons for not enforcing the law. They said that they'd tell him to knock it
00:26:07
off or have a talk with him. Nothing nothing was done. And she was terrified. You're reaching out to
00:26:14
police. They're not doing anything. Are you running out of hope here? Yes. What do you do when nobody's
00:26:22
willing to help you? I fear for my safety. Fear for my life. He has guns. The fear. It consumed our life.
00:26:48
It was 5:00 a.m. at the Jackson County Jail. 21 hours after Angela was found dead, Chris Pritchard waved his Miranda
00:26:56
rights and talked about the encounter at the dog kennels with special agents Dustin Hennington and Ryan Kedley. She
00:27:04
said, "You got to leave. You got to leave now or I'm going to call the police." Well, I said, "I just want to
00:27:08
talk." And she shoved me and I hit the cabinet. The gun, I don't know what the gun hit, but it went off.
00:27:18
So, in so many words, he says, "I shot Angela. It was an accident." Essentially, yes. Are you believing any
00:27:25
of this? No. I'm only believing the fact that he shot Angela. Pritchard pleaded not guilty to
00:27:33
first-degree murder and robbery charges. His trial began February 7th, 2024. We believed that Mr. Pritchard planned
00:27:43
this all out and very meticulously for that matter. To prove premeditated murder,
00:27:49
prosecutors Nicole Leonard and John Keys told jurors Pritchard put his plan in motion on October 7th,
00:27:58
2022, the day before he shot his wife. The same day, Angela's temporary restraining order became permanent. We
00:28:07
believe that that was sort of the snapping point for the defendant, he became more and more obsessed with the
00:28:13
situation and not letting her go. She wanted to drag me through the mud and make me a
00:28:20
monster. Before taking Angela's life, Chris Pritchard took steps to cover his tracks, say the prosecutors. He borrowed
00:28:29
this white pickup truck to avoid using his own vehicle. So, what we think was he was setting up an alibi. Prosecutors
00:28:37
say Pritchard secretly parked the borrowed truck inside a barn belonging to Lorie and Mike Blazer just a few
00:28:44
miles from the Mississippi Ridge boarding kennels. We walk in, you know, notice this white
00:28:52
pickup truck with a note from Chris Pritchard saying he had gone hunting. Keys are on the truck if you need to
00:28:58
move it. I'll be back. Chris, we knew Chris. He would tell us how much he loved Angela, how devastated he was that
00:29:05
there was a restraining order. The Blazers would soon become crucial witnesses for the prosecution. Shortly
00:29:12
after finding the truck and note, they heard the news about a shooting at the dog kennels. We knew the minute that
00:29:19
there was a shooting at the kennel, something had happened with Chris. We were concerned that this was a getaway
00:29:25
vehicle for him in here because it was just so odd. It had no reason to be here. I called 911 immediately. Um, I
00:29:32
see you guys are looking for Chris Pritchard. Yes. His truck is in our garage. Let's just get this cleared first. It
00:29:40
was very intense because at that point he was still missing and we were scared to death.
00:29:50
Clear in here, Jim. Prosecutors later viewed home surveillance footage from a camera on the Blazers property showing
00:29:58
Chris Pritchard entering the barn where the Blazers kept their horse trailer. The minute we came in the door, I knew
00:30:07
that Chris Pritchard had spent some time in here. He certainly made himself at home here.
00:30:13
Pritchard left the horse trailer in the middle of the night, hiking through the dense woods to the kennels, says
00:30:19
prosecutor Leonard. We believe his next appearance is around 4:00 a.m. on October 8th at the dog kennels in which
00:30:26
the dogs start to go crazy. And you believe from that point forward, he's inside the kennel. Correct.
