00:00:04
[Music] the area where this occurred it's a very nice area the homes are kind of spread
00:00:43
out they're not on top of each other nice homes a higher end part of the community where this
00:00:50
occurred it's a very quiet neighborhood overall we don't respond to too many
00:00:55
calls in this area it did not appear to be the place that you would see a triple homicide and
00:01:04
something with such violence in July 2015 the Sheriff's Office responded to a 104 check or a
00:01:16
welfare check at a local residence a gentleman by the name of Richard Smith hadn't shown up for work for a couple of
00:01:24
days and his boss had gone out to the house he had been off for one day but he was off a second day unplanned and he's
00:01:34
supposed to be available 24 hours a day by phone and his supervisor was unable to reach him so it was highly unusual
00:01:42
and that's why his boss became concerned and went to his residence to try and
00:01:46
check on him he was a very well accomplished man he worked for the Department of Homeland
00:01:54
[Music] Security the family was well off they had significant Investments but you
00:02:01
wouldn't know it by looking at the family and and the way they lived his family had over a million
00:02:08
something dollars in the bank the circumstances of it were sufficient to cause enough worry that
00:02:17
they called the Sheriff's Office when law enforcement arrived at the home they did a walk around of the
00:02:24
perimeter they noticed at the front door there were a lot of packages in the mailbox there were a lot of mail and
00:02:35
newspapers there didn't appear to be any sort of broken windows or forced entry
00:02:40
so by all means the outside of the home looked [Music] normal the first individuals to arrive
00:02:50
from the Sheriff's Office were the patrol deputies at that point it was determined
00:02:55
by the onse deputies to enter the residence to see if they could locate anyone inside because they also could
00:03:03
not get a response at the door when law enforcement initially made entry into the home there was a very
00:03:11
distinct smell that perhaps something was a Miss they noticed that the home seemed
00:03:17
to be cluttered there was a lot of just living items from day-to-day life but it was what you would call
00:03:26
maybe like a hoarding type of home as we walked in there was like a den or a you know a sitting room I guess we
00:03:37
enter this den area and there's a large mass of clothes and blankets that are on
00:03:44
the floor just in front of the TV and I could see just the tip of a shoe sticking out from underneath all of
00:03:52
these [Music] blankets there was a pile on the couch that was inside of the den area there were two males inside of the
00:04:06
den area who were in their 40s we then backed out of that room and continued through the kitchen and into
00:04:23
the living room in the living room I observed some blood on the living room floor and and there were carpets or area
00:04:32
rugs down on the floor leading from the living room to the back bedrooms in one of the bedrooms there
00:04:41
was another large mound of clothes and there was a third victim buried underneath all of those
00:04:49
clothes it was noted that there was a female in one of the back bedrooms who was in her
00:04:58
70s this was obviously a triple homicide which is certainly very [Music] unusual a check of computer databases
00:05:11
and information from Richard Smith's employer revealed that there was a half
00:05:17
brother that lived not too far away from the home and he was contacted and agreed
00:05:23
to come to the home he was able to identify his family members that lived in the home Richard who was
00:05:31
49 John who was 47 and his mother Von seil who was [Music] 77 so we get into the victimology and we
00:05:46
want to get a full profile of each victim so Von seal was in her late 7s her husband had passed away um a few
00:05:56
years earlier and he had been fairly successful life and had left a significant amount of
00:06:04
money initially looking in at the lifestyle of these three victims their home was nice but it wasn't anything
00:06:11
lavish however once law enforcement was able to look into their bank accounts and their bank records it appeared that
00:06:18
they did have a significant amount of money in different Investments all three combines were just under a million
00:06:25
dollars just in their CDs and and bank accounts and that did not include obviously the value the home as well as
00:06:30
any life insurance that they may have had on each other over the years Miss Smith had
00:06:39
become disabled she didn't leave the house much if at all and she typically just sat there and uh watched TV and
00:06:46
ordered things from you know QVC or the Home Shopping Network the younger brother John who is 47 years old he had
00:06:56
