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brand [Music] [Music] never [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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thanks for telling a [Music] friend it's the end of July getting ready to cruise on into August and it's
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all true crme garage episodes download the Stitcher app or for just some of them maybe you just want some of them
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enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
00:03:58
crime [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] one of the top reasons the people Firearms is for
00:04:31
protection protecting themselves their loved ones and their homes from the dangers beyond their
00:04:39
walls keeping the bad outside no one ever wants to have to deal with a home invasion by a dangerous
00:04:50
Intruder in today's case we have just that a young couple expecting to be safe and secure in their own home when they
00:04:59
hear someone breaking into to their house the husband grabs his gun and confronts the
00:05:07
Intruder but something goes wrong and instead of the Intruder being shot the husband and the wife are both shot with
00:05:16
their own gun one of them will not survive the incident the other is left to answer a
00:05:25
lot of questions this is true crime garage and this is the case of Heidi [Music]
00:05:44
ferus We Begin several of our shows with the 911 calls that signal the beginning
00:05:50
of law enforcement's attention to a crime of course the call for help usually indicates that something is very
00:05:58
very wrong and this case there were two 911 calls from different people two different callers asking for help at the
00:06:06
same crime scene the audio for these calls has not been released but the transcripts have the first call was made
00:06:14
to the Ramsay County Emergency Communication Center on April 25th 2010 the call came from 1794 West
00:06:25
minihaha Avenue in the city of St Paul min inota this was a residential neighborhood in which the small Bungalow
00:06:34
style homes were packed together in fairly close proximity the caller we would later learn was a 25-year-old
00:06:43
woman named Heidi ferus yeah Heidi ferus is married to Nick ferus and they live in a house that they are purchasing they
00:06:52
they own the house correct so this first 911 call it's pretty short and really the only information that's communicated
00:07:00
to dispatch by Heidi is that a somebody's breaking into their home and B she's trying to communicate with them
00:07:09
her location their address and it never really fully gets out in this first call
00:07:15
what ends up happening is there's a loud noise Heidi or somebody yells no and then the call ends abruptly so this
00:07:23
leaves dispatch with wondering okay well what's going on there and where exactly
00:07:28
is this Place located they tried to call her back several times but this is not successful then a second 911 call came
00:07:37
in from the same address the caller this time was a male we were not able to find
00:07:44
anything that would tell us how much time elapsed between these two different calls well the reason why is cuz police
00:07:52
have released the time of Nick's call but not of Heidi's call right this is a crucial piece of information that would
00:07:59
be very helpful for us to know but it's not been released all that has been reported is that the second 911 call
00:08:07
came in as squad cars were still responding to the scene and what information we do have here Captain is
00:08:16
that the second 911 call came in at about 6:30 a.m. and what we can make out from this call is that it's coming from
00:08:25
a man's home who was violently invaded by an intruder and the man's wife was shot in the melee
00:08:33
she appears to him the man on the phone to be dead he sounds hysterical and who wouldn't be an unknown as salent was in
00:08:42
his residence his wife was shot and he was shot it all likely went down very fast and as we said Captain this is
00:08:50
supposed to be a quiet Sunday morning he's calling 911 and he stays on the phone until the officers arrive on the
00:08:58
scene well eyewitnesses in the neighborhood also state that at the time that it would have been daylight or
00:09:05
almost daylight at that hour and what we're going to see is as the police investigation begins there was a
00:09:12
frustrating lack of detail to go on what actually went down in that house in the
00:09:18
early morning hours of that Sunday before we get into the nitty-gritty of this case I've got to say Heidi and Nick
00:09:26
ferus this seems like just a totally normal everyday American couple Heidi Erikson grew up in Falcon Heights she
00:09:36
played basketball and tennis in high school she was in the choir and loved to draw and paint she was known for making
00:09:44
beautiful cards that she gave to her friends she was close with her two older brothers her parents describe her as a
00:09:51
very trusting but maybe a little naive Heidi and Nick met in 2003 at the Calvary Baptist this church youth group
00:10:00
right after Heidi graduated from high school they got married when Heidi was 20 years old Nick was 22 so they were
00:10:08
married for 5 years before this shooting happened Heidi recently started an administrative job at a financial
00:10:16
services firm where her father worked and in fact the two had met for coffee at work on the Friday before Heidi died
00:10:25
we know that Nick ferus well he grew up in the area as well and his family was very active in the church where Nick and
00:10:32
Heidi met in 2010 Nick was the director of operations at crew to chem dry which was a local Carpet Cleaning company by
00:10:43
the accounts of every single one of Nick and Heidi's friends and acquaintances the two had an ideal marriage they
00:10:52
enjoyed many activities like travel and biking together these were wonderful people involved at their Church even
00:10:59
working as youth group leaders they had lots of friends and loved to throw dinner parties at their home well even
00:11:06
after a decade of this crime happening I have not heard one friend family member
00:11:12
come forward and say you know what Heidi and Nick they they weren't getting along
00:11:18
