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True Crime Documentary - He Hired His Own Best Friend to Kill His Wife · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: She came home, not knowing that there were two killers waiting.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: In her house for her.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: Nine one one.
• 0:16
  Speaker 4: What is your emergency?
• 0:17
  Speaker 5: My friend Teresa Severs, she's a doctor and she's dead.
• 0:21
  Speaker 6: On the spare.
• 0:24
  Speaker 7: Hi, I'm doctor Teresa Severs.
• 0:26
  Speaker 8: And as I promised you, I was going to be
• 0:28
  Speaker 8: bringing you different modalities of feeling.
• 0:31
  Speaker 9: Doctor Seavers had a very strong personality. A lot of
• 0:34
  Speaker 9: people found her polarizing. They loved her or they didn't.
• 0:37
  Speaker 7: I want to enjoy my life like it is now.
• 0:39
  Speaker 10: This was almost the perfect crime.
• 0:41
  Speaker 11: And she just said, I know what happened, and how
• 0:45
  Speaker 11: did you kill her?
• 0:48
  Speaker 12: Little Chelas?
• 0:49
  Speaker 13: And then said one question no one's answered. Why? Why?
• 0:57
  Speaker 13: Why is Teresa Siver's dead?
• 1:06
  Speaker 14: Pure and simple?
• 1:07
  Speaker 15: A tale of murder and slaciousness.
• 1:10
  Speaker 16: You see that, you know, paradise isn't paradise And and
• 1:13
  Speaker 16: maybe these pieces of the puzzle is going to add up.
• 1:18
  Speaker 17: MM, your wife of an Laurie such, she's gonna find that.
• 1:26
  Speaker 18: This is why he's going to tell you, I'm gonna
• 1:28
  Speaker 18: have a nut situation. And the gun he's trying to
• 1:31
  Speaker 18: find the first place to put a body.
• 1:32
  Speaker 14: No, sir, the only thing they could do was killing you.
• 1:35
  Speaker 19: Want to sell anything, lead the jury and to find
• 1:37
  Speaker 19: the defendant.
• 1:48
  Speaker 20: Hi.
• 1:49
  Speaker 7: I'm doctor Teresa Severs.
• 1:50
  Speaker 15: She was well well liked as a doctor. She had
• 1:53
  Speaker 15: a holistic physicians practice.
• 1:57
  Speaker 7: I don't know about you, but I'm not ready for
• 1:59
  Speaker 7: post mortem. I want to enjoy my life like it
• 2:01
  Speaker 7: is now.
• 2:02
  Speaker 21: I think everyone that speaks of her from including her family,
• 2:07
  Speaker 21: talked about her being a dynamo.
• 2:09
  Speaker 7: Are you ready to drop dead?
• 2:11
  Speaker 22: I'm not.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: But at the age of forty six, doctor Teresa Severs
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: was found dead in the kitchen of her home in
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Benita Springs, Florida, brutally murdered.
• 2:20
  Speaker 21: I mean, this was a violent crime that occurred in
• 2:23
  Speaker 21: the midst of an area that didn't see violent crime
• 2:26
  Speaker 21: and on a street that didn't see violent crime. And
• 2:29
  Speaker 21: people were upset.
• 2:30
  Speaker 7: People were worried.
• 2:32
  Speaker 16: This doctor had touched many lives and tried to help
• 2:35
  Speaker 16: different people. So I started to get calls from all over.
• 2:38
  Speaker 16: My son goes to that dock, my daughter in law
• 2:41
  Speaker 16: goes to that doc. Wow, what a wonderful woman.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: She was last seen alive at the Fort Myers, Florida
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: airport the night before.
• 2:51
  Speaker 9: Because we were able to observe her in the airport
• 2:54
  Speaker 9: on surveillance video. We ended up learning that doctor Severs
• 2:57
  Speaker 9: was returning home from a family gad for her mother's
• 3:00
  Speaker 9: birthday from Connecticut.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Her husband, Mark and two daughters, Josephine and Carmela, stayed behind.
• 3:07
  Speaker 9: And mom came home because doctor Seavers was the primary
• 3:10
  Speaker 9: bread winner and she had a practice to run.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: But the next day, doctor Severs failed to show up
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: at her doctor's office.
• 3:17
  Speaker 9: The employees at her job started texting her husband, Mark Seavers, saying, hey,
• 3:24
  Speaker 9: doctor Severs isn't here.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: So her husband called a next door neighbor, doctor Mark
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Patrida's to check on her.
• 3:33
  Speaker 23: Mark Mark again and the office is calling it texting
• 3:38
  Speaker 23: only cares maybe she obviously it's not like her, you know,
• 3:42
  Speaker 23: all the years parted to be a half barley.
• 3:44
  Speaker 11: At work, Doctor Mark Patrice was the first one who.
• 3:47
  Speaker 17: Found her, nice one one, what is your emergency.
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: At a friend's house. He's out of town here to
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: check him place and she's dead on the floor.
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: Shld on famine.
• 4:00
  Speaker 23: Yeah, okay, you're doing very well, And she's asked in
• 4:02
  Speaker 23: the back of the head is dead cold.
• 4:06
  Speaker 21: It appeared that nothing had been taken. Did not appear
• 4:09
  Speaker 21: that the house had been ransacked. There was nothing that
• 4:13
  Speaker 21: indicated what the motive might be for what was a
• 4:16
  Speaker 21: very vicious crime.
• 4:19
  Speaker 24: On my initial observations that she has sustained significant head
• 4:22
  Speaker 24: trauma plund force in nature, and there was a large
• 4:26
  Speaker 24: pool of blood, and she was a smaller female, you
• 4:28
  Speaker 24: could tell that it was not something that happened quickly.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: The case was assigned to Lee County Sheriff's detectives Mike
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Downs and David Levitt.
• 4:39
  Speaker 9: There's no obvious smoking gun. For lack of a better
• 4:42
  Speaker 9: choice of words, pretty much everybody's the suspect at that point.
• 4:47
  Speaker 9: Who does her nails, who does her hair, who cuts
• 4:49
  Speaker 9: the lawn? Do they have a house cleaner, Have they
• 4:51
  Speaker 9: had any issues with anybody? Does she get along with
• 4:53
  Speaker 9: everybody at work? But nothing really seemed to pan out.
• 4:56
  Speaker 9: We did later find out that she also had had
• 4:59
  Speaker 9: a very strong person which can rub people the wrong way.
• 5:02
  Speaker 7: It's not wrong, but it's not enough.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: There was also a speculation that doctor Severs had been
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: targeted because of her practice as a holistic doctor.
• 5:11
  Speaker 8: Why aren't we doing this kind of medicine for our body?
• 5:14
  Speaker 8: You can't have preventive medicine, But it's not the kind
• 5:17
  Speaker 8: of medicine you typically get your doctor's office.
• 5:19
  Speaker 9: There was a group of people identify themselves as Webslutes,
• 5:23
  Speaker 9: and they took a very big interest in this case
• 5:25
  Speaker 9: because throughout the country and at least two to possibly
• 5:28
  Speaker 9: three other states at that time, there were some doctors
• 5:31
  Speaker 9: that also practice holistic medicine as well as internal medicine
• 5:35
  Speaker 9: that died. And the theory was that they were all
• 5:40
  Speaker 9: murdered and that we had to look at because, like
• 5:43
  Speaker 9: Mike said, right now, it's everybody in their running.
• 5:46
  Speaker 15: The theory of it was that there were certain holistic
• 5:48
  Speaker 15: doctors who were being murdered because they had maybe a
• 5:50
  Speaker 15: cure for cancer or had something that.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: The government or some kind.
• 5:57
  Speaker 15: Of shadowy group didn't want them to talk about.
• 6:00
  Speaker 25: But that never turned out to be.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Not just for the record's state, you.
• 6:03
  Speaker 26: And I want what's time for him, Mark Sievers.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: And to be thorough, the detective did conduct an interview
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: with Teresa's husband, Mark once he returned from Connecticut.
• 6:13
  Speaker 21: Anytime there is a brutal murder of a spouse, one
• 6:18
  Speaker 21: tends to look or at least glance at the other spouse.
• 6:22
  Speaker 21: But in this case, the spouse was thousands of miles
• 6:27
  Speaker 21: away in Connecticut at the time that the crime was
• 6:30
  Speaker 21: committed with an alibi that was absolutely air tight.
• 6:34
  Speaker 27: I feel so apathetic, but at the same time, there's
• 6:38
  Speaker 27: so much going on.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: It's still hard feel that I could stop.
• 6:47
  Speaker 28: The same time, can you tell me what she died?
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: I need to know what she tortured?
• 6:56
  Speaker 29: Was what happened to stage we were still working on.
• 7:05
  Speaker 30: She had so much off in the world.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: She was really everyone says that's about their wife.
• 7:13
  Speaker 14: Home.
• 7:14
  Speaker 11: Everyone kept describing Mark as her rock, and she was
• 7:18
  Speaker 11: his rock.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Have you ever cheated on your wife? I've never cheated her,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: and she's never cheated on me.
• 7:24
  Speaker 9: Have you ever had anyone have an unhealthy obsession with
• 7:29
  Speaker 9: either you or your your wife, or your kids or anything.
• 7:33
  Speaker 31: I absolutely can't be thieve of.
• 7:34
  Speaker 32: Anybody that would have been with that at all.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: The detectives entered the interview so Mark Seavers could plan
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Terese's funeral and grieve with their two daughters.
• 7:45
  Speaker 15: Yeah, the funeral was befitting somebody for stature. Here's this
• 7:49
  Speaker 15: lady that really helped everybody, and now she's gone, and
• 7:52
  Speaker 15: they mourned that fact, but.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: Still not a single clue about who had been waiting
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: for Teresa that Sunday night as she pulled into her
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: garage after telling her husband she was home and she
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: was safe.
• 8:08
  Speaker 21: How had anyone gone into this crime scene, committed this
• 8:12
  Speaker 21: horrific crime and left absolutely no trace evidence. This was
• 8:18
  Speaker 21: almost the perfect crime.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Until a late night phone call. Would Lee detectives to
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: a small town in Missouri, and.
• 8:27
  Speaker 18: We catch a break, We catch a break, we get
• 8:31
  Speaker 18: a tip, and she just.
• 8:33
  Speaker 24: Said, I know what happened.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: The call that would be the turning point in the
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: case came into the Lee County Sheriff's office late at night,
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: some two weeks after the murder of doctor Teresa Severs.
• 8:51
  Speaker 11: Thank God that payscup seriously.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: The tip came from a family friend of a man
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: in a small town in the Zouri Hillsboro, Missouri, a
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: man by the name of Curtis Wayne Wright, a five
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: time convicted felm.
• 9:10
  Speaker 24: Sure enough, the more we dug, the more evidence started
• 9:13
  Speaker 24: to pile up for us, thankfully, and.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Soon the detectives were on the trail of a second
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: career criminal who was a close friend of Curtis Wayne Wright,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: a man by the name of Jimmy Ray Rogers.
• 9:24
  Speaker 21: Jimmy Ray Rogers liked to call himself the Hammer. It
• 9:28
  Speaker 21: was on his Facebook he liked to refer to himself
• 9:31
  Speaker 21: as the Hammer.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Both men, Jimmy Ray Rodgers and Curtis Wayne Wright, were
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: now very much persons of interest, but they both had
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: denied being in Florida at the time of the.
• 9:41
  Speaker 24: Murder, and Curtis Wright told us that during the weekend
• 9:45
  Speaker 24: of the murder. First he told us he was homesick
• 9:47
  Speaker 24: in bed and never left his trailer, and then he
• 9:50
  Speaker 24: at one point he said, well, he was working on
• 9:51
  Speaker 24: a car.
• 9:51
  Speaker 9: All weekend and Jimmy was beside himself. He barely talked
• 9:56
  Speaker 9: to us, and then just let us know he just
• 9:58
  Speaker 9: doesn't like cops. So I'm not going to talk to you.
• 10:01
  Speaker 9: I didn't go to Florida, and I don't talk to Wayne.
• 10:04
  Speaker 9: He's a nerd.
• 10:05
  Speaker 11: Oh, okay, see you later, Jimmy.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: But even with the tip and the detective's gut feelings,
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: there still wasn't anywhere near enough to arrest them, and
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: the detectives returned to Florida deflated.
• 10:19
  Speaker 9: We had a lot of digital evidence that we found
• 10:21
  Speaker 9: that we knew we had to process and try and
• 10:24
  Speaker 9: piece it together. Most notably when we did the initial
• 10:27
  Speaker 9: warrant on the Curse Wainwright residence. There was a vehicle
• 10:30
  Speaker 9: in the driveway and we found a GPS in the
• 10:34
  Speaker 9: center console, so we were hoping, let's just hope he
• 10:38
  Speaker 9: entered addresses in the area, let's hope attract his movement.
• 10:41
  Speaker 9: And at first we're deflated again because they're telling us
• 10:45
  Speaker 9: this information is deleted and we can't interpret the code.
• 10:47
  Speaker 9: So they spent a significant amount of time, hundreds and
• 10:50
  Speaker 9: hundreds of man hours trying to figure out this code
• 10:52
  Speaker 9: to recover this deleted data, and bingo, they were able
• 10:56
  Speaker 9: to establish a route from Curtis Wayne Wright's Presidents and
• 10:59
  Speaker 9: he'll per Missouri and he makes her out there to
• 11:02
  Speaker 9: go to Jimmy Rodgers' residence in Cadet, Missouri. We went
• 11:05
  Speaker 9: from zero to sixty in a very short amount of
• 11:07
  Speaker 9: time and.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Then one one hundred and four miles south along Interstate
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: seventy five off the exit to Benita Springs and then
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: right to Jarvis Road, the home of doctor Teresa Seevers.
• 11:21
  Speaker 21: I think it was an AHA moment, and I think
• 11:24
  Speaker 21: at that moment there is the wait a minute. We
• 11:27
  Speaker 21: have people saying we're.
• 11:28
  Speaker 16: Not here, and they are retrieving that address, which would
• 11:32
  Speaker 16: have been deleted just hours or days later, and placing
• 11:37
  Speaker 16: the killers in the area of our victim was a
• 11:42
  Speaker 16: critical piece of this puzzle, and.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: The GPS data showed their every movement on the way south.
• 11:49
  Speaker 24: One of the significant locations was Walmart, actually right across
• 11:52
  Speaker 24: the street from the Sheriff's office. Here where we're able
• 11:54
  Speaker 24: to capture what we believe in what is evidently Curtis
• 11:58
  Speaker 24: Wainwright and Jimmy Ray Rodgers walking in Walmart buying a
• 12:02
  Speaker 24: number of suspicious items lock pick set, garbage bags, cleaning items,
• 12:06
  Speaker 24: things like that.
• 12:07
  Speaker 9: So now we know they're down here. We could see
• 12:09
  Speaker 9: him clear as day on the video on the day
• 12:11
  Speaker 9: doctor Sievers returned home. It's we couldn't even believe it.
