00:00:04
(dramatic music) (fateful music) - [Narrator] A fatal fall
in the Rocky Mountains.
00:00:12
- [Harold Henthorn] My
wife has fallen from a rock and she's in really critical
condition.
00:00:17
- Toni had fallen from
the top of a cliff face. It was 160 feet down. - [Narrator] A life cut
short in the blink of an eye.
00:00:24
- Never in a million
years did I ever think I would never see her again
after that phone call.
00:00:30
- [Narrator] Was it
simply tragic misfortune- - Harold claimed that Toni had
fallen
00:00:35
in an absolute freak
accident when they'd taken a spontaneous detour off
the path on their hike.
00:00:42
- [Narrator] or murder? (soft intriguing music) (soft music)
(birds chirping) - My name is Allison Talley.
00:01:06
I live in Jackson, Mississippi and Toni Bertolet-Henthorn
was one of my best friends.
00:01:13
You always wanna surround
yourself with people who lift you up and make
you a better person,
00:01:17
and she was absolutely that
person that makes you a better person
in every aspect of your life.
00:01:24
- Toni grew up in nearby
Natchez. Her parents owned a prosperous
oil and gas business,
00:01:30
so Toni had quite a privileged
upbringing alongside her two brothers. At school, Toni was
always top of her class.
00:01:37
She loved athletics and she set her sights
on a career in medicine. - Toni was the smartest, most
intelligent, most beautiful,
00:01:46
wisest person I knew. She was an ophthalmologist and she used her gift of
creativity
00:01:52
to be able to make people see
better, and I loved that about her. She was really well liked,
and had a lot of patients.
00:01:58
In 1999, she called me and
she said, "I've met somebody." and she said that she had met
him through a dating site.
00:02:04
When I met Harold in
person for the first time, he was so handsome. He had on a nice suit,
and he's so outgoing.
00:02:13
We loved him. We thought this is
great. Because she was the opposite. She was an introvert, she was
quiet.
00:02:18
That seemed like that would
be a good fit for her. - At the time of their meeting,
Harold was newly widowed.
00:02:23
He'd just lost his wife,
Lynn five years earlier. He came across as a wealthy
businessman.
00:02:29
He said he'd recently
sold his diamond business and now he was retired and
wanting to relax a little bit,
00:02:35
and had moved into a new
venture, raising money for nonprofit
organisations. He was excited about
meeting someone like Toni,
00:02:42
starting a new life together and hopefully another
happily ever after story. - It was a bit of a whirlwind.
00:02:50
It moved really, really quickly. Within a few weeks, they got
engaged on Valentine's Day
00:02:56
exactly six weeks after
they met for the first time, and the wheels really
turned fast after that.
00:03:01
They were married in the
September of the same year. It was just beautiful.
It was picture perfect.
00:03:05
Very traditional. And we were so thrilled
that she had met somebody that we thought would be
her long lasting love,
00:03:11
and we were so excited about it. (gentle music) - [Narrator] After two
years of happy marriage
00:03:17
in Toni's home state of
Mississippi, they moved near to Harold's
home city of Denver, Colorado
00:03:24
to begin the next chapter of
their lives. - Toni has always wanted to be a
mom, and in June of 2005, gave birth
to a beautiful little girl
00:03:35
and that just, that changed her
world. That was the most wonderful
thing that had happened to her up to
that point.
00:03:44
- [Narrator] Every year,
Harold and Toni would celebrate the life they'd built together.
00:03:49
And in September, 2012, 12 years after their whirlwind
marriage, Harold had something special
planned.
00:03:57
- This year, he called me just
to tell me that he has some grand plan. "This is the best anniversary
ever."
00:04:02
That he was taking her on a
hiking trip. He was gonna pick her
up and sweep her away.
00:04:08
He would have her bags packed and then go to the Rocky
Mountain National Park and just spend the weekend on a
hike.
00:04:16
- This was their 12th wedding
anniversary. So Harold had planned a
special surprise trip.
00:04:21
He'd put a lot of effort
into this, in fact. He'd told Toni's colleagues
to clear her diary
00:04:27
and they'd got a babysitter as
well for their seven-year-old
daughter. So this was an extra special
trip that he had planned.
00:04:35
- [Narrator] At the time, Valeria Spencer was Assistant US
Attorney for the District of Colorado.
00:04:42
Her jurisdiction covered 64
counties across 100,000 square miles, including incidents on federal
land
00:04:50
such as the Rocky Mountain
National Park. - The Rocky Mountains range
all the way from up in Canada
00:04:57
down to New Mexico. So they cover most of the
Western United States, and specifically in Colorado,
00:05:03
about 50 miles away from where
Toni and Harold Henthorn lived
in the Denver metro area.
00:05:09
- The Rocky Mountain National
Park is visited by millions of people and tourists.
00:05:15
Every year they go there to
enjoy the vast landscapes and the beautiful wildlife.
00:05:21
There's of course, lots of safe
paths for visitors to enjoy, but there's also a lot of
dangerous mountain trails
00:05:27
around in the National Park too. This includes some narrow cliff
edges with sheer drops of up to 300
feet,
00:05:35
looking down on rocky terrain
and ravines. This is why even experienced
hikers and walkers are advised
to stick to the route.