they they had some problems well and that's what's so weird about this case because of the suspicions that would
00:11:23
later come out you would expect to hear some problems or expect to hear some bad
00:11:29
stuff but there just doesn't seem to be any coming from people that knew these people closest their home was a
00:11:38
three-bedroom two bath house with just a touch over 1500 square ft they purchased
00:11:44
the home in 2007 when police arrived at the fcus home Heidi fcus was dead lying in the
00:11:52
entryway to the kitchen Nick was wounded no one else was present according to the
00:11:58
first news reports this is published the same day that this all went down this is
00:12:03
from the Pioneer Press Twin Cities 27-year-old Nick Fergus told police that he and his wife heard an intruder near
00:12:12
the front door of their home this was very early on Sunday morning again we don't know the time of the first 911
00:12:20
call made by Heidi but the second 911 call from Nick was at 6:30 according to Nick both he and Heidi
00:12:28
went downstairs to investigate Nick armed with his shotgun there was a struggle and Heidi and Nick were both
00:12:37
shot quote during the struggle Nick fergus's gun went off and Heidi was shot the struggle continued and Nicholas was
00:12:46
shot in the leg with his gun this from a St Paul police spokesman the Intruder fled nothing was
00:12:55
taken from the home this is according to police police were able to recover the shotgun from the ferus home and while
00:13:04
Heidi ferus was dead when First Responders arrived on the scene Nick ferus who was shot in the leg was
00:13:10
treated and released from Region's Hospital real quick back to the the gunshots because the the police
00:13:17
spokesman says he was speaking from Nick's account of the events this this is weird because on the 911 call Nick
00:13:28
said that he didn't know who shot him now it sounds like the only gun that was fired was in fact Nicks Nick told police
00:13:37
that he did not know the Intruder and although they scouted the area police had no luck locating the person who
00:13:46
broke into the home Nick described the Intruder as a male of unknown race 6 feet to 6' 2 in tall 200 to 220 lb he
00:13:57
said the man was wearing a dark colored hooded sweatshirt there was no sign of forced entry into the home police would
00:14:05
say only that the home was quote secured when they arrived there was a witness this is
00:14:13
Clifford Mitchell who lives down the street said that he heard a car pull out real fast screeching tires in the alley
00:14:21
behind the fcus is home he estimated it was about 6:15 or 6:20 a.m. Clifford said he did not see the car he only
00:14:31
heard the vehicle the problem with this eyewitness is it's a heavily densed area
00:14:36
the other thing too Captain is there's no public report out there on the laps of time between the the two gunshots
00:14:43
right we don't have anybody saying that they heard the gunshots now we know they
00:14:48
obviously they did take place we just don't have anybody else to tell us when they took place if we go off of the 911
00:14:55
calls that would lead us to believe High 's call Ended as the first shot went off
00:15:02
or just before the first shot went off and we know based off of what Nick tells 911 that he's already been shot by the
00:15:10
time he's called back to 911 right so sometime between the start of Heidi's call and the start of Nick's call we
00:15:19
have two gunshots first Heidi shot and then Nick shot this according to our only living witness our only living
00:15:27
victim yeah so let's simplify this the this couple is up in their bedroom the husband Nick hears something says the
00:15:36
front door now does the front door mean the front door to Nick cuz you know how some people have a front door and then
00:15:43
they have a door that they use all the time and then that's what they call the front door I cannot tell you what what
00:15:50
door means what to this man I I don't know him but seeing the layout of his home it would be hard to confuse the
00:15:57
front entry way with with any other door to the house good that clears it up so he wakes up his wife hey wake up I think
00:16:05
somebody's trying to get in the house mhm and then he claims that they both go downstairs mhm she obviously has her
00:16:13
phone I don't know if he has his phone at the time they he sees the Intruder he struggles with this
00:16:22
Intruder he looks to me about maybe Nick him he looks maybe Me Maybe 510 or so so
00:16:31
he's wrestling with a guy that's larger than he is heavier than he is during that
00:16:37
wrestling the gun goes off which shoots his wife in the back mhm the gun then goes off and shoots him in the leg mhm
00:16:46
her wounds being fatal his not fatal at all I wouldn't say that they're not there weren't severe yeah so regarding
00:16:55
his wound this was a tricky thing to to figure because the reports just say hey he was treated that day and released
00:17:03
from the hospital so when you hear that you're like oh you know it's uh merely a
00:17:07
flesh wound right right but there have been conflicting reports there are some people out there that said hey this dude
00:17:15
showed me the gunshot later and it was gruesome and then there's other people that do say the same thing that that you
00:17:22
would expect oh it was just it just grazed him right so there's conflicting reports I've not seen any pictures or
00:17:30
anything or any detailed Hospital reports to to get a better idea on what this looks like but if we are to believe
00:17:38
Nick's story it sounds like the two of them go down the steps almost the stairs that almost the same time she's armed
00:17:46
with her cell phone he's armed with a shotgun and when they get to the foot of the stairs they're encountered by the
00:17:53
Intruder and now we got two men wrestling over a big gun right fights on now what's interesting though is why is
00:18:03
she going down there to me it's like hey there's an intruder I got my gun you call
00:18:11
911 right right call 911 I got my gun let's do this he claims that she he was trying to get her to go to the garage
00:18:22
yeah or or at least outside in the backyard which makes no sense to me and again what kind of noises are you
00:18:32
hearing if you if you're just hearing a jiggle of a door handle maybe that sounds like a a one
00:18:40