some uh disabilities he worked at a local wall Walmart he was pretty much loved by all when we interviewed his uh
00:07:04
co-workers everybody loved John he was going to be a hard worker he was fairly quiet didn't really socialize a whole
00:07:11
lot but was by all accounts a fantastic employee and just a a great guy to be around Richard was a couple years older
00:07:21
than John and after his father past he had taken on the role of really caring for his mother and his brother
00:07:30
he would drive his brother to work he would make sure that his mother was well cared for and was fairly
00:07:42
reclusive so the patrol officers that were on scene once they determined that there was a homicide that occurred here
00:07:49
at the residence they secured the scene to preserve the evidence and the Integrity of the crime
00:07:56
scene the investigators Tak an overall vanage point of the crime scene but the actual crime scene work are done by the
00:08:03
crime scene technicians and they're the ones that process the scene they had to take a lot of
00:08:10
photographs as they peeled the layers of the clothes back to make sure there was
00:08:14
no evidence in between the clothing that was on the [Applause] individuals because the crime scene was
00:08:21
so complicated with the different layers that were on top of the bodies it took some time for them to actually remove
00:08:27
all of the layers on top of each of the bodies to discover the injuries the medical examiner actually
00:08:35
came out to the scene right from the start we knew that this was a brutal crime and that all
00:08:45
three victims had died in a very violent manner all three victims likely had been
00:08:52
killed up close in personal by whoever had conflicted this Terror on them it was clear that John joh was killed in
00:09:01
the sofa where he was found there was a significant amount of blood spatter behind him and there was also some hair
00:09:09
and maybe brain matter that were on boxes behind him we discovered that he had blunt force trauma to the head and
00:09:16
also a knife wound or laceration to his neck side of his neck throat area Richard also appeared to be
00:09:26
murdered in the place where he was found on the floor because of the significant
00:09:30
amount of blood that was underneath him Richard had a gunshot wound to his right ear and also had a knife wound to
00:09:40
his neck and throat area what ultimately killed him was the knife wound to his neck to the artery that made him bleed
00:09:47
out the gunshot wound to his ear was not a fatal gunshot he would have survived that but the medical examiner said it
00:09:55
probably knocked him out or temporarily incapacitated him Von's body had been moved we noticed in
00:10:05
the living room area she sat in a particular chair and that chair was covered in
00:10:11
[Music] blood it was also determined that there was some drag marks down a hallway to
00:10:17
the room where her body was ultimately discovered Von seal the mother was also had blunt force trauma to the top of her
00:10:25
head as well and had a knife wound to her neck as well and also had one of her fingers her
00:10:34
pinky that was half cut off and at that point we weren't sure if it was a defensive wound or what that was
00:10:42
about Von seal the blunt force trauma to her head and also the knife W to her neck would have caused death either one
00:10:51
of those but both of them were ultimately the cause of her death and the same thing with John as well
00:11:02
when you see up close and personal injuries such as these of the three victims only Richard was shot and he
00:11:12
wasn't only shot he was shot and he was stabbed in the neck John and Von seal
00:11:17
were hit multiple times with a blunt object and they were also stabbed to hit somebody that many times and to stab
00:11:28
that person shows uh amount of Rage or amount of evil That You Don't See in a lot of
00:11:37
scenes when someone shoots somebody a lot of times you know it's distant I mean it's still evil but you know you
00:11:44
shoot somebody from across a room it's not up close and personal this was up
00:11:50
close and personal [Music] even though the three main areas were the den area the living room and the
00:12:06
bedroom where Vil was found the kitchen area also became important because a hammer was
00:12:14
discovered so they had to collect and process that hammer and the sink itself to see if there was any DNA evidence
00:12:21
from the victims or the suspect there at the sink because the hammer had been washed there was a trash can that was
00:12:27
discovered close to the back door in a laundry room it had evidence of the crime scene where it had been cleaned up
00:12:34
as well as her purse there was cigarette butts and items from John and Richard there as well and also in the kitchen uh
00:12:42
Richard's checkbook and his binder that he always carried were in there the police when they're