00:05:47
- [Narrator] But on September
29th, 2012, Harold, a seasoned hiker, chose to take Toni on a
challenging three mile route,
00:05:56
10,000 feet up Deer Mountain. (effervescent music) Setting off around 1:30 PM,
they took photos along the way,
00:06:08
ending at a lunch spot where they enjoyed the
incredible views. But as the sun began to set
00:06:18
on a perfect anniversary
weekend, a frantic call was made. (fateful bell tolls) - [Dispatcher] 911 what's
the address of the emergency?
00:06:26
- [Harold Henthorn] Hello,
my name is Harold Henthorn. I'm in the Rocky Mountain
National Park.
00:06:30
- [Dispatcher] Okay. - [Harold Henthorn] I need an
Alpine Mountain Rescue team
immediately.
00:06:33
- [Dispatcher] Okay, I'm gonna
transfer you to the park. So hang on the line.
00:06:37
(phone ringing)
- Go ahead, sir. - [Harold Henthorn] Thank
you, my wife has fallen
00:06:41
from a rock on the north
summit of Deer Mountain on the Deer Mountain Trail. And she's in really critical
condition.
00:06:50
- When Harold called 911 a
little bit before 6:00 PM, he gave them information
about where he was,
00:06:57
but it turns out that that
information was incorrect, and so it took park rangers
longer to get to him
00:07:03
than it might have otherwise. A park ranger went up
immediately with a pack full of medical
supplies,
00:07:09
not knowing exactly
what he was getting to. And for a few hours, tried
to find Harold Henthorn
00:07:15
and Toni Henthorn. It was very dark by then. He was calling out to Harold, (whistle blowing)
calling back to headquarters
00:07:21
to try and triangulate more
specifically where he was and to have him start making
noise so that he could hear him
00:07:28
and be able to find him,
which he eventually did. But it was hours after the first
911 call.
00:07:35
- [Narrator] When the
park ranger eventually arrived at the scene, the severity of the situation
quickly became apparent.
00:07:42
- Toni had fallen from
the top of a cliff face. (dramatic music)
It was 160 feet down.
00:07:48
She landed in some trees
and they could tell that because of the severity
of the broken branches,
00:07:55
and they could follow the
blood trail from the tree, then down some rocks to
where she eventually lay.
00:08:01
- [Narrator] Despite best
efforts from the park ranger to save her, Toni was pronounced dead at the
scene.
00:08:13
After 50-year-old Toni
Henthorn's fatal fall in the Rocky Mountains, the news of her tragic
accident spread quickly
00:08:21
to her family and friends. - On the day of the accident, Harold notified Toni's brother,
00:08:29
who is a surgeon, a physician, that there had been a critical
accident. Back then, they notified us.
00:08:38
As soon as I found out about the
accident, there's nothing worse. Anybody that's experienced
loss or trauma like that
00:08:44
knows what a gut-wrenching
experience it is, and we stayed on the phone with
them the rest of the evening
00:08:52
until we found out that
she had passed away. (sombre music) It was an excruciating
experience
for everybody that night.
00:09:02
It was just something that I
hope nobody ever has to go through. - [Narrator] While Toni's
loved ones in Mississippi
00:09:08
processed the devastating news, park rangers followed standard
procedure for all deadly falls in the
National Park.
00:09:18
They initiated a fatality
investigation, which would eventually be
escalated to Assistant US Attorney Valeria
Spencer.
00:09:28
- Well, there was a lot of odd
things when the investigators went to the scene the next
morning.
00:09:32
One of the things that was very
odd was where Toni's body was. Her camera was found right next
to her.
00:09:40
Now, she didn't fall right
where she was laying, and so that seemed to be odd
that her camera would be there.
00:09:46
As well, as she was out of her
boots. And Harold had indicated that
he had not removed the boots,
00:09:50
that they had fallen off during her fall down the cliff
side. And the investigators in their
experience
00:09:56
at the National Park, that's very odd for
somebody to actually fall out of their hiking boots.
00:10:01
And so that seemed to be very
unusual. And the placement of them, again, just seemed off
to the investigators.
00:10:08
- So this is another odd thing that her hiking boot was
found flung really far away,
00:10:13
yet her digital camera was found
perfectly next to her body. There's some inconsistencies
here,
00:10:19
that they raised questions over in terms of how she'd fallen. - [Narrator] Despite
the peculiar placement
00:10:25
of Toni's camera and hiking
boots, the scene still suggested
an unfortunate fall.
00:10:32
But as part of their
fatality investigation, park rangers proceeded to
search Harold's vehicle.
00:10:39
- They searched the Jeep
and they found a map of Rocky Mountain National
Park, which is not unusual.
00:10:44
What was unusual is that the map
was open, and there were some things
written on it,
00:10:48
but there was a red X right
in the area of Deer Mountain, not on the trail, but
where Toni actually died.
00:10:57
(chilling music) - Alarm bells are now
ringing, so it gets escalated to the investigative services
branch of the National Park.
00:11:05
That's basically the FBI for
this kind of jurisdiction. - So the obvious question
00:11:10
once we have the X marking
the spot, as it were, is did Toni fall or was she
pushed?
