00:00:00
Paige, this is Carol. I just saw something on TV about you being gone since Thursday night. I hope you're alright. Oh my god. Oh my god.
00:00:20
Paige, if you get this, please, please call somebody. Everybody's worried about you.
00:00:27
Everybody's looking for you. Please let us know you're okay. Paige was a woman with a premonition.
00:00:33
She said she knew something bad was going to happen. A couple days later, she was missing.
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We found out that she had this second life. Quite obviously, it's dangerous. She'd been playing a risky game.
00:00:46
That opened up the door to a multitude of people we needed to start looking at. He was a scam artist.
00:00:53
Correct. He was a liar. He was manipulative. He had a list of names, the draw size, and whether or not they would have sex.
00:01:01
Could investigators get their man before he struck again? I turned around and he was just sitting in the dark.
00:01:08
He said, I'm going to kill you. It's been years since she vanished. But few people in Grand Junction, Colorado, have forgotten Paige Bergfeld.
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How could they? The story of this young mother's disappearance has long since woven itself into local lore.
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She's a great mother, a great friend. It's a mystery we've been following since it began.
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and now as thunder heads darken the high desert sky finally a trial what he told me is that he
00:01:52
knew how to get rid of a body so that nobody could find it he said i'm going to kill you
00:01:57
and then he just slapped me repeatedly finally rumors and gossip would be dispelled or made fact
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and the secrets known not only by the guilty but also the shamed would finally be revealed
00:02:13
Why so many secrets, whispers, rumors? Because in this town, where everybody knows everybody else's business,
00:02:21
there were enough potential suspects to fill a minivan. Do you have anything to do with the disappearance of Paige Bergfeld?
00:02:27
No. I was put under psychiatric care for the first 48 hours and then sent to jail.
00:02:33
I did not kill Paige. I mean, that's the bottom line. It was late June 2007 when news of Paige Bergfeld's disappearance first spread like the morning sun.
00:02:47
Over the mountains in Denver, four hours away, Frank Bergfeld was driving to his office.
00:02:53
The phone rang. Voice on the phone says, this is somebody with the Mesa County Sheriff's Office.
00:02:59
And he said, are you Paige's dad? And I said, yep. He said, did you know she's missing?
00:03:04
Barbara Campbell got the call from her husband, Hans, who told her... Paige is missing.
00:03:11
As, what do you mean she's missing? Andrea Land got the news in an email. It said Paige is missing in the subject line, and I knew something horrible had to have happened
00:03:21
because it didn't make any sense that she would be missing. No way for even a best friend to prepare for such a thing.
00:03:28
Stunningly beautiful. One of those women that was almost a little bit intimidating at first,
00:03:34
if you were, you know, your more average mom. Andrea Land and the other young mothers of Grand Junction
00:03:40
could have been forgiven for feeling a little envy. She had the look, the money, the big house on the hill, and three attractive kids.
00:03:49
But no, it wasn't like that at all. The way she talked, the way she acted, the way she treated you,
00:03:57
everything about her was just so wonderful. Barbara Campbell, Andrea, and Paige were members of Grand Junction's Moms Club International,
00:04:08
a kind of social and support group for young stay-at-home mothers. Once a year, they'd throw a spring fling
00:04:16
to sort of put on prom for moms. Fancy clothes, red carpet entry, even a pretend reporter throwing fashion questions.
00:04:27
Paige was always the star, of course. And this year the party was held at her place,
00:04:33
which made it a very special event. Most of us did not live in a home that large.
00:04:39
She was just so down to earth and humble about it that once you got over the artwork on the walls
00:04:45
and how beautiful a home it was, you almost forgot that you were in this really very high-end home.
00:04:54
So the winner is, drum roll please, Paige Virgio. She was so comfortable hosting people.
00:05:03
That made anybody there feel comfortable. Sometimes you meet someone and you just instantly have a good feeling about them.
00:05:11
You're going to be friends with them. It's just going to be an instant match. That's what I had with Paige.
00:05:24
And then that call. The sheriff's deputy told the Bergfelds that after meeting a friend on the afternoon of Thursday, June 28, 2007,
00:05:33
Paige simply didn't come home. As they drove from Denver to Grand Junction, Paige's parents tried to understand what was happening.
00:05:41
As we started out, I don't know that I was very tense or I thought of the worst.
00:05:46
I guess, gee, I wonder where she is. I hope she but as the drive went on it became more and more anxious more and more tight more and more And I would be calling the kids on the home phone just saying we going to be there you know and trying to sound reassuring
00:06:05
The kids had just a nanny with them, because Paige had parted ways with her husband, Rob Dixon, who'd since moved out of state.
00:06:13
Still, as a single mom with three little kids, Paige had her life well in control, doing no small part to her obsessive organizational skills.
00:06:23
she ran several small businesses and kept track of every soccer practice and dentist appointment
00:06:30
in an old-fashioned handwritten day planner. I mean, every page was full and cross-referenced.
00:06:37
And she was always with it. She'd come over to visit. It came in the door right there in front
00:06:43
of her. She was always checking it and phoning. Overbooked, divorced, three kids. First question,
00:06:53
Was there a chance Paige Bergfeld simply walked out on her life? We talked about, boy, sometimes I just want to run away.
00:07:01
And she said, you know, I never feel that way. I never want to run away. Even if I did want to run away just to get away from here,
00:07:11
I would want to take my kids with me. There was no way she would leave without her children.
00:07:17
They were her life. If she needed to hide, she would have found a way to do it. with them.
00:07:24
So what then? What happened to Paige? Her friends, her parents, didn't know what to do,
00:07:32
or where to look. Maybe a clue could be found, tucked away in her day planner. Except,
00:07:40
it too was missing. Police pieced together the hours leading up to Paige's disappearance.
00:07:51
And one encounter grabs their attention. We found out that she had been visiting her ex-husband.
00:07:57
Obviously, he was a person of interest. It was a Thursday, June 28th, when Paige Bergfeld of Grand Junction, Colorado
00:08:18
quite suddenly went off the radar, which was at least a place to start. So Mesa County Sheriff's investigators Henry Soffel and Wayne Whaler
00:08:27
set out to trace her steps that day. We found out that she had been an eagle visiting her ex-husband,
00:08:34
and they had been reconciling at that point. But he, having been the last person known to have seen her,
00:08:38
I suppose would be a person of interest in your... Yes, obviously he was a person of interest.
00:08:43
This person of interest, Rob Beigler, was Paige's first ex-husband. They married right out of high school, young, immature, and soon divorced.
00:08:55
But funny how this works. Ten years had sanded off their sharp-edged disputes, and they saw anew why they fell in love.
00:09:04
It seemed like as if no time had passed at all. This is Ron Biegler talking to a Dateline producer soon after Paige's disappearance.
00:09:11
At what point did you start to rekindle your relationship? About six months ago.
00:09:17
We tried to take it slow, but there was no denying that it was just as it was before.
00:09:23
Problem was, Beegler lived in Denver, a four-hour drive east. So the two lovers would often meet at some midway point.
00:09:31
On the day of Paige's disappearance, they chose Eagle, Colorado. We were going to have a picnic and hang out together all day.
00:09:38
We went to Subway and brought it back to where we were sitting outside down by the river.
00:09:44
It was very familiar, and I brought some pictures. and we just sat there and relaxed and enjoyed the day and the weather.
00:09:52
It was a special, wonderful day. And then around 7 p.m., they kissed and said goodbye
00:09:58
and drove back to their respective sides of the state. Two hours later, at 8.57 p.m., Paige called Beegler.
00:10:07
To see if I made it back into Denver. And then we had a brief conversation. Paige told Beegler she wasn't home yet.
00:10:15
She was stuck behind a bad traffic accident in Grand Junction. And indeed, investigators confirmed there was a fatal traffic accident right here at this intersection.
00:10:25
Somebody saw Paige's car here, too, that very evening. Thing is, this is five miles past her house.
00:10:34
Why was she here? An hour later, 9.56 p.m., Paige's eight-year-old daughter, Jess,
00:10:40
left this anxious voicemail message on her mother's cell phone. Hi, Mom, it's me. I was just wondering when you get home, love you, bye.
00:10:49
No response. Her daughter waited, worried, and called again. Hi, Mom. How are you?