00:12:53
investigating any crime they they look for what possibilities are there they look to see if this was a for
00:13:00
entry and in this case even though the home was very cluttered it didn't appear
00:13:04
to be ransacked and there were a number of items of value around that could have
00:13:09
been taken had this been tied to a theft or a robbery Richard Smith's wallet was
00:13:15
missing but pretty much everything else was there in the home we're also looking at all
00:13:24
possibilities which is why we went and talked to John's cooworker workers as
00:13:29
well and we found that really John didn't have an enemy in this world no one said a bad thing about him Von seal
00:13:37
or Richard for that matter they were just very well-respected [Music] individuals at this early point in the
00:13:46
investigation we don't really have a strong Theory we feel fairly confident that this was not a random attack but we
00:13:57
also don't know exact who to focus on at this point the obvious concern would be anybody close
00:14:05
to the family that may frequent the home and be welcome there but we still have to figure out who comes over that house
00:14:13
on a regular basis and that's going to take some Lake work when law enforcement went to the
00:14:24
neighbors they really didn't gain a whole lot of information the other investigators on scene did an
00:14:33
area Canvas OR neighborhood canvas you might call it where you go and knock on the doors of the neighbors to see if you
00:14:39
can find any information out about the individuals there at the home everybody we talked to in the
00:14:46
neighborhood they didn't know much about them they kind of knew their habits when
00:14:50
they came and left and stuff like that and thought it was odd that you know Richard's car was still there and he had
00:14:56
not been to work but other than that it was just a family that kept to themselves and minded their own
00:15:03
business once I had observed the crime scene I really didn't know what to think
00:15:08
there's thoughts of run through your have why did this happen who might have
00:15:11
done this obviously from just looking at the crime scene it didn't appear to be a
00:15:16
robbery at face value at that point you start wondering who would want to do this to these
00:15:22
individuals and why as the crime scene technicians are processing the scene and the items that
00:15:30
they collected investigators are going about contacting family members contacting anyone who may know the
00:15:36
family contacting neighbors and asking them what they saw or anything that might have been out of the
00:15:44
ordinary we found one neighbor in particular that was a very good witness for us he tended to spend a lot of time
00:15:53
out on his front porch and this particular neighborhood was a one-way in One Way Out neighborhood and he was very
00:16:02
observant with every vehicle that came into this neighborhood and he knew the comings and goings of most of the people
00:16:08
around his immediate home we also looked into Donald Hartong as the half brother and his relationship
00:16:19
with the family [Music] investigator ninger took Donald hardung from the scene to the esami county
00:16:37
sheriff's office to interview him initially the purpose of the interview was simply to get some background
00:16:42
information on the family members gather what information investigator could from
00:16:47
Donald hardung since he was the only family member that lived close by I was very close to my mother you know my
00:16:53
father left me when I was a baby she raised me and uh I was very very close to my mother
00:17:03
right and uh I just can't imagine not being able to see her Donald he seemed to be very
00:17:16
forthcoming about his family told me about him and his mother what type of woman she was that he grew up in brute
00:17:23
in Alabama when he was young his two brothers you know they were his half Brothers they had a different father
00:17:30
than he did what's your relationship with John and and Richard do you have good relationships with them or yeah we
00:17:38
have great relationships I mean do y'all do stuff together y'all get along well we don't
00:17:44
really do a whole lot together we all work all the time to hear Donald talk it was a very good relationship he had with
00:17:52
his family everything was fine according to Donald his family was last seen by him on the 28th of July so that was the
00:17:59
last time we could confirm that anyone had seen anyone of the family alive when was the last time you saw your family
00:18:06
Tuesday I went over I always go over on Tuesdays I got there probably about 1: or 1:30 I stayed pretty much out in the
00:18:13
yard playing with the dogs go in talk to Mama watch television together she loves
00:18:18
QVC she watches it all the time mhm and uh she puts it on the news you know and and I fix diner for them every Tuesday