• 12:17
  Speaker 9: The only thing we can think of is that they
• 12:18
  Speaker 9: never thought we'd ever come up there, because it's over
• 12:21
  Speaker 9: a thousand miles away. That they never would put two
• 12:24
  Speaker 9: and two together.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: And when the detectives returned to Missouri, it went to
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: question the hammer's girlfriend, Taylor's showmaker. They hit even more Peter.
• 12:33
  Speaker 24: And she started crying and she just said, I knew
• 12:36
  Speaker 24: what happened, And.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: I told her that I knew that he had something
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: to do with it, and then he sort of asked
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: me questions like what I know about and I'm like, well,
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I went down at drills some night and then he
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: said yeah.
• 12:52
  Speaker 19: I said, did you shoot her? And he said no,
• 12:56
  Speaker 19: And I said, then how did you kill.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: And made stip little chocolates and then said relation, Yeah.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Her man had confessed to her while lying in bed.
• 13:11
  Speaker 24: It's huge because he actually confessed that. Jimmy Ray Rogers
• 13:14
  Speaker 24: confessed to the murder and specifically said that they used
• 13:17
  Speaker 24: a hammer, which is consistent with the physical evidence that
• 13:19
  Speaker 24: we recovered from the scene.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: And then Taylor Shomacher took Detective Levit to the area
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: where she had helped her boyfriend the hammer dispose of
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: some of the evidence, including a blue jumpsuit he said
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: he wore during the murder.
• 13:33
  Speaker 17: Case number one six eighty five one to three time.
• 13:36
  Speaker 17: I was cromently six thirty eight pm on Tuesday. It
• 13:38
  Speaker 17: was point fifteen. All right, can you just where you've
• 13:43
  Speaker 17: identified the overalls?
• 13:45
  Speaker 24: And then she goes there it is right there, and
• 13:47
  Speaker 24: sure enough, we we get out, we walk up to
• 13:49
  Speaker 24: it and it's a blue jumpsuit sitting on the side
• 13:51
  Speaker 24: of the road.
• 13:52
  Speaker 17: How did we come and find these items there, okay,
• 13:56
  Speaker 17: and that was the reason for throwing these out the window.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Have members, they had their evidence, they had their killers.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: But the investigation was far from over. Curtis Wainwright now
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: tells the authorities he has information they will want if
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: he can make a deal with it.
• 14:21
  Speaker 21: So as difficult as it was, it was to us
• 14:24
  Speaker 21: a decision that had to be made to let Right
• 14:27
  Speaker 21: plead to second degree murder and receive a sentence of
• 14:30
  Speaker 21: twenty five years provided he testified truthfully.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Wright's information involved his best friend in high school back
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: in Missouri, Mark Severs, Teresa Severs husband, and now it
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: was turning into a case of murder for hire.
• 14:55
  Speaker 26: Breathe, the slow breathing.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: The Even before his best friend in Missouri had implicated
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Mark Severs in the murder of his wife, Teresa, the
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: detectives were already suspicious of Sievers, especially after a second
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: round of questioning.
• 15:15
  Speaker 9: So we've met many people through our investigations that have
• 15:18
  Speaker 9: lost a loved one, and he seems fake.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: When detectives would leave the interrogation room, they had to
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: send Sievers was playing to the cameras.
• 15:31
  Speaker 26: Okay, she got hit.
• 15:34
  Speaker 9: I saw a lot of simulated behavior. It didn't it
• 15:38
  Speaker 9: didn't feel real.
• 15:48
  Speaker 21: It was so much of a what would appear to
• 15:51
  Speaker 21: be so much of a show.
• 15:55
  Speaker 33: Talking about your relationship. Have you guys been contemplating any
• 15:59
  Speaker 33: kind of separation and are divorces or been any marital problems?
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: The detectives would later learn from friends and family the
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: couple indeed had both marital and financial problems.
• 16:11
  Speaker 9: What are some of the biggest motives for anybody to
• 16:13
  Speaker 9: do some nition. Money's a big one and fidelity is another.
• 16:18
  Speaker 9: So we have two of those on the board right now.
• 16:21
  Speaker 24: You can see there's more of a darker side to
• 16:23
  Speaker 24: who he really was and who he wanted to show us.
• 16:28
  Speaker 21: As he was leaving, he said, I'll do anything I
• 16:31
  Speaker 21: can to cooperate to assist to catch this killer.
• 16:34
  Speaker 25: I want to.
• 16:35
  Speaker 14: Speak to you every chance I can.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I probably remember my phone, so when you call with.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: You okay, and it isn't.
• 16:42
  Speaker 21: A week later, when he's no longer willing.
• 16:44
  Speaker 24: To cooperate, well, he had his slurer contact us and
• 16:48
  Speaker 24: shut off all contact.
• 16:50
  Speaker 11: He ghosted us, he stopped talking, he stopped cooperating.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: But prosecutors did not need severs cooperation to make their
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: case and the first test game with the trial of
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Jimmy Ray Rogers, everything hinging and whether a jury would
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: believe Curtis Wayne Wright and his chilling version of the
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: murder of Teresa Severs.
• 17:09
  Speaker 34: We came there to kill her.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Teresa Sivers mother and sister were in the courtroom every day.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Were you able to see where he was hitting her
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: with the hammer in the head and what happened after.
• 17:21
  Speaker 34: She fell on the floor, continued to hit her.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: He continued to hit her.
• 17:26
  Speaker 34: Yes, mister Rogers, Yes, I physically walked over to the
• 17:31
  Speaker 34: area where he was at and asked him to stop.
• 17:36
  Speaker 34: I put my hand on him.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: It didn't take long for the jury to return a verdict.
• 17:45
  Speaker 35: We have a verdict in the Jimmy Ray Rogers case,
• 17:48
  Speaker 35: as we do have a guilty verdict.
• 17:50
  Speaker 33: We do have a guilty verdic than Jimmy Ray Rogers.
• 17:52
  Speaker 33: But is a second degree murder not a first degree murder?
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Rogers was led her sentenced to twenty five years in prison.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: But for prosecutors there would be no justice unless they
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: could make a case against the men they believed had
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: hired the killers, Mark Sivers.
• 18:08
  Speaker 21: But for Mark Sivers there would have been no funeral,
• 18:11
  Speaker 21: there would have been no grieving family, there would have
• 18:14
  Speaker 21: been no children without parents. It was important that all
• 18:19
  Speaker 21: that participated were held accounting them.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: The evidence against Sievers continued to mount, including his use
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: of prepaid or what are called burner phones used by
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: both men.
• 18:30
  Speaker 21: Mark Sievers and Kurtzwain Wright had a secret communication system
• 18:35
  Speaker 21: set up.
• 18:38
  Speaker 24: Their code wear together was switched to other or other.
• 18:41
  Speaker 24: They would initially almost immediately switch over to these prepaid phones,
• 18:46
  Speaker 24: and we were able to establish a connection.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: According to what Wright told the detectives, the plan for
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: the murder was made when Mark Sievers attended Wright's wedding
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: in Missouri two months earlier.
• 19:01
  Speaker 24: This is this is basically where it all you know,
• 19:03
  Speaker 24: started to come together. Mark suggested two scenarios. One was
• 19:08
  Speaker 24: to shoot her or kill her outside of the medical
• 19:11
  Speaker 24: practice when she was leaving work one night. Curtis explains him.
• 19:14
  Speaker 24: He says, well, what if she's with somebody when she
• 19:16
  Speaker 24: comes out of the medical practice. And Mark says, well,
• 19:19
  Speaker 24: that'll be better because if somebody else is killed during
• 19:22
  Speaker 24: the offense, then it's likely to keep the suspicion off
• 19:26
  Speaker 24: of me or anybody else. So and he explained it
• 19:29
  Speaker 24: his collateral damage, which goes to show you the type
• 19:31
  Speaker 24: of person Mark Severs really is.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: When the time came to arrest Mark Severs, detectives knew
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: from their surveillance exactly where to find.
• 19:40
  Speaker 36: Him, so there wasn't really anywhere mister Severs was gonna
• 19:45
  Speaker 36: go where we couldn't find him unless he had a
• 19:48
  Speaker 36: ride into outer space that we didn't know about.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: He was at home, but there was concern he was
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: armed and might resist taking his daughter's hostage.
• 19:58
  Speaker 11: And we knew and if he had been watching TV
• 20:02
  Speaker 11: and he knows we got him.
• 20:04
  Speaker 16: We knew we had to get Mark Seevers, but most
• 20:07
  Speaker 16: importantly we had to extract him and save those children.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: The job fell to Detective David Levitt.
• 20:17
  Speaker 9: We knew he had many guns in the home, but
• 20:20
  Speaker 9: his behavior was erratic. So that coupled with the fact
• 20:23
  Speaker 9: that if he knows he's getting arrested for the murder
• 20:25
  Speaker 9: of his wife, he has guns in the home, and
• 20:27
  Speaker 9: there's two little girls present, so we were very worried.
• 20:32
  Speaker 11: So we get to the door.
• 20:34
  Speaker 9: I see the girl's heads kind of perk up and
• 20:37
  Speaker 9: look towards the door, and then I see Mark starting
• 20:40
  Speaker 9: to come towards the door, phones in his hand. Then
• 20:43
  Speaker 9: he turns around and starts to walk away. So I
• 20:46
  Speaker 9: said to the deputy was with me. He said, we're
• 20:49
  Speaker 9: giving this another five seconds and we're forcing entry. Fortunately,
• 20:55
  Speaker 9: within half that time he came back, opened the door
• 20:59
  Speaker 9: and leaned out with his phone on his hand, and
• 21:02
  Speaker 9: grabbed him by his wrists.
• 21:03
  Speaker 11: You're underrest for murdering your wife.
• 21:08
  Speaker 16: And when walk arrived, he had a smirk that I'll
• 21:11
  Speaker 16: never forget.
• 21:12
  Speaker 6: It was a smirk.
• 21:14
  Speaker 16: It was one thousand miles stare.
• 21:16
  Speaker 25: He was ice cold.
• 21:18
  Speaker 16: You could look at him and see he was ice cold,
• 21:21
  Speaker 16: no blood in his veins, and he knew he was caught.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: But the defense was preparing a surprise twist that not
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: only was Curtis Weighing Wright a killer and a skilled liar,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: but that right was actually in love with Mark Severs
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: and killed Teresa on his own to get her out
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: of the way.
• 21:50
  Speaker 13: If Curtis can't have Mark, nobody can.
• 21:59
  Speaker 12: Good everybody, And welcome to law on crime. Right now,
• 22:03
  Speaker 12: we're going to see opening statements at around ten am
• 22:05
  Speaker 12: Eastern Standard time in the trial of Mark Severs.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: With reporters fascinated about how much Mark Severs and Curtis
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: wagin Wright looked like each other.
• 22:15
  Speaker 7: They do look nearly identical.
• 22:17
  Speaker 12: I can't wait just to see these two former best
• 22:20
  Speaker 12: friends looking at each other in court, one of them
• 22:24
  Speaker 12: testifying against another.
• 22:25
  Speaker 33: That's something straight out of a movie.
• 22:31
  Speaker 37: For the record, both assistant state attorneys are present, mister
• 22:34
  Speaker 37: Severs is present, and both defense council states ready.
• 22:39
  Speaker 33: Defense is ready.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: The courtroom was packed and like a wedding, there was
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: a side for the wife, the victims family, and a
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: side for the husband the accused murderers family.
• 22:50
  Speaker 38: A little antagonistic in the crowd, but unlike that day
• 22:53
  Speaker 38: twelve years earlier when Teresa and Mark Severs were married,
• 22:57
  Speaker 38: there was no joy on either side.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Today lout opening statements at this time, State ladies and
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: gentlemen of the jury.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Cynthia Ross is the head of the hobicide unit in
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: the State's Attorney's office. Her first priority was to make
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: sure the jury knew the importance of her key witness,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Curtis Wayne Wright, but that he was hardly a model citizen.
• 23:24
  Speaker 21: We were asking them to believe a killer. Curtis Wainwright
• 23:28
  Speaker 21: allows us to hear the conversations that occurred between he
• 23:33
  Speaker 21: and Mark Severs to hear how Mark Severs solicited, conspired
• 23:41
  Speaker 21: and arranged the murder of Teresa Severs.
• 23:46
  Speaker 29: Defense.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Mark Severs chose Michael Mummerd as the lawyer to defend
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: him in the murder case after the two bonded during
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: proceedings over the custody of severs children.
• 23:56
  Speaker 13: On a very personal level, he's a very nice man,
• 24:00
  Speaker 13: kind of kind of goofy, kind of funny.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 24:02
  Speaker 13: And over the four years that I represented Mark, I
• 24:08
  Speaker 13: got to I got to like him. I really do
• 24:11
  Speaker 13: like Mark. You're gonna hear about prepaid phones. You're gonna
• 24:18
  Speaker 13: hear about divorce, infidelity, life insurance as a motive. But ultimately,
• 24:27
  Speaker 13: all the evidence of a conspiracy, all the evidence of
• 24:35
  Speaker 13: mister Siever's involvement, is going to come from one man,
• 24:42
  Speaker 13: and that's Curtis Wayne Right. I wanted to convey to
• 24:45
  Speaker 13: the jury that this this was a credibility trial of
• 24:52
  Speaker 13: Curtis Wayne Right.
• 24:56
  Speaker 26: Next witness.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: It was the very next day that Curtis Wayne Wright
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: took the stand, and at first Severs gave off the
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: impression of not having a care in the world, smiling
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: and cracking jokes with his lawyer. But that would quickly change.
• 25:13
  Speaker 39: Do you sell me swear or a firm the testimony
• 25:16
  Speaker 39: you're about.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: To get right, was questioned by prosecutor Amid Hunter.
• 25:20
  Speaker 36: The biggest moment in the trial was mister Wright taking
• 25:25
  Speaker 36: the stand. These two men have been best friends most
• 25:29
  Speaker 36: of their lives.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Mister Wright, who killed doctor Teresa Severs?
• 25:36
  Speaker 34: Jimmy Rogers and I physically did it, but marce Severs
• 25:40
  Speaker 34: was also involved in the planning.
• 25:43
  Speaker 32: Why did you do it?
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: I was asked to do it by whom?
• 25:50
  Speaker 34: Mister Severs.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Who is mister Severs in court today?
• 25:55
  Speaker 32: Yes?
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: He is.
• 25:57
  Speaker 36: Can you please point to mister Severs an identify him
• 26:00
  Speaker 36: by an article of clothing.
• 26:03
  Speaker 32: He's the.
• 26:05
  Speaker 34: Medal gentleman there at the table, the darker colored jacket.
• 26:11
  Speaker 36: Well, I'm not a fan of Curtis right. He's a killer.
• 26:15
  Speaker 36: He's an admitted killer, and so we went straight at him.
• 26:19
  Speaker 36: There wasn't going to be any compromises.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: For mister Wright, and Wright was immediately confronted about his
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: earlier lies when he tried to pin all the blame
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: on Jimmy Ray Rogers.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Did you tell us the truth?
• 26:31
  Speaker 19: Not?
• 26:32
  Speaker 40: In the beginning.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Started out with a lie.