00:11:17
- [Narrator] But could a
husband really bring himself to push his wife off a cliff to
her death?
00:11:23
A tragic accident remained
the strongest possibility, but the discovery of the map
led investigators to drive
00:11:29
to Harold's house to question
him further. - Harold claimed that Toni had
fallen
00:11:35
in an absolute freak
accident when they'd taken a spontaneous detour off
the path on their hike.
00:11:42
- They walked at least a third
of a mile to get to the spot that we call "the lunch spot,"
00:11:47
because we have photos where
they're eating their meal. (intriguing music)
It is a beautiful view.
00:11:52
You can really see a
lot of the park there. It's quite lovely. And then they up walking over to
the spot
00:11:59
that we then call "the cliff
spot." That is the point at
which we know Toni died.
00:12:05
- [Narrator] But getting to
the cliff's edge involved walking on ground not normally
favoured by the average hiker.
00:12:12
- You had to climb up all
these really difficult terrains that would've even been tricky
00:12:16
for really experienced hikers. And Toni was known to have
had three knee surgeries.
00:12:21
So it kind of suggests that
would've been quite an extreme excursion
for what was supposed to be
00:12:27
a nice, relaxing anniversary
weekend trip. - He said this was a spontaneous
hike.
00:12:34
They ended up where they ended
up by surprise, by chance, and in fact, when you look at
the X
00:12:39
and where it is on the map, it seems that Harold had
planned it all along. So now we have two very
different stories.
00:12:48
- [Narrator] Harold then
changed the reason he gave for clambering across
rocks to the cliff's edge.
00:12:54
- Harold gave several different
stories. He started off by telling
the ranger the next day
00:12:59
that they had seen some wild
turkeys, and Toni wanted to get
some photographs of that.
00:13:04
And the ranger was a little
sceptical, and Harold picked up on that. We checked into that later
00:13:09
from one of the scientists in
the park and said, there's no wild
turkeys on that side of the
park,
00:13:13
so X on that one. (branches crunching) So then Harold said,
"Well, we saw some deer."
00:13:19
Which would not be
unusual to see some deer, but not something that you
would go down bouldering for
00:13:24
if you had some knee
surgeries, as Toni did, to get some pictures of them. Then he says, "We wanted to
hike down to another area
00:13:31
to have some romantic time." And when you see that
area, it is inhospitable.
00:13:36
It's very rocky, and there's
absolutely no possible way that there's anything going on
there,
00:13:41
romantic time or otherwise. - [Narrator] Investigators
continued to keep an open mind
00:13:48
on whether it was an accident
or something more sinister. Meanwhile, in Mississippi,
Toni's friend Allison began
00:13:55
to reflect on a phone call
Harold had made to her before Toni's death. - It was a really weird
conversation,
00:14:02
especially since he was excited about telling me about the trip and then it just changed
direction so many times,
00:14:09
excited at first, and then he went into down a
rabbit hole of kind of critical, very
critical of Toni and her family,
00:14:15
Toni and her job. He wished she would just quit
her job and stay home full-time.
00:14:19
She doesn't spend enough
time with her daughter. And I started getting that they were probably
having marital problems
00:14:24
and that she's probably
planning on leaving, and this was his last ditch
attempt at saving the marriage
00:14:31
is what I honestly felt like. So it was a rollercoaster of
emotions on that phone call.
00:14:36
It was very interesting and very not typical of
a phone call with him. Never in a million years did I
ever think
00:14:43
I would never see her again
after that phone call. (pensive music) - [Narrator] When Allison
met with Toni's family
00:14:51
the day after Toni's passing, she discovered they'd had
similar experiences too.
00:14:57
- It was her parents, and people that were part
of the immediate family, when we started saying, "Okay,
well he called me Monday,"
00:15:03
and then somebody said,
"Well, he called me Tuesday." We thought about it and
all shared our stories
00:15:08
and they were all the same. (suspicious music) - [Narrator] Family and
friends were also alarmed
00:15:13
by Harold's behaviour the
day after Toni's passing. - After Toni died, we wanted
to make contact with Harold,
00:15:22
and by the time we made our
first contact within 24 hours, there was already a full website
up
00:15:28
on the funeral home site, full website, full of
pictures, a complete bio, a complete history with
everything.
00:15:35
And we all felt like that was
strange, especially since that
website was more about Harold
00:15:40
than it was about Toni. So that was kind of a
red flag right there. And then it went immediately
into planning a funeral.
00:15:47
To be able to plan a funeral
within a day of a death, there's no emotion attached to
it.
00:15:53
Most people wouldn't even be
able to write an obituary. - [Narrator] Within days,
00:15:57
the medical examiner released
Toni's body. - From the fall, she had
a massive head wound,
00:16:03
12 broken ribs, which
then lacerated her liver, punctured her lungs, just caused massive internal
injuries,
00:16:11
as well as the head wound. - [Narrator] At a funeral
service five days after Toni's death,
00:16:17
her family were shocked to
discover that as soon as Toni's
body had been released,
00:16:22
Harold had quickly arranged for
her to be cremated in secret,
against their wishes.