00:10:58
What are you, what are you doing? Because I get home, bye. They slept then, best they could, all three children,
00:11:06
and awoke the next day, Friday, June 29th, to a whole new kind of anxiety. She still wasn't home.
00:11:12
Hi, Mom. You said you would be back last night. You're not even back today. Bye.
00:11:20
Something in the pit of the stomach. Paige's old and new love, Ron Beegler, seemed to feel it too.
00:11:27
Hi, where are you? Call me if you get a chance. I'm getting worried about you. An hour by hour, they piled up.
00:11:36
Phone messages like a normal day. Hi, Paige. Lord, just want me to give you a call and let you know.
00:11:41
Hi, this is the Sears of Parish Service for the fan. I'm calling for the chair. Paige is Kevin from Performance Bowl.
00:11:46
Curious if your pool cleared up. Please, you may call. Thank you. Not a single call was returned and that night again the children with their nanny waited in vain for their mother The following day Saturday June 30th Ron Beigler called the house and spoke to Paige eight daughter Jess
00:12:05
She didn't sound particularly that distraught. I don't think she had an idea of what was going on.
00:12:11
Of course she didn't. Beigler's next call was to 911. Dispatch this is Clint. Yes, I need to talk about a missing person emergency.
00:12:22
Okay. And who is missing? Her name is Paige Dixon. How old is Paige? She's 33. Oh, okay.
00:12:31
And she hasn't been home all night, Thursday night, all day yesterday and today.
00:12:36
Something is definitely, definitely wrong. She either got a stuck in or an accident.
00:12:40
And that's when word of Paige's disappearance began to spread across Colorado. Investigators didn't have a clue what happened to Paige, but they wondered if Beegler did.
00:12:51
Have police questioned you? Yes, they have. And have they released you as a potential suspect?
00:13:00
I don't know what they've done on that. I know that was never a concern or worry of mine, having it get pinned on me.
00:13:10
You have an alibi for that night? Just I'm confident that the police know that I had nothing to do with it.
00:13:16
Do you feel like you have any thoughts as to what may have happened or what's happening?
00:13:22
I think it was a major premeditated abduction or a completely random incident. I think that it's more likely that it's a premeditated abduction.
00:13:33
But sometimes those not asking questions find answers. It was the third day, Sunday, July 1st, 2007, 9.58 p.m.
00:13:43
A woman driving home from work slammed on her brakes. Called 911. 911, this is Desi. Where's your emergency?
00:13:49
Hi, I'm at the corner of 23 and Logos, and there is a car on fire in the parking lot at the building right here.
00:13:58
There's a car on fire? Yeah. Do you see flames? They're small. Yeah, there's a lot of flames.
00:14:05
Paige's car. What will it reveal? It was really more intense, was on the driver's side.
00:14:10
And then, something else belonging to Paige. It was an awful feeling of dread, thinking, how did this get here? What does it mean?
00:14:19
Sunday night, the 1st of July. The Grand Junction Fire Department was called to an industrial parking lot.
00:14:40
A little red car was on fire. Frank Bergfeld heard about the fire the morning after, roared over there,
00:14:48
and could do nothing except watch from a distance as investigators crawled over his daughter's car.
00:14:55
And that morning, Frank gave the first of what would be many, many interviews. We were hopeful when we found the car things would fall into place, and maybe they will.
00:15:06
This interview, though, was one Frank just couldn't get through. You know, it occurred to me I hadn't cried in a long time.
00:15:14
I've learned how to do that. Firefighter Robert Thomason helped with the arson investigation.
00:15:24
You can see that the glass itself was all burned out. And you can see where it's still kind of intact over here.
00:15:32
It was really obvious to see that more intense was on the driver's side. Meaning, that's where the fire started.
00:15:38
That's where the arsonist wanted to be sure to erase evidence. Under the car? damaged skid place and strands of wild grass caught in the suspension,
00:15:50
meaning somebody had driven off-road very recently, and after dumped and torched the car in an industrial area
00:15:58
just a quarter mile from where Paige made her last phone call. It was way beyond her house.
00:16:03
Correct. It didn't fit for the car to be there. News of the car fire was a turning point.
00:16:08
No longer did the public suspect this was the case of an overwhelmed runaway mom.
00:16:13
The response was an outpouring of volunteers, a spontaneous community project to find Paige.
00:16:21
Just seeing the dad on TV and everything like that, and I have, you know, some children of my own,
00:16:26
and I know what I'd be feeling like if one of my children was gone, and I just wanted to try to help if I could.
00:16:32
Paige's dad was there every day, greeting a small army of volunteers. Thanks for helping us.
00:16:36
You know, it's just really tough for people to give themselves to that degree. One of our moms was gone, and her kids needed her, and we needed our friend,
00:16:51
and our kids needed to know that if someone's mom is missing, that people are going to work hard to find her.
00:17:03
Paige's brother and his wife came from Seattle to help The thing is, I know that somebody out there knows where she is
00:17:10
and we're looking for clues to find that person but there's somebody, maybe who's watching this
00:17:16
who knows where she is But this seemed odd Not helping to find Paige was her ex-husband
00:17:26
and current boyfriend, Ron Bigler Do you feel like you wish you could go there and help search for her?
00:17:33
A part of me does, definitely. What's keeping you away from there? I don't know if I can handle being right in the situation.
00:17:45
Then, knowing we were preparing a report about the case, Beigler made a strange request.
00:17:51
Try to keep me out as much as possible. Like, just a few words here and there, but I don want to like be on talking about things But hundreds of people many who never once met Page searched on horseback on ATVs on foot
00:18:05
They peered under bushes. They walked miles of desert brush in 100 degree heat and nothing.
00:18:12
Truth be told, Page could have been anywhere. But then, four days after Page's disappearance,
00:18:18
a driver stopped along a lonely stretch of Highway 50. And as he stepped out of his truck, a piece of litter caught his eye.
00:18:27
A blank check trapped in the roadside weeds. The name on it? Paige Dixon. Paige's married name.
00:18:37
So then, the flock of searchers descended on that road. Making my way back west along the median, I saw a checkbook.
00:18:46
It was an awful feeling of dread, thinking, how did this get here? Why is it here?
00:18:50
What does it mean? Then more. Page's wallet, charm bracelet, the shoe, various cards, bank registers,
00:18:59
and dozens of checks from both Page's personal and professional accounts. Nearly 100 items spread along 13 miles of road,
00:19:08
which left investigators with two very different theories. Either Page's abductor was trying to throw them off track,
00:19:16
or she was in the trunk of a car or something, and dumped these items out to leave a trail.
00:19:21
And while volunteers gathered this sad detritus of Paige's life, a new wrinkle. Paige's most recent ex-husband, Rob Dixon, came back to town to look after the kids and help out with the search.
00:19:35
And his reappearance stopped volunteers in their tracks. Because of the stories Paige told while they were married, many thought him the most obvious suspect.
00:19:46
She was afraid of him. what else page told loved ones about rob dixon she was afraid he'd kill her
00:19:55
a wave of whispers spread to the speed of suspicion among the searchers looking for the
00:20:15
missing single mother, Paige Bergfeld. The ex was in town, the most recent ex that is, Rob Dixon,
00:20:23
the one Paige had all the trouble with. Of course, the relationship didn't start out that way,
00:20:29
never does. At first, we only saw what we refer to as the good Rob side. And that's certainly what
00:20:36
Paige only saw. And we, he was part of our family and we loved him as much as an in-law would be.
00:20:45
He was a good guy to have. Dixon had been a hard-working paramedic until his dad made a one-time fortune in the tech industry
00:20:54
and passed that windfall on to his kids. And not long after getting his millions, Dixon met and married Paige.
00:21:01
And they had three kids and moved into a fine big house. He had admitted to having over $10 million,
00:21:09
and I think when you admit to that, you have maybe twice that much. And Paige's parents watched him change.
00:21:16
The whole town saw that, actually. In his garage, I saw three Range Rovers, Jaguar, two Porsches, and then later he had a Lemon Yellow Ferrari.
00:21:29
If you've been to Grand Junction and you want to fit in, a Lemon Yellow Ferrari is not exactly what you do.