person if it sounded like more people maybe that would be a reason to run to the garage or to run outside it
00:18:49
just doesn't make a lot of sense to me and then you have this struggle that takes place I would assume that this
00:18:57
Intruder wouldn't know know what kind of gun he was wrestling away how many shots
00:19:02
that it would be able to fire but all of a sudden it's like one shot kills somebody the other shot wounds the other
00:19:10
person and then the person decided to then take off from my teachings when I was working in security and everything
00:19:18
that I learned there the majority of the time believe it or not they do say the safest place for a person to to get to
00:19:25
in a situation like this would be to get out of the house you want to especially
00:19:30
knowing that it's it's the light of day is coming about right you want to be out
00:19:36
in public or or at least in the view of other people of witnesses and you're less likely to have something bad happen
00:19:44
to you in that situation now you have variables that are going to change that given this situation where you are
00:19:52
arming yourself you're looking like you're ready to defend yourself I probably would not instruct anybody to
00:20:00
go outside I mean we have the Intruder who's believed to be on the ground level let's keep everybody who's not armed
00:20:07
upstairs and I will go down and try to stand our ground here yeah lock the bathroom or if there's a master suite
00:20:16
lock the the bedroom lock the bathroom door hide in here make the call that's why rich people have Panic rooms because
00:20:24
they they can barricade themselves in call for help and not have to encounter the Intruder now here what I what I love
00:20:33
about this and and often people will buy a shotgun for the purpose of protecting
00:20:38
their home everybody knows the universal shotgun sound you can usually make that
00:20:43
sound and if a per hears that and they're inside your home they are not effing with you anymore they are out
00:20:50
picking them up putting them down and they're they're gone right [ __ ] that gun
00:20:54
that's a universal sound for get out of my house and 90% % of the time that's what goes down my guess here is if this
00:21:02
goes down the way Nick said it did there's a chance that this Intruder did not see the gun until they were already
00:21:09
fighting over the gun if that makes any sense right cuz he says they're coming down the stairs M and that's when boom
00:21:16
bump into the Intruder now we have a fight going on one of the problems though with this story is we have no
00:21:23
sign of force entry right well and then listen to this so I was looking for okay I will any
00:21:31
public report for when these gunshots went off right because then you go well if they're not going to tell me what
00:21:38
time both 911 calls took place I'm curious how how much earlier than the the second call did these gunshots go
00:21:47
off but there is no public report for that there is this report a nextor neighbor his name is Brandon OK Conor he
00:21:55
says that he heard a man yelling who sounded like he was in pain so presumably this is Nick's 911 call we we
00:22:03
can tell by the transcript that Nick is yelling I mean he he's calling for help he's saying everything you would think
00:22:10
anticipate somebody to be saying during this situation we need to go over that transcript a little bit clearer the
00:22:17
neighbor makes no reference to the loud gunshots only that he heard a man yelling yeah then you wonder they need
00:22:25
to do ballistic tests to see how what range when she was hit with the Heidi being hit with the the gunshots so the
00:22:34
day after the shooting police released some more information that was interesting Heidi had died after being
00:22:41
shot once in the back with her husband's shotgun a second shot from the same gun
00:22:47
this is in this report grazed Nick's leg the gun was fired only twice so both both it was fired only two times one
00:22:57
hitting the wife one hitting Nick in the leg MH according to Nick Heidi had been
00:23:02
shot as she was running out of the room where he was fighting with the Intruder but police were unable to detect any
00:23:10
signs of a struggle inside the home which was processed as a crime scene and they processed this crime scene for 2
00:23:17
days following the murder it's also not clear to us how long this struggle was it could have been grab the gun you know
00:23:25
Push Pull shot sh the guy takes off running you know a struggle for 10 seconds 20 seconds mhm and I do want to
00:23:35
be clear Heidi's death certificate does read cause of death shotgun wound to the
00:23:39
back manner of death homicide police collected DNA and fingerprint information from Nick to
00:23:47
help them sort out any physical evidence collected at the scene this of course is
00:23:52
standard procedure to help them isolate any stranger or in Intruder DNA or Prince the police spokesman told the
00:24:01
media that Nick was not considered a suspect a couple of days after Heidi died the presscot wind of some
00:24:09
information that police said was unrelated to the case but those following the case found it very
00:24:15
interesting they found it very relatable the fcus home was under foreclosure in fact the Sheriff's Office
00:24:23
was scheduled to take possession of the house on the morning of Monday April 26th this would be the day after
00:24:32
Heidi was killed the fasses were being evicted it turned out that the house had been sold in June of 2009 in a
00:24:42
foreclosure sale it appeared that Heidi and Nick were living there despite this sale and the eviction notices that they
00:24:50
were receiving for months they were living there for months without paying anything the fuses were going to be
00:24:56
homeless now what does this have to do with the Intruder who broke in well it was noted by police that the house was
00:25:04
not all packed up as one would expect right it looked totally normal there's Furniture there's personal possessions
00:25:12
there's framed photos on display pictures on the walls dressers are full with clothes right because also if
00:25:18
everything was packed up and you go well there was a struggle but there's no sign
00:25:22
of a struggle of course there's not you know or not obvious signs of a struggle like holes in a wall or anything because
