00:00:04
[suspenseful music] [camera clicks] - When a murder's committed,
it's always a race against time
00:00:10
to find the truth, to
separate fact from fiction, to catch the killer, and to make sure that
justice is served.
00:00:20
But what happens when the
truth vanishes with the victim? I'm Dr. Richard Shepherd,
00:00:26
and I've spent my entire career
as a forensic pathologist, performing nearly
23,000 autopsies.
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I've learned that the
dead don't hide the truth, and they never lie. Through me, you'll be hearing
directly from the victim.
00:00:45
With the aid of a
state-of-the-art laboratory, using groundbreaking technology, I'll be investigating a
series of intriguing crimes
00:00:54
where, from the victim's bodies, are revealed to you the
truth behind these murders.
00:01:00
[camera clicks] [air whooshes] Back in 1997, on the
day after Christmas, emergency services were called
00:01:09
to a house fire in
Bremerton near Seattle. But as they battled
to contain the fire,
00:01:15
they had no idea
what lay inside. [gentle music] [phone line rings] - [Operator] What's
your emergency?
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- Shortly after 7:00 AM, 911 was called for a house fire. Neighbors had noticed that
there was smoke billowing out
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of a window. When the firefighters arrived,
the house was fully engulfed, and it was a major fire.
00:01:55
It took a while for
the firefighters to
extinguish the fire. And so when the fire was
finally out, they did a sweep
00:02:02
of the home, and they
found what looked to be charred remains
of a human being. The body was located in the
western corner of the home
00:02:15
in the primary bedroom. The body was found
laying on its back, and it appeared that a blanket had
been over the victim,
00:02:29
because you could see the
wires from an electric blanket that were over
the victim's body.
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The victim's body was
horribly, horribly burned, and it was unrecognizable, and there were no
distinguishing features
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that could be seen, whether
it was a male or a female. - In this, a small
community, and just hours
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after Christmas Day, how
had this fire started, and whose life had
it tragically taken?
00:03:04
As a forensic pathologist, some of the most difficult
cases I've dealt with are those
00:03:09
where a body is
recovered from a fire. Where the burns are extensive, identifying the remains
can be very difficult,
00:03:15
because fire destroys many
things, but not everything. Vital evidence can be lost
when the skin is burnt,
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but some clues always remain. In this case, jewelry
found on the body indicated it was 28-year-old
Dawn Hacheney,
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and that was confirmed
by comparing her teeth that survived the fire
with her dental records.
00:03:42
Closer examination revealed
that there were extensive burns to the front of the body, but
on the back, there were none.
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And what that tells us is that not only was she
lying on her back on the bed, but crucially, it tells
us that she didn't move
00:03:57
from that position as the
fire engulfed the room. [suspenseful music] So as flames ravaged
through the home,
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why was Dawn unable
to save herself? Was she simply asleep,
unconscious, or already dead?
00:04:16
To find out, police had to build up a picture
of who Dawn Hacheney was. - Dawn and I were friends
almost, it felt like forever,
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but she was my best friend. We first met when we
were in seventh grade, and it was just instant
friendship from that point on.
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She had a strong,
strong faith core. We went to a private
Christian high school,
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and so we all kind of had that. She lived it, though, and
it just was part of her,
00:04:52
and she was just
the sweetest thing. I mean, she would give
you the coat off her back
00:04:56
if you needed help. And that was her. That was Dawn. - [Richard] Dawn Hacheney was
the wife of Nicholas Hacheney,
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a young pastor from
the Evangelical Christ
Community Church of Bainbridge Island, just
across the Puget Sound
00:05:13
from Bremerton near Seattle. - Dawn met Nick at college. She went to Northwest
Bible College.
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We call it Northwest
Bridal College, type of thing that's where
you went to get a husband.
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My feelings for Nick
were kind of ambivalent, but I respected her choice of
him, and they seemed in love,
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and that's all that
mattered at that point. We all picked somebody
different, and that's
who she picked.
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[suspenseful music] Dawn asked me to be her maid
of honor for her wedding, and I was so, so excited.
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She was gonna be mine.
It didn't happen. But yeah, I was
her maid of honor, and it was a beautiful wedding.