00:18:26
so we had fried chicken green beans corn and biscuits and french fries okay is there any leftovers or anything
00:18:39
well yeah I always put RT's in the stove I always put his in the stove his is
00:18:44
always in the stove when he gets home from work cuz he don't sometimes he don't get in until 8 9:00 now was he
00:18:49
there when you were there Tuesday no I never saw RT most of the time I leave before he gets home okay normally we
00:18:56
watch the national news in five at 5:30 and then I leave right after that and that's about what time I left was
00:19:02
between I say between 5:30 and 6: right in there okay there's always a possibility that something else could be
00:19:09
involved however when investigator infinger interviewed Donald Hartung his response to questions and his demeanor
00:19:18
were very suspicious and so he obviously was a suspect because he was a family member and he did live close by but his
00:19:27
reaction to questions in the interview raised some questions how does it make you feel to hear that your family was
00:19:33
killed makes me feel pretty bad I mean you don't seem well I upet I've got to control
00:19:46
myself here so I've got to take care of this and during the course of his interview it seemed clear that he had
00:19:54
put a timeline together that would show Law Enforcement that he was not involved
00:19:59
because he was at home and and watching TV his statements really seem to be rehearsed let's go over your timeline
00:20:07
one more time okay that way I have it all straight I got there about one when I finish cooking and I get it
00:20:18
all ready I give Mama hers John comes and he gets his I go outside I smoke a cigarette then I come back in and I've
00:20:26
already got my plate ready I sit down and eat that's what I do every every single
00:20:29
week okay what time you think it was when you left 6:00 at latest maybe 5:30 during
00:20:37
Donald's first interview he said that he left before Richard had gotten home we
00:20:41
had a picture of Richard when he left work so we knew exactly what time he left work and approximately how long it
00:20:49
took him to get home investigators spoke with one neighbor who indicated that Richard was
00:20:56
home when Donald was home and that Donald left after Richard got home this blew uh a hole in Donald hartung's story
00:21:05
to investigators as to when he left and when Richard got home every bit of evidence located by
00:21:13
the investigators showed that this homicide took place on the 28th on Tuesday after Richard had gotten home
00:21:20
from work once investigators were able to determine when this crime occurred the
00:21:27
evidence at that point showed that Donald Hartung would have been the last one to have seen
00:21:32
them all these things are starting to add up and paint a timeline of Donald being the last one with his family he
00:21:40
cooks some dinner they eat it they they don't digest it so Donald is looking
00:21:46
more and more like a suspect at this point we brought Donald back down to the Sheriff's office again so during that
00:21:56
interview kind of went over his story again just to lock him into something and at that point got a little more
00:22:03
forceful with Donald just kind of accused him of probably killing his family stuff like that and he still
00:22:10
showed no emotion let me tell you if my whole family was murder I would be sh a little bit
00:22:18
more emotional than you do D okay be showing plenty of emotion believe me have already already showed
00:22:28
some emotion to well not to not not to many people but I've got my way of handling things
00:22:38
how do you handle things I'll hold it inside I don't want so the first day when I talked to him
00:22:46
his demeanor was strange but the second day insinuating to him and accusing him of killing his mother and brothers and
00:22:52
still not getting angry or upset at that point it was very strange to me were there things going on in your family and
00:23:00
you've held it in for so long that finally you had enough there was angry nothing going on in my family
00:23:09
nothing at all and killed your mom I did not kill my mother and then killed your
00:23:16
brother I would never kill my mom or my brother either one of my brothers I mean do I look like kind of a
00:23:28
broom and maniac to you people through our entire investigation we never found anybody that had actually
00:23:37
been to the home other than the other half brother in the family which was Donald
00:23:43
Harton there were no friends or family from work that had ever gone to the home to visit or have dinner they really
00:23:50
didn't socialize a whole [Music] lot once there were some holes that were punched into Donald's timeline and his
00:24:00
story about when he had last been at the home and when he had last seen Richard the focus obviously became a little bit
00:24:06