00:30:37
I think he always had the plan to murder her. To prove it, the prosecutors played
00:30:44
audio clips from Pritchard's police interviews for the jury. You show up at a place where you know she's going to
00:30:50
be. You've got a gun with her. You know, you've got a a no contact order. An argument breaks out. She calls
00:30:58
911. She winds up dead. This wasn't just some accident. If this was an accident, why are you
00:31:07
taking her cell phone, which is her only means of survival? Why aren't you calling for help yourself? Why aren't
00:31:11
you rendering any type of aid for your wife? And Pritchard kept adding details to the story of the accidental shooting,
00:31:19
say the special agents. The gun was leaning up against the cupboards. He went to retrieve a backpack and it fell
00:31:24
and then that went off and shot her. But at trial, an Iowa State medical examiner
00:31:30
testified the gunshot had a downward trajectory, meaning Pritchard had the weapon in his hands and was standing
00:31:37
when he fired, say prosecutors. It looked like it could hit her in the arm. How would you die from that?
00:31:47
Angela was shot dead center in the chest, testified the medical examiner, and died in seconds.
00:31:55
I would love to have stuck around, but Angie and her temper. I thought maybe it didn't even really hit her that
00:32:02
bad cuz she was yelling at me like she wasn't even hurt. the fact that he's saying that after the
00:32:08
gun went off and it struck her that she's yelling profanities back at him. Well, we have a 911 recording of that
00:32:16
conversation that did not take place. Prosecutors say Chris Pritchard's last words on the 911 call prove his actions
00:32:24
were premeditated. A final explosion of violence. when you hear his statement standing
00:32:32
over her dying body on that 911 call using profanity. You definitely don't say what you said
00:32:44
at the end of the the phone call after you accidentally shoot someone. Pritchard's defense attorneys, who
00:32:51
declined our request for an interview, maintained the shooting was accidental, and the case against Pritchard was a
00:32:58
rush to judgment. After 4 days of testimony, the case went to the jury. We were outside
00:33:05
the courthouse just kind of stretching and you know, the jury's back. This man was also waiting for the verdict and
00:33:13
already preparing for another trial, a federal lawsuit against the Belleview Police Department. It failed Angela, he
00:33:21
says time and time again. If police took action, would Angela be alive today? Absolutely.
00:33:30
[Music] In February 2024, 16 months after Angela's death, her family's wait for a measure
00:33:54
of justice was over. That's got to be a good sign that they're back in less than
00:33:59
an hour. [Music] The jury found Chris Pritchard guilty of first-degree murder and robbery. When
00:34:07
they said it, it was just a big sigh of relief. In March, Pritchard was sentenced to
00:34:16
life in prison without parole. It will never bring her back, but he's going to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
00:34:30
I also gave a victim impact statement and I said to him, "I hope while you're behind bars, you always have to look
00:34:38
over your shoulder and be scared for everything you do." How she felt, I hope you just feel a tiny bit of that, the
00:34:48
way you tortured her. Civil rights attorney Dave O'Brien represents Angela Pritchard's family.
00:34:57
She would be alive today, he says, if the Belleview Police Department had enforced a judge's order of protection.
00:35:04
You filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Belleview and three officers. Why? Uh because they didn't do their
00:35:11
job. And it's uh it's that simple. That lawsuit lists multiple failures to arrest Chris Pritchard. O'Brien says
00:35:20
this led to what's called a state created danger, meaning the officer's alleged inaction and indifference
00:35:27
actually increased the threat to Angela Pritchard. Can a police officer decide should I arrest him or not? Is it up to
00:35:34
their discretion? Absolutely not. Here in Iowa, only a judge can show discretion not to enforce this
00:35:43
restraining order. Starting September 1st, 2022, when Angela's second no contact order was
00:35:52
issued until her murder 37 days later, Chris Pritchard violated the restraining order repeatedly, says O'Brien.
00:36:01
A dozen times during this relevant time period, Angela Pritchard called the Belleview Police Department and they
00:36:08
failed to follow that law, that judge's order. That's because O'Brien says the Belleview police officers showed
00:36:16
Pritchard favoritism. We have reason to believe that he was friendly with law enforcement officers. To prove this
00:36:24
case, you must prove that the police officer's failure to enforce the protection order was intentional and
00:36:30
reckless. How can you do that? Well, just by the sheer number of times that it was not enforced.