00:16:28
- That was about the second or
third thing in a series of events
immediately after the death
00:16:34
that were, "Whoa, that's not
right." (soft reflective music) About three weeks after
the funeral in Colorado,
00:16:42
we had a memorial service here
in Jackson where everybody came down,
including a few friends,
00:16:47
and Harold and their daughter
came down and we were all, you know,
grieving and, you know, it was
just an emotional event.
00:16:56
And we look over and Harold is, he's got his two or three
friends from Colorado
00:17:00
and they're shaking hands,
joking around, talking about playing golf and very detached from the
situation.
00:17:06
It was more like he was hosting
a party than being a part of his
wife's final goodbye,
00:17:12
because that was gonna be the
last, really the last tribute to her
in public. And that is not normal at all.
00:17:19
(intriguing music) - [Narrator] By now, Valeria and
her team were working with the FBI
and park investigators,
00:17:26
piecing together the timeline of
events, and they turned their attention to Harold's initial phone calls
to the emergency services.
00:17:35
- [Harold Henthorn] My
wife has fallen from a rock on the North Summit of Deer
Mountain
00:17:40
and she's in really critical
condition. - [Dispatcher] Is she
conscious or breathing?
00:17:45
- [Harold Henthorn] No, she's
not. She's not been conscious. - [Dispatcher] Do you
know how to perform CPR?
00:17:49
- [Harold Henthorn] I do. I do. - During one of the calls, the operator was instructing
Harold how to perform CPR.
00:17:56
Midway through that process, Harold blurted out that
his phone was dying and that he needed to go, and he
hung up.
00:18:03
But after Harold told the
operator that his phone was
dying, our records showed that he
made over 20 phone calls
00:18:09
and 100 texts were sent. (suspicious music) It just told us that Harold
was not being truthful about
00:18:15
what was happening that evening
with Toni and made us question whether or
not he was performing CPR at all.
00:18:22
- Harold had claimed to the
authorities that he'd been giving
Toni CPR for over an hour,
00:18:28
yet the coroner said there
were no marks on her body, no fractures to her ribs or her
chest,
00:18:34
and even her lipstick
was perfectly intact. If you'd been giving someone
CPR,
00:18:39
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, the body would not look this
way. - [Narrator] Investigators
also started to zero in on
00:18:48
Harold's claims about
the immediate moments before Toni fell. - When Harold spoke to
investigators
00:18:54
the day after Toni's death, he indicated that she was
walking and he didn't really see her
00:18:59
when she fell over the cliff
side. He indicated that in fact, that
he was looking at his phone.
00:19:03
He had received a text
from their babysitter indicating their daughter
had won her soccer game.
00:19:08
And what Harold had said
was that Toni had fallen and that it took him
45 minutes to get down.
00:19:14
- When someone's providing a
lot of very specific details, it can also indicate that
they've rehearsed the story,
00:19:21
at least internally because they're trying to add
some legitimacy to that story.
00:19:26
But actually, it starts to
indicate that there is an
element of planning involved in
the telling of that story.
00:19:35
- [Narrator] When the
timeline of Harold's story was checked out, call records
showed
00:19:38
that he received the text
from the babysitter at 5:54 PM at the cliff edge, the exact same time he called
911
00:19:47
after getting down to
the bottom of the cliff. - The timing just doesn't add
up.
00:19:53
- [Narrator] So Valeria
and her team decided to visit the site to find out
more.
00:19:59
- We talked about that we needed
to go up to the scene and see it
ourselves to be able to really
picture the different events
00:20:05
and how things happened. So Harold claimed that it took
him 45 minutes from the top of the
cliff
00:20:10
down to the point where
Toni had fallen to. So when we were there, we
hiked it in two different ways.
00:20:16
One is that we were a spouse who had just seen their spouse
fall possibly to their death,
00:20:20
and the other way is just to
hike it down carefully and safely. Neither one took more than 15
minutes.
00:20:27
(suspicious music) What we know later from the
coroner is that Toni was dead within
00:20:31
about 45 minutes of the
incident. And so we were thinking,
the reason he said that
00:20:36
is he needed to build time into
the timing so that by the time he called
911, Toni Henthorn was already dead.
00:20:45
(fateful music) - [Narrator] While visiting the
scene, Valeria made another important
discovery.
00:20:52
- What I wanna say about the
cliff area that's very important to know is that the cliff actually is
raised.
00:20:58
That is to say that
you can't walk over it, you have to step over several
feet to fall down the cliff,
00:21:05
so you have a natural barrier between you and falling down it. Our conclusion in looking at it
00:21:11
was that Toni had to have been
pushed because she couldn't have
fallen. - [Narrator] Harold Henthorn
was now the prime suspect
00:21:23
in the murder of his wife, Toni, who investigators believed
had been pushed to her death.
00:21:29
But with no witnesses
and no murder weapon, investigators were going to find
it hard
00:21:34
to prove Toni's death was
nothing but an accident. - So people like to think
that most murder cases
00:21:40
are found with a smoking
gun in someone's hand and they're immediately
arrested.
00:21:44
But in most cases,
that's not what happens. What we had in Rocky Mountain
National Park that day
00:21:48
was a woman who died, period. We don't know at that time if
that was somebody who slipped and fell
or somebody who was pushed.