• 26:36
  Speaker 34: Well, it started out with the truth, but it got
• 26:41
  Speaker 34: off in the middle, and then those those lies were corrected.
• 26:45
  Speaker 34: I told the truth before the end of that statement.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Watching all this in the courtroom, receiver's stepmother from Missouri,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: who has known right since he was twelve years old.
• 26:54
  Speaker 41: If I'm not a human light detector, but he did
• 26:57
  Speaker 41: a magnificent job of lying, he's a pathological liar.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Wright testified that he and Severs, that's Severs on the left,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: made the deal to kill Teresa it Write's wedding in
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: Missouri a few months earlier.
• 27:10
  Speaker 34: He told me that he and Teresa were having problems,
• 27:17
  Speaker 34: marital problems. He told me that she was having an affair,
• 27:22
  Speaker 34: and that they were having financial problems as well, considering bankruptcy.
• 27:27
  Speaker 32: He told me that.
• 27:30
  Speaker 34: Really the only option that he had was for her
• 27:32
  Speaker 34: to die, and he said that he needed to have
• 27:36
  Speaker 34: her killed.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Wright said he received a six hundred dollars check from
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: Sivers to cover expenses for driving to Florida, with the
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: promise of much more to come.
• 27:46
  Speaker 34: He said that there was a lot of insurance that
• 27:48
  Speaker 34: him and the kids would be well taken care of,
• 27:51
  Speaker 34: and that he had at least one hundred thousand dollars
• 27:54
  Speaker 34: to offer to have it done.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: And then writes chilling description of how doctor Teresa Severs
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: was killed the night she returned home alone, Just as
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: he had testified earlier at the trial of Jimmy Ray.
• 28:07
  Speaker 34: Rogers, the headlights would have been right on me. I
• 28:10
  Speaker 34: jumped up and I followed her into the house.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: And once she started to turn towards you, what did
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: you do?
• 28:20
  Speaker 34: I had her?
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: I hit her.
• 28:22
  Speaker 28: Damn Does she see it?
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: Yes?
• 28:26
  Speaker 34: Because I accidentally kicked the dog dish over. The dishes
• 28:30
  Speaker 34: went flying everywhere. It made a huge noise. She it
• 28:35
  Speaker 34: startled her. I was afraid that if she turned around
• 28:39
  Speaker 34: she would scratch me or do something to leave evidence.
• 28:43
  Speaker 34: I swung the hammer and I hit her.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Did you and doctor Seavers ever make eye contact?
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: Yes?
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: How did she look when you made eye contact with her?
• 28:54
  Speaker 34: Surprised?
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Did she fight? Yeah? You fought for her life.
• 29:02
  Speaker 29: Yeah.
• 29:04
  Speaker 34: I never in a million years envision beaten un to
• 29:06
  Speaker 34: death with a hammer.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: On cross examination of Right, Mark, Siever's lawyer tried to
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: push a theory about Right's sexual orientation that he thought
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: would explain what happened.
• 29:21
  Speaker 13: Detective Levitt asked you about your sexual preference, didn't he Yes?
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Sustained.
• 29:28
  Speaker 13: Detective Levitt wanted to know if you had a sexual
• 29:31
  Speaker 13: relationship with Mark Sever's didn't you objections sustained.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: The judge told Mummert to move on.
• 29:39
  Speaker 13: That was a tough one because there was there was
• 29:44
  Speaker 13: something there. There was this air of possessiveness or intimacy.
• 29:51
  Speaker 13: And if Curtis can't have Mark, nobody can. My theory
• 30:02
  Speaker 13: is that when Mark went to Curtis's wedding that Curtis
• 30:07
  Speaker 13: Curtis has had enough. Mark married a beautiful doctor, Mark
• 30:11
  Speaker 13: had two beautiful girls. Mark lived in a nice home
• 30:14
  Speaker 13: in Benita Springs, Florida. Why does Mark get to have
• 30:18
  Speaker 13: it all? And I believe that that anger, as well
• 30:23
  Speaker 13: as a possible you know, sexual attraction to Mark, caused
• 30:28
  Speaker 13: the basis for Curtis to finally say, now I've had enough,
• 30:32
  Speaker 13: I'm gonna go down there, I'm gonna kill Mark's wife.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: But Judge Bruce Kyle was having none of it, and
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: Mumburt had to change his tect. Now challenging right about
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: the money he claims Severs promised him. Why didn't Severs
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: just tell him to take the cash that was in
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: the house.
• 30:48
  Speaker 13: You know that there was nearly fifty thousand dollars in
• 30:52
  Speaker 13: that home. Is that correct?
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: I found that out later, But no, I didn't know that.
• 30:57
  Speaker 13: So there was fifty thousand dollars when you went down
• 30:59
  Speaker 13: to mid the murders.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: That correct? Suggest you.
• 31:02
  Speaker 26: I don't know its just stay in proper.
• 31:05
  Speaker 13: Mister never said I have all this money and I'm
• 31:11
  Speaker 13: gonna set it aside for you and you just take
• 31:13
  Speaker 13: it correct?
• 31:14
  Speaker 32: Correct?
• 31:16
  Speaker 13: And then after the murder you came down again for
• 31:20
  Speaker 13: the funeral?
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Is that correct?
• 31:22
  Speaker 32: Yes?
• 31:24
  Speaker 13: Having having the mission completed right? Yes, Ever get fifty
• 31:32
  Speaker 13: in cash at.
• 31:33
  Speaker 34: That time our agreement it would be paid after he
• 31:35
  Speaker 34: got his life insurance payment.
• 31:39
  Speaker 13: I don't believe Mark ever gave it the go ahead.
• 31:42
  Speaker 13: Teresa was worth more alive than dead. Why would he
• 31:45
  Speaker 13: want to give that up?
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: As Severs watched his best friend testify, the smiles and
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: jokes seemed to be replaced by tears and grief. Was
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: it authentic or a performance for the jury?
• 31:58
  Speaker 21: For us, it seems that Mark Sievers was not the
• 32:02
  Speaker 21: grieving husband, but just someone who could bring on tears
• 32:08
  Speaker 21: when desired, And so we hoped that the jury would
• 32:12
  Speaker 21: see those tears for what they were, not of those
• 32:15
  Speaker 21: of a grieving husband, but those of a manipulator.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: But some of the jurors had been in tears too.
• 32:28
  Speaker 36: The evidence has shown that Mark Sievers hired Curtis Wright,
• 32:33
  Speaker 36: his best friend, would kill his wife, doctor Teresa Severs,
• 32:37
  Speaker 36: an unconscionable act in light of that sacred contract.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: So mister Riot is a felon. He's an admitted liar.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Did you tell us the truth?
• 32:51
  Speaker 13: None? In the beginning.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: He's a killer.
• 32:56
  Speaker 36: Mister Sievers could ask you to kill his wife in it,
• 32:59
  Speaker 36: he would ask you say yes, by himself. There's no
• 33:10
  Speaker 36: reason why any reasonable person should believe a word he says.
• 33:14
  Speaker 36: But he's corroborated by evidence. Mister Wright says he came
• 33:19
  Speaker 36: to Florida to kill doctor Seivers with Jimmy Rodgers. There's
• 33:24
  Speaker 36: evidence of that, corroborative evidence. I want you to consider
• 33:33
  Speaker 36: asking why. I want you to keep asking why. She's
• 33:38
  Speaker 36: not a captain of industry. It's not a politician.
• 33:41
  Speaker 7: Hi, I'm doctor Teresa Severs.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: She's a medical doctor and a mother or two and
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: a wife, and she's dead.
• 33:52
  Speaker 13: Good morning. You've now heard all the evidence on one question.
• 33:57
  Speaker 13: No one's answered. Why?
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: Why?
• 34:05
  Speaker 13: Why is Teresa Siever's dead? The best answer we can
• 34:11
  Speaker 13: give you is she is dead because Curtis Wainwright killed her.
• 34:17
  Speaker 13: And without mister right, Without mister Right, there is no
• 34:22
  Speaker 13: case in the crime scene itself. Those photos, they're hard
• 34:29
  Speaker 13: to look at, and they're hard to look at because
• 34:33
  Speaker 13: that crime scene is anger and it's violence, and it's rage.
• 34:40
  Speaker 32: And it's hate.
• 34:42
  Speaker 14: It is not.
• 34:45
  Speaker 13: Murder for money. Ultimately, the one question you all have
• 34:53
  Speaker 13: to ask yourselves do you trust her this Waynwright.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: The jury began its deliberations just before lunchtime.
• 35:07
  Speaker 21: You know, you always hope it'll be fast because of
• 35:11
  Speaker 21: the anxiety and waiting for the verdict.
• 35:13
  Speaker 13: When the jury goes out, you just said, we did
• 35:16
  Speaker 13: everything we could, We did everything that we reasonably could.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: It was only four hours later when the judge called
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: everyone back into court.
• 35:28
  Speaker 37: I've been told we have a verdict states ready. Defense
• 35:33
  Speaker 37: is ready. So either side need any time to talk
• 35:36
  Speaker 37: to their sides or their parties. Because these things are
• 35:41
  Speaker 37: tough and I'm not going to have any outbursts.
• 35:45
  Speaker 26: We'll let the clerk publish the verdict.
• 35:47
  Speaker 42: This was almost the perfect crime in the Circuit Court
• 35:51
  Speaker 42: of the twentieth Judicial Circuit in and for Lee County
• 35:54
  Speaker 42: Florida Criminal Action State of Florida Versus Mark D. Sivers,
• 36:03
  Speaker 42: Case Number fifteen cf.
• 36:05
  Speaker 19: Six seven to three B.
• 36:08
  Speaker 13: Do you trust Urdus Wainwright verdict?
• 36:11
  Speaker 43: Will the jury find us follows as to the defendant
• 36:14
  Speaker 43: in this case count one first degree murder, The defendant
• 36:23
  Speaker 43: is guilty of first degree murder.
• 36:27
  Speaker 19: Conspiracy. The defendant is guilty of conspiracy. So say we all.
• 36:33
  Speaker 19: December fourth, twenty nineteen by the fourth person.
• 36:40
  Speaker 12: He broke down eventually there, but when that verdict was read,
• 36:43
  Speaker 12: he was pretty stoic.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Now, the question of how Mark Sievers should be punished.
• 36:50
  Speaker 36: My partner and I were going to have to sit
• 36:51
  Speaker 36: down now and ask this jury to recommend a sentence
• 36:55
  Speaker 36: of death for mister Severs.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: The jury would have to find the murder was committed
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: for either financial gain or in a cold calculated manner,
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: or both. And the jury also had to consider what's
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: called a victim impact statement from Teresa Severa's mother, Mary
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Anne Groves, who is now allowed to speak publicly of
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: her loss and her grief, and.
• 37:17
  Speaker 44: Of course the biggest loss falls upon her two daughters,
• 37:21
  Speaker 44: whom Teresa loved with all her heart. These two girls
• 37:26
  Speaker 44: have been robbed of their remarkable mother, their home, their pets,
• 37:34
  Speaker 44: their possessions, their family and friends. Teresa will not be
• 37:40
  Speaker 44: able to love and guide them. She won't be there
• 37:46
  Speaker 44: when they graduate high school, or when they need their
• 37:50
  Speaker 44: mother to kiss away tears from their first heartbreak. We
• 37:59
  Speaker 44: have we lost our Teresa, the light of our lives,
• 38:03
  Speaker 44: the star of our family, who loved us all so fiercely.
• 38:08
  Speaker 44: It has been hard for all of us to go
• 38:10
  Speaker 44: on with our daily lives. The void is unimasurable. She
• 38:15
  Speaker 44: was our strength, our inspiration, and our caretaker.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: Only one juror needed to oppose the sentence of death,
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: and the jury was back in just three hours. The
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: first question the jury had to answer was the murder
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: committed for financial pecuniary reasons?
• 38:38
  Speaker 19: The capital murder was committed for a pecuniary gain.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: No, Now the question of whether the murder was committed
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: in a cold calculated manner.
• 38:47
  Speaker 43: Yes, we the jury unanimously find that Mark Sievers should
• 38:52
  Speaker 43: be sentenced to death.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, But the judge still had the power to overrule
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: the jury's death sentence. He reveals something the jury had
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: not been told. Sever's eldest daughter had written a letter
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: asking that her father's life be spared.
• 39:10
  Speaker 13: The letter essentially said, in not so many words, while
• 39:16
  Speaker 13: I don't want a relationship with my father, if I
• 39:21
  Speaker 13: decide that I might at some time in the future,
• 39:26
  Speaker 13: I can't have that if he has sons to death
• 39:28
  Speaker 13: and taken from me, and then, for the.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: First time the court heard from Mark Severs, defiant and
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: showing no signs of remorse, Is it okay.
• 39:40
  Speaker 33: If I refer to my notes, Yes, sir, absolutely.
• 39:45
  Speaker 27: Although a jury found me guilty, I am innocent of
• 39:48
  Speaker 27: all charges, as I've maintained since his ain his crime
• 39:51
  Speaker 27: took place. I love my wife, Teresa and her two daughters,
• 39:55
  Speaker 27: Josie and Krmi, with all my heart. Our girls have
• 40:03
  Speaker 27: tragically lost their mommy, and now they're about to lose
• 40:07
  Speaker 27: their daddy as well.
• 40:09
  Speaker 45: Therefore, I respectfully ask the court.
• 40:12
  Speaker 46: For life is not to compound their loss and suffering.
• 40:17
  Speaker 27: I am grateful, however, that the court can only determine
• 40:20
  Speaker 27: my fate on earth, while my soul is in God's
• 40:23
  Speaker 27: hands and God knows the truth. Although I cannot feel
• 40:28
  Speaker 27: remorse for something I had absolutely nothing to do with,
• 40:31
  Speaker 27: am deeply saddened and forever heartbroken to say the very least,
• 40:36
  Speaker 27: that Teresa was taken from us.
• 40:42
  Speaker 7: Mark Severs was crying for Mark Severs.
• 40:44
  Speaker 21: He hadn't shed a single tear for Teresa's Sivers at
• 40:47
  Speaker 21: any time. The only tears Mark Siever's ever shed were
• 40:50
  Speaker 21: from Mark Severs.
• 40:56
  Speaker 32: Teresa is my soulmate.
• 40:59
  Speaker 27: I will miss her and cherish our memories until we
• 41:01
  Speaker 27: are reunited in heaven. Until then, I will fight this
• 41:06
  Speaker 27: wrongful conviction until improve an innocent and set to rejoin
• 41:10
  Speaker 27: my family.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: Now, the judge had to weigh the factors in favor
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: of overturning the jury's decision that Mark Severs should be
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: put to death.
• 41:22
  Speaker 24: I will note for the record that his children do
• 41:24
  Speaker 24: not want the death penalty imposed. And he was a
• 41:26
  Speaker 24: hands on, devoted father and he did help people were
• 41:29
  Speaker 24: in need, but it was not enough.
• 41:32
  Speaker 26: A jury of twelve half bound you guilty as charge.
