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Husband Ambushed By Cheating Wife’s New Lover · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So how do you convince the police that your husband
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: died in a tragic house fire?
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Well, you probably shouldn't start by shooting him multiple times
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: with a shotgun first, right?
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if you're writing the script for that
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: particular staging, that is definitely step one of what not
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: to do. Welcome to the Deep Dive.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: You know, when you picture Bismarck, North Dakota, you probably
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: envision a very specific kind of American life. It's a
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: capital city, sure, but everyone you talk to says it
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: has this distinct... tight-knit, almost Mayberry feel to it.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Right, because the winters there are just absolutely brutal. It
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: drops well below zero, so the community kind of by
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: necessity has to be warm.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Exactly. People look out for each other. You know your neighbors.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: There's this deep ingrained sense of family and mutual trust.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: But today we are looking at what happens when that
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: wholesome trusting facade is essentially used as a smoke screen.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're exploring what happens when the quiet house at
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: the end of the cul-de-sac is hiding a meticulously plotted
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: and yet almost unbelievably botched conspiracy.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Because the story we are unpacking today, it really just
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: shatters that illusion of safety completely. I mean, imagine you
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: are a detective stepping into a smoky, freezing house in
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: the dead of winter.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: At first glance, the story just writes itself right.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: It does. It looks like a tragic, isolated incident. But
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: as we're about to explore... If you take just one
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: step closer, if you look just a little bit harder
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: at the physical evidence, the entire narrative shatters into a
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: million pieces.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: And we're going to put you right in the shoes
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: of the investigators today to see exactly how they pieced
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: this bizarre puzzle together from a staged scene to a
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: pretty staggering courtroom conclusion. Right.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: And the mission of this deep dive is to unpack
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: the murder of 42-year-old Chad Ansel.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: And we have a literal mountain of source material to
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: get through today. I mean, we're talking extensive, 9-11 transcripts,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: hours of grueling interrogation tapes and highly detailed autopsy reports.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Not to mention the transcripts from a very high stakes
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: murder trial. We really want to understand how what was
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: supposed to look like a tragic suicide unraveled into this
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: chaotic love triangle.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: OK, let's unpack this. Let's go to January 2nd. This
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: is the inciting incident. Bismarck Dispatch receives a frantic 911
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: call from Chad's wife, Nikki Ensel. Right.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: And she tells the dispatcher there's a house fire. She
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: says it's smoky, the siding of the house is black,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: and she claims she can't get in the door.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: And right from the jump, if you listen to the
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: audio of this 911 call, the dispatcher is trying to
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: manage a chaotic situation, but there's a strange dissonance in
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the caller's voice.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Nikki is on the phone, and her voice has
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: this elevated pitch that mimics panic. But she tells the
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: dispatcher something very specific and honestly very counterintuitive.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: She said she wanted to go in slow, right?
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Exactly. She said, I want to go in slow.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Which immediately struck me when I read the transcript. I mean,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: think about the psychology of a genuine emergency. If your
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: house is actively on fire and you have any suspicion
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: that your spouse is inside, going in slow, is the
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: exact opposite of the human biological instinct.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Right, because the adrenaline spike triggers a fight or flight
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: response geared toward immediate preservation.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're kicking the door down, you're screaming their name,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: you're trying to breach the house until the smoke physically
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: forces you back.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: But she is preemptively managing the dispatcher's expectations of her behavior.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: It's very strange.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Regardless, the first responders arrive. They go into standard fire
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: operations mode. They put out whatever active fire is left
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: in the structure.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: And that's when they make a gruesome discovery in the
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: far back primary bedroom. They find Chad Ensel. He is deceased,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: lying naked on the floor.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Now we have to look at the anatomy of the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: scene because crime scenes are essentially silent witnesses. What do
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: the first responders actually see in that bedroom?