00:06:03
Nick was the most
happy looking guy ever. He really was very sweet. It was just an awesome,
wonderful wedding.
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[suspenseful music] - By outward appearances,
it looked like they had just a wonderful,
picture-perfect marriage.
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She was the sole breadwinner. She was a loan officer
for a local credit union. Nick Hacheney was
a youth pastor,
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and so with that comes
a lot of volunteer work. I think he might've at most
gotten $600 every so often
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as a stipend, but this was
not a money-making venture. This was a passion for him.
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She enjoyed having
him be a pastor. She enjoyed being
a pastor's wife, and by all accounts, they
had a wonderful marriage.
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- She loved him. She did. She did everything
she could for him, and he was the leader of the
house, and he is the man,
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and she will love and
obey him to a point. She wasn't a doormat, but she did feel very
strongly in her vows
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and this is what
she chose to do, and she loved him for that. - She was your
typical pastor's wife.
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She was very supportive of him. He was an up-and-coming
star at his church. He was going places,
they all thought,
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and she was playing
the supportive role. - The Christ Community Church
was an apostolic church,
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the congregation
believing in the Word and the will of God
coming through them. And so they believed they
could hear the word of God
00:07:48
through prophecy, through
speaking in tongues, and through dreams. - They would be seized with the
word of God during services,
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and there would be shouting. And there were very
lively services. - And he, by all accounts,
he was a great youth pastor.
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He was fun, and silly, and kind, and he drew a huge following
of kids in that program,
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He had a couple
of favorite people that he called the
little disciples that he had paid particular
close attention to.
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And because of his success and his charisma, he
was then put in charge of a marital counseling program.
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[suspenseful music] - [Richard] Nick's counseling
sessions proved popular, but there were soon rumors
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that they were
becoming controversial. - Eventually, the marital
counseling sessions started
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to become more oriented towards
the female of the couple. And he would say, "Okay,
well, I think I really need
00:08:55
to speak privately
with your wife, and we have deal with some
issues that she has privately."
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- He was said to have befriended
quite a few married women in the church, and would take these
counseling sessions
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where his main interest was said to be about their sex lives. And there were some
complaints about that.
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- Some of the husbands started to complain about
these private sessions, and how long they were taking,
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and what hours they
were being conducted. And so questions were starting to be asked about
his relationships
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with some of these women. It was very clear that that
was his passion is to preach,
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and preach the Word of
God the way he saw it. [suspenseful music] - Mr. Hacheney had
gone out duck hunting
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with several people that
morning, and when he came back, his house was
basically destroyed,
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and his wife was dead. He was comforted by our
coroner at the time, gone out doing something
innocent and comes back,
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and the love of
your life is dead. A tragedy. - Faced with charred
remains, it's easy to assume
00:10:21
that the cause of
death was the fire, but most people are
killed by the smoke and fumes rather
than the flames.
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When someone inhales smoke,
the airways are usually black. It's easy to see. It's
barn door obvious.
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But the examination of
Dawn's airways showed that they were clear. There was none of
the powdery soot
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in the trachea and bronchi. With no soot in the airways, it tells us that she
might have been dead
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before the flames took hold. But if the fire and smoke
didn't kill Dawn, what did?
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- It was just incomprehensible that there would be foul play. You know, it just never
entered anybody's mind.
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[air whooshes] [air whooshes] [suspenseful music]
[water rushing] - In 1997, the body
of 28-year-old Dawn
Hacheney was found
00:11:27
in a burnt out house in
Bremerton, near Seattle. Her husband, Nick, had
been away on a hunting trip
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when the fire broke out. Shortly after Dawn's
body was discovered, fire investigators searched
the property looking for clues
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to tell them how the
fire might have started, and what had caused
Dawn's death. - The fire investigators noted
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that there was a space
heater in the bedroom close to the bed, that there was
paper all over the room,
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some wrapping paper,
some newspaper, and they found a case
of small propane tanks
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such that you would
use when you're camping with a camp stove. Nicholas Hacheney
tells the investigators
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that they were
renovating their home, and so they didn't
have central heating. And so he had turned
that space heater on
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to warm Dawn while
she was sleeping, so that the room would
be warm when she got up.