more onto him as the suspect for these homicides law enforcement then got a search warrant for his home to search
00:24:15
for anything that could be of interest in relation to the homicides and it was that point they discovered in Donald's
00:24:22
home that he had a room set up that appeared to be unusual there were some braids of hair that were hanging on the
00:24:28
wall walls there were some books related to the Wiccan religion and Witchcraft there was a Ouija board inside this room
00:24:36
and it appeared to be dedicated to these different artifacts and very different items when I asked Donald about the
00:24:53
wiccan stuff in his home he said that he was just kind of by himself a Wiccan didn't participate in a cult and just
00:25:00
kind of practiced it on his own I do have Ouija board I have a prayer room are you do you are you a Wiccan or yeah
00:25:08
I'm a Wiccan you are I've been a Wiccan for about 3 years have you yeah what is
00:25:14
that it's a Pagan religion does it have to do with like uh moon phases and stuff like that
00:25:22
yes it does has a lot to do with moon phases I asked him if he offered up sacrifices or anything anything of that
00:25:28
nature what exactly wiccans do cuz I didn't know no no there's no sacrifices
00:25:34
in Wick really no and some of these wicked things in July and August when there's two full
00:25:45
moons sometimes they'll uh offer a sacrifice yeah well I don't offer sacrifices
00:25:55
ever they drain the blood out of their sacrifice and hit them in the head I don't know anything about that
00:26:05
cover then they cover them to keep them warm I don't know anything about that I
00:26:13
mean I I've never sacrifice I wouldn't hurt a chicken that's the same way your
00:26:18
family was [Music] killed that's the same way my family was killed mhm you went over there and you killed
00:26:30
your mother and you killed your brother and then you waited and RT got home and you killed
00:26:38
him okay yes sir and you killed them all the same way stabing them stabbing them they were
00:26:49
stabbed mhm my God I thought you said they were shot in the head I did tell you that last time
00:27:03
I don't do animal sacrifices and I sure did sacrifice my family if you think
00:27:07
Wick's got something to do with this your way out there I would never hurt anything
00:27:15
never I sure wouldn't he said he just was a solo practitioner wasn't a member
00:27:20
of any occult and just it was his own thing that he did so don't you think it's pretty much a coincidence that
00:27:27
you're a Wiccan in your family killed like a Wiccan sacrifice I don't know anything about
00:27:33
Wiccan sacrifices I don't know a thing about anything like that if you know about the
00:27:39
Blue Moon and all that kind of stuff you do well I know about the Blue Moon I know it's two full moons but I mean it's
00:27:46
been all over the radio once Donald's house was searched it became of interest to investigations
00:27:55
to look into the Wiccan religion to see if perhaps this was some sort of religious ceremony or to see if it had
00:28:02
some type of involvement in the homicides of the victims when it was put out to the media
00:28:10
it kind of blew up that it could have possibly been a ritualistic killing because it occurred when there was a
00:28:15
blue moon in our area this homicide gained national news because of this assertion that perhaps it was a a blue
00:28:23
moon homicide or related to Witchcraft or the Wiccan religion but but it also offended people that are members of the
00:28:30
Wiccan religion and we also learned that it actually had nothing to do with the murder of these three individuals while
00:28:37
we certainly understand that the investigators need to look into every aspect of a homicide and they did their
00:28:43
research on you know this Wiccan religion in the blue moon for the state attorney's office and for the
00:28:49
prosecutors it was really just kind of a distraction for us we were more interested in just getting down to the
00:28:54
facts of the case the motive for the homicides and for getting jus for this [Music]
00:29:02
family at this point in the investigation we're becoming fairly focused on Donald Hartung as our suspect
00:29:10
you have the right to remain silent anything you said can be us evidence against you in there were some definite
00:29:16
discrepancies in his interview with the sheriff's office he didn't appear to be
00:29:22
truthful about the time that he left the home he didn't appear to be truthful
00:29:25
about the exact relationship with his brother [Music] others Donald was the half brother to
00:29:33
Richard and John they had vonal the mother in common but different fathers Donald was a child by Von Seal's first
00:29:42
marriage and John and Richard were from her second marriage the family Dynamics showed a strained relationship between
00:29:53