00:21:57
And that takes some time to put a case together to prove
that. - [Narrator] In a bid
to find more evidence,
00:22:04
investigators turned their
attention to the camera found by Toni's body. - Toni's camera had
been broken in the fall,
00:22:11
but the memory card was still
intact, and there was photos on there from Toni and Harold's
time on Deer Mountain.
00:22:19
There are photos of Harold
stood gripping the tree. In one of these photos, he's
wearing a white T-shirt,
00:22:26
but 15 minutes later, he's in the same spot
wearing a denim shirt. Toni's body was found
directly under the tree
00:22:34
where they had that photo. Investigators began to wonder,
was Harold luring her there?
00:22:39
Was he trying to show her that
this was a safe place for her to come and have a photo?
00:22:44
And then, once he'd lured her
there under the pretence of taking the
photo, had he pushed her to her death?
00:22:51
But then that begs the question, why was Toni's camera
found so close to her body?
00:22:58
Did Harold want investigators
to find these photos of them looking like a happy
couple,
00:23:03
so they would never suspect he could push his wife off a
cliff? It's highly suspicious.
00:23:11
- [Narrator] Police
continued to build their case by honing in on Harold's cell
phone data.
00:23:18
- One of the things that
people may not realise is their phone receives messages
00:23:22
and phone calls by pinging off a
tower. And so we wanted to see
where Harold's phone had been
00:23:28
during various periods of time, and we were able to trace
his phone going up I 25,
00:23:35
which is the road from Harold's
home, up to Rocky Mountain National
Park, repeatedly over the weekends
before Toni's death.
00:23:42
- So Harold told park rangers that he'd only visited
the National Park once as a kind of scouting tryout
before this anniversary trip,
00:23:51
but the phone records then
showed eight or nine visits that he'd actually made to this
location.
00:23:58
- By seeing the cell phone tower
records and seeing his activity
on his phone, we realised
00:24:03
that he was actually step
by step planning this trip so that he could take the
opportunity to murder his wife.
00:24:12
- [Narrator] The evidence
against Harold was building, and unbeknownst to him, Toni's friends and family in
Mississippi
00:24:18
were also assisting
investigators
in their case against him. - The FBI asked us to
continue talking to Harold
00:24:27
and be completely non
suspicious, that we're Team Harold, we're
loyal, we're on your side.
00:24:32
We're here to help you out, but call us every time you talk
to him and give us the information
back.
00:24:38
We became his safe space. We became his trusted advisors
on how to navigate this.
00:24:43
He would make comments, "Can you believe they'd
think I could kill my wife?"
00:24:46
Very non grieving, very
non-emotional, but very like, "I've made it
this far,
00:24:51
and then they're gonna try
to convict me of something or accuse me of something."
00:24:54
It may seem like that's
a hard thing to do, giving the information
back to law enforcement,
00:24:59
but I'll tell you, it's not hard when someone killed your best
friend. It's actually pretty easy.
00:25:07
- [Narrator] But to
strengthen their case further, investigators needed a motive.
00:25:13
- Harold had indicated that Toni
had one life insurance policy on
her, a $1.5 million policy.
00:25:19
Within two days of Toni's death, and before her body had been
released by the medical examiner, he was
asking
00:25:25
for $1.5 million from one of
the life insurance companies. - This is highly suspicious
00:25:31
because it suggests that
he was more interested in financial gain than
grieving a loved one.
00:25:37
Even more unusual when
detectives started to dig around was that Toni didn't have just
one life insurance policy,
00:25:45
she had four. - We know that Toni did not know
of that because she had a life
insurance policy with her work,
00:25:52
and indicated to them that she
had no life insurance on her other than the policy
that she drew at work.
00:25:57
She had, in fact, $4.5 million
total, which would've made Harold a very wealthy man upon her
death.
00:26:05
- This is really significant because not only is there
now a large sum of money attached to Toni's passing,
00:26:11
but also Harold has lied
to investigators yet again. - [Narrator] And they wanted to
know
00:26:18
why Harold Henthorn, a
supposedly wealthy and successful businessman
in his own right,
00:26:24
needed this money. - Harold had told everyone that he had a successful
business in fundraising
00:26:31
for nonprofits, for
hospitals and churches, and that he was the primary
breadwinner.
00:26:37
- [Narrator] Harold claimed
to friends and associates that his fundraising consultancy
had
00:26:41
as many as 90 employees. - What we found out from
looking at various records and from a search warrant
that was executed on the home
00:26:49
and looking through his records, is that Harold hadn't
worked in about 20 years.
00:26:54
We found business cards that he
had made pretending that he was doing
this entrepreneurial business,
00:27:01
and the address for those
business cards was actually his home,
and he listed like Suite A
00:27:05
or Suite B, which was the
basement. And so it was all a facade and none of it was true.
(dramatic music)
00:27:14
- It's incredibly significant that Harold had this
extreme longstanding deceit
00:27:20
playing out in the background when we are thinking about
this potential murder case.
00:27:25
That really strikes as
someone who's very capable of extreme manipulation and
deceit
00:27:31
and is potentially a very
narcissistic individual, - [Narrator] The truth about
Harold's financial situation
00:27:38
became even clearer when police
analysed the couple's shared banking
accounts.