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He indicated that the
propane tanks were a gift from Dawn for Christmas. He was a big hunter and
he was a big camper,
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and so she had gotten him
a case of propane tanks as a Christmas present. He said that they had opened
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their Christmas presents
late the night before, and he had just
left the presents
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and the wrapping
paper all around where they had opened
them in the bedroom. - [Richard] So what
did the experts make
00:12:59
of Nick Hacheney's story? - In determining the
mode and manner of death, a forensic pathologist
has to look at everything,
00:13:08
not just the body, but
the history, the context and the parties. And so this was a pastor
who, by all accounts,
00:13:18
was extremely distraught
by the death of his wife. So there wasn't really a lot
of suspicion with respect
00:13:24
to the cause of the fire. And the fire investigator
noted that yes, there were propane
tanks in the bedroom,
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and that there was paper
all over the bedroom, and that it was very possible and even likely that the
fire had been started
00:13:42
by paper too close
to the space heater. Perhaps there was a flash
fire because of the propane.
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The propane tanks might have
had an impact on the severity of the fire, and deemed
that it was accidental.
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- But was there more to learn from Dawn's body about the
events of that fateful day
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and how she died? When Dawn's body was found, there were no obvious injuries
indicating a cause of death.
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And the first pathologist
concluded the reason there was no soot in the airways was that her throat
had suddenly closed
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when the fire started. We call this laryngeal spasm. The theory is that
inhalation of a flash
00:14:30
of hot air from the fire
causes the vocal cords and the larynx to snap shut. Now this can happen, but
it's far from common.
00:14:40
In fact, it's exceedingly rare. With no evidence
to prove otherwise, the pathologist recorded
the death as accidental,
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and so the police
investigation was shelved. [suspenseful music] The findings may have been rare,
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but they were enough to satisfy
the authorities involved. - It was deemed
to be an accident,
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and a very tragic accident. So there was no indication
of any foul play. - It was just incomprehensible
00:15:10
that there would be foul play. You know, it just never
entered anybody's mind. - Because of his
role in the church,
00:15:16
a pillar of the local community, I think that an awful lot
of things went by the by.
00:15:23
So a thorough
investigation into it just didn't seem to happen. - At the time, when I heard that it
was an accidental fire
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and the cause of
it, I was just sad. You know, they thought
it was an accident. [somber music]
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At the funeral, Nick met me, and gave me a Christmas card
that Dawn was gonna give me,
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and it was the last Christmas
card that she even made. She even put it together
with all her crafty stuff.
00:16:03
And so I've got her words. He said he found that in their
car, and I gave him a hug,
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and he gave me a hug,
and he was crying, and he showed true grief. But during the funeral,
00:16:28
he pulled off his
behavior like a preacher. - He actually
delivered the eulogy. And there were a lot
of people that thought,
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how on earth can
this guy be so strong as to give this powerful eulogy about the wife that he loved?
00:16:49
There was insurance
money after Dawn's death, and so he did get some money. I think it was in
total about $110,000
00:16:59
that he received
in insurance money. What he did with that money
is, some of it went to trying
00:17:05
to repair the house, but he
also bought a brand new truck. He bought a boat, he
bought a motorcycle,
00:17:13
and was seemingly enjoying
having this extra money, really just living it up
with this new found money.
00:17:24
- After the funeral,
I didn't see him. The only thing I really
remember is getting frustrated
00:17:33
with Dawn's mom that he
wasn't doing anything to put a headstone on her grave. And I didn't understand
why he wasn't doing that.
00:17:42
That made no sense to me at all. And that's where the first
time I ever felt something
00:17:47
was just weird. Why wouldn't you do that?
If you loved her, why? [suspenseful music]
[birds chirping]
00:17:57
- There were also
some other odd things after her death that, he seemed to be surrounded
by a bevy of women
00:18:08
who were there to comfort him, and to give him whatever
it was that he needed, because he was in
such a state of grief.
00:18:16
So there were kind
of some rumblings about how maybe
inappropriate that he was with women immediately
after her death.
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There was a kind of a
difference of opinion among people in the church as
to, which side were you on?
00:18:35
Are you on the side
that he's showing that he's this grief-stricken
loving husband,
00:18:39
or is he just loving
all of this attention? - He had a lot of
weird behaviors. But to figure out that
that was criminal?