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Well, on the bed, there is a shotgun. Down at
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: the foot of the bed, there is a portable propane heater.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: And scattered nearby, deliberately placed on the bed in the
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: bedside table, are bottles of alcohol.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Specifically, a bottle of proper 12 whiskey and a bottle
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: of Crown Royal.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I was looking at the crime scene layout.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: And the initial theory, the narrative that the scene is
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: aggressively trying to feed the police is that this is
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: a textbook suicide.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Right, the visual they wanted to create is a depressed
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: man drinking heavily using a shotgun to end his own life.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: And somehow in the physical trauma of that act, a
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: tragic accidental fire starts because a portable propane heater is
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: knocked over or sitting too close to the bedding.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: It's a tragedy, but it's a very tidy tragedy, you know.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is how perpetrators often try to hand
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: investigators a narrative that requires the least amount of psychological resistance.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's an interesting way to put it.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they prey on human nature and our systemic desire
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: for simple categorical answers. A depressed husband, alcohol, a gun,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: a tragic accident with a heater. It checks the boxes
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: of a familiar statistical pattern.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: It essentially gives the police permission to say, OK, this
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: is awful, but we know what happened here. Let's process
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: the scene and close the case.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But it's like the perpetrators built a movie set,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: but they entirely forgot to read the script for how
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: physics and human biology actually work.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Because the turning point here comes almost immediately from the
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: medical examiner. When the forensic pathologist conducts the autopsy, this
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: entire tidy narrative completely detonates.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: I was reading the autopsy summary, and there are two
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: massive anomalies. Right.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: The first is the gunshot wounds. Plural. There were multiple
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: shotgun wounds to Chad.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: And if we look at the biomechanics of a shotgun suicide,
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: multiple wounds are virtually impossible. I mean, when a shotgun
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: is fired... The recoil is immense.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And depending on the action of the shotgun, whether
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: it's a pump action that requires physical racking or a
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: break action, the physical capability of a human being to
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: sustain a point blank shotgun blast to the torso or head.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: And then maintain consciousness, physically operate the weapon again, reposition
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: it and pull the trigger a second time. It defies
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: the laws of physiology.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: It immediately changes the classification from a tragic recovery into
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: a homicide investigation.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And the second anomaly is the absolute scientific nail
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: in the coffin for the suicide fire theory. The medical
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: examiner found absolutely no soot in Chadrow's lungs.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: And they don't just look visually for black ash, right?
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I went down a rabbit hole on this.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: They test the blood for carboxyhemoglobin.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: That's right. When a human breathes in smoke, the carbon
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: monoxide binds to the hemoglobin in your blood about 200
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: times faster than oxygen does.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: 200 times?
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah. So if Chad was breathing while that room
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: was on fire... his blood would just be flooded with it.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: That is a phenomenal point. The autonomic nervous system is relentless.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: If you are alive while a fire is burning in
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: your vicinity, even if you are entirely unconscious from a
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: self-inflicted wound, your brainstem forces your diaphragm to contract.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: You will inhale smoke, the soot will coat your trachea,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: and the carbon monoxide permanently alters the blood chemistry.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: So the complete lack of soot and the baseline blood
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: chemistry meant Chad Ensel was dead. His heart had stopped pumping,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: his lungs clenched, had stopped expanding long before that fire
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: was ever ignited.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: It shows such a profound ignorance of basic forensics. I mean,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: if you're going to stage a fire to cover up
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: a murder, how do you not account for soak inhalation?
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: It's forensics 101, honestly.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: But shifting gears a bit, you really have to consider
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: the psychological whiplash for the first responder.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. They go into that house thinking they are
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: fighting a fire, maybe saving a life, or at least
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: recovering the victim of a tragic accident.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: And instantly they have to pivot. Suddenly they realize they
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: are standing in the middle of a staged homicide scene.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: And the person who called it in the weeping widow
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: out on the lawn might be the architect of it.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: The cognitive shift required in that moment is massive. Firefighters
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: and EMTs are trained for rescue and containment.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: But the moment a scene is recognized as staged... Every
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: single thing they've touched the water, they sprayed the debris
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: they stepped on to fight the fire, suddenly becomes compromised
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: forensic evidence.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: The pressure to instantly transition from rescue mode to preservation
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: mode is immense. And this realization forces the detectives to
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: immediately reevaluate the person who provided the initial narrative.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Niggy Ensel. Because the physical scene is telling one story,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: a very bad, scientifically impossible story.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Right. So to understand why it was staged this way...