• 41:35
  Speaker 11: So you are guilty, and this is the order of
• 41:38
  Speaker 11: the court that you be sentenced to death.
• 41:39
  Speaker 9: Sir, you feel so terrible for the family. I feel
• 41:45
  Speaker 9: so terrible for the girls because their father orphaned them.
• 41:53
  Speaker 13: Mark, even if you believe everything they said, did not
• 41:57
  Speaker 13: commit an act of violence. Ark is the only person
• 42:01
  Speaker 13: Florida's death row right now who did not commit an
• 42:05
  Speaker 13: act of violence to hear.
• 42:07
  Speaker 16: The judge say death penalty. Justice has served. He got
• 42:14
  Speaker 16: exactly what he deserved. He got exactly what he deserved.
• 42:19
  Speaker 18: I judge people's actions.
• 42:22
  Speaker 33: I don't judge people's souls. And if I'm wrong, and
• 42:24
  Speaker 33: hopefully God have mercy on both of us.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: The triple murder made headlines when police believed it was
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: a Richard wallistic set of killing and the appearance of
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: a rarely seen blue moon.
• 43:25
  Speaker 45: It's witchcraft. I'll say that right now.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: This murder was front page news.
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: The suffered, I suffered, bigtim.
• 43:35
  Speaker 10: The way in which each of the victims were killed
• 43:39
  Speaker 10: was very brutal.
• 43:41
  Speaker 47: Richard was shot, had a wound to his head, John
• 43:45
  Speaker 47: whoever did it, and was able to cut his throat.
• 43:48
  Speaker 47: The mom was killed in the same manner. She was
• 43:51
  Speaker 47: hit in the head as well with the hammer and
• 43:53
  Speaker 47: her throat was also cut.
• 43:57
  Speaker 48: Richard worked in the crypto department, and course, when you
• 44:00
  Speaker 48: have those high clearances and you don't show up for work,
• 44:03
  Speaker 48: a lot of people get very concerned.
• 44:04
  Speaker 47: Whoever did this came over there for a specific reason.
• 44:08
  Speaker 39: Why so much focus on the silvarette button the trash
• 44:10
  Speaker 39: because it's bad for them. It is beyond a reasonable
• 44:14
  Speaker 39: doubt bad for them.
• 44:15
  Speaker 26: I'm gonna find out and I'm gonna put your ass
• 44:17
  Speaker 26: in jail.
• 44:18
  Speaker 49: If you put something out bad, expect bad. That's how
• 44:21
  Speaker 49: it works.
• 44:26
  Speaker 17: You're this is what he's going to tell him, and
• 44:31
  Speaker 17: I'm doing a nut situation, and I grab the gun
• 44:34
  Speaker 17: trying to find the first place to put a body.
• 44:36
  Speaker 14: No, sir, the only thing they could do was killing.
• 44:38
  Speaker 19: You want to say anything, read the jury and to
• 44:41
  Speaker 19: find the defendant.
• 44:54
  Speaker 48: There's sixty seven counties in Florida. We're the last county
• 44:57
  Speaker 48: in Florida before you cross the state line and you're
• 45:00
  Speaker 48: in the state of Alabama.
• 45:03
  Speaker 50: We are affectionately known as the Redneck Riviera and we
• 45:08
  Speaker 50: have the prettiest beaches.
• 45:09
  Speaker 23: In the world.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: But that's not all Scanbia County of Florida is known.
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: For her.
• 45:17
  Speaker 48: We unfortunately, have witnessed our fair share of odd crimes
• 45:20
  Speaker 48: throughout the years. We've had the black widow murders were
• 45:27
  Speaker 48: here was a lady that killed several of her husbands.
• 45:30
  Speaker 45: We had the Billings case where the.
• 45:33
  Speaker 48: Family was murdered in the home and they had eight
• 45:36
  Speaker 48: special needs children.
• 45:37
  Speaker 18: We seem to find our way in the paper, probably
• 45:39
  Speaker 18: more than we would like.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: And it was here that the infamous serial killer Ted
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: Bundy was captured.
• 45:45
  Speaker 48: He didn't get away from us. We ended up prosecuting him,
• 45:47
  Speaker 48: and of course he was finally put to death. But
• 45:50
  Speaker 48: he's just one in that long string of people that
• 45:53
  Speaker 48: somehow have a tie to a Scamby County. We jokingly
• 46:03
  Speaker 48: say that Scanby County is this, you know, twilight zone vortex.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: And no case fit that description better that what came
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: to be called the Blue Moon murders connected to a
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: rare astrological occurrence, historical overtones of witchcraft.
• 46:25
  Speaker 29: There are some indications of what the motive is.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: This murder was front page needs.
• 46:33
  Speaker 47: The media really latched onto the Blue Moon witchcraft murder.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: Three members of one family found dead in their modest home.
• 46:45
  Speaker 45: Initial research has led us to believe that there's a
• 46:47
  Speaker 45: potential that it was a ritualistic killing.
• 46:51
  Speaker 10: The way in which each of the victims were killed
• 46:54
  Speaker 10: was was very brutal.
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 46:58
  Speaker 48: The time to death, we believe on Tuesday, also coincides
• 47:02
  Speaker 48: with what's referred to as a blue mood.
• 47:06
  Speaker 45: It's witchcraft. I'll say that right now.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: The crime scene itself was a puzzle for investigators.
• 47:18
  Speaker 48: It was kind of a macob scene.
• 47:19
  Speaker 45: It was so out of the ordinary.
• 47:21
  Speaker 10: The house was kind of in disarray.
• 47:24
  Speaker 20: They noticed that there were piles of blankets and clothing.
• 47:27
  Speaker 20: Once they kind of lifted the outer edges of those
• 47:30
  Speaker 20: piles of blankets and clothing in the din area, they
• 47:34
  Speaker 20: observed a foot and they also observed a hand, a
• 47:40
  Speaker 20: female hand. Underneath one of the piles.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: The body of an elderly woman, von Siel Smith, and
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: under the other piles of clothing her two adult sons,
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: Richard and John Well.
• 47:54
  Speaker 47: Whoever had done this had taken time, obviously to cover
• 47:57
  Speaker 47: the bodies up.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: Instigation was led by Veniscambia County Homicide detective Matt Enfinger.
• 48:05
  Speaker 47: The position of John sitting on the couch. Whoever did it,
• 48:09
  Speaker 47: walked right up to him, hit him in the head
• 48:12
  Speaker 47: with a hammer, and then was able to cut his throat.
• 48:18
  Speaker 47: He didn't even try and defend himself, so he was
• 48:21
  Speaker 47: either asleep or knew the individual. The mom was killed
• 48:26
  Speaker 47: in the same manner. She was killed in her chair
• 48:28
  Speaker 47: in the living room where she always stayed and watched TV.
• 48:32
  Speaker 47: She was hitting the head as well with a hammer,
• 48:34
  Speaker 47: and her throat.
• 48:36
  Speaker 29: Was also cut.
• 48:37
  Speaker 47: Richard was shot, had a wound to his head and
• 48:43
  Speaker 47: his throat was also cut.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: And investigators came to learn from neighbors that there was
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: an aura of mystery about the victims themselves, starting with
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: the mother.
• 48:53
  Speaker 50: She was a woman who apparently never left the house.
• 48:57
  Speaker 50: She ordered from qv She'd get five and six packages.
• 49:02
  Speaker 25: A day from QVC.
• 49:05
  Speaker 50: The home was just stuffed with boxes and dresses and
• 49:11
  Speaker 50: all sorts of things that she bought from QVC.
• 49:15
  Speaker 18: These people, they stayed to themselves. There were neighbors that
• 49:19
  Speaker 18: didn't have any interaction with them.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: The older brother, Richard, worked at the Pensacola Naval Air
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: Station for a secretive homeland security division, which added to
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: the mystery surrounding the case.
• 49:32
  Speaker 48: Richard worked in the crypto department. You know, some of
• 49:35
  Speaker 48: this we really aren't at liberty to talk about some
• 49:37
  Speaker 48: of the elements of the case, but he worked in
• 49:39
  Speaker 48: the crypto room, which is all the codes that they
• 49:42
  Speaker 48: teach the navy folks. And of course, when you have
• 49:45
  Speaker 48: those high clearances and you don't show up for work,
• 49:48
  Speaker 48: a lot of people get very concerned.
• 49:51
  Speaker 20: So certainly one of the things that investigators looked into
• 49:54
  Speaker 20: was whether Richard Smith's job had anything to do with
• 49:58
  Speaker 20: his murder, as well as the murder of his family members.
• 50:01
  Speaker 50: When Richard Smith's body was discovered, his car keys were missing,
• 50:06
  Speaker 50: and there was DNA in one of his front pants
• 50:11
  Speaker 50: pockets that was not identified, which is a pretty strange
• 50:16
  Speaker 50: thing to have happened, and a.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: Full federal investigation was launched to see if some foreign
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: assassin or terrorist was somehow connected to what happened. To
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: the federal there was.
• 50:30
  Speaker 47: Two DHS investigators that worked with me on the case,
• 50:34
  Speaker 47: and we were able to determine that there was nothing
• 50:36
  Speaker 47: that Richard was working on that would lend to this
• 50:40
  Speaker 47: type of thing happened to him.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: What the investigators were focused on instead was a man
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: who lived nearby and would later claim to be a
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: follower of a pagan religion called Wicca, people who believe
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: in magic and practice witchcraft with rituals tied to faces
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: of the moon.
• 51:00
  Speaker 48: And in his home he had you know, the altar
• 51:02
  Speaker 48: set up with the dead flowers and the dagger and
• 51:05
  Speaker 48: the you know, he had a pentagram on the floor.
• 51:17
  Speaker 47: I knew that this wasn't a random homicide because there
• 51:20
  Speaker 47: was no forced entry to the home, so it was
• 51:23
  Speaker 47: like whoever did this came over their for specific reason,
• 51:28
  Speaker 47: committed these murders and then tried to conceal it.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: And over the next twenty four hours, investigators would find
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: themselves fully caught up in what the county sheriff called
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: the twilight zone of vortex.
• 51:45
  Speaker 15: The three could have been murdered in a witchcraft ritual
• 51:48
  Speaker 15: based on the timing of the blue moon and the
• 51:50
  Speaker 15: positioning of the victims' bodies.
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: The way we found out it was on the news.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: The Smith families out of town relatives were horrified as
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: they learned the details of what happened inside this home
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: in Pensacola, Florida.
• 52:06
  Speaker 5: I'm trying not to think of what they went through
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: that day. You know, when I do, I break down.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: Fay Haas was a cousin to the two dead sons,
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: Richard and John. Vonzilla was her aunt, known as Aunt Bonnie.
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: This is ain't Bonnie.
• 52:20
  Speaker 26: This is ain't Bonnie.
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: When I think of what they went through, That's that's
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: the hard thing they suffered. The suffered big time.
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: She had a hard time understanding who would want to
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: kill any of them. John, at the age of forty seven,
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: had never quite grown up That was the.
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: Hardest I think to take because he was so sweet.
• 52:44
  Speaker 51: He was just.
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: And always smiling. He was like a child in a
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: man's body. The special needs.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: She says, her Aunt Bonnie only became a shut in
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: after her husband died and her health failed.
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: My aunt was a good woman and she was a
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: very good mother. They traveled a lot. I had plenty
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: of pictures and they traveled and a lot. They were
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: very outgoing before. So they were very active until the illness, and.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: The eldest son, Richard, took care of both his mother
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: and brother.
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: A lot of people say why was he forty nine
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: and living at home? Because he was taking care of
• 53:27
  Speaker 5: his mother and he knew he was gonna have to
• 53:29
  Speaker 5: take care of John all his life.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: The biggest question on fay Hoss's mind was why Aunt
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: Bonnie's third son, Donald Wayne Harte, who also lived in Pensacola,
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: had not called.
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: And I said, Wayne hasn't called us, Why hasn't he
• 53:44
  Speaker 5: called us or tried to get in touch with any
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: of us over here?
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: That was because Donald Wayne Hartug was at the police station.
• 53:53
  Speaker 26: Let to start bringing your name and information. What's your
• 53:56
  Speaker 26: first name, Donald, your middle named Donald Wayne?
• 54:01
  Speaker 25: W A y and E.
• 54:04
  Speaker 29: Hart Tong h A R t U n G.
• 54:07
  Speaker 47: The first interview I did with Donald, I was trying
• 54:09
  Speaker 47: to just get a overall picture of the family and
• 54:14
  Speaker 47: what was going on the family dynamics.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: Donald Hartong was fifty nine years old and worked as
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: a security guard at a local hospital. He told detective
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: Matt Enfinger he had a good relationship with his mother
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: and with stepbrothers John and Richard Smith.
• 54:30
  Speaker 26: Do you have good relationships with them or yeah, they
• 54:33
  Speaker 26: have great relationships.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: Hartong said he had last been at the house three
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: days earlier when he went there to cook dinner as
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: he does every Tuesday. He had not yet been told
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: how his family died.
• 54:47
  Speaker 26: Your folks, your family over there was killed killed.
• 54:52
  Speaker 29: They said they were to station, and they never told
• 54:54
  Speaker 29: me how they were killed.
• 54:55
  Speaker 26: They're dead, and it looks like they were killed kill.
• 55:05
  Speaker 26: How were they kill 'em? It looked like they were
• 55:08
  Speaker 26: shot shot.
• 55:14
  Speaker 29: How was that?
• 55:17
  Speaker 26: Well, it looked like they was shot. It's hard to
• 55:21
  Speaker 26: tell cause there was a lot of clothes on top
• 55:23
  Speaker 26: of 'em.
• 55:24
  Speaker 29: Clothes on top of 'em. Oh my god?
• 55:36
  Speaker 6: Or hm.
• 55:41
  Speaker 29: W were they robbed or.
• 55:45
  Speaker 26: I don't think so.
• 55:47
  Speaker 29: It just looks like somebody just came in and shot 'em.
• 55:51
  Speaker 26: Yeah, it looks like somebody knew 'em. Whoever did it?
• 55:57
  Speaker 29: Well, I don't know anybody. I don't know any that
• 56:00
  Speaker 29: they know. Could have been anybody.
• 56:06
  Speaker 20: This was a man who supposedly had just found out
• 56:10
  Speaker 20: that his mother and his two brothers had been murdered,
• 56:13
  Speaker 20: and the fact that he was very kind of nonchalant.
• 56:17
  Speaker 10: He was not emotional whatsoever.
• 56:20
  Speaker 38: He did not cry, he did not seem surprised, he
• 56:24
  Speaker 38: really didn't seem concerned.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: And because hard Talk was the last person known to
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: see his family alive, he was then asked the big question, So.
• 56:34
  Speaker 26: Some didn't happen when you were over there Tuesday night
• 56:36
  Speaker 26: and you killed him?
• 56:37
  Speaker 29: No, nothing happened.
• 56:41
  Speaker 26: Are you sure?
• 56:42
  Speaker 6: Yes?
• 56:43
  Speaker 26: Because if something happened, now some time to tell me.