00:25:30
everything's packed up but that's not the case with their house it appears captain that there weren't even boxes or
00:25:37
crates to be packed up MH and Heidi had not told anyone about an eviction or moving or anything some people
00:25:46
procrastinate though well after Nick was released from the hospital this on the 26th he and his parents sat down with
00:25:53
Heidi's parents and they told them about the eviction at that time Nick assured them that Heidi knew about this but John
00:26:03
and Linda Erikson her parents they weren't buying it Heidi's parents told the media that their daughter had not
00:26:10
known that she was about to be evicted right so this becomes a possible motive Linda says that Heidi talked about
00:26:18
looking into a short sale of the home uh this would be apparently because she wanted to live in a different house
00:26:27
have some kids raise the kids in a different home mhm in other words they were considering selling the house even
00:26:34
though they knew they would not make any money off of the sale they've not been in the house very long the thought here
00:26:41
Linda Heidi's mom says was that they were going to downsize to an apartment this so they could save up money for a
00:26:49
different house apparently Nick was present for that conversation and her parents would later
00:26:56
say that Nick remained totally silent during that entire conversation on Tuesday April 27th the
00:27:04
sheriff's department was on site as soon as the crime scene tape was down this to
00:27:11
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00:29:42
all right cheers mates cheers Nick Fergus told police that he struggled with a man who broke into his
00:29:51
home well eventually he managed to come up with some details about this man in mid May police released a sketch of a
00:29:59
suspect based off of what Nick told them this was not your typical sketch compiled by a police sketch artist this
00:30:07
was created by a private artist hired by Nick's attorney is not known why Nick and his attorney chose to use a private
00:30:16
artist rather than a trained police sketch artist to create the rendering and the sheriff's department said that
00:30:23
investigators preferred police prepared sketches now even more strange remember Nick
00:30:30
could not provide police with a detailed description of his attacker including the man's race but in this sketch that
00:30:40
he paid for we see a drawing of a Blackman with very detailed facial features and with the sketch came a new
00:30:49
detail that the attacker was estimated to be between 40 and 60 years old it seems a month after after the attack
00:30:58
Nick now magically realizes I did get a good look at this cat and my memory of this event is better now than it was the
00:31:06
first 48 hours after my wife was shot in the back I do want to point out captain
00:31:12
that the police did receive a few calls after the release of the sketch now about a month after Heidi's
00:31:20
death reports came out that police executed a search warrant to collect the couple's Financial records
00:31:28
luckily for us the local papers published excerpts of this warrant and police found correspondents that
00:31:34
indicated that the couple was underwater financially it in fact it read severe financial problems including for closure
00:31:44
unpaid bills large credit card balances and a lifestyle of wanting spending outside of their means the media had a
00:31:52
field day with the won spending terminology this was the phrase of of several headlines the affidavit also
00:32:00
confirmed that Heidi ferus did not know about the couple's Financial plight or that they were being evicted from their
00:32:08
home apparently the two recently took a trip to Hawaii which Heidi told her mother Nick paid for with some bonuses
00:32:17
he received from work Captain you went to Hawaii a few years back tell us is that a cheap
00:32:24
trip I'm sorry I'm the worst person asking it was actually not that expensive not as expensive as I thought
00:32:32
it would be but it was it was still a few th000 but I always heard when I was younger oh if you want to take a trip to
00:32:39
Hawaii you're going to spend 10 grand or so and it was not even close to that regardless a few thousand doll from
00:32:45
people that are not paying their mortgage correct and the house was full of brand new purchases recreational
00:32:53
items that they obviously could not afford it appears that Nick handled the finances and they chronically overspent
00:33:02
well and we hear constantly from her family that there was just kind of a NE naive uh that she went through life with
00:33:09
Heidi and so maybe once they got married it was like oh well my husband takes care of the finances and I trust him so
00:33:17
we're fine per the affidavit it looks like Nick is trying to cover up the mounting debts even from his wife and we
00:33:27
have words like investigators interviewed several members of Heidi's family and her Close Associates they
00:33:34
found no evidence that Heidi was in any way aware of the dire Financial Straits the couple was in they found no evidence
00:33:43
that Heidi was in any way aware of the eviction or the foreclosure on their home yeah and why is this important
00:33:51
because I think one side her family and friends are saying look she had no clue about this and this is establishing a
00:33:58
motive for Nick why would he want to kill his wife they didn't seem to argue about anything well did he get his head
00:34:06
so underwater and that she was going to have to uh deal with these consequences that
00:34:13
might have led I've seen this happen with plenty of families family businesses and things like that where
00:34:20
they're going under and the other spouse has no clue of what's happening and once
00:34:26
this all comes out it's lies upon lies upon lies and it's almost very similar to when somebody is having a long time
00:34:35
affair with somebody it's the mountain of lies that this person told you that gives you reason to go I can't trust
00:34:43
this person anymore I I have to leave them yeah and this is what is very difficult for us on the outside looking
00:34:51
in because we don't know the confidential if you will conversation that were had between husband and wife I
00:35:00