00:21:35
Did he make any effort to meet you or the other guys? The mom's club would get together. They would have occasions when all the families would get together.
00:21:43
But he would never come to any of them. I never once saw him attend. I was so baffled how someone as upbeat and just eternally happy as Paige could have this grump around.
00:21:57
But in hopes of promoting either goodwill or himself, Dixon joined the Grand Junction Fire District Board
00:22:05
and then donated a brand new fire truck. His generosity made news at locals wondering if they'd misjudged him.
00:22:14
But soon it turned to dust. Dixon got himself in charge of fire district investments,
00:22:21
put public money in what he said was a sure thing. It wasn't. The money vanished.
00:22:27
Blue-Eyed, as I recall, about $750,000 in bad investments for the fire district.
00:22:32
Peter Houtsinger was, at that time, the Mesa County DA. I made the decision to take that case to the grand jury,
00:22:42
and ultimately the grand jury decided felony stupid but not worthy of criminal charges.
00:22:51
Then one day, a repo man showed up for that shiny new fire truck Dixon had donated.
00:22:57
It turned out the fire truck was leased, and they came and took it away from the fire department.
00:23:03
That's when Frank and Paige and the whole town found out Dixon's money was gone, too.
00:23:11
He gave it to someone who pyramid-schemed it. The missing money, the repo truck, the grand jury investigation.
00:23:20
It all kept Dixon on the front pages of the local paper for months. a series of public humiliations ending with an exclamation point
00:23:29
when he was embarrassingly picked Newsmaker of the Year. It was clear, Rob, he was a big deal because he had a lot of money.
00:23:37
And then to lose it and be disgraced in a relatively small community. They're writing about him in the local paper.
00:23:44
And I said, he has taken a gigantic fall and he will change dramatically for the worse.
00:23:51
And I think that was very predictable. and I think for Rob that's what happened.
00:23:55
At the end it was almost always bad Rob that we were dealing with. I told friends and we saw an email.
00:24:02
She was afraid he'd kill her. He said he would kill her several times. In 2004, Paige, in the midst of this downward spiral, called 911.
00:24:12
911, where's your emergency? My husband and I were in a fight and he was supposed to watch my children while I went to work.
00:24:19
And he said that I would come home and find them all murdered. Police were dispatched, but there was no arrest.
00:24:26
But according to Paige's parents, the fighting only got worse. It was very ugly, the psychological, emotional abuse that she endured all the time.
00:24:38
And when I was there visiting, I saw an awful lot of it. After a second incident, Dixon was arrested on suspicion of third-degree assault.
00:24:49
We had a misdemeanor domestic violence case against him with Paige as the victim.
00:24:55
Dixon pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of harassment, got a deferred sentence. The entire case, though, was later thrown out.
00:25:04
Anyway, Paige filed for divorce and Dixon for bankruptcy and moved away to Philadelphia to work as an EMT again.
00:25:11
And Paige did what she could to keep the kids in the only home they'd ever known.
00:25:18
That big place with the mortgage to match. Close to six grand a month. She would just sit and ponder, how can a single mom with three kids make enough money to stay in the house that her husband used to support?
00:25:35
She had no lack of ideas or ambition. She sold cooking products for a company called The Pampered Chef and slings for carrying babies.
00:25:45
She taught dancing classes for little kids, anything to turn a buck. keeping track of it all, in that big day planner of hers,
00:25:53
the one that was almost an hour-to-hour record of her life. And even though he was now far away, she also kept an eye out for Dixon.
00:26:03
Flat out, she was afraid of him. She was afraid of him coming back to town. She was always nervous he was going to be coming back into town.
00:26:13
And sure enough, two years later, in June 2007, The week before she vanished, Paige got a call from Dixon.
00:26:21
Said he missed the kids. Said he was moving back to Colorado. She said that she knew that Rob was coming back and that he was going to do something.
00:26:34
And I was floored. What does do something mean? Do something? And she just said she knew something bad was going to happen.
00:26:45
But murder did not enter my mind. Kidnapping did not enter my mind. It must have been very strange to hear that.
00:26:53
It was a staggering conversation. I mean, we were just two moms with small children faced with an unknown situation.
00:27:03
And a couple days later, she was missing. Inside the wreckage of Paige's burned-out car, her day planner.
00:27:13
It still had the pages intact. Inside the planner, a shock for everyone in the case.
00:27:19
That was stunning. Quite obviously, it's dangerous. It was a dismal clue. The trail of bits and pieces of Paige Bergfeld's life found scattered by the highway.
00:27:43
But still no page, alive or dead. And now detectives had two ex-husbands to investigate.
00:27:51
Ron Beigler, the last person known to have seen her alive. And Rob Dixon, the man she told friends she lived in fear of.
00:27:58
Most people that she knew, friends, believe that Rob Dixon had something to do with this.
00:28:04
So he pops right up to the top of your list. Absolutely. He and Rob Beigler both.
00:28:10
As for hard evidence, it was very little, except for the investigator's little secret.
00:28:17
The one bit of evidence they'd been hiding from everyone, even the Bergfelds. Something that, by pure luck, survived that car fire.
00:28:26
Page's day planner. The melted dash had fallen down onto the floor, covering up the day planner,
00:28:35
and so it was protected from the heat as well as from the fire because it had an upper layer on it.
00:28:41
What sort of condition was it in? It wasn't, I mean, it was smoke damaged and it had heat damage,
00:28:46
but it still had the pages intact. The day planner, still very readable, was full of appointments and plans and contact numbers,
00:28:54
most mundane, routine. But, and this was strange, three key pages, June 26th through the 29th,
00:29:03
the date surrounding Paige's disappearance, had been ripped out. And there was something else. One particular business card that just didn't belong for a company called Ladies en Confidante, an enterprise that oddly shared the same phone number with a business called Models Inc., whose cards were found scattered along Highway 50 among Paige's personal effects.
00:29:28
which appeared to support a strange story told by ex-husband Ron Beigler that Paige had clients she would see.
00:29:37
It was, you know, lonely, older married men buying companionship from a really intelligent woman that they wanted to spend time with.
00:29:45
As hard as Paige tried, what with the dancing classes, the baby slings, the cooking products,
00:29:51
she simply couldn't keep up with the bills. And so Paige investigators learned had taken on one more job She started moonlighting as an escort Finding out that Paige was running a rather high high sort of prostitution business was kind of stunning
00:30:12
I had no idea that that took place in my jurisdiction. Living in a very nice house in a nice part of town.
00:30:17
And known to a number of people that I knew. I mean, she was a soccer mom. One of my best friend's daughter, I believe, played on the same soccer team as Paige's kids.
00:30:29
So how did Paige manage to keep her escort service a secret from everybody but clients for so long?
00:30:37
Well, she went by the name Carrie, selling her services through a front company she ran called Models Inc.,
00:30:44
a name that implied intentionally that several women worked with her, when in fact it was just her.
00:30:51
Some friends suspected most didn't. It was very hard for me to believe that she would want to have sex with men for money.
00:31:00
But she did. According to this investigative report, Paige would charge up to $1,000 a session.
00:31:07
You can imagine how these revelations hit Paige's mom and dad. They just couldn't believe it.
00:31:13
If I had known about it, I definitely would have tried to use whatever persuasion I have
00:31:19
to turn her away from it. I mean, if nothing else, quite obviously, it's dangerous.
00:31:25
So it was a shock, obviously. But they said they could understand her motives. After all, Rob Dixon's money had run out.
00:31:35
She was doing what she had to do to keep life as normal as possible for the children.
00:31:44
The news spread, of course. Pretty soon most people in town knew. There were people who wrote to the paper and said horrible things like, why are we spending all this time looking for a dead hooker?
00:31:54
Dirt. Spread, said Andrea, by those who didn't even know Paige. We knew her heart. We knew who she was every day with us and with her kids.
00:32:04
And if anything, it only put us into hyper-vigilant, defend her mode and made us all want to get out there and talk about what a good person she was as much as possible.
00:32:16
A much bigger problem, though, was that Paige's secret life made an already complicated missing person case far more difficult.
00:32:24
We start looking at the phone that she was using for Models, Inc., and you start identifying people who had the most recent contact with her, and you came across multiple people.