• 56:46
  Speaker 46: I would not kill my mother and my brothers, Okay,
• 56:54
  Speaker 46: I mean, why would I do something like that.
• 56:57
  Speaker 26: I don't know, I don't know you.
• 57:01
  Speaker 52: Well, I understand that, I know that's true, but I
• 57:06
  Speaker 52: wouldn't do something like it. I'd never harmed my family.
• 57:10
  Speaker 20: He was also asked if they could search his home,
• 57:13
  Speaker 20: which again was approximately three miles away from where the
• 57:16
  Speaker 20: Smith family lived he did consent to a search of
• 57:19
  Speaker 20: his home, he did seem cooperative.
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: And that led to a surprising discovery. Donald Hartung was
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: a practicing member of the Wicker religion, a believer in
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: magic and witchcraft.
• 57:32
  Speaker 48: Who knows, I'm not a psychiatrist or a psychologist. Obviously
• 57:36
  Speaker 48: that that was a way for him to justify in
• 57:38
  Speaker 48: his own mind, you know, as to what he was doing.
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: But that was no surprise to Hartung's family members, who
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: said Harttung's mother, a good Christian lady, had been outraged
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: about Donald's wicked beliefs.
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: And she did not agree with her sign doing the Wickham.
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: And she knew he was doing the Wickham. It's which
• 58:00
  Speaker 5: craft of her, this devil worship. That's the way my
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: aunt thought about it. And she didn't want her other
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: two signs around him. She was very against it.
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: That didn't swear with what Hartung had told Detective Intriguer
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: about his relationship with his mother.
• 58:15
  Speaker 26: And she's all I got. She was the one that
• 58:18
  Speaker 26: was always there for you.
• 58:19
  Speaker 6: That's right.
• 58:20
  Speaker 52: She's always there for me. She was always there for me.
• 58:27
  Speaker 52: Ain't nothing in this world I could ask my mother
• 58:29
  Speaker 52: for it. She wouldn't give me really, that's right.
• 58:34
  Speaker 6: Nothing.
• 58:35
  Speaker 47: But when I spoke with neighbors other people that knew
• 58:40
  Speaker 47: the victims of the family, it was different than what.
• 58:44
  Speaker 30: Donald had told me.
• 58:46
  Speaker 47: The relationships weren't as close as Donald had portrayed the
• 58:52
  Speaker 47: relationships to be. They were more distant. There wasn't a
• 58:56
  Speaker 47: lot of communication within the family. Donald only came came
• 59:00
  Speaker 47: over on Tuesdays to cook and that was about it.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: So well after midnight on the day the bodies were discovered,
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: at about one point thirty in the morning, Donald Hartung
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: was brought back to the Sheriff's office.
• 59:15
  Speaker 47: When something like this happens, you are working twenty four
• 59:19
  Speaker 47: to seven till you had a dead end.
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: All leeds pointed to Hartung as the murderer.
• 59:25
  Speaker 26: And killed your mom.
• 59:27
  Speaker 52: I did not kill my mother and then killed your brother.
• 59:31
  Speaker 52: I wouldn't even kill my mom or my brother either
• 59:37
  Speaker 52: one of my brothers. I mean, do I look like
• 59:43
  Speaker 52: some kind of a blooming maniac for you people?
• 59:47
  Speaker 30: I mean you mean.
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: Could the detective get a confession out of this late
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: night interrogation? Was the blue Moon going to be the
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: key to solving the murders? In the first twenty four
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: hours of the investigation. The working theory was that a
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: rare blue moon had led Donald Hartung to kill his
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: family as part of a ritualistic sacrifice connected to the
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: Wicked religion. That was the theory.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 29: I don't know anything about wicked sacrifices. I don't know
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 29: a thing about anything on.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: Dam and Detective Matt Intriguer pounded away on that theory
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: during a post midnight interrogation of Hardtime, who had acknowledged
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: he was a follower of Wicca.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 26: Who knows that you're wicked?
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 29: Nobody. I'm a solitary practitioner. Nobody knows that I'm a wicked.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: If you know about the blue moon, all that kind
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: of stuff, you.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 29: Do, well, I know about the blue moon. I know
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 29: it's too full moons, but I mean it's been all
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 29: over the radio.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 22: I was explaining to you about the wicked ritual. They
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 22: could cover them to keep them warm after they kill him.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 29: I don't know nothing about no ritual like that.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 26: I mean, what kind of I mean, who does that?
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 29: A crazy person does that.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: Only later, a detective Infigure learned that the theory of
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: a blue moon ritual sacrifice was completely at odds with
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: the wicked faith that is just insanity.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: There are knows there is no such thing as human
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: sacrifice in the religion of Wicked, none, zero.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 53: Silch.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: Susie Smith calls herself a high priestess of the Wickan
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: religion and is proud to be known as a witch.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 49: I am a witch, I am a witch, and I
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 49: am wicked.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: She was so upset about what Sheriff Morgan said that
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: she sent him this video, demanding he retracted his statements.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: And for Sheriff Morgan to attach the Wiccan religion to
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: this murder was presumptuous and he should have checked his
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: facts before he made such accusatory statements. As a high
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: priestess of the community, I have the right to say
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: yes you are Wickan, No you're not.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 49: I want them to know that this man has nothing
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 49: to do with our community.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: But that was well after the sheriff had already made
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: headlines around the world with his Blue Moon Wickan theory.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 45: It's witchcraft, I'll say that right now.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: The Sheriff's information was based apparently on a deputy's quick
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: reading of a since debunked website that deals in witchcraft
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: and conspiracies.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: It had no.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 50: Basis in fact, and it was just baffling that the
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 50: sheriff went off on that tangent. You have to look
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 50: at the sheriff's theory in the perspective of the day
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 50: he made his announce smant that Donald was a suspect
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 50: and that there was it was a wicked witchcraft type murder.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 50: Was also when he had his first fundraiser for his
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 50: re election campaign. The sheriff made lots of headlines, got
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 50: a lot of publicity, and effectively helped his campaign considerable.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: But for the homicide case, the blue Moon theory was
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: a rabbit hole that did nothing to further the investigation.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 47: I got calls from all over the United States about it,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 47: and it was I was having to deal with trying
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 47: to investigate a murder and deal with all this wicked stuff.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: And after pumping Donald Hartunk over and over in the
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: early morning hours about his wickened belief, Detective Infiger got
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: nowhere despite repeatedly calling him a killer.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 22: Nobody has seen these people since Tuesday, since.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 6: You saw.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 29: I was the last want to see him alive?
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 22: Yeah, so how are you gonna sit there and tell
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 22: us that you didn't kill them when you were the
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 22: last one to see him.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 26: They trusted you.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 6: And you killed them.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 26: They didn't think anything of it. They didn't know what
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 26: was coming.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 29: I love my parents.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 26: I'm sure you did.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 29: You and my brothers, and I did not kill him.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 29: I did not kill him. I would never harm my mother,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 29: never hurt my brothers, never.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 47: I never thought Donald was going to confess to the murder.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 47: When I was interviewing him, he was a little, I'm
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 47: not gonna say, arrogant, but he had a confidence about
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 47: himself that he he thought he could outsmart.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: Us with no confession and no physical evidence or even
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: video surveillance footage to implicate him. Donald Hartugg was allowed
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: to go home, to the horror of his relatives who
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: had come for the funeral.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 5: He never cried a tear. He never shed a tear
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 5: at the funeral, never at the graveside. He scared us
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 5: because we had went by his house one time and
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 5: he was standing there and we were sitting at the table,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 5: and he reached up on top of his refrigerator. He
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 5: was standing there. He said, well, if I'm a murderer
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 5: and they're so smart, why didn't they find this? And
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 5: he slammed a machete on the table where we were sitting.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: Now the investigation would depend on the forensics any fingerprints
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: or DNA found at the sea. A real challenge in
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: this investigation.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 20: It's difficult to make a case when there is a
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 20: family member involved, simply because we knew that Donald Hartung
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 20: went to the family home on every Tuesday to cook dinner.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 20: So the fact that his DNA is going to be
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 20: there is you know again, But what happened in this
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 20: case is that his DNA turned.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 10: Up on places where it absolutely should not have been, on.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: The zipper of his brother, Richard's notebookcase and on Richard's checkbook.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: Now that interrogation conducted by Detective Infiger really paid off,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: as Harttung was asked if he had ever touched any
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: of Richard or RT's belongings.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 52: Well, I mean if it's in the house, I didn't
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 52: touch it, okay, or no matter where it was, I
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 52: didn't touch it.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 29: I mean I don't mess with nothing of r TS.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 20: That definitely jumped out to us. And we had Donald
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 20: Hartung's DNA on the inside of Richard's belt, and obviously
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 20: that was a place that his DNA should not have
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 20: been because he told law enforcement that he had not
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 20: seen Richard in either two to three weeks.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 22: So you said you'd never touched anything of our teas before,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 22: not that not to the RT wasn't there.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: But the clincher may have been what was found in
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: the trash can on top of some bloody towels, and.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 20: Then on top of that was a cigarette butt that
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 20: had Donald hartung as DNA. So whoever put that cigarette
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 20: but in the trash coun or smoked that cigarette butt
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 20: and placed it on top of the items of cleanup
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 20: was certainly in the home at least at the time
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 20: of the homicides and the time of the queen us.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 47: That that kind of sealed the deal in my mind
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 47: that Donald was the one who did this.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: It took three months of work, but the time had
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: come to arrest Donald Harton for the murder of his
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: family just a few days before Halloween.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 35: Head of us has been made in a three month
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 35: old triple murder in Pensacola.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 54: Pullae Say, fifty eight year old Donald Hartungue Junior murdered
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 54: his mother and two half brothers.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 25: He was in a claw hammer and.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 5: I just broke down and started crying and I said,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 5: thank you Lord, thank you, thank you. It was the
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 5: hardest three months we've ever lived, whiting on him to
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 5: get arrested.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: But it would take another four years before the case
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: went to trial, and in that time Hartung's lawyer, Michael Griffith,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: would uncover evidence that the investigation had its own serious flaws,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: flaws that Griffith was prepared to fully exploit in his
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: courtly Southern way.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 50: You certainly have to be aggressive, but you don't have
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 50: to be a rude horse's ass. This isn't a Jerry
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 50: Springer shot.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 12: Jury selections begun in a triple murder case linked to witchcraft.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: The triple murder made headlines when police believed it was
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: a ritualistic set of killings tied to witchcraft and the
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: appearance of a rarely seen blue.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 55: Moon sirporta planted versus Donald Wayne Hartung dependant.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: But for all the media talk and the headlines about
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: the so called Blue Moon ritual murders, the prosecution would
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: not make any mention of that in the opening statement.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 56: When we got the case at the State Attorney's office,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 56: we didn't believe the evidence showed that this was related
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 56: to wake in or sacrifice, and.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 50: I knew they weren't going down that rabbit hole. They
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 50: were too good to lawyers to go down that rabbit hole.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 39: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: But lead prosecutor Bridget Jensen knew she had to provide
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: the jury with a motor for Donald Hartung.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 38: In her opening statement, there will be no question that
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 38: this defendant is the person who murdered his family.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 39: And here is why.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 38: Last will and testament of von sil Smith he was excluded.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 38: So to be included, all three of them had to die.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: Members of the jury.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 50: I heard mss Jensen's opening statement and it was masterful,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 50: but it leaves out many of the facts, or the
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 50: lack of facts that you were going to hear. The
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 50: biggest problem is jurys want to believe the police is
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 50: are right. They want to believe the prosecutors all wear
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 50: white hats, and they wouldn't prosecute a case.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 25: Against an innocent person.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: And defense lawyer Michael Griffith was prepared to challenge significant
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: holes in the state's case.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 50: There is no indication of any physical evidence that he
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 50: committed any of the murders. There was no gun found,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 50: there was no blood found at his house. There was
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 50: nothing to link him in any way to these murders,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 50: besides his DNA at his mom's house, where he went
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 50: at least every Tuesday to cook dinner. For Now, as
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 50: far as as the will is concerned, what the will
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 50: says that Donald Hartung Junior is excluded? My client is
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 50: Donald Hartung Senior?
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: Is that an error in drafting the will?
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 50: Or was it meant to exclude mister Hartung's son, Donald
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 50: Hartung Junior.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: For prosecutors, the four years that Donald Hartung awaited trial
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: in the Escambia County jail gave them a crucial advantage.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 39: And will you state your full name please?
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: Moran duvon Pirifoy, a jail house informant who had been
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: housed with Hartung.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 20: Mister Purrifoy had information that he could not have gotten
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 20: without having conversations with mister Hartoon. Now did there come
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 20: a time when mister Hartung talked about the murder of
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 20: his family?
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 32: He told, okay?
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 39: And did he tell you who killed his mother and
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 39: two brothers?
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 32: He said he killed?
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 39: Did he tell you why.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 15: Want?
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 57: He wanted the money because she left him at the wheel?
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 39: Now did he tell you if.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 38: The murders were Was it just something that kind of
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 38: happened or was this something he'd been thinking about?
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 57: Well, he saved me playing the last last three three
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 57: and four years, said Ouija board made him go aboard.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 32: Though what, I'm sorry Wiji board?
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 39: What about a ouigi board?
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 32: He said that made him do it made him go aboard.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: This is the Ouiji board investigators discovered at the home
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: of Donald Hartungue, along with other books and symbols of witchcraft.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 20: According to mister Purrifoy, a lot of other inmates were
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 20: actually scared of mister Hartongue.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 32: Why they thought he was a witch.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: And then Purifoy testified about what harttung claimed to have
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: done to his mother Voncil.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 57: He went to his mother, then he tortured heart so
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 57: she could tell the combination for the safe and stuff.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 39: He said, he tortured her.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 32: I'm sorry he tortured her.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 57: How he could have a left pinker finger so he
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 57: can tell the combination for the safe and stuff.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: Investigators found the safe at the home had been successfully opened.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 47: I knew that the pinky finger was cut. I didn't
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 47: know how it happened or why. And then when Purefoy
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 47: stated that Donald had done that torture and his mother
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 47: had made sense.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: On cross examination, Purifoy held his own question by Griffith's cocossle.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 58: Mister Purefoy, you've been convicted of felony, as she said
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 58: six or seven times, yes, ma'am, and a conviction for
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 58: a crime of dishonesty.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 32: Yes, ma'am.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 50: Jurys still tend to put credibility in what these jail
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 50: house nitches say. And I think the reason is jury's
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 50: don't understand that these convicts.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 25: Are con men. They can sell ice water to eskimas
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 25: a lot of them.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 57: He was about the money because he off that to
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 57: Breag like he's gonna go to Miami still hang out
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 57: with some girls and stuff.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 58: And you testified earlier that mister Hartung was angry because
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 58: his mother had written mister Hartung's son out of the will.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 32: No be boked him out of will him and his son.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: Now the defense took over focused on undercutting the handling
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: of the crime scene forensics.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 25: I think it was a very sloppy investigation.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 29: For murder case.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: The defense brought out that the lead crime scene technician
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: who collected the DNA, Christine Rawlins, had since been fired
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: and was being prosecuted for stealing drugs from the evidence room.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 58: So with the twenty four felony counts you were charged with,
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 58: you were facing potentially one hundred and seventy years in prison.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 34: Is that right? Yes, bam?