00:18:52
No, it was just sad and weird, and maybe grief strikes
people differently. [gentle music]
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[birds chirping] - [Richard] It seemed like
an open and shut case. But four years later,
all that changed
00:19:08
when a woman called Sandy
Glass contacted the police. [suspenseful music] - Sandy Glass had a lot to say.
00:19:23
Sandy Glass was the
church secretary, so she worked for the church. She was also a very prominent
figure in the church.
00:19:31
She was one that they
deemed to be a prophetess, and the church congregants
put a lot of weight
00:19:38
into what Sandy Glass had to say with respect to her prophecies. One year she had prophesied
that there was going
00:19:46
to be a huge earthquake. So based upon her prophecy,
the entire church started to stockpile food and provisions
for the period of time
00:19:56
after this giant
earthquake was to occur. So she was a very central
figure in the church.
00:20:02
She was well-respected, and people believed
what she had to say. - [Richard] And what she told
the authorities was shocking.
00:20:11
- She indicated
that Dawn Hacheney, who had previously been
killed by a house fire,
00:20:16
well, there was
more to the story, and that this was,
in fact, a homicide. She had told the
prosecutor's office that,
00:20:30
at the time, she was engaged
in an extramarital affair with Nick Hacheney, and that
they had sexual relations
00:20:39
before Dawn Hacheney's death. She had indicated that
Nick Hacheney had, in fact, murdered Dawn Hacheney
00:20:46
so that they could be together, and shortly after the murder, had told Sandy just
how he had done it,
00:20:56
that he took a clear plastic
bag, put it over her face, and suffocated her to death.
00:21:04
She had said that
once that happened, that he had stayed
with the body all night
00:21:09
and then in the morning, set
fire to the bedroom and left, and went hunting. [birds chirping]
00:21:18
The day of the fire, she had received a phone
call from Nick Hacheney, and Nick had just
said, "It is done."
00:21:27
And at that moment, her
call waiting clicked in. And so she went over
to the other line,
00:21:32
and was told by one
of the congregants that Dawn had perished
in a house fire. So she knew what
"It is done" meant.
00:21:42
- Sandy Glass's
testimony threatened to blast the case back open,
but was she telling the truth?
00:21:53
[air whooshes] [air whooshes] [suspenseful music] In 2001, four years after Dawn
Hacheney's charred remains
00:22:14
were found in her
burnt-down house, a woman contacted police, claiming the death
had been no accident.
00:22:23
That woman was Church
Secretary Sandy Glass. Her claims were extraordinary, but were they backed up
by the medical evidence?
00:22:34
Nick Hacheney's former
lover, Sandra Glass, claimed he'd confessed to her
that he'd suffocated his wife
00:22:41
by putting a plastic
bag over her head. If this explosive
claim was true, it would explain why there
was no soot in Dawn's airways.
00:22:52
If she had been suffocated
by a bag over her head, I might have
expected to see signs
00:22:57
that she'd struggled against
him, fighting for breath. I'd be looking for defensive
injuries to the wrists
00:23:03
and the forearms, grazes,
abrasions, bruises, or signs that her arms
have been held down.
00:23:11
But there was nothing like that. With no signs of a struggle, the evidence from Dawn's
body didn't appear
00:23:19
to support Sandy's claims
about the plastic bag, but suspicions had been raised.
00:23:26
So prosecutors began a
thorough investigation. Could Sandy Glass be believed? - We did a lot of investigation
00:23:35
about Sandy Glass's credibility. As you can imagine, a
late disclosure like this,
00:23:41
of course, needs
to be investigated, and we need to make sure that she was, in fact,
a credible witness
00:23:47
and not some woman scorned that's willing to
make something up. - [Richard] But as
prosecutors began
00:23:53
to examine Sandy Glass's claims, the story they uncovered
was even more extreme than anyone could have imagined.
00:24:01
[suspenseful music] - Sandy Glass and her
husband Jimmy Glass were having some
marital difficulties,
00:24:13
and so they were one of the
first people to avail themselves of Nick Hacheney's
marital counseling.