00:32:36
Hello, you've reached Models, Inc., Colorado's premier gentleman's service. Now, every client who contacted Paige on June 28th, and there were many, was a potential suspect.
00:32:46
Here's just a sampling of her phone messages that day. speak to one of your female escorts?
00:33:18
What do you rate some of your hours and stuff like that? Yeah, this is John at Motel 6 from 237.
00:33:23
So they put together a list, called it possible suspects, the two ex-husbands, now joined by six of Paige's clients.
00:33:31
Nothing to do but check out all of them, beginning with the last client Paige called,
00:33:37
George Coraluzzo, who, the day Paige disappeared, called her 19 times. We're thinking, that's our guy.
00:33:46
I couldn't get rid of him. And he's still haunting me. What this woman saw... It just, it hit me.
00:33:55
...at what she told investigators. He totally did this. Grand Junction is a modern town in every way.
00:34:16
But lift your eyes from the humdrum. Watch a setting sun fire the great monument cliffs all around.
00:34:24
And for a moment, you're in the Old West. A mystique that clings to the place, as do the drifters attracted to such things.
00:34:32
Young men who split their time between odd jobs and the county jail. Like, for example, George Coraluzzo, here from New Jersey, and eager to hustle a buck or a woman or whatever.
00:34:46
George Coraluzzo was a con man, a sick person. Megan Williams knew Coraluzzo because he and her then-husband had partnered in a house painting business.
00:34:56
Knowing Coraluzzo as she did, she was not surprised by a visit she got on July 1, 2007.
00:35:03
Sheriffs came to our house, and they said, is George Coraluzzo here? I actually thought they were there to talk about this kidnapping case.
00:35:10
To Megan, this kidnapping case meant one six months earlier, in which Coraluzzo, allegedly, took this woman against her will on a long, scary ride across state lines.
00:35:22
I spilled to them everything I knew up to that point. Thinking you were talking about a different crime altogether.
00:35:29
Correct. Deputies didn't let on. But, of course, they were really looking into the disappearance of Paige Bergfeld three days earlier.
00:35:38
Where was Coraluzzo that day? Well, very interesting, said Megan. he'd failed to show up for work.
00:35:46
And later that night, he offered a truly bizarre reason why. That his family had been in an accident.
00:35:53
And we said, what kind of accident? Well my brother and my sister and my niece and nephew were beheaded on the turnpike in New Jersey He had to go to New Jersey He had to solidify funeral arrangements He was sobbing and hands were flying and he was just like I don know what I going to do and just very upset
00:36:11
And we believed him. As she told the detectives, Coraluzzo took the first available flight back to New Jersey.
00:36:19
And that was that. The detectives thanked her and left. Didn't mention a thing about Paige Bergfeld.
00:36:24
and then the very next day Megan was watching the news on TV and saw the story about the burned out car
00:36:32
her car was found ablaze in this parking lot off 23 Road and then I saw the page's face come across the news
00:36:39
and I looked at my ex-husband Tim and I said that's what happened I said he murdered that woman
00:36:45
it just it hit me then of course she had to know was that wild story about a decapitating accident
00:36:54
in New Jersey, just Coraluzzo's excuse to run from what he had done to get out of town?
00:37:00
I scoured the internet and made phone calls. Scoured the internet looking for evidence of a big traffic accident.
00:37:06
Nothing there. So who'd you phone? I called their local Gazette newspaper. Okay.
00:37:10
Talked to a reporter. Nothing happened. I called the coroner. Nothing. So newspaper, coroner, hospitals, nothing.
00:37:18
But Megan was able to locate Coraluzzo and pass that tip on to lead investigator Beverly Gerald, who would end up playing a key role.
00:37:28
You'll hear more about her later. Gerald caught up with Coraluzzo in New Jersey, grilled him for five hours.
00:37:36
But Coraluzzo denied everything. More important, he was in New Jersey when Paige's car was set ablaze.
00:37:43
So Gerald let him go. If he didn't burn the car, doesn't that let him out? No. Why not?
00:37:49
Because his actions lead me to believe that he did something so disgusting and vile
00:37:56
that he had to leave Grand Junction and lie about his family dying. Something happened.
00:38:01
And there was something else, said Megan. He told multiple people that he did something so terrible that he could never take it to the grave
00:38:08
and that he would never be forgiven. What was that besides murdering somebody? George was a sketchy person, and he totally did this.
00:38:18
The Coraluzzo she knew, she said, was cunning enough to have one of his pals help him.
00:38:24
Somebody like his best friend, Jose Tavera. Detectives suspected that, too. So they found Tavera, brought him in for questioning.
00:38:34
And what do you know? He'd recently injured his arm. They had a bandage on it. And the cop asked me, what is that?
00:38:42
The detective goes, what happened there? I said, I burned myself at work. he's like well are you good enough of a friend to burn a car down for George you know
00:38:51
a startling discovery about one of Paige's clients I thought oh my god triggers a police search
00:39:00
he had their phone numbers cross eyes and whether or not they would have sex strange maybe but did
00:39:06
it mean anything It was a traumatic time here in Grand Junction, Colorado, that summer of 2007,
00:39:28
what with the fruitless search for the missing mother of three, loved by so many, who turned out to have secrets.
00:39:35
And a day planner. And voicemails and phone records that seemed to point eight different ways at once.
00:39:44
two ex-husbands, and six clients. I don't think I've ever seen a more difficult case in my entire career.
00:39:53
One by one, the detectives cleared their suspects, or tried to. Ex-husband number one and current boyfriend, Ron Beegler.
00:40:02
We were able to determine that Mr. Beegler had been in the Denver area through cell phone records.
00:40:09
Second husband, Rob Dixon, the one man she said she feared. We were able to cooperate with his employer that he was in the Philadelphia area at the time.
00:40:19
And Rob Dixon's cell phone connected to a tower in Pennsylvania. The night Paige disappeared.
00:40:24
And three days later, when he left this message on Paige's phone. Paige, if you get this, please, please call somebody.
00:40:33
I love you. Please, please, please let us know you're okay. Still, there were caveats to Dixon and Beigler's alibis.
00:40:41
That doesn't eliminate them as far as having some involvement and maybe paying somebody.
00:40:47
Then there was the list of clients. Coraluzzo at the top of it, given he didn't have a solid alibi and skipped town right after her disappearance.
00:40:56
Coraluzzo was the one that was most concerning. Not to mention Coraluzzo's friend, Jose Tavara, the one with the big burn on his arm.
00:41:05
I said, well, I said I burned myself at work. who swore he did not help Coraluzzo by setting fire to Page's car.
00:41:14
I said, I don't care if Mother Teresa comes and asks me to burn her in a car. I said, tell her to go to hell, you know.
00:41:19
So they let him go, too, for the moment. The other clients? Hatzinger knew one of them very well,
00:41:25
a prominent real estate investor named Stephen Heald. He was almost as well-known in town as Rob Dixon.
00:41:32
And Mike Dixon, for the wrong reasons. the first major case I handled when I came to this jurisdiction was his
00:41:39
multi-million dollar fraud case I mean I prosecuted him and sent him to prison back in the early 90s for that so when he came up again as a suspect in the
00:41:48
Bergfeld matter it was interesting when detectives questioned him Heald admitted
00:41:54
he embezzled money from his company to pay for dates with page but then he claimed Paige turned the tables on him He made allegations that she was essentially blackmailing him asking for extra money
00:42:08
What a motive. Except, Heald's wife supplied an alibi. They were home that night reading, watching TV.
00:42:16
So Heald seemed to be in the clear, which made it all the more shocking when, after being questioned by detectives,
00:42:22
Heald attempted suicide. That, B.A. Hatzinger assumed was not guilt, but shame. People don't really want to have it out in public that,
00:42:32
yeah, I was patronizing a call girl. They checked out a drifter named John Livingston,
00:42:40
who, the night Paige vanished, called her again and again from a Motel 6, desperate, apparently, for her attention.
00:42:48
Yeah, this is John at Motel 6 from 237. Except there was no evidence Paige ever went to see him.
00:42:56
But then there was another client, Lester Ralph Jones. Investigators got a tip about Jones from a friend of Paige's named Carol Linderholm.
00:43:07
Paige had scheduled an appointment with Jones the night before she disappeared, but for some reason didn't want to go.