00:27:43
- What we found from all of
those was that Toni never wrote a single check
off of their bank account,
00:27:50
that she was completely unaware of their financial situation. That is, Harold took care of
everything.
00:27:55
There were no deposits
whatsoever from any business of Harold's
because he didn't have one.
00:28:00
So all the money came from
Toni, from her business and from oil and gas royalties
that were through her family.
00:28:07
- You can imagine someone like
Harold rationalising this behaviour because he spent years
lying about who he is.
00:28:14
He wants to project this
image of this wealthy, powerful man of stature. So you can just imagine that
he's lived this life of a lie,
00:28:23
and he never wants the world
to know who the real Harold is. - I actually think it's
quite significant as well.
00:28:29
You know, Toni is a very
smart, educated woman, and Harold was able to maintain
these lies
00:28:36
and this level of deceit with
her, and she didn't notice any red
flags, and that I think is really
indicative of
00:28:44
how good Harold was at
masking his true identity. - [Narrator] But investigators
were soon to discover
00:28:52
even more shocking information
relating to Harold's past. - In the aftermath of Toni's
death, a total of 17 warnings,
00:29:02
phone calls and letters were
received by various sources relating to suspicions about
Harold.
00:29:08
All these phone calls and
warnings said the same thing, that Harold's first wife
00:29:13
had also died in suspicious
circumstances, and it needed to be looked into. - Harold had been married
before,
00:29:20
he had been married to Lynn
Henthorn. They were married for a number
of years. There are a lot of stories
surrounding Lynn's death.
00:29:28
What we know is that Harold and
Lynn had gone on a car ride that day, and they were in a remote area
00:29:34
of what's called Douglas County, that is south of the Denver
area. - Harold and Lynn had been
out for a nighttime drive
00:29:41
on a remote stretch of highway, and they'd stopped to
change a tyre on their Jeep.
00:29:45
- According to Harold,
who was the only witness, Lynn crawled under the car
(nut pattering)
00:29:51
to retrieve a lug nut that
had rolled under the car. He told two different versions.
00:29:54
One is that the jack just broke and the wheel well fell on Lynn. And the other one is
that he tossed the flat
00:30:00
into the back of the truck, which then caused it to
fall off of the jack, and that crushed Lynn.
00:30:07
- Lynn sadly died from those
injuries as she was essentially
crushed to death by the car.
00:30:14
- [Narrator] Lynn's tragic death was officially ruled as an
accident by the coroner,
00:30:19
but one that ultimately
proved lucrative for Harold. - Harold was able to receive
over $600,000
00:30:26
in life insurance against Lynn's
life. One of those policies had been
taken out
00:30:30
just months before Lynn's death. - It turns out Harold
had actually been living
00:30:35
on that insurance payout
from Lynn's death, and that was what had enabled
him to have this image
00:30:40
of wealth and maintain his
lifestyle. - When you compare the
death of these two women,
00:30:45
Lynn and Toni two decades apart, the circumstances are eerily
similar. You have their partner, Harold,
00:30:52
taking them on a trip in a
remote place when he is the only witness, yet claims to never
have seen what happened.
00:31:02
- One of the strange
things after Lynn's death was that Harold said to a
friend that he didn't know
00:31:07
how a grieving husband
was supposed to act, and that he was trying to figure
that out
00:31:11
how a grieving husband should
behave after his wife has died. - That comment from Harold,
again, it speaks to somebody
00:31:19
who wants to know, "How
can I manipulate you? How can I make you believe
I'm a man in grief?
00:31:25
How do I need to act to look the
part?" - Coupled with everything
else we know about Harold
00:31:30
and his levels of deception and
masking, this can be really
significant for investigators
00:31:37
because they might not only be
looking at someone capable of murder, but perhaps even multiple
murders.
00:31:44
- [Narrator] But there were even
more shocking revelations to come. Investigators found that
00:31:49
Toni's fatal accident
wasn't the first time she had been injured in Harold's
company.
00:31:55
- Harold and Toni had a cabin in
Granby, which is a little remote town. They were up there and late at
night,
00:32:02
this is after 10:00 PM, Harold was removing some
wood from the back balcony. - He called Toni to come
out to bring him something
00:32:10
or pick up something, and as soon as she got to a
certain point on the deck, a beam fell, a big, large beam
that would've killed anybody.
00:32:19
She had turned in a way that it missed hitting her in a
vital spot that would've killed her,
00:32:25
but she was rushed to
the local hospital there. - They both insist that there
was
00:32:28
no domestic violence involved, that this was simply an
accident. - But yet again, a woman
that Harold is married to
00:32:35
has a freak accident in a remote
location, and Harold is the only witness. - We had heard about the
accident.
00:32:42
And my husband being in the
medical field asked him about it, "Hey, is she
okay?"
00:32:47
And Harold blew it off.
He just kinda laughed. He said, "Yeah, I guess you
heard I tried to kill Toni."
00:32:53
I didn't originally think that was anything to be
suspicious of until everybody said wake up.
00:32:57
That was the first attempt to
kill her. (fateful bell tolls) - [Narrator] Harold Henthorn
was under investigation
00:33:05
for the murder of his wife,
Toni, who was found dead at the bottom of a cliff
in the Rocky Mountains.