00:24:21
Nick started to have
private sessions with her without Jimmy
Glass being there, and one thing leads to another,
00:24:30
and they begin a romantic
and sexual relationship, and it became
serious, very serious.
00:24:42
And they had been talking a lot about having a life together, and trying to figure out
what that might look like.
00:24:52
Divorce simply was not
an option in this church, because that could give rise to him being excommunicated
from the church,
00:24:59
and at the very least, have him being
removed as a pastor. I mean, he's a pastor who's
conducting marital counseling,
00:25:08
and here he is, cheating on
his wife and getting a divorce. - [Richard] Meanwhile,
cracks were beginning
00:25:14
to show in Nick and
Dawn's marriage, - I started seeing some
unhappiness in Dawn,
00:25:22
and then you start
paying attention. When you go over, you start paying attention
to the vibes in the house.
00:25:30
And every time I'd go over, he'd be laying
around doing nothing. And when he told her that
she needed to lose weight,
00:25:35
she was like, "You need to too." And it was just
some of the comments that I started hearing her share
00:25:41
about what he would
say to her in private, and I'm not a subtle person. I call him on it.
00:25:48
And I started telling Dawn, "If you need to get out
of this relationship, 'cause you're not
getting respected,
00:25:53
it doesn't even seem like
he really cares for you, and you could just feel that,
you can come into my house,"
00:25:59
an apartment at the time. And he heard me say that
and that didn't help. But I really feel
strongly that Dawn
00:26:07
would never have divorced Nick, that she made her vows
and her vows of her life.
00:26:14
And she felt that very strongly, but she didn't know
what was going on, and she started getting hints
00:26:20
and kinda putting pieces
together on what was going on, but never had the
complete puzzle.
00:26:29
- [Richard] At the time of Dawn and Nick's marital problems,
he was having an affair
00:26:33
with Sandy Glass, and the pair were
desperate to be together. But with divorce
out of the question,
00:26:40
both were looking
for alternative ways to get out of their
marriages, however drastic.
00:26:47
- In the fall of 1997,
Sandy Glass had a prophecy that her husband, Jimmy
Glass, was gonna die.
00:26:54
And so on the one hand, that was one answer
to their prayers. So the time came and
went, Jimmy didn't die,
00:27:05
and was very much alive. And so she had another prophecy
that Dawn was going to die,
00:27:12
and it was going to occur
December 18th, 1997. December 18th came and
went, and Dawn did not die.
00:27:20
And over the course of
the next couple days, they prayed about it, and
Sandy had another prophecy,
00:27:29
and she told Nick the prophecy and it was, "Your hands
are no longer tied." And she didn't know
what that meant,
00:27:38
but I think they both thought that something was
going to happen to make their life
together a possibility.
00:27:49
So fast forward a couple days,
and it's December 26th, 1997, and Dawn dies in a house fire.
00:28:01
So I think Sandy Glass thought
that this was their way out. This was they were going
to be able to be together.
00:28:11
Unfortunately, Nick
Hacheney had other plans, and had now started hooking
up with three other women.
00:28:18
[suspenseful music] - It tells us that Nick is
not a very good Christian, that he's preaching one thing,
00:28:26
and doing something
completely different. For somebody who was a
pastor and loved Jesus,
00:28:32
he broke every commandment
that he possibly could. - [Richard] Some months
before Dawn's death,
00:28:39
and in a repeat of what
he'd allegedly done with Sandy Glass, Nick
Hacheney had started
00:28:44
to give marriage counseling to Annette Anderson
and her husband, before starting to see
Annette on her own.
00:28:51
[suspenseful music] - Nick Hacheney told
Annette that he wanted to do a trust exercise.
00:29:01
So it's the trust fall
where she's standing, and she has to trust that
Nick's gonna catch her.
00:29:09
And so she does the
exercise, he catches her, and Nick says, "See,
that's what God is.
00:29:17
You have to trust God,
and trust God's will, and trust God's Word, and
things will be all right."
00:29:24
So it was clear that there
was an emotional connection between Annette Anderson
and Nick Hacheney.
00:29:30
Things escalated very quickly, and became a sexual relationship within days of Dawn
Hacheney's death.