00:43:14
Asked Linderholm to meet Jones instead. He was expecting her, and then I think...
00:43:20
And then you showed up at his door. Right. I'm sure he had some expectations, right?
00:43:25
I mean, he called an escort service. Well, he let it be known almost immediately that he wanted sex.
00:43:35
Linda Holmes said that didn't happen. Instead, they talked for an hour or so, and then she left.
00:43:43
A couple of days later, she said she called Paige. It's Carol. Where the heck are you?
00:43:49
Got no response. At first, I thought she was just busy and she couldn't call back.
00:43:54
And then when I heard on the news that the kids actually went to the police department about it,
00:43:59
that's when I knew something terrible had happened to her. Paige, this is Carol.
00:44:05
Oh, I hope you're all right. I hope this isn't Rob. Oh, my God. Linderholm mentioned Paige's second ex-husband, Rob Dixon, because she knew Paige was afraid of him.
00:44:16
Then, the next day, Linderholm heard about Paige's car. and the fire. I went to go over and look at it and I arrived just in time for it was put on a
00:44:28
platform on a trailer and it was being hauled away. When it passed me I just it just left me
00:44:33
with this horrible feeling. As she drove away something across the road caught her eye. It was
00:44:39
a sign for Bob Scott RVs. Lester Jones had told me that he worked for Bob Scott RV and when I drove
00:44:49
around, I saw a car in the parking lot that was the same one that was in the driveway when I
00:44:55
walked up to Lester Jones' house. And I thought, oh my God. Right away, Carol went to the sheriff's
00:45:02
office, told them all she knew about Lester Ralph Jones. How much credence did you give that story?
00:45:08
Or did you? We gave it a lot of credence. In fact, a week after Paige disappeared,
00:45:14
they brought Jones in for questioning. Mr. Jones, I appreciate you coming down. Jones was once chief of a rural fire department, which is where his story gets strange.
00:45:26
I know Rob. Okay. Rob Dixon, Paige's ex-husband. Go down that road. What do you know?
00:45:33
I used to be with the fire department up in Hotchkiss there. Okay, all right. I met him there.
00:45:37
Okay. That was a long time ago. And had also met Dixon's then-wife, Paige. Because she at one time had come up there.
00:45:46
And she had come to where? The fire department, you mean? Yeah. Okay. And was taken aback, Jones claimed, when a couple of years later he went to the Models Inc. massage parlor
00:45:57
and was greeted by Rob Dixon's ex-wife. Do you know if she recognized you? I wouldn't.
00:46:05
Do you think she would? I wouldn't think. Okay. So it kind of made you feel uncomfortable.
00:46:10
Yeah. But things went okay. Yeah. And how often have you done business with them?
00:46:15
I think twice, I think. Well, Jones answered questions downtown. Investigators scoured his house and Bob Scott RVs where he worked.
00:46:26
What did you find when you searched Bob Scott's RV location? A list of names of escorts that we do in the Grand Jackson area where he had their names, phone numbers, bra size, and whether or not they would have sex.
00:46:39
Some Viagras, also some condoms. along with wigs, a black bra, and in a locked cabinet, an old scale from Pampered Chef,
00:46:53
one of Page's many businesses. Creepy, certainly suspicious, but not necessarily incriminating.
00:47:02
Besides, Jones had no reason to kill Page, no motive, which led investigators to a new theory.
00:47:09
I still have difficulty believing that you killed her, unless you're working for optics.
00:47:18
Investigators get Lester Ralph Jones on the phone for a very strange call. You ask me where I can bury your body.
00:47:26
Which came out of nowhere. Because nobody had asked him where he buried the body.
00:47:29
Nobody. Did you like Rob Dixon? Detectives investigating the disappearance of Paige Bergfeld had a big hunch.
00:47:52
There just had to be some connection between Lester Ralph Jones and Paige's second husband, Rob Dixon.
00:47:57
Would you like his contact with Rob Dixon? They already knew Dixon had been looking for dirt about Paige, something he could use in family court as a way of getting custody of their kids.
00:48:08
So, as the cops sawed, Rob Dixon had the motive, while Lester Ralph Jones had the means.
00:48:14
So, maybe murder for hire. But, big but, they couldn't find evidence of any contact between Jones and Dixon before Paige vanished.
00:48:25
No phone calls, no wire transfers, nothing suspicious, nothing at all, really. Jones himself, on the other hand, there were just too many holes in his story.
00:48:37
For starters, no alibi the night Page went missing. And even worse, Jones admitted that when Page's car was set on fire,
00:48:45
he was at Bob Scott RVs, practically across the street. You're there. By your own admission, you're there where the fire's.
00:48:53
I understand that. Tell me that. Explain that. I can't explain it to you. And guess what they found at Jones' worksite?
00:49:01
A discarded package that once contained a prepaid track phone. The disposable kind that doesn't reveal the identity of the user.
00:49:11
Except on the package was the phone's serial number. And from that, we were able to determine that the phone was bought at Walmart on North Avenue.
00:49:20
So they got the security camera video, and, well, well, well, the buyer looked a lot like Lester Ralph Jones.
00:49:29
Why was that important? Because someone using that particular track phone called Paige at Models Inc. five times the night she disappeared.
00:49:39
If there was one thing that rose above all else, it was the video of him buying the track phone that was used to call her that evening.
00:49:50
Except Jones denied that was him in the video. I have you on video buying a track phone at Walmart.
00:49:57
I didn't buy no track phone at Walmart, too. How do you explain the video? Oh, I don't know. There is no video.
00:50:04
Jones was unflappable, talked for five hours. And then they had to let him go. A couple of days later, a detective called Jones to say his two cars,
00:50:14
which had been impounded, were now free to pick up. And Jones' wife answered the phone.
00:50:19
Hello? Yes, may I speak with Ralph, please? Hold on, please. Hello? Mr. Jones? Yes, sir.
00:50:27
This is Art Smith with the Sheriff's Office. Just calling to let you know that we have both your cars ready.
00:50:32
Both of them, obviously, are down here at the Sheriff's Office right now. So are you with Elaine right now?
00:50:38
No. I'm sorry? I don't think so. Mr. Jones, I'm not following you. you asked me where i would bury a body i'm sorry you asked me where i should bury a body
00:50:55
which came out of nowhere which surprised us because nobody had asked him where he buried
00:51:00
the body nobody had asked him about where he buried the body we were calling him about
00:51:03
his vehicle and the day before we never talked about burying the body very very strange and
00:51:11
Most certainly interesting. When they found out why Jones seemed so out of it, he'd just taken an overdose of sleeping pills.
00:51:20
After leaving for his wife, what appeared to be a suicide note, My dearest love, he wrote, I've prayed all night and this morning.
00:51:29
I've asked for his forgiveness. I want you to know how much I love you. You're the best thing that has happened to me.
00:51:35
Please forgive me. And then he added this. Tell the cops to get... I never did it, but I can't be railroaded.
00:51:44
Jones recovered quickly, but his actions that day remained a mystery because he wasn't talking anymore to investigators.
00:51:52
The evidence was definitely pointing toward Lester Jones, but we still had to keep an eye open on Mr. Livingston, Mr. Heald, Mr. Coraluzzo,
00:52:01
and remember that these are the ones we know about. Is there somebody else out there we don't even know about yet?
00:52:05
Didn't help when lab results from Page's car came back negative. the fire burned it clean of evidence.
00:52:13
So the sheriff's office turned to a volunteer search dog team for help. And sure enough, the dogs appeared to hit on Jones' scent in Page's charred car
00:52:24
and along Highway 50, where all those items were found. And then they sniffed their way down this gravel road, the dead ends of the Gunnison River.
00:52:33
When given Paige's scent, the dogs followed exactly the same path along Highway 50, down the gravel road, into the Gunnison River.
00:52:43
So was Paige's body in here somewhere? They called in divers. Basically, we'd go across the river about 100 feet.
00:52:51
They let us out 5 feet. We'd come back across the river 100 feet. And basically, just searching by field, I just got out of there, and it is pitch black at the bottom.
00:52:59
But there just wasn't a body down there. Swept away by the river, perhaps? Anyway, the labor-intensive search of the countryside,
00:53:07
which had been going on for two long months, now seemed rather pointless. So, at summer's end, the command post closed.