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 39: What happens when the hammer hits.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: And the state's medical exeminor had since resigned after allegation
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: she had misused state money. We've got a medical examiner
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: playing funny with money.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: She quits her job because of it.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 12: We've got a crime scene tech who stole drugs from
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 12: the evidence room and got in trouble herself.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 25: The jury has to believe these people.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: Who do you believe no one?
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 5: I believe no one.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: All leading to a challenge of the time of death,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: the day when the prosecution said the victims had been killed.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: The bodies were discovered on our Friday, July thirty first,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: but the investigators concluded the murders had taken place three
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: days earlier, on Tuesday, the twenty eighth, the day Hartung
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: was seen by a neighbor arriving at the home and
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: leaving later than usual.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 54: Early afternoon, I saw mister Hartong arrive, and then later
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 54: on I saw RT come home, and then I saw
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 54: mister Hartung leave.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: Now was it.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 39: Normal or abnormal to see RT come home while Heartung
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 39: was still.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 32: At the house.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 11: It was not usual.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 54: Usually mister Hartung was gone before RT came home.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: In RT's Richard Smith's body was found wearing the same
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: clothes seen on him in this surveillance video when he
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: left work that Tuesday, adding to the evidence he was
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: killed that Tuesday night. But a defense medical.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 31: Expert, I'm doctor Jonathan Arden.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: Called that into serious question, saying the victims could not
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: have been killed on Tuesday, the twenty eighth, as the
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: prosecutors said, based on their body heat and rigor mortis
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: level when they were discovered. The doctor said they were
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: killed no sooner than Wednesday, the twenty.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: Ninth, late on the twenty ninth.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 29: Yes, now.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: This is scientific, correct, Yes, it is based on science.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 50: There's no way that those people were murdered anytime earlier Wednesday.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 50: So all of the scientific evidence was with the defense.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 50: It couldn't have been donald. So that's why the time
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 50: of death was so important in this case.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: And even the prosecutors acknowledged that doctor Arda's testimony was
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: a serious challenge to their case.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 20: He's amazing, he's intelligent, he's been doing this for a
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 20: long time, and when you look at the scientific factors,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 20: it certainly looked like the murders were committed after Tuesday.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: If the jury accepted the science that the murders were
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: committed at least a day after Donald Hartung left the house,
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: that would be more than enough for a reasonable doubt
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: and a verdict of not guilty.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: All right, members of the jury, both the state and
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: defense have now rested their case. The attorneys present their
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: final arguments.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 20: Ladies and gentlemen, The difficult part of the case is
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 20: that it was, you know, ninety eight percent circumstantial. Jurors
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 20: want forensics, they want eyewitnesses.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 59: We didn't have any of that.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: The best the prosecution had was this surveillance video of
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: Richard Hartung had work on that Tuesday evening.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 39: He is wearing the exact same thing when his body
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 39: is found on Friday the thirty first.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 13: What does that tell you?
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 39: He was murdered right when he got home from work.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: And while the prosecution had dismissed the blue Moon murder
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: theory as a motive, Jensen did address the informant testimony
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: about Hartung and the occult.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 59: Mister kuervoy told you that this defendant said that although
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 59: he had been planning it for this number of years,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 59: the wijiboard is what made the defendant do it.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 32: That wija board made him go board the I'm sorrying
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 32: Weiji board.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 39: People were scared of him, they thought he was a witch.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: In the end, the prosecution's strongest evidence was the discovery
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: of Hartung's DNA on his brother's chuck book, his belt,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: and those telltale cigarette butts, including the one in the trash.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 39: Why so much focus on the sigarette button the trash
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 39: because it's bad for them. It is beyond a reasonable
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 39: doubt bad for them. And the whole point is this,
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 39: It shouldn't be there. It is smack dab in the
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 39: middle of cleanup of cooking and murder.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: But throughout the trial, family members said Hartung seemed unfazed
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: about the evidence against him.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 5: Seven times they would turn around look at us. Seven
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 5: times they would turn around, small like a smark, like
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 5: I'm I'm going to get out of this.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 60: Man.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: Please the court, members of the prosecution, members of the jury.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 50: You need to know your juries. You can't come across
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 50: as some hot shot TV.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: But Michael Griffith did not hesitate to call him to
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: question the tactics used against his client. You those two
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: interrogations by Detective matt Infeger.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 26: Well, I promise this, I'm gonna find out. I know
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 26: I'm gonna find out. I'm gonna put your ass in jail.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 50: He was brutal to mister Harton, trying to break him
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 50: down after learning that his family had been murdered.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: And Griffith question why the prosecution even played the clip
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: showing hearts on being questioned about the later debunked Blue
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: Moon wickan theory.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 22: I was explaining to you about the wicked ritual they
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 22: put cover him to keep him warm after they kill him.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 29: I don't know nothing about no ritual like that.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 50: If the state wasn't relying on this wick and killing theory,
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 50: why did they show it to you? Why they introduce it?
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 50: They didn't have to introduce it. I suggest to you
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 50: they put it in to try to offend you, get
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 50: you upset.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 6: The jurior to.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: Disregard the prior reference to the state's motivation.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: And then the biggest hurdle for the defense, the DNA evidence.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 50: Could Richard have left his checkbook at home on the
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 50: dining table, and Donald moved it one day and gotten
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 50: his DNA all over it.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 32: Sure he could have.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 50: The fact that his DNA's on that checkbook doesn't mean
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 50: that he's a kilt.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: As the jurors left to begin their deliberations, some of
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: them gave Hartung a close look, and he seemed to
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: have returned the looks too.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 5: And he was smiling at him, and he's creeping. The
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 5: jury out that was called. The women were looking at
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 5: him like, what is wrong with him?
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 51: You know?
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 5: Why is he smiling at us?
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: The jury was out for four hours.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: Time under the jury's minor steam. He reached a verdict.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: Have you reached a verdict?
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 55: The certing Court in in Forrest, Gaming County in Florida,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 55: State of Florida planted versus Donald Wayne Hartung, defendant. Were
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 55: the jury find the defendant, Donald Hartone guilty of first
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 55: three murderous charged in the indictment.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 5: When they thought guilty, I was just crying, just told
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 5: my head down. Finally took four and a half years
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 5: to get here, so long.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: Donald Hartung showed no emotion, but the smile was gone.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 50: Very disappointed, stoic as he is, but very very disappointed, and.
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: Now the state moved to impose the death penalty on hearttime,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: on a day they would provide no shortage of surprises.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: As Harton jumped up to speak.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 26: And your honor, I would like him to, respectively ask
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 26: for a mistrial.
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: Hartung then turned on his own lawyers in an hour
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: long rent, saying his lawyers were incompetent and one had
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: dis respected him when he asked her a question.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 26: Missus Wilson replied after I.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 29: After he againion, she said, You're a stupid asshole.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 18: I said, what what did you say?
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 31: And missus Wilson said, I said, you're a stupid asshole.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: He wanted his lawyers fire.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: I'm a ten dollars hour security guard.
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 28: If your Honor, I couldn't possibly be expected to go
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 28: up against.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 29: Four seasoned attorneys.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 26: I was duped and I was tricked, and I'm.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 29: Willing to admit it, and so were you.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 2: But Judge dan Heiser rejected Hartung's argument, and so now
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: the jury was asked to decide whether Donald Hartung should
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: be put to death in a Florida state prison for
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 2: the murders he was found guilty of committee. I met
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: James and then the second surprise of the day. Had
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: the state proved Donald Hartung should be put to death
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: for each victim.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 26: As she count on Fox Hill Smith no ascount to
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 26: John Smith.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 55: No, that's a account through egrigent Smith.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 17: No.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: A major victory for the defense. Prosecutors could only speculate
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: that Hartung's aged, unhealthy appearance may have swayed some of
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: the jurors.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 20: So maybe some of them would have thought that maybe
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 20: it was just a lost cause that you know, he's
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 20: probably going to die in prison, you know, in a
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 20: short amount of time, and so what uses the death
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 20: penalty at that point.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: The lawyers he wanted fired had kept him off death row.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 25: You don't know what juries say, what they think.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 50: We may have raised enough issues on the scientific evidence
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 50: that the jury, although they found them guilty, had enough
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 50: doubt that they weren't going to execute.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: But members of Hartung's family in the courtroom said they
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: could tell he was hardly celebrating.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 5: He's miserable. He deserves it to be miserable. When it
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 5: first happened, I hated him. I wanted him to suffer.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 5: I had to work through forgiveness to forgive him, and
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 5: I do forgive him, but I will never forget what
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 5: he did.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 49: So if you put something out good, expect good. If
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 49: you put something out bad, expect bad. That's how it works.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 5: Evil just you're evil.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 61: They had a young son together and they were kind
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 61: of looking forward to a night out.
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 60: There's surveillance video for inside the bar as well as
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 60: outside minutes at that point where she gets up and
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 60: exits the patio and is last seen leaving towards the West.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 7: Run Colney Number one, one of the address humors, has
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 7: been found.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 56: Human body.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 14: Okay, okay, we have an explosive new trial for you.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 12: Out of Wisconsin.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 51: Is the most brutal murdered that has ever been committed
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 51: by one person in the history of rem Colony.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 62: Doug murdered Nicole in a fit of jealousy and anger,
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 62: fueled by insecurity, alcohol, and numerous other drugs.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 33: You knew all along what happened in Nick year, No,
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 33: I did not. It was a rival.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 63: A riding.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 23: Your wife.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 14: This is what he's going to tell you.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 18: I have a nut situation and I grabbed the gun.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 18: He's trying to find the first place to put a body.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 14: No, sir, the only thing they could do was killing.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 19: You want to sell anything, lead the jury and to
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 19: find the defendant.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 61: M h Friday, Saturday Nights A good nighttime party life
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 61: here in downtown.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 5: Green Bay.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 2: And I'm just warm spring. The action is that a
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: place called the Water.
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 61: It's a friendly atmosphere, but it's it's really large, A
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 61: lot of people can fit inside.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: Somewhere among the hundreds of people dancing and rocking out
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 2: with a band from California. Stand who would not live
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 2: to see the Dog of the next day. Her name
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 2: was Nicole Vandrohide Nicki at the Country where her living
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: boyfriend Dug.
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 61: They had a young son together, and they were kind
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 61: of looking forward to a night out and it started
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 61: off really well.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: From what we know, but both of them were drinking heavily,
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: police would later say, especially Nicki.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 61: Plus she was breastfeeding. She had a young son, so
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 61: her tolerance probably wasn't what it used to be.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: With the concert end, Nicki and friends head to another bar,
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: the Sardine Can, with Doug saying he will catch up shortly.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 60: There's surveillance video of her inside the bar as well
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 60: it's outside.
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 33: She can be seen on the video dancing, having a
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 33: good time, but.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 61: Still no duck and we know oh that there were
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 61: text messages between her and Doug accusing him of staying
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 61: behind maybe talking to other women.
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 60: Nicole was starting to get irritated and upset with Doug
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 60: because here she is with all of Doug's friends and
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 60: she doesn't know them very well, and her boyfriend who
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 60: she wanted to spend the night with is not there.
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 33: Eventually they move outside to an outside patio area.
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 60: Minutes at that point where she gets up and exits
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 60: the patio, and this last scene leaving towards the west.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 61: A friend tried to stop her and confront her, but
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 61: just couldn't get her to stop or listen, and she
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 61: just kind of kept walking down the world.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 7: Buy her something.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: What happened next would not soon be forgotten. In this
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: small sitting in the American mist.
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 57: From County number one, what is the address.
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 53: Humorencyen, We just found a human body?
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 13: Okay, okay, persons beyond help?
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 23: Or do I need to give you instructions for CPR?
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 17: No?
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 48: It's it started?
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 53: Is it a male or female?
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 64: It's got long hair, but I didn't go near.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 61: You couldn't even tell who it was. Her face was
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 61: completely black and blue. She had more than two hundred
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 61: and forty injuries from what had happened.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 60: The only articles of clothing that were left on her
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 60: body was a sock on each foot, and then there
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 60: was like a pink, pinkish colored bracelet that you'd get
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 60: from like an event on one of her wrists.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 16: From County Public Safety, This is terse.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: It was three hours later when another call came into
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 2: nine one one.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 47: Yes, how do I go about?
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 45: I guess the missing person?
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 2: It was Nicky's boyfriend, Doug.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 33: Okay, and who who's missing?
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 13: It's my girlfriend and she does little with me, and
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 13: she's never done this before.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 65: What's her name?
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 47: Nicole vander Heyden?
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: Now, Detective Brian Slinger had a name for the victim
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: and a name.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: For a likely suffer.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 13: And what's your name?
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 45: Doug Tree?
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 61: They had already found the body, and here they have
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 61: someone calling saying that they can't find their girlfriends.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 33: Obviously, there were some things that were concerning to us.
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 60: You know, why did you wait so long to make
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 60: this phone call, especially when you have a newborn baby
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 60: at the house that needs mother's attention.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 61: So it kind of painted a picture that maybe Doug
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 61: had done this.
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: An officer was dispands to Doug Dtree's home.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 19: Come here from a missing pursonal's report.
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 60: We used a audio video recording device to record it
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 60: so that we could get a look at him.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 60: We focused on his hands, We focused on the general
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 60: condition of his body, focused on the condition of his house,
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 60: his behaviors.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 2: D Tree was not talking about the discovery of a
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 2: body just three miles away.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 7: Back to any follow play If so, why just I
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 7: don't know.
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 13: I don't suspect it, but this is my area she
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 13: walk in, I.
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 2: Don't, I don't, okay.
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 60: His story was he went to bed, woke up once
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 60: or twice through the night to use the bathroom and
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 60: to take care of the baby, and woke up the
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 60: next morning, you know, ten eleven o'clock somewhere in there,
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 60: and she still wasn't home.
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 2: Dtree had not called in the missing person report until
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: four in the afternoon.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 60: I'd be lying if I said we weren't alarmed with
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 60: his level of concern. The level of concern did not
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 60: seem to match what it should be.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 26: I guess.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: So that night Detective's got a war to search the home.
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: Doug and Nikki's share.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 64: It's probably the first person you look to the boyfriend,
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 64: the fact that there was a falling out that night.
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 64: Mister d Tree obviously was a person of interest right away,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 64: and d.
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: Tree was brought to the Sheriff's office for what would
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 2: be a brueling three hour late night to terrogate.
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 30: The detectives.
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 2: Ryan Slinger and Lee Kingston wanted to know why Doug
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: had waited so long to call in the missing person's report.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 26: I was feeling good all day.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 66: It was hor and seeing like shit and then not
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 66: wondering that she went off with another guy whatever.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 6: I was, chick go into my mind.
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 2: After about two hours, the detectives finally tell d Tree
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 2: about the body found in the nearby farm field.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 66: I don't think it's been one hundred percent identified as her,
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 66: but there's a lot of similarities.
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 32: What do you knew?