00:29:42
- He believed that God
had told him that he was to be fruitful and multiply, and he took that statement
from God as he was supposed
00:29:53
to be sleeping with
his parishioners. - He was very, very
good at manipulating, a complete charmer,
00:30:02
so that you would never
suspect it of him. - [Richard] Already engaged
in sexual relationships
00:30:10
with Sandy Glass and
Annette Anderson, Nick's affairs
didn't stop there. - Nicole Matheson had also
been one to come to Nick
00:30:23
for marital advice. She was not happy
in her relationship, and it was very clear
that that relationship
00:30:31
was going to end. So once again, it became
an emotional connection between Nicole and Nick.
00:30:43
But after Dawn's death, that also quickly became
a sexual relationship. [suspenseful music]
00:30:54
- [Richard] Nick's involvement
with multiple women from the congregation
was escalating,
00:31:00
but worse was to come, this time, even closer to home. - Bob Smith was a co-pastor
00:31:10
in the Christ Community Church, and Nick Hacheney was kind
of like a son to Bob Smith.
00:31:19
He supported Nick
wholeheartedly, and invited him into his
home to live with them
00:31:24
after the fire, because Nick
didn't have anywhere to live, and he needed help. So this really was like
a family relationship.
00:31:35
Within days of Dawn
Hacheney's death, Nick Hacheney started a
relationship with Lindsay Smith,
00:31:43
who was 18 years
old at the time. Lindsay Smith is Bob
Smith's daughter. She was a child
when they first met,
00:31:54
'cause he was her youth pastor, and one of the two that
everybody referred to as Nick's little disciples.
00:32:03
This relationship continued
until Lindsay left for Africa, 'cause she was going
on a missionary trip.
00:32:09
And the relationship
continued from afar by way of emails of a sexual
nature, of emotional nature,
00:32:18
of feelings of love and
talking about their future. And it was a really
serious relationship.
00:32:26
Lindsay was in love, and
she just couldn't think of a life without Nick Hacheney.
00:32:34
[birds chirping] - [Richard] Now involved
with four different women, Nick Hacheney's relationships
continued throughout 1998.
00:32:45
- He kind of decided that
Nicole Matheson was the one. And so he over time had
contacted Annette Anderson,
00:32:54
Sandy Glass and
Lindsay Smith to say, "Hey, I really want to
be with Nicole Matheson.
00:33:00
We wanna be together, and so we gotta stop
what we're doing." And so from there on,
00:33:08
the relationship really
was just Nicole Matheson. [suspenseful music] - [Richard] Now free to
enter into a new marriage,
00:33:19
Nick got engaged to
Nicole Matheson in 2001, but his past was about
to catch up with him
00:33:27
as gossip about
his affairs began to circulate through the church. By then, in a new relationship,
00:33:34
and with her guilt growing over the secret she had been
harboring for Nick Hacheney,
00:33:39
Sandy Glass finally disclosed
what she knew to her fiance. - The fiance says, "You have to go to the
authorities on this.
00:33:48
You're morally obligated to
go to authorities on this. You know this information,
00:33:54
and he's gotten away with this
murder now for four years." And so that is how she
ended up getting an attorney
00:34:01
and then contacting the
prosecutor's office. - [Richard] If Sandy
Glass's claims were true,
00:34:10
her love affair with serial
philanderer Nick Hacheney had given him a
motive for murder.
00:34:17
The police were convinced
enough to reopen the case. So would the truth
finally be revealed?
00:34:24
- In my opinion,
he's a misogynist. He really doesn't like women. He treats 'em
dreadfully, you know,
00:34:30
and the closer they are to him, the worse he's
going to treat them. [air whooshes]
00:34:42
[air whooshes] - In 2001, Nick Hacheney's
former lover told police that he'd confessed
to killing his wife.
00:34:55
Now, four years after her
death, was Dawn's body ready to reveal further secrets
about how she'd really died?
00:35:06
It was suggested that
Nick Hacheney had
suffocated his wife, Dawn, with a plastic bag before
setting fire to their home.
00:35:14
In the light of Sandy Glass's
claims, the case was reopened, and the previous
autopsy report reviewed.
00:35:26
- We hired a different
forensic pathologist, but we also asked the
original forensic pathologist
00:35:33
to re-review what
his findings were based on the new information. - Particular attention was paid
00:35:41
to the toxicology report,
which identified chemicals and toxins found in the body.