00:33:12
The net was closing in
on him, and he knew it. - During the investigation,
towards the end,
00:33:18
Harold came over to the house. He seemed worried, he seemed
drained. He was a different person.
00:33:26
He was not naive to the fact that this investigation
had progressed to the point
00:33:31
where there were gonna be some
serious charges on him for this. He said, "I do believe
that I'm in trouble here.
00:33:40
They think I killed Lynn and
they think I killed Toni too. I could never do that.
00:33:45
I loved them both. I would
never, I'm not capable of that." And then we got into more
of the details about,
00:33:53
about the job situation
and financial situation. "Toni and I," he pitched
it as Toni and he did this,
00:34:00
"made up a story about me
working
when I really don't work." But he said that they
concocted the whole story
00:34:07
of him working because they
didn't want her parents to think that she was not gonna be
financially taken care of.
00:34:12
And I know for a fact
that that is not true. That was not true. And I knew that I had been lied
to again.
00:34:20
When Harold left that night, we were emotionally
and physically drained. We had just seen the face
00:34:26
of a cold-blooded murderer in
our home. (chilling music) - [Narrator] After an
investigation
spanning over two years,
00:34:35
the FBI were close to
arresting Harold Henthorn for the murder of his wife. But just as they were
preparing their case,
00:34:43
a critical situation emerged, forcing them to act quickly. - We were actually
watching his financials,
00:34:50
and what we realised is
that Harold was moving money and he had moved over
$500,000 to his brother
00:34:55
who lived on the East Coast,
far away from Colorado. And that's what brought us
into action very quickly.
00:35:02
We felt that Harold was going to
flee. - 7 News on top of a
developing story all evening,
00:35:07
a Highlands Ranch man
already being investigated for murdering his first
wife, arrested today,
00:35:12
accused of murdering his second
wife. - [Narrator] On November 6th,
2014, Harold was arrested
00:35:18
and charged with the first
degree murder of Toni Henthorn. - I was sitting in a meeting at
work
00:35:25
and I received a text message. "Harold's been arrested," and my mind, it was
just a rush of emotions
00:35:32
of finally this has happened. Everybody has done their job. It was a great feeling to know
00:35:38
that he would be held
accountable, but there also the possibility that he would not be convicted.
00:35:45
The FBI was very clear with
us from the very beginning that this was going to
be a difficult case.
00:35:53
- In September, 2015, three years after Toni's
death, Harold's trial began.
00:35:59
In this trial, there were no
eyewitnesses. There was no confession. So they were relying
on convincing this jury
00:36:06
on circumstantial evidence
alone. - Circumstantial evidence is
often a very difficult thing to build,
00:36:13
particularly a murder
case off the back of. But there have been very
successful convictions worldwide
00:36:19
based on circumstantial evidence
alone. - The theme of the case was
greed. Harold had one compelling
reason to kill Toni Henthorn,
00:36:28
is that she was worth more
dead than she was alive. When we looked at the timing
00:36:34
of why Harold decided to kill
Toni, it really came down to the fact that Toni opened her own bank
account.
00:36:41
She was diverting the money
from the oil and gas monies into that account, as well
as her paycheck from work.
00:36:47
And she'd never done that
before. And once she opened that
account, Harold knew that his facade
00:36:52
of being a successful
entrepreneur was coming to an
end. That everyone would
find out that, in fact,
00:36:57
he wasn't this person who was
fundraising for nonprofits and the way he made himself
look like such a big person
00:37:04
and a big businessman was all a
front, and how was he going
to live this lifestyle?
00:37:09
This wasn't gonna work anymore. (dramatic bell clangs) - Well, this is a case that's
gained national attention.
00:37:14
A husband accused of pushing
his wife to her death to collect on her insurance
policies.
00:37:19
- The life insurance
policies were really key, and the way in which Harold went
about
00:37:26
getting those policies,
that he lied to Toni, that she didn't know she
had any of those policies.
00:37:32
So he had all this money waiting for him to make the
decision about the timing of when he was going to,
as we would like to say,
00:37:40
pull the trigger on it. And that's what he decided to do on their anniversary in
September 29th, 2012,
00:37:47
was that he was going to get rid
of her. - [Narrator] The prosecution
team tried to persuade the jury
00:37:53
that Toni's fatal fall was no
accident, but a calculated and
cold-blooded act.
00:38:00
- We also honed in on the fact
that this was premeditated, and we had the records to
show from his cell phone
00:38:06
every time he went up to
Rocky Mountain National Park, to show that this was not,
again, a spontaneous thing.
00:38:14
- [Narrator] The
prosecution also highlighted Harold's similar patterns of
behaviour
00:38:18
on previous occasions. - The judge ruled that the
evidence from the Lynn Henthorn death
00:38:25
and from the beam incident
at the Granby cabin could both come in at trial
and be presented to the jury.
00:38:32
And this is really critical to
our case. In order to prove the
premeditation of the death of
Toni,
00:38:37
we felt we needed to show that this wasn't the first
time that he had done it.
00:38:41
As we said to the court,
and we said to the jury, "If you win the lottery,
it's a celebration.