00:36:39
In October 2024, Chief Federal Judge CJ Williams dismissed the lawsuit in its entirety. The Belleview Police
00:36:47
Department, he ruled, did not put Angela in a more dangerous situation, and the three officers simply did not commit
00:36:55
outrageous conduct. The judge added there was no evidence of police favoritism. The alleged facts, even
00:37:03
taken as true, are a far cry from establishing that any of the defendants were friends with
00:37:09
Christopher. Dave O'Brien was granted a hearing in December 2024 after learning he says the three Belleview officers had
00:37:18
withheld evidence and made false statements, allegedly concealing their friendships with Chris Pritchard.
00:37:25
Accusations they denied. O'Brien argued the officers were well aware Chris Pritchard was a serious
00:37:34
threat to his wife. 9 days before her murder, the Jackson County Attorney warned the
00:37:40
Belleview Police Department in an email. Chris Pritchard had 24 hours to turn himself in. If he does not report,
00:37:50
I will be requesting a warrant. I wanted all of you to be aware as I'm afraid he
00:37:55
might try to do something tonight. The next day, when Pritchard failed to appear at the county jail, the arrest
00:38:03
warrant was issued. 7 days before her murder, O'Brien says this body cam footage of a
00:38:10
Belleview police officer speaking with Wendy and Angela. Cuz right now, I can guarantee he's not thinking straight.
00:38:16
No, not at all. Confirms police knew Angela was in danger. That's my biggest fear. That's my department's biggest
00:38:24
fear is he's going to try to hurt you and then hurt himself. That's during the final week of Angela's life. My job is
00:38:32
to protect you exactly at all costs. O'Brien says Belleview police could have protected her by finding and arresting
00:38:42
Chris Pritchard, but they never did. Is it hard to find Chris? Shouldn't be. Everybody knew his
00:38:51
Jeep had a customized tag that said zero dark 30 on it. So, you can't miss it. We
00:38:58
have not been provided with any record showing there was any effort made to enforce the arrest warrant once it was
00:39:05
issued on the 30th of September. Had that arrest warrant been executed, would Angela be here today? Absolutely. He
00:39:12
should have been in jail. At the December hearing, defense attorneys insisted the new information presented
00:39:19
by O'Brien was improper, should be stricken, and not considered by the court. Our ideal outcome would be just
00:39:27
complete reversal of the judge's decision. In January 2025, Judge Williams refused to reverse his
00:39:35
dismissal. Belleview Police Chief Dennis Schroeder issued this statement to a local newspaper which read in part, "We
00:39:43
are pleased with the decision. We continue to strengthen our services and response efforts to prevent domestic
00:39:49
violence and provide support to those in [Music] need." I've heard people say that no
00:40:01
contact orders aren't worth the paper they're written on. And in this case that was true. But
00:40:08
I firmly believe that they are worth something but they have to be enforced. I still to this day have a lot
00:40:21
of I guess it's guilt because I think in my mind what if I would have went with her that day? Maybe I could have saved
00:40:31
her. But part of me was so proud of her for like being as strong as she was in that
00:40:44
[Music] time. She she named her killer being so and she helped him bring him to justice.
00:40:57
Chris Pritchard's life sentence also helped bring her family some comfort and the courage to move forward.
00:41:06
They believe Angela would want them to make this public plea. Maybe other police departments that maybe are a
00:41:13
little lenient on stuff won't be so lenient next time. [Music] [Music] Don't miss true crime anytime you want,
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anywhere you go with the 48 hours podcast. Real crimes, real lives. Like a John Gisham novel come to life. Real
00:41:54
justice. There's some questions that have to be asked and need to be answered. Listen to 48 hours on Apple
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