00:35:49
On review, the test for carbon
monoxide in Dawn's blood, which had shown
negative, looked odd,
00:35:56
as it would've been present
if she'd taken a breath in the smoky room. What's more, Dawn's blood
have been shown to be free
00:36:05
of natural cyanide, but this chemical would
have been expected after a house fire,
00:36:10
because it's released
when plastics burn. The absence of cyanide and carbon monoxide
strongly suggested
00:36:19
that Dawn's airways were
shut before the fire started. And although the rare instance
00:36:25
of a laryngeal spasm
described in the first autopsy was still not out
of the question,
00:36:31
the toxicology
revealed something that could be more sinister. They found Benadryl, a cold
remedy that contains a sedative.
00:36:41
This raised no
concerns at the time, because everyone assumed
this was an accident,
00:36:46
and her husband, Nick, had told police that
she'd had a cold. A review of the toxicology
results showed that Dawn had
00:36:53
as much as five
times the normal dose of Benadryl in her body. It would have knocked her out,
so she would've been unable
00:37:01
to fight off her attacker
as he suffocated her with a plastic bag. When the investigators
stopped assuming
00:37:09
that this was an accident, and considered that she
could have been murdered, suddenly all of the
pieces slotted together,
00:37:16
and the evidence
fitted perfectly. [suspenseful music] So why had these test
results been overlooked
00:37:24
at the time of Dawn's death? - They did take into account
that he was a pastor. They did take into account
that he was well-respected,
00:37:32
and kind of, I think, presumed
that somebody like that would never kill their wife.
00:37:38
And so there was perhaps
a rush to judgment that this couldn't
possibly be homicide.
00:37:46
So let's make the facts fit
into an accidental death. - [Richard] So in 2002, with this new information
at their disposal
00:37:56
and having taken a fresh look at the events
surrounding Dawn's death, the state charged Nick
Hacheney with Dawn's murder,
00:38:04
and the trial was set
for later that year. - I was just confused. What? What is going on?
00:38:13
I never imagined Nick
being a murderer. I didn't like him. I didn't
think he was good for her.
00:38:20
I don't think that they
had a healthy relationship, but you don't assume that,
and that caught me off guard.
00:38:30
[suspenseful music] - [Richard] The trial was
held at Kitsap County Court. It was Judge Anna Laurie's
first murder case.
00:38:40
- The first day, it was
this giant courtroom, and there was just everybody in the courthouse
wanted to see him.
00:38:47
I mean, at that point,
the word had spread. [suspenseful music] - It's not often that
you have a pastor accused
00:38:58
of murdering his wife. It's not often that you have
some of the salacious details
00:39:03
that were going to come out during the course of the trial. - It was really interesting,
00:39:10
because it was my
first look at him, and I thought, "Really,
you killed your wife?
00:39:16
You're being accused
of killing your wife." 'Cause he was a very
innocuous looking young man.
00:39:23
I mean, there was
nothing especially
significant about him. He was kind of colorless,
00:39:28
and just nothing there
that you would think would have that kind
of evil about him.
00:39:38
- [Richard] Over four
years since the fire and tragic death
of Dawn Hacheney, Nick Hacheney was
finally facing trial.
00:39:46
- The prosecution's case
was pretty straightforward. It was the story that
Mr. Hacheney had told
00:39:53
is so improbable that
it couldn't be true. And thus, the only
thing that makes sense
00:39:59
is that he gave his wife
an overdose of Benadryl. He caused her to die. He set the house on fire
to mask his bad actions,
00:40:12
and he wouldn't
have gotten caught, but for the fact that he
cheated on his wife with all
00:40:16
of these women, and
he finally got caught. The defense case was, this was all a terrible,
tragic accident.
00:40:26
And this man over here is
really a grieving widower. - So the defense case was, "Nope, they got it
right the first time."
00:40:33
She died of basically
the laryngeal spasm and died in the
fire as a result. - [Richard] But the prosecution
had uncovered evidence
00:40:44
that proved a laryngeal
spasm was impossible. - Laryngeal spasm
is extremely rare,
00:40:51
and it really is
usually when there is an explosion like a bomb
or something of that nature.