don't know that we will ever be able to say with 100% certainty that Heidi didn't know any of this I think what we
00:35:07
can base our thoughts and our speculation off of is what the police and investigators are saying to the
00:35:15
public what Heidi's family is saying to the public and the police are saying look we couldn't find one shred of
00:35:22
evidence that Heidi was aware that any of this stuff was going on right what we also have here this is is a bit strange
00:35:29
this is a little more evidence that Nick was covering this mess around the time of the
00:35:35
Foreclosure the couple's insurance agent his name is Kurt Brown received a notice
00:35:41
that the couple's home insurance was cancelled because of the Foreclosure now brown was an old college friend of
00:35:49
Heidi's parents Brown called Nick and he says hey I got this notice about your home insurance being cancelled Nick
00:35:58
tells him quote a teller or somebody was stealing his paychecks and he was working to resolve that issue with the
00:36:07
bank and brown would later say this look he believed the young man but he also said in all of his years of working in
00:36:17
the business he had never had anything like that ever happen well and also being somebody that worked at a bank if
00:36:25
there was some suspicion that uh teller was taking this money from this individual and they caught the teller
00:36:32
the teller one would be fired immediately and they would refund the money immediately until they could
00:36:39
figure it out they don't just go well we got to hold this money back and and before we figure things out the bank
00:36:47
will front the money to you and and make sure that they do a proper investigation
00:36:52
the day before she died Heidi and a friend went to the mall of a America and did some shopping together the friend
00:36:59
said later that that Heidi talked about wanting to have a burger for dinner and getting a pedicure the next day her
00:37:06
friend dropped her back off at her home around 6:00 p.m. this was on that Saturday Okay so she is killed Heidi is
00:37:14
killed 12 hours later if she was planning on spending time at a nail salon on Sunday then it doesn't sound
00:37:21
like she was planning on packing up and moving out remind you they were scheduled to be evicted from that home
00:37:28
on Monday she's killed in the early morning hours of Sunday and again no boxes no crates to me it doesn't look
00:37:37
like well I'll tell you what we know that the couple made let me count them oh zero arrangements to live elsewhere
00:37:46
right they've made no arrangements with Mom or Dad or in-laws or anyone to go anywhere after that Sunday I think the
00:37:56
question for for a lot of people is is this motive enough is this motive for murder and I would argue yes because
00:38:04
we've seen this in other cases before I I think you could argue like the Christian Longo case with the guy
00:38:12
getting his head so underwater that this becomes a rational way out for this this person now I don't
00:38:22
think there's a lot of evidence to show that Nick received Leed a bunch of money
00:38:27
or that there was some insurance claim because I I I just don't see that and and after all these years nothing has
00:38:35
come out stating well once she died he collected half a million dollars or something right but I think it's motive
00:38:44
enough that this person wanted to get out of this situation and if this individual is lying to his wife we're
00:38:53
talking about not one lie not two lies not three lies possibly thousands of lies to lead them
00:39:00
up to this point what else is he lying about what other secrets were in his life that he didn't want his wife
00:39:11
to find out about this reminds me a lot of the John Liss case where we have an individual who is living a lie and he's
00:39:19
not just living the LIE from society he's living that lie in front of his kids his wife and his mother yeah good
00:39:26
point and what did John Liss do he even pretended to go off to work every day to
00:39:31
a job he no longer had he go sit on a damn park bench and read the newspaper because he had to pretend to be gone for
00:39:39
a certain amount of time each day so that his family continued to believe that he had a job that he was paying for
00:39:45
the house that they lived in that everything was fine that's what I do every week then you have to wonder too
00:39:51
like I mean this is psychologically this case is is Beyond bizarre because then you have to
00:39:59
wonder is there some kind of weird level where Heidi never ever knew that Nick was a bad guy Heidi never ever knew in
00:40:09
the course of their relationship in the entirety of her life that Nick wasn't who he said he
00:40:16
was to the point that he led her to believe that there was an intruder she's shot in the back she dies she may if she
00:40:25
didn't know any anything wrong was going on if she didn't know that they were about to be evicted she never knew that
00:40:31
and she never knew that it was Nick's fault and a really good point that was brought up I was watching brain scratch
00:40:38
one of our favorites uh our buddy John and he brought up the point that it wouldn't be that hard if your wife is
00:40:48
deep into sleep and we know this is let's say this is happening closer to 6 a.m. it would wouldn't be that hard if
00:40:57
you were let's say you were up all night or you woke up early or whatever it was
00:41:03
it wouldn't be that hard to shake her and immediately with no sounds with no nothing you could convince somebody hey
00:41:12
hey I heard some noises I think somebody's breaking into her house and right away their brain would go into
00:41:19
that mode okay what do we got to do you know what I mean MH so I I don't think it would be that hard to convince
00:41:26
somebody that something bad was happening even though there wasn't possibly any evidence of that well and
00:41:33
here there's the other problem we need some evidence of the Intruder right because with the Intruder Theory
00:41:42
investigation if the authorities are to believe that Nick really did struggle up
00:41:46
close and personal with the Intruder you would think he would be able to describe
00:41:52
the man that he fought with or at least what the man was wearing and we don't get any type of really good
00:41:58