00:53:16
I guess that's the only thing at this point to do, because there isn't any more volunteers that are coming up.
00:53:21
And people do have to return to their own lives. But that was not an option for Paige's family.
00:53:28
Her parents rented an apartment in town and carried on the search alone. This is my life now, and I really wish I could get in a different line of work.
00:53:37
Even offered a $15,000 reward, no questions asked. It's about 100 days, and if she's out there, we need to find her, and if this will help stimulate that, so be it.
00:53:51
But, no useful tips, not a one. even though Frank stayed on in Grand Junction for a whole fruitless year At some point you have to say do I want to stay here doing this or is it time to go back to Denver
00:54:06
What was it like on the way back to Denver as you realized you were leaving for good?
00:54:10
I would say kind of a heaviness to it. That somewhere she's back there and I'm leaving her.
00:54:19
But, while no one knew where Paige was There was one woman who had an idea As to what may have happened to her
00:54:30
Lisa Nance Who was rather briefly married once upon a time To Lester Ralph Jones
00:54:37
Lisa will always remember him The ex-wife's tale He looked at me and he said, I'm going to kill you
00:54:48
My kids really liked him. No doubt about it, thought Lisa Nance. Lester Ralph Jones was a catch.
00:55:08
Tall, strong, a firefighter, for heaven's sake. And... He was a really nice person.
00:55:14
Really nice, huh? What do you mean by really nice? He just seemed really nice and genuine and sweet.
00:55:21
Well, you know how people are, caught up in the blinding glare of new love. And then, in a month or two or six, disturbing things begin to occur.
00:55:33
Unimagined traits emerge, and sometimes a nightmarish story, like the one Lisa Nance told us about Lester Ralph Jones.
00:55:44
I caught him, you know, watching me and stuff, you know. What do you mean? Like watching me where I was going and stuff like that.
00:55:52
He tapped her phone, she said. He hid secret recording devices. I talked to any of my friends or anything like that, and I didn't tell him.
00:55:58
You know, he would already know that I had talked to whoever. It just wasn't working for Lisa.
00:56:05
She ended it, better sooner than later, she thought. And she moved on. But of course it wasn't over.
00:56:11
and one morning as she was driving her new boyfriend to work, a car drew up beside her car.
00:56:18
It was him, Jones. He got up beside me and hit my car, which knocked me over into a ditch.
00:56:26
And then he pulled up and backed up really hard and ran my car. And it caused the airbags and stuff to go off.
00:56:33
The new boyfriend took off running, but Jones had a gun. He shot at him twice. One bullet hole went through his cab, and I think the other one grazed his head.
00:56:44
And you were going to be next? I thought. I thought that. You must have been shaking like a leaf.
00:56:49
It was scary. I asked him to put the gun down, you know, because he had it pointed right at me.
00:56:54
And finally, he put it in the back seat, the back floorboard. And then, you know, I talked to him and tried to calm him down, you know.
00:57:03
What was he saying to you? That I didn't love him anymore, and I didn't want him anymore, stuff like that.
00:57:08
And I was trying to convince him otherwise. Eventually he left, she called the police, he was arrested.
00:57:14
But in no time made bail. And then, Lisa was at home a few weeks later. I came out of my room and I went to the kitchen and I turned around and he was just sitting
00:57:25
on the couch, I mean just sitting there in the dark. My stomach just, you know, sank.
00:57:30
I mean I asked him, what on earth are you doing here, you know? And he didn't say anything.
00:57:35
And that's when I really got scared because he just didn't look like himself and he wouldn't
00:57:38
say anything. He had something on his mind. I think so. It seemed like it anyways.
00:57:42
I didn't know what it was, but he just didn't. And I wanted to get out of the house, you know, as quick as we could.
00:57:49
I just wanted to get out in public around other people. She said what came into her head, let's go out to dinner.
00:57:54
And he agreed, got behind the wheel, started driving. But then she realized he wasn't going to dinner.
00:58:01
He was headed out of town toward the mountains. I was like, where are we going? And he wouldn't say anything.
00:58:07
He just kept rubbing the back of my head. saying it's going to be okay. Rubbing the back of your head?
00:58:12
What sort of tone did he have in his voice when he said that? He wasn't being loud.
00:58:16
He wasn't yelling or anything like that. He was just really, really quiet. It's a little creepy.
00:58:21
And I looked at him and I said, We're not going to eat, are we? And he looked at me and he said, No.
00:58:26
And I said, What are we going to do? And he's like, I'm going to kill you. And then he just started slapping me over and over.
00:58:32
The moment had come for you. But I thought, because all I could think about was my kids,
00:58:36
you know, not seeing them. But I was trying to talk to him and trying to get him to talk to me, listen to me.
00:58:45
He's like, you don't love me anymore. You don't want me. And I said, no, that's not true.
00:58:50
And he's like, well, then prove it. I said, how? And he wanted me to make love to him in the car.
00:58:58
And so I tried, but there wasn't no room. So I asked him if we could just go get a room and talk.
00:59:07
know and so finally he agreed to that so what happened when you got to the got to town he got
00:59:14
we went to that motel and he pulled in there and he looked at me he's like you'll be waiting here
00:59:19
when I come back and I said yes so he goes in as soon as he went in that second door and he was out
00:59:25
of sight I took off I started driving back toward town and I was going really fast hoping that I
00:59:30
should think so hoping that someone would pull me over and they did and finally I told him what was
00:59:35
happening and then they took me back to the police station. Some officers went to the motel to arrest Jones, but...
00:59:43
They said they couldn't find him. He wasn't there. Where was he? Lisa, still shaken, still terrified, went home and he called.
00:59:54
First thing he said was where are you And I just hung up and I called 911 And they took me to a safe house And did they catch them
01:00:06
What? No, they didn't know where to look. A few days later, somebody broke into Lisa's mother's house in Oklahoma.
01:00:14
She called me later that day and said when she was leaving work that she noticed his car was following her.
01:00:21
And she said it was Ralph. And she called the sheriff's department. And she's like, he's here. He's following me. And they arrested him.
01:00:29
My mom said she asked him, what was he doing? And he said, looking for your daughter.
01:00:33
Lester Ralph Jones was convicted of assault and kidnapping and served three years.
01:00:38
But now he was out and remarried. And by the fall of 2007, a pile of circumstantial evidence connected him to Paige Bergfeld's disappearance.
01:00:48
Why don't you just go arrest him? My job is to gather the facts and then present it to the district attorney's office and they make that determination.
01:00:56
You want to add? Because he had to fight that battle constantly for years. Oh, yeah, I think you hit it. You hit it right on.
01:01:02
Meaning they were ready to pick up Jones, but D.A. Hutzinger was not. Why didn't you decide to pull the pin on Lester Ralph Jones?
01:01:11
They didn't have a body. And that was the defining? Absolutely. That was really...
01:01:15
I mean, there are lots of no-body cases that go to trial. Not a lot of nobody cases where the victim has a double life and has been lying to her family and friends.
01:01:24
Because of her double life, the possibility that the defense attorney could throw out there that she ran off with some rich client and is living on a beach in Brazil or something.
01:01:36
And as the years passed, Page's story went from the front of the paper to being filed away on microfiche.
01:01:44
where was she? They were about to find out and it would transform the case. Now we need to make a critical decision.
01:01:57
And then a brand new theory of what happened to Paige. I think that triggered something
01:02:03
and something went wrong. Grand Junction, Colorado has been a boom and bust sort of place over the years.
01:02:25
But the great majestic cliffs are eternal. The monument, they call this. Guardian of the rugged and beautiful places that have drawn hikers and bikers and rafters for years.
01:02:38
Like the couple trekking through the Wells Gulch on March 6, 2012. and pretty soon Paige's dad got another one of those phone calls
01:02:47
this time from a local reporter and he said did you know they found Paige's remains this morning
01:02:54
and he asked if anybody had called me and I said you're the first one it took time though to be certain it was her
01:03:05
a couple weeks or so it was verified that it was in fact Paige's remains She was just a few miles south of the place where all those documents were found along the roadside.
01:03:16
So, it had to have been Paige who left that trail, said the police, a call for help or an arrow pointing to where to find her.