00:40:59
It doesn't really fit the
facts of the fire in this case. - [Richard] The only possibility
00:41:05
that this had
happened would've been if there was a massive
explosion of propane
00:41:09
from a leaky cylinder. - The tanks were examined. They were completely
full of propane.
00:41:15
There were no cracks, there
were no seals that were broken, and so they didn't even
vent during the fire.
00:41:24
So it's not as if the tanks
just spontaneously blew up. We also looked at
the manufacturer
00:41:31
and asked questions,
quality control questions, things of that nature. And for that model
of propane tank,
00:41:40
the seals had failed exactly
zero times in the history of that particular model.
00:41:46
[suspenseful music] - [Richard] According
to prosecutors, no leaks meant no explosion,
and so no laryngeal spasm.
00:41:56
Therefore, Dawn
must have been dead before the fire took hold. What's more, there was evidence
00:42:04
that the fire had been
started deliberately. - If you look at the pictures, you can see there's not
just wrapping papers,
00:42:12
but there's newspapers
stuffed all around her, stuffed under her body,
and so the the fire experts
00:42:22
had indicated that newspaper
is a great accelerant, and all he had to
do was put newspaper
00:42:29
and other paper in
the bedroom, light it, and it would be a
fantastic accelerant.
00:42:35
- [Richard] The evidence
against Nick Hacheney was mounting up, but
he gave nothing away.
00:42:41
- When Mr. Hacheney was
at the defense table, he would sit quietly,
almost motionless
00:42:48
through the whole proceeding. - He believed that he
was gonna be acquitted. I would note, too, there
was an interesting thing
00:42:55
that happened when
I was preparing. I was getting ready to
do closing argument, and we were on a break.
00:43:03
We were at recess, and I was
standing at the podium looking at my notes, and he walked by,
00:43:09
and said, "My life
is in your hands. And I really hope
you understand that when you do your
closing argument."
00:43:18
And I thought to myself, "Even now he's trying
to manipulate women." - [Richard] The trial
lasted for seven weeks.
00:43:28
The jury delivered their verdict on the 26th of December, 2002, five years to the day of
Dawn Hacheney's death.
00:43:39
- So we brought him back in, and I was the first person
that got to see the verdict.
00:43:47
So I'm looking at this, and I'm just going, "Oh my
God, they found him guilty." There is only one sentence
in Washington state law,
00:43:57
and that is life in prison without the
possibility of parole. - [Richard] Justice
had finally caught up
00:44:05
with Nick Hacheney, and he would end up
at the state prison in Monroe, Washington
to serve his sentence.
00:44:11
[cell door slams] - When I found out
about the verdict, my first thought is, "Why?
00:44:16
If you didn't wanna be
married to her, divorce. That's simpler. Why did you have to murder
her?" That was my first thought.
00:44:23
And then there's a lot of
other thoughts I had on him that I'm not gonna share, but "I hope you rot"
was my thinking.
00:44:30
[suspenseful music] - This man killed his wife. He killed her in a way
that caused her to suffer.
00:44:41
By all accounts, she
was a sweet, innocent, loving wife who never
would've guessed
00:44:49
what her husband
was about, ever. Yeah, she deserved so
much better than him. - It's such a human story.
00:45:00
And it's so sad that you
know this lovely lady who did nothing but absolutely
adore her husband had to die
00:45:09
because of a pastor who
wanted too much power. - It was a wrong
place, wrong time,
00:45:19
wrong marriage, wrong man. So he's where he belongs. - When Dawn Hacheney's
body was found
00:45:34
in her burned-down home, everyone assumed the
fire was an accident, and so was her death.
00:45:40
But her body revealed tiny clues that something more
sinister had happened. There was no soot in her airways
00:45:47
or carbon monoxide in her blood. She had died before
the fire broke out. Four years after her death,
00:45:55
Dawn Hacheney's body
finally revealed the truths her husband
Nick had tried to conceal.
00:46:02
Dawn had as much as five
times the normal dose of Benadryl in her body. He had asphyxiated her
with a plastic bag,
00:46:11
so with a mystery
surrounding her death solved, justice was duly served. [suspenseful music]