description until almost a month later right and here's a statement to the media that says investigators have tried
00:42:06
to locate Witnesses but have not interviewed anyone they canvas the area they didn't interview anyone who said
00:42:13
they saw an intruder go into the home or flee from the home and as you pointed out Captain the neighborhood is densely
00:42:20
populated and it was light at the time of the incident so police felt well yeah they stated publicly we really believe
00:42:29
somebody would have seen something well not just somebody would see something but Nick would have seen something
00:42:35
because it would have been lighter out MH you go look if you if your house if you have all the lights off in your
00:42:41
house and you go down at 3:00 a.m. and you run into an intruder you might not see anything but you're talking 6:00 and
00:42:50
everybody's telling you that it's pretty much daylight already out there you run
00:42:55
into this Intruder you're going to know and you struggle with him you're going to know his race you're going to know
00:43:02
roughly the size roughly his weight what he was wearing I I just don't buy that once you're on this 911 call it's I
00:43:12
don't know it's almost like he planned this out so perfectly but a couple things he just
00:43:21
wasn't prepared for well what did the man look like I don't know what was he wearing I don't know maybe a
00:43:29
sweater it just seems like once he got to that point of the story I mean what a great thing hey you go to the garage you
00:43:39
call 911 once you realize that she's on the phone boom that's when you shoot her
00:43:45
mhm because now we have audio evidence that something happened and then now you got to shoot
00:43:52
yourself and but then on on the 911 call they a he's saying somebody shot my wife
00:43:59
somebody shot me you're the one that was holding the gun you're the one that shot
00:44:04
her you're the one that shot yourself even if you're in a struggle with somebody don't you think that would have
00:44:10
came up in the 911 conversation my wife shot who shot her I was struggling with an intruder and the gun went off that
00:44:19
information is left out in the 911 call so it seems to me like he playing certain things out pretty well but other
00:44:27
things he couldn't figure out and didn't even wasn't even able to come up with a
00:44:32
plan till a month later yeah so this affidavit did have some other interesting information in it it states
00:44:41
that Nick told police he was upstairs with his wife when they quote heard noises downstairs and they thought
00:44:48
someone was breaking into the residence he says he grabbed his shotgun and they both walked down the stairs at this time
00:44:55
she calls 911 when they were walking toward the back door to escape to the backyard they encountered a person
00:45:04
wearing a hooded sweatshirt Nicholas stated he struggled with the person in the shotgun discharged striking his wife
00:45:12
Nicholas stated he continued to struggle over the shotgun and it discharged again
00:45:17
striking him in the leg he said that the person ran away he said he went to his wife and he used her phone to call 911
00:45:27
again there was no explanation of how or why the first 911 call was made by Heidi
00:45:35
and and why it was disconnected and I think that's the key thing why was that first call
00:45:42
disconnected and I also want to make sure that we talk about some reasons why the Intruder Theory here does not track
00:45:50
to me anyway well again okay so let's just stay on that one point real quick it sounds or what the dispatchers have
00:45:59
stated what police have stated that there's this loud noise and a a no by somebody a scream of no most people when
00:46:08
they hear this I guess claim that it makes the most sense that the gun went off in Nick's story he doesn't reiterate
00:46:18
that that all she's on the phone and that's when she was shot well the other thing too if she's shot at a total
00:46:25
surprise to her and she's the one on the call and Nick says I mean his words were
00:46:30
he went to his wife so I'm assuming they're at some distance you pointed out something good I'd love to know the uh
00:46:37
if if we could piece together the trajectory of that shot right and piece that together because here's the problem
00:46:45
we don't know how the phone got disconnected again that's that appears to me to be an action that somebody had
00:46:51
to make she didn't just get shot in the back fall to the ground and then the phone hangs itself up right she hung up
00:46:58
the phone he hung up the phone the Intruder ran over and grabbed the phone and hung it up on let me get this for
00:47:04
you right hang up so here's some other things that don't add up to me Captain and and you chime in where you when and
00:47:11
where you want to but I have a I got a list for you okay so one no sign of forced entry police tried to determine
00:47:19
how the Intruder could have got into the home they couldn't find any evidence of
00:47:24
how the intruder made their way into the home right let me let me uh chime in real quick no Fingerprints of course the
00:47:32
person could have been wearing gloves they didn't find any they did some touch DNA uh forensic evidence nothing there's
00:47:43
no scratch marks there's no broken locks there's no broken glass right and the the other difficult thing for the
00:47:49
Intruder as well is the front entryway to the home where Nick said they heard the intruder
00:47:56
has a vestibule you know it's one of those there's a there's an outside door then a small entryway then there's a
00:48:02
second door into the home this means the Intruder would have had to get through two doors and yet left no
00:48:09
trace the time of day this is confusing too why would the Intruder wait for it to be light out before entering a home
00:48:20
to Rob it's easier to see it's well this is a Sunday morning yeah and you know some people get up early they like to
00:48:27
drink coffee maybe they're getting the paper off their front porch or their driveway and nobody sees a man sprinting
00:48:34
from the home after two shotgun blast then we have a pair we pair that with the report from a neighbor about
00:48:43
screeching car tires from the alley but this alley was behind the home the Intruder according to to Nick came
00:48:51