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 6: A lot of similarities.
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 66: There's a physical description.
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: Height Lon Kelly button Ring.
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 2: They are watching him closely to see his reaction before
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 2: asking him essentially if he killed her.
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 66: And you don't know where she is or what happens
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 66: or not absolute you did you do anything the cause
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 66: her to go missing?
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 29: No, not at all.
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 66: Decides to be in an asshole form.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 2: Now the detective raised the stakes, telling Doug d Tree
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 2: they want the clothes he was wearing that night when
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: he was out with Nicky, and that they are already
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: searching his house for evidence of a man.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 66: Is there anything in your When they go search your house,
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 66: they're going to find anything. Anything in their house they're
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 66: going to find that's gonna it's gonna save you anything,
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 66: nothing whatsoever.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 26: I have nothing to do with it.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 4: I mean.
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 2: For the next half hour, as the detectives watched, Doug
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 2: d Tree sobs almost uncontrolled, at one point saying he
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: is scared.
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 6: Just it's us.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 4: Here's there.
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: Were they the tears of a grieving boyfriend, the tears
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 2: of someone who was scared.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 6: You husband, every well, find that I loved.
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 46: You, I love you, I love you, I.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 6: Love you.
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 5: I really.
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: Green Bay, Wisconsin, it's all about. It's football team, a
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 2: Green Bay Packer Ianah.
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 53: Pretty much anywhere you go around here and it's Green
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 53: Bay Packers.
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 33: Yeah.
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 61: If you don't love the Packers, you might get booted out.
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 61: It's green and gold here for days and days and days.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: Well, the stadium was empty. The football season had not
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 2: yet started. On the spring weekend, Nicki Vander Hyden was killed,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 2: and so her brutal murder was all anyone.
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 64: Who talked about many people said, how can such a
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 64: brutal crime take place in Green Bay, Wisconsin? How can
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 64: somebody commit such a random act in our community, not
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 64: in my backyard?
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 60: Like it was very scary, I mean, can't think of
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 60: anything worse a random attack like that on a young
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 60: lady at bar clothes, you know, in a small, one
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 60: hundred thousand person community.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 2: And the shock of Nikola vander Heyden's death was felt
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 2: throughout this family friendly city.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 64: By all accounts, she was a very good teacher, and
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 64: she was an excellent mother, a smiler, somebody who they
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 64: said would light up a room.
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 2: He was the mother of three, two from a previous marriage,
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 2: and the third, six month old Dylan, with her living boyfriend,
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 2: Doug Ddre.
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 61: She really cared about her kids and would never have
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 61: done anything to put them at harms way or in jeopardy,
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 61: or to leave them alone.
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 2: The first big break in the case came with a
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 2: call from two joggers out for a morning run, coincidentally
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 2: caught on a student driver's dashboard camera.
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 60: We were out jogging that morning at about five five
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 60: point thirty and we had to jump over a pool
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 60: of blood in the road, and if you look close
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 60: on the right hand side, you could see where the
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 60: blood and stuff is.
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: And then a neighbor found more of the rizly evidence
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 2: on his lawn, including a wire cord he had run
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 2: over with his lawnmowner.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 33: That's absolutely where the murder took place.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 60: The blood that was collected there, the hair samples, and
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 60: then that cord that was phoned, which we believe was
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 60: like a phone charging cord came back all positive with
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 60: Nicole Vanderheyden's blood DNA.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: Detectives began to hear from Nicky's friends and relatives that
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: Doug had been abusive to Nicky.
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 4: She's been very depressedly.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 2: Her sister, Heather said, Doug drank heavily and used cocaine.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 4: And then my mom's side a tweeks ago, she told
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 4: him her that she had been being her she had
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 4: she ever had you?
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 64: My mom.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 6: Did.
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 2: And one of Doug's former girlfriends, Rebecca Mott, came forward
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: to tell detectives how Doug could be jealous and often violent.
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 13: We got y and aprah Mankel he would.
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 32: You know, I'll throw off right up and.
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 61: I to him, he wasn't the most stand up citizen
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 61: or the best boyfriend by any means.
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 2: And now the search that Doug's home began to produce results.
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 60: Nicole had some significant prints on her back that appeared
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 60: to be a shoe, which is like a herringbone pattern
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 60: that's common on the bottom of Air Jordan or Nike
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 60: Jordan's shoes. We located a pair of shoes in mister
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 60: Deetri's garage that had that similar pattern on them that
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 60: also had some red staining, red drops on the bottom
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 60: of them that we figured was consistent with blood.
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 2: And inside of Nicky's car parked in the garage was
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 2: what appeared to be blood splatter blood drops in the
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 2: back seat.
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 60: We were pretty confident at that time that Doug was responsible.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 60: Our theory at the time was that somehow Nicole got home,
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 60: there was a disturbance or some sort of disagreement out
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 60: in the street or in the driveway, and then the
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 60: theory was that Doug used her vehicle, which was in
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 60: the garage to transport the body. At seven o three pm,
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 60: accepting contact with Doug Petrie, what's the other.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 2: Less than seventy two hours after Nicky's body had been discovered.
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 2: Detective Brian Slinger was on his way to Doug Decree's
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 2: house to arrest him for murder.
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 55: We'll talk down the Nicoid's explained to you what's going on.
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 33: He was pretty I mean, he was emotional.
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 60: He had had the chance to speak to a family
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 60: attorney prior to his arrest, so there was no interview
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 60: after his arrest, he was just transported to the jail.
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 2: Doug Dietree's arrest with the murder of his girlfriend send
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 2: another shockwave through Green Bay.
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 61: He comes from a pretty well off family here in
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 61: the area. He had a pretty good life, and so
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 61: people just thought he was kind of, you know, a
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 61: rich kid, kind of getting away with what he wanted.
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 2: Didrie had no alibi for his whereabouts that faithful night
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 2: when Nicky walked off into the darkness, and the friend
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 2: who was with him that night, Greg Meth, appeared to
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 2: the detectives to be fake about Doug's movements.
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 67: Because I'm going to tell you that there's no doubt
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 67: in anybody's mind that the evidence shows that your friend
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 67: Doug had involvement in her murder.
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 32: There's no doubt about it.
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, And The friend became upset when detectives asked him
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 2: about Doug's whereabouts in the hour before the babysitter Dallas said,
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 2: Doug had returned home.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 67: Who can vouch for you for the sixteen minutes before
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 67: you showed up and me in contact with Dallas?
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 32: Who can vouch you for that?
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 6: What is sixteen minutes?
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 61: One hour?
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: I'm asking for a one hour period of time. Who
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: can vouch for where you were? If your phone is dead?
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 32: Thank you guys.
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: So nobody that's your alibi. Nobody that's your alibi. Your
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: albi is the guy's.
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 32: Glossie for murdering.
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 2: The evidence against Doug d three was building, but the
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 2: case was about to take another dramatic turn, all because
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: something the detective saw on this bodycam video Doug Dietree
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 2: when he first reported Nicki missing.
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 12: Breaking news on the case of the Brown County woman
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 12: whose body was found in a farm field.
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 2: Sixteen days after he's been arrested for the murder of
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 2: his girlfriend, Nicki, Doug Dietree was released from Jay Doug
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 2: Hunty Jill.
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 61: He's not any people were really shocked and we're like,
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 61: what are police doing? How can they let a murderer
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 61: go when we know where We thought we knew that
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 61: he was the one.
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 2: That did it, but behind the scenes, the case against
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 2: him had completely fallen apart.
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 60: A lot of what changed was we're getting evidence back
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 60: from the crime lab. There's a lack of physical evidence
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 60: tying Doug to her body, to her clothing.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 2: The blood found on his air Jordan's shoes was not
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 2: that of Nicky Vanderhyden, but that of a turkey.
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 33: Who wouldn't known.
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 60: You would have went turkey hunting a week or two
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 60: prior and there'd be turkey blood in the garage.
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 2: The blood found in Nicky's car wasn't hers, but that
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 2: of her daughter, and the vehicle couldn't have been used
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 2: to move the body, as police first theorized.
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 60: We were able to find out that that car did
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 60: not move the entire weekend, and then we went back
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 60: and looked at the videos and we had noticed that
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 60: mister Choo's wearing his fitbit the day that we interviewed
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 60: him at the house when he called in the missing person.
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 33: We started thinking.
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 60: About can we get the data off that fitbit to
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 60: show was he moving around that night?
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 2: The device was turned over the crime technician Tyler.
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 65: Bailey fitbit is an activity tracker that you wear on
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 65: your wrist, similar to a watch or bracelet. There was
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 65: a short amount of steps recorded in the middle of
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 65: the night, consistent with someone getting up to use the
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 65: bathroom in the middle of the night, and then after
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 65: that there was another period where there was no movement
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 65: recorded from the fitbit.
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 2: Doug Dtre's fitbit confirmed his alibi.
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 60: And there was no way he would have gotten up
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 60: in the middle of the night, went out into the
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 60: front yard, committed a brutal murder, drove of a couple
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 60: miles away, and then came back home.
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 2: Detective Brian Slinger had worked hard to destroy his own
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 2: case and cleared Doug Ytree of the crime, but still
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: felt bad about first arresting an innocent man for murder.
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 60: When we missed the funeral, he missed certain things. He
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 60: was painted as this and I think you know, anyone
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 60: would be lying. And they said they didn't feel slightly
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 60: bad about it.
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 61: Okay, Well, then who do they think did this? Is
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 61: this person still out there?
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 7: Are they in the community?
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 61: I think it was pretty scary for people living in
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 61: that area too to realize that. Okay, if Doug didn't
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 61: do it? Who did and where is this person?
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 2: And the key was to find whoever met up with
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 2: Dickey fad Or fighting sometime after she walked away from
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 2: this downtown bar and then killed him. Police didn't have
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 2: a clue.
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 33: We re enacted at numerous times.
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 60: We walked the path and she kind of walked off
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 60: into darkness, and that's kind of where we were at.
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 2: It would be two full months before a breakthrough.
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 60: Got a call in from the crime lab telling me
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 60: that they were able to get enough DNA off of
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 60: one of the socks of all things from.
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 33: Her body to enter it into the CODAS system.
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 2: The koda's system is a nationwide registry of DNA collected
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 2: by the FBI. Eddie one who has ever been arrested.
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 60: Will be in there when they got a hit from
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 60: the state of Virginia for George Stephen Birch.
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 2: George Stephen Birch had been arrested in Norfolk, Virginia in
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 2: two thousand and one for murder, but was acquitted at Troy.
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 2: He had five other criminal convictions and was on probation
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 2: for one of them, requiring him to stay in Virginia.
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 60: You know, I'm thinking, is this a transient. Is this
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 60: a truck driver that may have been in the area.
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 33: For the weekend?
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 60: How is someone from Virginia's DNA showing up in Green Bay.
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 2: What the investigators did not know was that George Birch
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 2: had been living in Green Bay for some three months
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 2: in this house, the home of Linda and Edward Jensen.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 31: I'm at a.
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 53: Long time ago back in upstate New York. Him and
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 53: his wife were separating, and he knew I was doing
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 53: very well out here, so he asked me if he
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 53: could come out and get a fresh start.
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 35: He was extremely polite. He called me miss Linda, and
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 35: I kind of liked that. Just very personable, very very personable.
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 2: Birch was a regular at a bar three blocks away
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 2: from the Jackson home, a place called Richard Craniums.
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 35: He was so fun loving, you know, everybody at Richard
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 35: Cranium's called him Big Country and he was six foot eight,
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 35: tall guy, but very friendly.
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 53: He was always, I guess you'd say, very charming ergsy girls.
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 53: He had no problem with walking up to any girl
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 53: and just talking with him and striking up the conversation.
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 2: Did Jackson say they had no idea the man staying
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 2: in their home was being sought in the Nicky Vander
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 2: Heyden and murder investigation. In fact, Ed Jackson and George
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 2: Burch had gone fishing the very day her body was discovered.
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 53: Oh, he was real happy. He had a big smile
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 53: on his face and holding it up. That picture actually
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 53: played a big part in it also because when you're
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 53: focus in on it and you look at his right hand,
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 53: you can see them cuts on his knuckles.
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 2: But detectives only learned that Birch was in the Green
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 2: day after he seemingly outsmarted himself.
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 33: We had no contact with him with the Sheriff's department.
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 60: However, Green Bay Police Department did have one contact with
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 60: him from right around that time frame.
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 2: It was from a minor hit and run traffic accident
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 2: involving a Chevy Blazer that belonged to the Jacksons. When
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 2: the vehicle was found, the front seat had been set
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 2: on fire. It was the same vehicle Birch drove the
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 2: night of the murder.
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 61: And at that point the Jacksons called in for a
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 61: stolen vehicle and the last person to use that vehicle
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 61: was George burg and he said that, oh, I must
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 61: have left the keys in the car. Somebody must have
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 61: stolen it.
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 2: But now George Burch's name was in the police department
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 2: database along with his address.
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 60: So I jumped in my car and ran out to
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 60: that house and there he is standing on the porch
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 60: smoking a cigarette.
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 2: And even better, he had given his cell phone to
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 2: the police to clear his name in the earlier investigation.
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 60: It basically mapped out his night and gave us a
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 60: lot of the answers that we needed to have.
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 2: A GPS after the phone showing Birch spent both of
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 2: the night and his favorite haunt, Richard Cranium's, where detectives
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 2: believe he met the evander.
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 60: She was just looking for a ride home and then
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 60: he ended up bringing her home and it's sexually assaulting
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 60: her in front of her residence.
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 33: She's inside of a.
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 60: Vehicle, fell out the passenger side onto the ground, which
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 60: is where he proceeded to curb stop her or stop
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 60: her head into the ground, stop her back into the ground,
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 60: which is how the footprints would have got shoe princes
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 60: would have gotten.
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 11: On her back.
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 60: And then the phone moved and went directly from Nicole's
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 60: residence to the scene.
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 33: Where the body was located.
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 60: So his phone showed him at every single crime scene
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 60: location and basically mapped out that night for US.
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 2: Now authorities were sure they finally had the right person
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 2: who had taken Nikki off the quiet streets of Breed
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 2: Bay and killed her.
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 68: Breaking news out of Green Bay today, thirty eight year
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 68: old George Birch was arrested this morning for the murder
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 68: of Nicole vander Heyden. Investigator say Birch has been tied
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 68: to the scene of the cry with forensic evidence.
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: Sure, Mantie William's gonna take it pack some more time.
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 2: I was doing yankosati, but George Burch was a cool custom,
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 2: showing little emotion. Once he was in custody at six
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 2: foot eight, two hundred and seventy pounds, towering over Detective
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 2: Brian Slinger as his hand cuffer were.
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 60: Reboot, I told him that he was under the arrest
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 60: for the murder of Nicole VanDerHeyden and I wanted to
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 60: speak to him about that.
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 33: His face didn't change one bit.
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 60: Okay, so is this something that you want to talk
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 60: to me about, sir, of that you don't want to
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 60: talk to me about that.
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 13: So I better read Mariana raise you don't you don't
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 13: want to talk to me?