particularly Richard and Donald some of Richard's co-workers would would tell us
00:29:59
that he wasn't very keen on spending time with Donald that Donald made him somewhat uncomfortable and that Richard
00:30:05
would work late on Tuesday nights uh so he didn't have to go home and see Donald
00:30:12
because he knew that Tuesday nights were when Don was going to be there cooking for the family so there's definitely a
00:30:16
strange relationship between the the brothers as far as I'm concerned me and
00:30:21
my mama and my brothers we were close do same like Mom love your half Brothers more than she loved you no never it
00:30:31
never seemed like my mom loved my brothers more than she she loved all of us although Donald Tung represented to
00:30:38
investigators that he was very close to his family that they had a great relationship and that they were all very
00:30:43
close there were some out of town family members that were contacted who gave quite a different story they told us
00:30:51
that in fact Donald was kind of the black sheep of the family so we spoke to some of the family members up from
00:30:58
brutin they were Von Seal's kin folks and they gave us a little different Outlook of the relationship between
00:31:06
Donald and the family Donald was not as financially well off as his brothers Donald had a
00:31:15
kind of a low-end menial job he lived by himself in a smaller somewhat unkempt home whereas the Smith family was
00:31:28
financially very well off the bank accounts between Richard John and vonal combined totaled nearly a million
00:31:35
dollars in liquid assets Donald he worked as a security guard at uh Sacred Heart Hospital here
00:31:41
in Pensacola he basically didn't own anything other than his car and worked paycheck to paycheck where as his family
00:31:50
they had plenty of money now they lived a very simple life they didn't live extravagant where you would know they
00:31:56
had a lot of money if you saw them but they had over a million something dollars in the bank so Donald I think
00:32:03
was a little jealous of that after the deaths of the Smith family some family members came in and
00:32:13
were cleaning out the home and they came across a will in a filing cabinet that had not been filed they took it to a
00:32:21
local attorney and asked that it be filed and we subsequently interviewed that attorney and family members and it
00:32:30
was discovered that Donald Haron had been written out of the will Von seal had left the entire estate
00:32:38
valued it over a million dollars to Richard and John the only way that Donald was ever going to get any part of
00:32:47
that estate was if not just his mother but if his mother and both brothers were also
00:32:55
dead so Donald really is our Prime Suspect but we still don't have any direct evidence that ties Donald Hartong
00:33:05
to this crime I mean he's the last one that we can prove saw his family alive
00:33:10
but we don't have the proverbial Smoking Gun we we need some hard forensic evidence in order to advance this entire
00:33:21
investigation the physical evidence coming from the lab took some time it took until October for the DNA evidence
00:33:28
to start to be processed and the results to start to come in and this was a big turning point in the case in the
00:33:34
investigation when a suspect is a friend or family member of a victim and they're
00:33:41
welcome in the home where the victims are found it's entirely expected that we
00:33:47
will find their DNA in that home the difference is where we find that DNA if we found the DNA on a tap for the
00:33:56
kitchen sink or something it really wouldn't mean much but having DNA on the
00:34:02
latch of Von Seal's purse that is in between cigarette butts with Donald hartung's DNA top and bottom that's
00:34:13
significant Donald hartung's DNA was also found on a computer bag belonging to Richard Smith Richard was known to
00:34:22
carry that computer case with him just what everywhere he went and he had that computer case with him when he went to
00:34:29
work that day there really would be no reason for Donald hardung to touch that computer bag that bag was subsequently
00:34:37
found on the kitchen counter in a completely different room from where Richard's body was found therefore it
00:34:44
was significant that Donald hartung's DNA was on both his mother's purse and
00:34:51
his brother's computer bag the other place that we subsequently found a it was very telling was on the
00:35:00
inside of Richard's belt loop his belt itself Richard's belt had been pulled
00:35:07
out from the back of his pants it just kind of had a little Arch to it and Donald hartung's DNA was found on that
00:35:15
belt it seemed to me to be a natural grab point if someone was to try to slide a body over or you you could grab
00:35:24
that belt and kind of get your fingers up underneath it and pull the body away and again why would Donald Tong's DNA be