through the front door not the back door closest to the alley he would have to run around the house out the gate and
00:48:58
then to his car the only reason why this somewhat makes sense to me is that he could have entered from the front or
00:49:05
possibly knew that these houses would be easier to enter to the front you could go through the house grab a couple
00:49:11
things run through the back and now you're at your uh Escape vehicle mhm nothing was stolen from the house we
00:49:20
also have the police report stating no signs of a struggle now mind you they processed the home for 48 hours so they
00:49:27
spent a good deal of time looking at the crime scene the location of Heidi's body
00:49:33
is questionable too Heidi was found dead in the kitchen entryway this is not near
00:49:38
the front door area where Nick alleged the struggle went down to get to the kitchen from the foyer you would have to
00:49:45
pass through other rooms now yes it is possible that Heidi was shot in the foyer and then managed to run or crawl
00:49:53
to the spot where she died trying to get away from her shooter but on the 911 call she made she told the dispatcher
00:50:01
quote someone is trying to break into my house and quote not someone broke in and
00:50:06
my husband is fighting with him in front of me right then we have Heidi never told the dispatcher that she actually
00:50:15
saw anyone or that anyone was actually in the home which look that's that's the big red flag here you just said it she's
00:50:24
on the phone at the same time that her husband is claiming he is having altercation with the
00:50:33
Intruder and that is never stated by her it again somebody's trying to break into
00:50:40
her home is way different than a guy's in our home my my husband's struggling with this Intruder well and then you
00:50:48
have the real scary possibility that if this whole event was on purpose then plannned on killing
00:50:58
Heidi in this scenario he woke his wife up and convinced Heidi that someone really was breaking in resulting in her
00:51:08
calling 911 which she evidently believed there was an intruder because she's the one
00:51:14
that called 911 this is almost providing an alibi in a way for him to verify his
00:51:21
story because it's so smart to have her call 911 than to you call just after the fact right cuz
00:51:31
had he been the only one that called 911 and it was all after the fact don't you
00:51:35
think they'd be looking at this a whole different way and probably immediately from the get-go but again here's an
00:51:42
individual that is not good at planning and we know this because we have a he has a history of this buys a
00:51:50
house didn't plan on paying for the house you know well maybe he is good at planning and that was his plan all along
00:51:58
possibly but but again well hold on just a second cuz the thing that we have here
00:52:02
too and this is very interesting in May of 2011 this is almost a year after this
00:52:10
whole thing went down according to St Paul police department senior Commander Bill Martinez who headed up the homicide
00:52:18
unit at that time he said quote Nick has not been eliminated as a possible suspect now we know that Nick lawyered
00:52:27
up pretty quickly per the Pioneer Press Twin Cities article it says Joe fredberg
00:52:33
fergus's attorney said police have treated him as a suspect from day one and that that's why he got involved he
00:52:41
says that I believe them to be wrong and I believed from the beginning that Nick
00:52:46
was a victim and not a perpetrator but fredberg had an answer for everything as for the dire Financial
00:52:55
situation the couple was facing and the impending eviction he commented the police either negligently or
00:53:03
intentionally misrepresented his financial condition they said he was Far More in debt than he actually was he
00:53:12
said my office we did our own Financial investigation and we found no possibility for any Financial motive in
00:53:20
this type of thing furthermore he said it was totally false that Heidi did not know about the eviction saying we have
00:53:29
documentary evidence of the fact that she knew exactly what was going on in fact they were out together shortly
00:53:38
before meaning the shooting looking for a new residence yeah but they don't do they
00:53:45
have but they weren't right yeah I I want to see the realtor that showed him around she was talking about eating a
00:53:53
burger for dinner and having a pedicure here the next day I also think it's hilarious how how he says the situation
00:54:01
wasn't as bad as the police made it out to be still pretty bad but not as bad they were going to be kicked out of
00:54:07
their home with no place to go that's pretty bad and look both of their parents are are are good people with
00:54:15
homes of their own mhm if they needed if they needed somewhere to stay or possibly
00:54:23
alone right just a bed to sleep in for a couple of months Arrangements could have
00:54:28
been made and they weren't and that to me when Mom and Dad don't know that you're getting kicked out of your house
00:54:35
and you've made no plan to have a place to stay yeah I I just can't believe I can't believe that it's anything other
00:54:43
than what it actually looks like well in Nick's defense though because a lot of people say look hii was a really good
00:54:50
person and so she wouldn't have done this she wouldn't have just lived rentree she wouldn't have just spent
00:54:58
money that she didn't have there's a lot of very good people that don't pay their
00:55:05
bills that don't pay their bills there's a lot of good people that run into um reminds me I have to call the
00:55:13
electric company yes no but there's a lot of people that are just ignorant when it comes to
00:55:21
finances I learned a lot about finances as being a I would see people that were really good
00:55:27
about saving little percentages back every month I also saw guys that made six figures easily live in the negative
00:55:38
yeah so you know I've seen people that make six figures and they can't get a car
00:55:44
loan because they have collections out on them for tiny little bills that they were just unaware of they're either
00:55:53
unaware of them or they slipped through the cracks right and so the idea that they're like she's a really good person
00:56:00