01:03:24
And all that while restrained, they found remnants of duct tape still wrapped around her jaw.
01:03:31
And we really think the searchers were here to miss it. You know, it's like, darn, how did that happen?
01:03:39
Probably, said the detectives. Her killer buried her five years earlier, way back in 2007, when she first disappeared.
01:03:47
And eventually, what was left of her was unearthed by a heavy spring runoff. And so, said D.A. Houtsinger.
01:03:53
Here we go. This is what I've been waiting for. Now we need to really put the pedal to the metal and make a critical decision.
01:04:02
So now, finally with a body, investigators once again attempted to fashion a murder case against one of the eight possible suspects.
01:04:10
The two ex-husbands, Rob Dixon and Ron Biegler, had what looked like solid alibis,
01:04:16
what with both their cell phones being hundreds of miles away when Paige was kidnapped and killed.
01:04:21
So that left the six clients. Of course, Lester Ralph Jones was at the top of the list, but George Coraluzzo, remember him?
01:04:29
Coraluzzo was the alternate suspect that gave me as the DA heartburn and concerns.
01:04:39
That's because Coraluzzo's alibi was so hard to pin down. Multiple witnesses said he was partying that night at Jose Tavera's apartment.
01:04:48
But what time exactly? Well, that depended on who you spoke to. But what everybody did agree was this.
01:04:55
Coraluzzo was out of control. He was intoxicated. Like, slurring his words, you know, not being able to focus.
01:05:04
He wouldn't have been able to, you know, murder her and then go get rid of the body.
01:05:09
You know, he was incapable of it. Of course, Tivera might have been lying to protect his friend.
01:05:15
Detectives wanted to talk to Coraluzzo himself, but they couldn't find him. So they asked Tivera for help.
01:05:22
They're like, well, do you know where George is? I said, George is dead. drowned the year before while swimming in a river in New Jersey.
01:05:32
Still, to satisfy the DA, investigators had to make a case that Coraluzzo was either guilty or innocent.
01:05:40
But because dead men don't talk, it meant they had to slog through seven years of reports and interviews and statements.
01:05:49
And it was two years after Page's body was discovered, While wading through that mountain of material an investigator stumbled on an overlooked piece of evidence that would change the whole case It was security camera video of Coraluzzo friends including Tivera at a market
01:06:07
the night Paige disappeared. Coraluzzo wasn't in the video, mind you, but the timestamp backed up
01:06:13
the story minute by minute that Tivera had been telling the cops, suddenly lifting his credibility,
01:06:19
and in turn helping to establish Coraluzzo's whereabouts the night Page disappeared.
01:06:25
That video helped to corroborate what the witness was saying. It was piecing together a timeline of where he was, where we could prove he was during the relevant window of opportunity.
01:06:38
That evening and the next day when Page went missing. and by interviewing lots of different people who had been with Carl Luzzo or had talked to him,
01:06:49
we were able to painstakingly essentially alibi him. Houtsinger felt he finally had enough to take the case to a jury.
01:06:59
And in November 2014, seven and one-half years after Paige vanished, police arrested Lester Ralph Jones for her murder.
01:07:08
But did they know the whole story now? Oh no, they certainly did not. They didn't know where or even how Page was killed.
01:07:18
It would have been nice to have that additional piece of evidence or an additional puzzle piece to put into the jigsaw.
01:07:25
Well, it would help you tell the story, too. Exactly. And telling the story is an important thing for a prosecutor to be able to do.
01:07:30
It's really the entire thing. I don't have to prove motive, for example, but I usually try to anyway because the jury wants to know why did this person do this.
01:07:42
So tell us the story. What happened in your view? I think Lester Jones was obsessed with Paige and she had not enjoyed her time with him and was putting him off
01:07:54
and I think that triggered something. That's why he got the track phone and something went wrong.
01:08:00
My guess is that he physically subdued her and drove her down to where her body was found,
01:08:09
but she was conscious and had the ability to throw some of the things out the window or the trunk or whatever it was,
01:08:14
leading that trail going down to Delta, and that she was ultimately killed wherever, not far from where her body was found.
01:08:22
But the defense had its own compelling story to tell. or rather stories, a separate tale for each of those alternate suspects.
01:08:34
Waste of time? Well, maybe not. Remember, it takes just one juror with reasonable doubt to throw a whole case into it.
01:08:44
Well, you'll see. At trial, the defense goes hard at the original lead detective in the case.
01:08:54
Did you actually receive an official reprimand for the poor quality of work you did in this case?
01:09:01
Maybe the case against Jones never stood a chance. If you're doing shoddy work in the beginning, your investigation becomes sick.
01:09:08
It's almost impossible to make it well again. In a town with zero degrees of separation, Page Bergfeld's disappearance and murder impacted many here.
01:09:31
If they didn't know Page personally, then they were in on the search, or were a potential witness, or knew somebody who was, or in the worst case, knew one of the possible suspects.
01:09:44
So, when the trial finally got underway, the town's attention was very much focused on this courtroom.
01:09:51
We're on the record in 14-0, 14-32. But the trouble began before a single witness could be called.
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Ron Beigler was angry, wound up. The new district attorney, Dan Rubenstein, was set to call Page's first husband.
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He was a key witness, but was afraid he might actually attack Jones in the courtroom
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because Beigler had actually threatened to kill him. And indicated that he wanted Mr. Jones to be found not guilty
01:10:19
so that he could kill him and feed him his genitals. I don't use a different word than that.
01:10:24
Proceedings ground to a sudden halt. Beegler was hauled before the judge. If you have any outbursts or you do anything in an attempt to harm anybody in the courtroom,
01:10:35
that that will result in serious consequences. I think it's over-exaggerated. Our chasm may be taken out of context.
01:10:41
Chasing, but still insisting it was all a misunderstanding, Beegler took the stand and testified about his last day with Paige.
01:10:49
We talked about me moving into her house in Grand Junction. We talked about her quitting that business.
01:10:56
Which business? The adult entertainment business. Did you give her reasons why you wanted her to quit?
01:11:01
Mm-hmm. What were the reasons you said? Because she could get killed, for one. The jury heard about it all.
01:11:09
The day planner, items along the roadside, the bits of paper left along the highway.
01:11:14
The search dogs who scented on Jones. The track phone Jones bought then lied about.
01:11:21
And the apparent suicide note he'd left for his wife. And the jury heard that strange call Jones had with the deputy.
01:11:30
And Jones said, He asked me for an ironed body. Lisa Nance told the jury the harrowing tale of the night Jones took her into the mountains.
01:11:39
And he looked at me, he said, I'm going to kill you. And there was this. Hi, Mom, it's me. I was just wondering when you get home.
01:11:46
The prosecution played the fearful phone messages, pages then-eight-year-old daughter Jess
01:11:52
left on her mother's cell phone. Love you. Bye. And here was Jess today. Now a senior in high school
01:12:00
but still able to give a child's perspective of a very loving mother. She was pretty much a typical soccer mom.
01:12:10
We did everything with her. We all slept in the same bed with her, and we always went shopping together,
01:12:18
and she took us to all of our soccer games and to school, and she provided us with everything that we needed, whatever that may have been.
01:12:26
A procession of witnesses that lasted for weeks. And the defense team's response?
01:12:35
That this was all so much show to distract from a shoddy investigation that focused on Jones from the start, despite the lack of any physical evidence.
01:12:46
Do you solemnly swear or... And they drove that theory home by boldly calling former lead investigator Beverly Gerald.
01:12:53
Remember her? She was in charge of the investigation. and all those detectives from the beginning,
01:12:59
yet was never called to testify for the prosecution, perhaps for good reason. Would you agree, Investigator Gerald,
01:13:06
that you made some mistakes in this investigation? Uh, yes. Okay. Has it come to your attention that you did, in fact,
01:13:15
forget to book in a few recordings into evidence for this? Yes. Gerald admitted reports had gone unwritten
01:13:23
and evidence was actually lost, like Jose Tavera's first police interview. And did you actually receive an official reprimand
01:13:33
for the poor quality of work you did in this case? I don't remember that. You don't remember getting a major disciplinary action
01:13:41
because you kept evidence from this case in your office? In writing? No. Gerald said her memory's been fuzzy since a 2010 horse riding accident,
01:13:51
Something that happened three years after the slip-ups on the Bergfeld case. And then came the ultimate suspect, the guy who called Paige from that Motel 6.