00:35:31
on the back of his brother's belt and on his brother's computer case and on his
00:35:38
mother's purse this is all painting a very compelling picture that Donald Haron is our
00:35:48
guy this trash can almost appeared to be a timeline of Donald's day in the house
00:35:54
on July 28th of 2015 and once the Witnesses were contacted and then the forensics came back that showed DNA in
00:36:02
places where it should not have been Donald's timeline of his events on July
00:36:07
28th were discredited during my interview with Donald I asked him if he had ever touched anything of Richards
00:36:13
and he said no I never touched anything of Richard's personal belongings well we
00:36:18
got some DNA back off of Richard's checkbook which was inside Richard's binder so there's no way Donald's DNA
00:36:27
would have gotten there just him being in the house on something that was inside Richard's binder so he had to
00:36:33
touch it and that puts him there when he's killed because we knew when Richard
00:36:39
had left work and when he was killed cuz he was wearing the same clothes when he
00:36:43
left work that he was found in so we knew then that Donald was our [Music] guy we were able finally to get a
00:36:56
warrant uh for Don arrest for three counts of first deegree premeditated murder and Donald was ultimately
00:37:03
arrested on October the 27th of 2015 once the arrest is made it's at that point that the state prosecutors
00:37:10
step in and really put the case together with a fine tooth comb we make sure that
00:37:15
all of our eyes are dotted and our tees are crossed because at that point our burden of proof is beyond a reasonable
00:37:24
doubt while Donald Hartung was in jail while awaiting his trial there was a cellmate of his who reached out to our
00:37:31
investigator and he provided very pertinent information that we felt helped seal the case on May 4th of
00:37:39
2016 I went and spoke with an inmate U Marlin Purifoy and he was a cmate with uh
00:37:47
Donald in the Escambia County Jail and during that interview he told us things that no one would have known unless
00:37:55
Donald told him because we I wasn't even aware of it the information provided by the
00:38:02
cellmate was the fact that Donald Hartung knew that his mother had a will he knew that he had been excluded from
00:38:10
the will over a million dollars of his family's estate he was very angry about
00:38:15
that he had planned this homicide for some time and he also provided information to the inmate about some of
00:38:23
the family dynamics that were not known to anybody the other thing this informant told us
00:38:30
was that all of these clothes and blankets and everything were piled on the victims that was an attempt to throw
00:38:38
off the investigation by keeping the body heat in and making it more difficult for investigators to determine
00:38:45
an actual time of death I mean Hartong knew that it would become apparent through the investigation that he was
00:38:52
only at that residence on Tuesdays if he could keep the body iies warm and make it appear that they were
00:39:00
killed sometime later in the week than Tuesday it would give him more of an alibi it's always risky using a
00:39:07
jailhouse informant you wonder about their credibility you wonder that they're always trying to look out for
00:39:13
themselves but in this case the jail house informant the information he had was what made him credible it coincided
00:39:20
with the scene and other evidence that we had plain and simple he was after the money he thought that he could take out
00:39:29
the the family and he'd be the only one left and set to inherit all the money
00:39:33
Donald being the only living relative if he would have gotten away with this he would have inherited you know
00:39:38
approximately over $2 [Music] million in between the time that Donald was arrested and the time we went to
00:39:50
trial took a pretty significant amount of time it was several years partially because it was a very complicated case
00:39:59
we had three bodies there was a very complicated crime scene there were depositions that were being taken there
00:40:04
were motions that were being filed but also the state was seeking the death penalty and when the state seeks the
00:40:10
death penalty that puts a lot of work on the state and the defense to get ready for
00:40:15
[Music] trial the actual first day of the trial is filled with some sense of a little
00:40:22
bit of anxiety because here we are going on this major triple homicide case that
00:40:26
had got gotten so much media coverage so there is a level of nervousness but there's also a level of relief that
00:40:32
we're finally here so what we're trying to do at the very beginning of the trial is just
00:40:38
explain to the jurors how the process worked from the beginning to the end so we start with the First Responders we
00:40:44