that's evidence of her not knowing about their bad financial situation I don't think that's evidence
00:56:07
of that so in Nick's defense is it possible that she knew I don't think it's as easy as black and white she
00:56:13
either she either knew everything or she didn't know everything I think there's a
00:56:17
gray area right the and there's evidence of that because when she says look we don't have enough equity if we sold our
00:56:26
house we'd lose money we want to do a short sale that means that she was aware of some things happening financially and
00:56:35
so I think there was like I said this kind of gray area but I still think it's enough of a motive because it's lie
00:56:43
after lie after lie after lie I'm going to use her words to kind of confirm what
00:56:48
I think was going on and her words to this is according to her mother and the mother says that Nick was present for
00:56:57
this conversation and remained quiet he didn't say anything during the course of
00:57:02
this conversation I'm talking about the conversation where Heidi and her mother discuss the couple downsizing their life
00:57:10
moving out of their house selling their house moving into an apartment so they can save up for a home there's a few
00:57:17
problems with that they don't just love giving out new home loans to people that
00:57:22
were evicted from their first home loan right and then second of all if you are going to save up for a home and you
00:57:30
again you have these nice parents with homes of their own if you really know how broke you are you go and live with
00:57:36
Mom and Dad or you go live somewhere where you can live as cheap as possible to save up to try to write the ship no
00:57:44
she's saying we're thinking about getting an apartment that costs money too so even though this fredberg has an
00:57:52
answer for everything I think look that sounds good way to spin it positive for your client there Mr freeb but I'm going
00:57:58
to call [ __ ] MH as my man Pete Townsen would say it's an Eminence Front it's a put on detective Martinez said in
00:58:06
May of 2011 quote we have a number of questions we would like to ask him meaning Nick he hasn't been interviewed
00:58:13
for almost a year since it happened he hasn't been fully Cooperative in some of our request we have strict orders from
00:58:21
his attorney that he is not to talk to us and this is the problem I have cuz again it doesn't have to be one or the
00:58:29
other you can lawyer up and guess what if this happened and there's all these question marks and they and somebody
00:58:38
said well sir we think you you set this up and you killed your wife goddamn right I'm getting a lawyer but if I
00:58:45
actually care about figuring out who did this there you go then I'm going to say
00:58:52
hey we need to be open to answer all all the questions and what his lawyer stated
00:58:58
was well they just want to talk to him and to try to find inconsistencies in his story to trip him up no [ __ ]
00:59:06
Sherlock that's what they do well I tell but hold on but you have the power to to
00:59:14
go to the police if he give if he gave a just a the smallest bits of shits about his wife he would then go to
00:59:24
police and say any question that you have submit that to my lawyer and I'll answer it the best of my ability and
00:59:32
that would give them time to know he he doesn't remember this or he doesn't know
00:59:38
this so he can't answer that but you would be assisting with the police but that's not what you've done right you
00:59:45
have moved on with your life you have married somebody else you started a family you're probably lying to her
00:59:52
every chance you can get and when when your head sinks above underwater again you're probably going to try to
01:00:00
find a way out too well see I I have three really big questions in this case and really I have one very simple answer
01:00:09
that covers all three of these bases one why under the advice of council did broke ass Nick refuse to talk to
01:00:18
investigators after his initial interview why is Nick not out pounding the pavement looking for the man
01:00:25
responsible for his wife's death why is Nick not pounding on the table demanding
01:00:30
that police find the man responsible for the death of his wife that's because old
01:00:35
nasty Nick knows right where to find that man he sees him every day when he looks in the mirror Nick continues to
01:00:43
this day to refuse to respond to Media requests for interviews or comments fredberg is no longer his attorney Nick
01:00:52
cuz he couldn't pay him right Nick got married again this was in August of 2012 but a web sleuther posted a link to
01:01:00
court filings in Minnesota that the new wife recently filed for divorce surprise
01:01:07
surprise and and she should go to police if if you married Nick ferus right first
01:01:15
of all sorry that became your last name because I'd hate to meet somebody and be
01:01:21
like oh they seem like a great person what's your last name Fergus I going to change my name to that no way it's a
01:01:27
[ __ ] ass name change it but if he was lying to you about things and lying to you about financial records or lying to
01:01:36
you about anything you should go to police because that would confirm their suspicions of his uh ability to lie and
01:01:46
and and she should do that well frankly I think it's shameful that Nick ferus is
01:01:51
not in prison I believe there is ample evidence to obtain at least a manslaughter conviction here in this
01:01:58
case and police are asking anyone with information on this case to call them at 651266
01:02:09
[Music] [Applause] 5650 want to thank you guys so much for joining us here in the garage and if
01:02:25
you'd like to help out the garage go to iTunes and leave us a five-star review leave us some Stars we need Stars we we
01:02:34
need as many stars as possible any kind words that you can leave us for a nice review really does help the show well
01:02:43
what I prefer is when they leave five stars but then they say like some shitty stuff something nasty about so leave
01:02:50
five stars and then be like but Nick kind of sucks he really sucks he he five star sucks he five star sucks and the
01:02:58
captain Oh I would give him negative stars but but we're going to give you five stars anyways all right until next
01:03:06
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