01:14:02
And in that storage unit, you had numerous guns, right? I did have them. This former client, who allegedly discussed killing Paige.
01:14:11
Did you tell Ms. Whalen that you had killed Ms. Bergfeld by putting Ms. Bergfeld through a woodchuck?
01:14:17
No, ma'am. Somebody said something about, did you do this to Paige or did you murder Paige?
01:14:24
And I said, just out of context, had I, they wouldn't find her because I'd have used a wood chipper.
01:14:32
And it was totally out of context. The client who admitted embezzling his company's money to pay Paige.
01:14:38
Did you kill Ms. Bergfeld? No. Are you responsible for her disappearance? Absolutely not.
01:14:43
And then the defense went after Jose Tavera, who admitted he was so tight with Coraluzzo,
01:14:49
he would have done just about anything for his friend. Including burning the car to help him if he needed that done.
01:14:57
I wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do that? No That the one thing you wouldn do Yeah Megan Williams told the jury she was sure the killer was really Coral Utsu He was a pathological liar and anything that came out of his mouth was a lie
01:15:10
and any story that he made up was made up. So many suspects, said the defense. And they put on a retired detective to accuse the police of tunnel vision.
01:15:21
Because if you're doing shoddy work in the beginning, and you're not paying attention to all the details and all of the information,
01:15:27
and vetting all of the leads, your investigation becomes sick. It's almost impossible to make it well again.
01:15:33
As for forensic evidence, said the defense, forget about it. They called an expert to say there is no way a dog can follow a month-old scent.
01:15:42
My opinion is that's not possible. If true, that meant there was no proof Jones had ever been in Paige's car
01:15:50
or along the highway where her belongings were found. By the end of the six-week trial, the jury had heard from more than 100 witnesses testifying about a nine-year investigation involving multiple suspects.
01:16:03
So it wasn't surprising during deliberations. The jury came back with one question after the other.
01:16:10
Prosecutor Dan Rubenstein. I started to get worried, and the question popped into my mind,
01:16:16
is it possible to ever convince 12 people beyond a reasonable doubt unanimously as to an answer on this case?
01:16:22
and I started to worry about that. Please rise for our jury. By day three, the judge called the jury into his courtroom to ask,
01:16:29
Is there a likelihood of progress towards a unanimous verdict? After getting this far, was the prosecution's case coming undone?
01:16:40
Jurors speaking out, saying the case went wrong from the start with the original lead detective.
01:16:46
She just boggled me when she was just, I don't remember, I don't know. And you're a lead investigator?
01:16:51
And then, Paige's parents' emotional reaction. I would tell you that was a hard part.
01:16:57
That was the hardest for me. By day three of deliberations, the jury sent word to the judge.
01:17:16
They were deadlocked. Is there a likelihood of progress towards a unanimous verdict?
01:17:21
no no all right thank you the judge ordered them back to deliberate further but now of course it
01:17:29
was concerned so they will make it make another effort considering each other's opinions further
01:17:34
and if they're unable to reach a verdict we'll declare a mistrial and reset the trial
01:17:38
less than two hours later another message from the jury it states as follows the jury remains in the
01:17:46
position period. We are not unanimous in our decision period. We do not feel any
01:17:53
further discussion will change our current state period. And that was it. The judge had no option but to declare a mistrial. Minutes later, Bajer's dad,
01:18:04
Frank tried to keep it positive Listen if we hadn had a trial that would have been a problem This was a massive effort It was well done
01:18:16
I am grateful they gave us a shot at it. But like so many times in the past, Frank's facade cracked just a bit,
01:18:25
and the pain slipped through. At the end, they showed a nice picture of paper. That all kind of came down.
01:18:33
In my heart, I believed he was guilty. A handful of jurors spoke to us afterwards to explain how the trial played out for them.
01:18:41
This man, William Sullivan, voted guilty. Because of the evidence. You know, nobody has that bad of luck in one week.
01:18:48
And this man, Judd Swihart, was disturbed by lead investigator Beverly Gerald's testimony.
01:18:54
She just boggled me when she was on the stand and just, I don't remember, I don't know, whatever.
01:19:00
And you're a lead investigator? they should have replaced her immediately. Still, he voted guilty.
01:19:07
But there were others, three all told, who couldn't overcome their doubts. One of them was Bobby Santabria,
01:19:14
who spoke for the three dissenters. There was not enough evidence for them to get past the reasonable doubt.
01:19:21
Prosecutor Dan Rubenstein said, in a way, he understood. The biggest weakness of the case, in my opinion,
01:19:28
was that there was just no eyewitnesses that placed Mr. Jones with Ms. Bergfeld that night,
01:19:33
and we really didn't know exactly how she was killed. And he conceded. The defense did an admirable job protecting Jones.
01:19:42
I think the point that they were trying to make was a good one, which is it could be anyone.
01:19:47
It could be somebody we never thought of. So the season slipped by, and now with the leaves gone and snow falling, a retrial.
01:19:57
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. And with time and money tight, all knew this would be Rubenstein's last shot at Jones.
01:20:05
Another mistrial would be just as good as an acquittal. And so it all played out as before.
01:20:12
You have a track record of being dishonest. Yes. The same witnesses. Did you kill Ms. Bergfeld?
01:20:19
No, ma'am. The same testimony. I have never been able to run a dog on a trail that's a month old.
01:20:25
The same alternate suspect. In your opinion, did the sheriff's office conduct an objective investigation?
01:20:32
No. The same closing argument from the defense. This man is innocent and he stays that way unless these people can convince you otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt.
01:20:44
But what was different this time was Rubenstein's closing argument. Taking the alternate suspect seriously, he went after each theory one by one with attitude.
01:20:55
And to think that somebody who's so drunk that three different people have to cart them
01:21:00
around, who's probably also on cocaine, is capable of doing this, carefully doing it,
01:21:06
and then going back and cleaning it up carefully with a car fire that specifically targeted to get the evidence to tear pages out of a day planner I mean does this sound like George Coraluzzo at all No But would that make a difference to this new jury
01:21:22
Few thought so. And so, while deliberations went on from one day to the next, Page's parents braced themselves.
01:21:30
I think there's a reasonable chance it could be another mistrial. If it is a mistrial, I expect Jones to walk out a free man.
01:21:38
And just as in the first trial, the jury deliberated for three days before sending a note to the judge.
01:21:46
Please be seated. But this time, there was a verdict. We, the jury, find the defendant, Lester Ralph Jones, guilty of count one, murder in the first degree.
01:21:57
When the verdict came in, I think we were supposed to feel elated. like the home team kicked the field goal with two seconds left and we just won.
01:22:09
And to be honest, I didn't feel that. There were no winners in this case. None of this brings Paige back to us.
01:22:18
What about you? This is about Paige. This is about Paige who has been gone and will not be able to come back to her friends, her brother, her parents, her kids.
01:22:34
Who now live far away in Pennsylvania, as they have since Paige first vanished. The Bergfelds tried to get custody, but a judge ruled against them and in favor of the father, Rob Dixon.
01:22:47
It's been the book of Job for you, too. Just trying to get back to our normal lives, and we won't.
01:22:53
We never will be what we were 10 years ago. It's changed, I think, each of us, but we're working at trying to get back to normal.
01:23:05
Or something like it. A big word that always hangs over the room is closure. And I'm not sure what that means.
01:23:14
Paige Bergfeld was kidnapped. There were difficult moments for the Bergfelds during the murder trial.
01:23:19
like the first time they heard the frightened voicemail messages of their grandchildren.
01:23:24
Hi, Mom. You said you would be back last night. You're not even back today. Bye.
01:23:32
And I would tell you that was a hard part. That was the hardest for me. There is almost a recognition that you're in trouble.
01:23:40
Please don't be in trouble. Please come home to us. And then there was the day planner, when the sweet mundane details of Paige's life and those of her children were made real once more.
01:23:53
The family nights, soccer games, the dance recitals and birthday parties and library visits.
01:24:01
They were all there. The precious, chaotic rhythms of a family that once was. Proof that there was a time when all was as it should be.
01:24:11
Proof also That time is gone forever