start with the crime scene technicians we start with forensics and just kind of lay it out in chronological order we
00:40:51
presented evidence of video footage showing the last time Richard left his job we showed video footage of the last
00:40:59
time John left his job again just trying to show the jurors the chronological order of evidence and when these victims
00:41:05
were last seen on day three we presented evidence that focused on Donald Hartung
00:41:12
and the victims we presented Witnesses who talked about the victims and what their Lifestyles were like what their
00:41:18
personalities were like what they did on a day-to-day basis and we also presented
00:41:23
testimony and evidence from Donald hartung's home with the inside of his home looked like where he lived his room
00:41:30
that was dedicated to you know the wiccan books and the Witchcraft and things of those Natures just so that the
00:41:36
jurors could see all told there were almost 30 Witnesses called by the state to prove
00:41:42
this case and each one of them was a piece of the puzzle to show the picture that Donald Haron was guilty although
00:41:48
the case was mostly circumstantial we certainly felt like once all of the pieces were put together we had a pretty
00:41:56
strong case to present to to the jury you obviously never know what a jury's
00:41:59
going to do so we didn't want to walk in overconfident or cocky but we certainly
00:42:04
felt comfortable that we could put it all together in a way that would show the jurors that Donald Hartung was
00:42:11
guilty after taking almost 5 years to to get this case to trial after almost a month of of trial this case came down to
00:42:21
the jury and when they go out after closings it's out of our hands we've
00:42:26
done all the work we could do and and it's up to them to see what the true verdict should
00:42:31
[Music] be when we transition to the Penalty phase the pace doesn't stop it is still
00:42:38
Full Speed Ahead for the prosecution there's no sitting back and and celebrating at this point we are still
00:42:44
pushing forward as we still have a job to do the jury is making the determination as to whether Mr Hong
00:42:52
should spend the rest of his life in prison or be sentenced to death the evidence presented in the penalty
00:42:59
phase consisted of not only the evidence that they heard at trial but also Victim
00:43:04
Impact statements where family members got to give statements as to what the family members meant to them and what
00:43:11
their deaths had meant to the family in the State of Florida there are only two punishments for first-degree
00:43:18
murder that's either life in state prison or the death penalty and for the death penalty to be imposed the jury has
00:43:24
to be unanimous in recommending that after a month's worth of trial and about
00:43:34
4 hours worth of deliberation the jury came back guilty is charged for first-degree murder for all three
00:43:43
counts after the verdict Donald Hartung was sentenced to three life sentences and again zero emotion no emotion
00:43:57
[Music] although this case generated a lot of publicity for different various reasons
00:44:04
this case came down to one thing and that was money it was greed it was Donald hardung thinking he could kill
00:44:09
his whole family and inherit money what made this case so difficult as well is that these were what we would
00:44:18
consider true victims they were three family members that just took care of each other they worked they didn't do
00:44:25
anything illegal they were just there to look after one another they had built you know a sum of money so that they
00:44:32
could you know protect each other and all of their lives were taken in cases like this there are no real winners we
00:44:39
still have three citizens that have been brutally murdered but it does bring satisfaction to bring Justice to the
00:44:45
community and to the remaining family members in this case yeah looking back on this case it
00:44:53
sticks out in my career because these were three true victims of a crime they weren't out
00:45:01
committing crime selling drugs or anything like that you know they were just minding their own business and
00:45:07
ultimately killed by one of their own family members it was very tragic [Music] incident I've learned one thing in my
00:45:16
years of doing this law enforcement work most people are good but there's a small
00:45:20
percentage of people that are capable of truly evil acts and regardless of the motivation of
00:45:28
this this was a truly evil act and it was really important for us to find who did it prove who did it and hold him
00:45:38
accountable professionally all homicide cases are important and significant this
00:45:46
case sticks out though for the greed that took place one person to wipe out his entire family for for one reason and
00:45:53
and that's money [Music] [Music]