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 2: So for a lawyer, okay, But once at trial, George
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 2: Birch would have plenty to say, offering a version of
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 2: the night that would turn the trial into a real
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 2: who done?
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 31: George? Did you murder Nicole vander Hyder?
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 28: No, sir, definitely not.
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 31: You know who did?
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: Doug leet.
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 2: Now both would be on trial.
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 12: Will you have an explosive new trial for you out
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 12: of Wisconsin? It's taken the nation and all media outlets
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 12: by storm.
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 29: Thank you for your nation, sladies and gentlemen.
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 2: It was forty year old George Burch was on trial
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 2: for the murder that had shocked the city of Green Bay, Wisconsin.
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 56: And a violent, ruthless killer could do what we believe
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 56: the evidence will show mister Burch did to Nicky Vanderhyden.
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 2: But the lawyers for George burg sought to turn the
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 2: tables on the prosecution case.
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 61: The defense came out swinging, We're gonna show you how
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 61: horrible Douglas Tetree.
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 2: Is telling the jury it was Nicky's boyfriend, Doug Dietrie,
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 2: not George Burch, who had the motive to kill her,
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 2: Just as investigators had first.
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 62: Believed Doug murdered Nicole in a fit of jealousy and anger,
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 62: fueled by insecurity, alcohol and numerous other drugs. The evidence
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 62: is going to show you, Doug dinits.
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 33: At the very least, it's going to give you significant.
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 62: Doubt about whether or not George dints.
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 2: And so for two full days, Doug Dietrie was on
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 2: the witness stand, once again, having to defend himself.
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 49: Do you swear to tell truth, the whole truth, and
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 49: nothing but the truth?
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 24: So help me that I do?
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 2: Prosecutor divid to say. Took him through what happened the
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 2: night of the concert, drinking and dancing and happy, leading
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 2: up to a dramatic.
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 18: Moment, Doug, when was the last time that you personally
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 18: saw Nikki.
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 30: Alive one of the bathrooms? See you in ten minutes,
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 30: whatever you know? And that's the last time?
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 53: I sair.
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 2: The prosecutor paused to let Doug Detre's emotion play up.
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 2: From the bench, Judge John Sikowski, a former district attorney himself,
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 2: appreciated what the prosecution was trying to do to overcome
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 2: a major challenge.
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 64: It would be the fact that Dietrie was originally arrested.
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 64: He would have had more of a motive, he would
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 64: have been a likely suspect.
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 18: Do you have absolutely any involvement in Nicky's disappearance or death?
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 26: No, I did not, thank you.
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 18: No further questions at the time, but.
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 2: The cross examination of Doug Petree would be aggressive and brutal,
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 2: Starting with text messages he had sent to his mother
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 2: just before the night that he felt trapped by Nicky.
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 30: I don't recall that that conversation.
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 33: How about when you told her I'm very seriously thinking
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 33: about telling Nicki and the kids they have to move.
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 33: I'm not cut out for this life one bit. Do
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 33: you remember that?
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 30: I remember, you know it.
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 40: I think I sent something on the lines of that,
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 40: and I was having a little downar day or whatever,
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 40: and I just said that to my mom with not
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 40: truly meaning it.
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 30: I guess.
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 33: Did you often say things you didn't mean to your mom?
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 40: I mean, yeah, it's sometimes I would. Yeah, I mean
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 40: it is my mom. I'm very close to her.
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 33: And so since you're close to your mom, that means
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 33: you lie to your mom.
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 30: No, I don't say a lie. I mean maybe sometimes.
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 2: But and then to the text messages Nicki sent to
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 2: him that night, when he had not showed up.
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 33: Did you hurt Nikki that night?
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 30: Do you mean physically or what I.
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 4: No, I mean.
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 33: Did you physically beat her in the past.
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 30: No, I didn't never physically beat Nicki.
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 33: So you just have no idea why she would say
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 33: these things exactly.
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 2: If Doug pet be back on the stand for day three,
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 2: the cross examination turned to why he had waited so
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 2: long to call friends or family or police. He woke
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 2: up early the next morning and Nicky wasn't there, suggesting
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 2: he already knew he were dead because he too.
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 33: Did you search for Nicki on foot or by vehicle?
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 17: No?
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 25: I did not.
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 33: Still didn't call the police. I did not at that time,
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 33: now because you knew you didn't have to.
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 2: And now boring in on his actions when police.
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 33: Did arrive, And then you made sure that before police
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 33: arrived you took a shower.
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 30: Yeah, yep, I mean I was feeling rubby, and.
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 33: You know you wanted you had to wake up, and
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 33: you wanted to hide any proof that you were involved
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 33: in her murder, So you took a shower before the
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 33: police came.
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 2: And then a final step to make sure the jury
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 2: knew that police too had at first believe Doug Dietree
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 2: killed Nikki.
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 33: They knew she was murdered one hundred and eighteen feet
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 33: from your house.
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 30: I don't know what they knew what they knew at
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 30: that point?
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 33: You knew all along what happened to Nikki, No, I
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 33: did not. That's when the Brown County Sheriff's office arrested
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 33: you and told you you were under arrest for the
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 33: murder of Nicole vander Hyden.
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 26: That is correct. I have no further questions.
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 2: The defense had planet its seeds of doubt.
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 24: Look, it's a classic jilded lover gets vengeance story.
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's classic. It's as old as time itself, the story.
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 2: The defense still had to find a way to deal
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 2: with the overwhelming forensic evidence against George Burch, including his
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 2: DNA on Nicky Suck and the GPS data pigs on
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 2: his phone showing his travels to and from the crime scene.
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 64: The evidence that the state clearly presented was difficult to
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 64: overcome that, and so it was no surprise.
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 2: When his lawyers called George Burgs.
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 49: To testify, if you swear to tell the truth, the
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 49: whole truth, and the truth to.
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 19: Help you down.
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 64: Given the situation here, the especially given the scientific evidence
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 64: where it's almost had to testify, and I think what
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 64: he had to try to do was fashion a story
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 64: that would somehow explain away the physical and scientific evidence.
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 2: He wore a tie and tried to come across as
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 2: a gentle.
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 61: Giant George Burch on the stand. Sometimes he seemed likable.
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 2: But sheriff's deputies were concerned that Birch was no likable
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 2: gentle giant.
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 12: Birch is wearing a stun belt underneath his clothes so
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 12: that it's controlled by remote control. They can electric They
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 12: can provide an electric shock to him in case he
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 12: acts out in the courtroom.
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 31: Hey George, I'm good. You've been sitting here for a
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 31: long time. This serves probably have a lot you want
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 31: to explain to the Jerry Sir.
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 2: Birch described meeting Nikki at his regular hangout Richard Cranians.
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 31: I was slurring and how was she acting towards you?
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 28: Send somewhat the same, pretty much starting back and forth
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 28: with each other.
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 2: Birch said they left together and ended up outside her house,
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 2: where he says they had sex in the back of
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 2: the Chevy Blazer before somewhat attacked.
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 69: Them, handing then The next thing I remember was the
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 69: person behind me and then saying. The first thing I
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 69: was coherent to me that I could hear them say
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 69: was look what they made me do. Did you know
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 69: if she was alive or dead? At that point, I
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 69: didn't know if she was alive. There was a lot
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 69: of blood on her face, come out of her mouth,
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 69: on her back.
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 31: And again that at that point, did you know who
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 31: that individual was?
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 28: Never seen him before in my life?
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 46: Do you know who that individual is?
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 4: Now?
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 14: Who was it?
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 4: Was?
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 6: That Tree?
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 2: And he said D three then ordered him at gunpoint
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 2: to put Nicky's lifeless body in his blazer and drop
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 2: it in a nearby farm field.
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 28: What was Dtree doing?
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 66: At this point.
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 28: He was standing behind me with the He still had
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 28: the fireman's hands pretty much directing you what to do.
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 2: Birch's testify, if the jury believed it, would explain perfectly
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 2: why his DNA was on Nicky Suck, why his phone
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 2: GPS data children at the crime scene and at the
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 2: farm field.
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 31: George, did you murder Nicole Vanderhyden?
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 28: No, sir, definitely not.
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: You know who did?
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 32: Doug Beecher.
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 2: The final day of the trial was being televised live
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 2: locally and nationally.
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 12: We're going to be covering the George Burch case today.
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 12: There's a lot at stake with this.
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 61: Story, so many twists and turns. People were so intrigued
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 61: by it because they didn't think that this could happen
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 61: in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and.
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 2: The Cohle's family, Doug Petrie and his family were in
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 2: the courtroom. What would be the dramatic hype fast examination,
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 2: the cross examination of George Birch Prosecutor David.
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 56: Really happened because you drove Nicole home twenty miles away
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 56: from where you lived, fully expecting that you were going
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 56: to have sex.
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 70: Right, that was your expectation. You were going to have sex.
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 70: That's why you're driving her home, right. I was hoping
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 70: that we would. It was leading from what had happened
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 70: before and when we had spoken. It seemed like that's
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 70: what was going to happen.
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 18: When you get there.
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 56: And it becomes clear that Nikki isn't going to have
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 56: sex with you, when she attempts to go into her
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 56: house and leave your vehicle, that's when your mood changes, right, No, servant,
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 56: that's when things get aggressive, don't they not at all?
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 56: That's when you grab that cord and strangle her, don't you, No, sir,
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 56: not at all. That's when Nicki gets slammed on the
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 56: ground repeatedly, when she's trying to run toward her house,
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 56: when those bloodstains lead in the direction back to her home.
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 28: None of that is true.
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 18: Well, how do you know you were out cold when
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 18: if you would sault it?
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 28: Because you said I did.
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 18: It, and the next day you're going fishing with your
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 18: buddy with a smile on your face and not a
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 18: care in the world.
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 28: It was a pre planned event, sir, and I wouldn't
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 28: say not a care in the world. That definitely would
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 28: not be something I would say.
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 14: No further questions.
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 2: It had been almost two years since that spring night
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 2: when the co vander Heyden and her boyfriend Doug were
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 2: at the Steel Panthers concert, Since she sent the angry
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 2: text to Doug, since she walked off into the NI
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 2: and since Doug was arrested for murder and then released
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 2: when his fifth gave him an out, and since authorities
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 2: tracked down George Stephen Birch and you're finding his DNA.
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 2: Nicki sucked and on a wire cores to strength. The
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 2: case was about to go to it, they would have
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 2: to decide whose story to believe that of Doug Dtree.
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 56: Did you have absolutely any involvement in Nicky's disappearance or death?
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 32: No, I did not like that of George.
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 31: George. Did you murder Nicole Vanderhuyde.
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 28: No, sir, definitely not.
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 2: Prosecutor Mary Karaghan Merris presented the state's closing argument.
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 5: This is clearly a who've done it case?
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 2: Ridicully the defense's case.
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 10: Their explanation is ridiculous, is insulting to your intelligence.
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 41: He tries to make you believe this encounter was consensual
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 41: as far as sexual activity.
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 19: Killer is not enough. He seeks to the famer.
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 41: The life's gone, so let's go after a reputation. She's
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 41: not here to counter these outrageous claims. That's very convenient
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 41: for him. Nicki did not give up easily. She showed
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 41: her spirit through the end.
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 19: Nicki did not go jump into the dents.
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 10: We ask you to return a verdict of guilty.
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 19: The first pree intentional Hansen.
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 2: Hey in his closing argument, George Burtish lawyer Lead Jutyard
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 2: did not back down from quoting the finger at Doug Dtree.
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 33: Justice for Nicole is not going to be delivered by
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 33: a wrongful conviction of George Burch just because of his
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 33: story sounds ridiculous. There sounds unbelievable doesn't mean it is.
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 33: And I ask that you focus on all the evidence
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 33: in this case, that you don't continuously ignore that the
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 33: state arrested Doug Detrie and there's a full scale investigation
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 33: into Doug Dtree. We've seen the evidence, We've seen him
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 33: testify he had the motive, the opportunity, and the connection
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 33: to this crime. The first piece of evidence I asked
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 33: that you focus on is when Doug Detrietchen called the police.
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 12: Yes, how do I go about.
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 33: With He didn't call the police until after Nikki's body
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 33: was found. He knew why he didn't want the police
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 33: to come.
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: He was trying to cover up.
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 25: What he did.
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 33: As we sit here right now, you are literally surrounded
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 33: by doubt. You are surrounded by reasonable doubt. That's why
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 33: you must return a verdict of not guilty.
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 2: Both sides expected the jury would need several days to
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 2: review all the evidence and conflicting testimony.
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 12: They got the case this afternoon after closing arguments from
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 12: both sides, and we're waiting to see exactly how long
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 12: they're going to deliberate today.
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 15: Very unusual dynamic in the sense that it's not just
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 15: did this one do it, it's which of the two didn't.
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 2: The jury was back after only three hours.
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 64: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we've been advised that
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 64: you've reached a verdict.
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 26: Is that correct?
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 64: The verdict reads as follows, We the jury find the defendant,
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 64: George Stephen Birch, guilty of first degree intentional homicide.
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 61: Is charged in the information he just hung his hat
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 61: a little bit, but I don't remember him crying or
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 61: showing much emotion.
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 2: And juror's child recorders it had all come down to
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 2: Exhibit number twenty three, that piece of wire cord almost
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 2: thrown away after being run over by a neighbor's lagow.
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 61: He said that is what sealed the deal for them,
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 61: because Doug's DNA was not found on that wire, but
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 61: Nicole vander Heyden's was, and so was George Burch's.
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 2: For an emotional two hours, Judge John Sikowski heard from
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 2: Nicky's friends and family and from Doug Dietree's mother, Diane.
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 63: I have a hard time driving on Offman road. The
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 63: site where perched through Nicky away like you didn't even matter,
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 63: she didn't matter, We loved her and remember her. All
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 63: Nicky wanted from him was a ride home, a ride
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 63: home back to Doug.
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 33: Back to her baby.
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 63: In closing, please go home today, Hug your loved ones,
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 63: tell them you love them, Show them you love them.
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 2: Nobody came to court to speak for George Birch, and
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 2: now wearing his orange prison jumpsuit, he declined to speak
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 2: for himself.
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 14: You know, I just just a thought, mister Birch.
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 29: She said, yes, sir, and no.
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 64: So the mammy thing would have been to say I
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 64: did it, I flipped out, I did whatever. Coppably do
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 64: something and step up to the plate and chose not
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 64: to do that, and still haven't done that.
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 2: And then just before passing sentence, the judge had one
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 2: final comment about George Burch's behavior.
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 51: Drop the body off in a field and then twelve
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 51: hours later go on a boat and be smiling like
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 51: nothing happened, like you didn't have a care in the world.
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 26: How can we explain that.
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: That isn't human, That is not normal.
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 64: In Wisconsin, we have life without pro And that was
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 64: the maximum sense that could be imposed, and that's what happened.
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 64: This is the most brutal murder that has ever been
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 64: committed by one person in the history of Round College.
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 30: That's how severe this case is.
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 29: This is a crime that would, I believe, merit the
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 29: death penalty.
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 46: After that, you have to die in prison.