00:38:47
If you win it twice,
it's an investigation." And that's what we used with the
fact
00:38:51
that now Harold had two dead
wives, both under what we painted
as unusual circumstances.
00:39:01
The defence really focused on
the fact that this was really a fall, and the fact that Lynn died
was also a tragic accident.
00:39:09
And the two were completely
unrelated. But Harold's defence team
did not call any witnesses,
00:39:16
and Harold elected not
to testify at the trial. So the case closed with
the end of our witnesses.
00:39:24
- [Narrator] With the
two week trial now over, the jury retired to begin
deliberations.
00:39:31
- With each passing hour, you start to get a little more
nervous that we have to prove the
case beyond a reasonable doubt
00:39:37
to the satisfaction of all 12
jurors on each one of the elements
of first degree murder.
00:39:43
So there's just so many
places where you might trip up and where the jury might think
00:39:47
we just didn't have quite enough
evidence. And so you just don't know. - I was on pins and needles all
day,
00:39:53
checking my phone all day. It was a day that could
not pass by fast enough because we literally had no
idea how this was gonna end.
00:40:02
- [Narrator] After 10
hours of deliberations, the jury returned to give their
verdict.
00:40:08
(gavel bangs)
- The verdict was unanimous. It was guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt
00:40:12
as to the single count,
first degree murder. So Harold Henthorn was found
guilty
00:40:16
of first degree murder by the
jury. (dramatic music) - [Narrator] Harold's years of
deceit
00:40:23
had finally been exposed. - As soon as the verdict was
read, the courtroom went crazy.
00:40:30
I mean, people just really
had so much pent up emotion and they just were finally
able to release it.
00:40:36
The judge had the jury come back
in and they celebrated with the
family. We were in the courtroom for
over an hour.
00:40:42
It was the time to finally
have the emotional release, that someone had heard the story
and the jurors believed it.
00:40:49
And so the jurors needed that
release too. They wanted to come and be with
the family
00:40:53
and say, "I saw you. I heard
you." (news graphic whooshing)
- Once the verdict was read,
00:40:57
an emotional exchange
between Toni Henthorn's mom and a juror. Take a listen as what was
said after the two hugged.
00:41:05
Take a listen. - I appreciated it very much. And she just said, "As one mom
to another,
00:41:13
I feel your pain." - When I read the
headline, "Found Guilty," I sat down and just,
00:41:21
it's like after such an intense
day, being able to relax for the
first time.
00:41:27
We all in the room cried tears
of joy and tears of sadness. Sadness because we had lost our
friend
00:41:35
and our sister and our mother, and you know, happiness that
this would not happen to another
person.
00:41:43
- [Narrator] On December 8th,
2015, Harold Henthorn appeared
in court for sentencing,
00:41:50
and it was a chance for Toni's
loved ones to look Harold in the eye as they read out their
victim impact statements.
00:41:58
- Toni's daughter elected
not to come to court, and instead she had written
a letter that the family read
00:42:04
to the court and to Harold to say that she no longer
regarded him as her father,
00:42:09
and she would only refer
to him in the future as Mr. Henthorn.
(reflective music)
00:42:13
- The daughter's decision to
refer to him only as Mr. Henthorn, moving
forward
00:42:18
goes to show the
significant emotional damage that this family have all
experienced
00:42:23
as a result of his actions. And further than that, it goes
to show that despite the fact
00:42:28
that there is only
circumstantial evidence, even those closest to
Harold, to Toni and to Lynn
00:42:34
are all convinced by Harold's
guilt. - [Narrator] The judge
then delivered the news
00:42:40
that Toni's loved ones were
waiting for. - Harold was sentenced to a life
sentence
00:42:45
without any chance of parole. Harold will die in prison. Then it was just this
great relief of we did it,
00:42:51
and it's over now. I think it was the toughest
case that I have been a part of,
00:42:58
and it was so rewarding to
get the verdict that we did and to get justice for
Toni and for her daughter.
00:43:04
It was really quite a result
that I'm very proud of. - [Narrator] Harold will
spend the rest of his life
00:43:12
behind bars for Toni's murder. His first wife Lynn's cause of
death has been changed from
accidental to undetermined,
00:43:21
and the charge against
Harold for her murder has been deferred until all
appeals
00:43:26
against his life sentence
has been exhausted. (poignant music)
- You have two women here
00:43:32
who've died in such tragic,
unimaginable circumstances where the last person
that they've seen on earth
00:43:39
is this man, their husband, who was meant to protect
them and keep them safe. But I really hope that, for
Lynn's family,
00:43:46
who had a lot of unanswered
questions and things were up in the air about what really happened to
her,
00:43:52
that through this trial and the answers that we got
about Toni, that they got that closure in
the end.
00:44:00
- [Narrator] But for Toni's
family, there was one final issue to
resolve. - After the trial, Toni's
daughter,
00:44:08
after going through the custody
process, was placed with and
adopted by Toni's brother
00:44:14
who has a loving family,
very healthy, loving family. She's now in college, a
college student, very smart,
00:44:21
and I'm very proud of that young
lady. She's gonna be a world changer. I can already tell.
00:44:27
(poignant music) (dramatic music)