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Investigators have to look at the narrative Nikki tried to
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: sell them about her husband.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: While the physical autopsy is happening, investigators are sitting down
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: with Nikki in an interview room.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: And at this early stage, the investigator from the local
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: department goes into the interview treating Nikki exactly as she
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: presents herself, as a grieving, traumatized widow.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: She is sitting there literally talking about the logistics of
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: getting ready for Chad's funeral. The detective is apologizing for
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: her loss. using a soft vocal tone, trying to gently
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: figure out the family dynamics.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Trying to understand what might have led to this supposed suicide.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: And Nikki leans all the way into the performance.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: She really does. She paints a picture of Chad that
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: is incredibly dark and volatile. She tells investigators that their
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: marriage was falling apart, that he had started drinking heavily
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: over the last two years.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: And she uses this specific phrase. She says it was
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: like night and day when he drank.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: She claims he was a completely different person. angry, abusive,
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: suffering from severe depression, and exhibiting highly self-destructive behavior. She
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: even goes so far as to imply she lived in
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: terror of him.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: If we connect this to the bigger picture of criminal psychology,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: this is a classic tactic known as post-mortem character assassination.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Right. Why do culprits do this? They need to create
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: a retroactive justification for the scene they've staged. The perpetrator
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: needs the victim to fit the profile of the crime.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: So if she can convince the police that Jad was
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: a violent, unstable alcoholic who was spiraling out of control,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: then the physical props she placed around his body kind
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: of make logical sense.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The proper twist. 12, the Crown Royal, the shotgun.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: It's an attempt to exploit the investigator's reliance on profiling.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: But I love this part of the investigation because the
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: police actually do their homework. They don't just take her
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: uncorroborated word for it.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: No, they go out into the community and they talk
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: to the people who actually knew Chad. And the contrast
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: they uncover is staggering.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: They talk to his friends, his co-workers, his bowling buddies,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: and most importantly, they interview his ex-wife, Susan Ensel.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Susan's testimony is the foundational baseline they needed. She was
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: married to Chad for 17 years.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Right. And from a behavioral science perspective, when you are
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: married to someone for nearly two decades, you know their
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: absolute baseline behavior.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Now, their coping mechanisms, how they handle acute stress, how
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: they process anger, and you definitively know how their body
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: and personality react to alcohol.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: So the investigators asked Susan point blank, did he get
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: violent when he drank? And her response completely contradicts Nikki.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: She basically says, no, he just got more lively, a
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: little more entertaining. She testified that if they ever had
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: a disagreement, Chad was the kind of guy who would
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: usually just walk away rather than escalate a fight.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: He actively avoided confrontation. And his friends independently confirmed this.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: They said he almost never drank hard liquor.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the guy would have a couple light beers at
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: his Monday night bowling league, and that was his limit.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: This raises an important question about how society and law
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: enforcement verify a victim's life. Often the true character of
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: a victim can get completely distorted in the initial stages
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: of an investigation.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Especially if the media picks up the first narrative, the
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: troubled husband angle, and runs with it. But experienced investigators
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: know that human beings are fundamentally creatures of habit.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Right. A core personality, a baseline temperament, doesn't usually just
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: morph overnight into violent psychosis without a massive physiological trigger.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Like a funnel-low brain tumor or an extreme documented trauma.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: I usually push back on this a little because, sure,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: secret lives do exist. People can hide addictions or dark
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: sides from their friends. But we were talking about an
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: ex-wife saying he was peaceful for 17 straight years.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: And Nikki is claiming he turned into a physically abusive
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: monster recently. Isn't that a glaring red flag?
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: When a victim's core personality supposedly flips like a switch
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: just perfectly in time to justify their highly suspicious violent death,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: statistically domestic violence has a long escalation pattern.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: It doesn't usually materialize out of thin air just in
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: time for a staged suicide. It is the reddest of flags.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: It immediately signals to investigators that Nikki is not a
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: passive grieving widow. She is an active architect of a
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: defense strategy.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: She is trying to write the script for the police.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: And she didn't just stop at Chad being abusive to her.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: To add emotional weight to her lies, she later claimed
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Chad was sexually abusive to her two boys.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Which is just a horrific allegation and one for which
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: the courts later found absolutely zero evidence.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: She was throwing the most inflammatory accusation she could think
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: of at the wall. hoping the sheer shock value would
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: justify his death and halt the investigation.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: So Nikki's story about Chad's character is completely disintegrating. It
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: just doesn't match the reality of the man the community knew.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Naturally, the investigators decide, OK, if she's lying about him,
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: let's verify her story about her own whereabouts. And this
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: is where the digital breadcrumbs of modern society begin to glow.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, I love the digital breadcrumbs. Because Nikki had proactively
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: provided an alibi, she claimed that she wasn't even living
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: at the house when the fire and the death occurred.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Her story was that back in December, the furnace in
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: their newly rented house broke. Since it was a brutal
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: North Dakota winter with no heat, she claimed she temporarily
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: moved out to a hotel, the Staybridge Suites.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: And she was incredibly proud of this alibi. She even
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: voluntarily showed the police a video on her phone of
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: the furnace not working properly.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Offering it as concrete proof that she had to leave. Which,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: by the way, we should highlight a massive, almost comical
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: detail here.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: When the fire department was putting out the primary fire
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: in the bedroom, they also found evidence of a second,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: entirely separate fire set down in the basement right near
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: that very same furnace.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: The audacity is matched only by the sheer stupidity of
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: the execution. Setting a small fire near the furnace to
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: retroactively create physical evidence of why the furnace was broken.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: And why she had to be at a hotel. But
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the police play along. They take her alibi seriously enough
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: to go verify it.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: They go to the Stabridge Suites and ask the management
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: for the registration records under Nikki Ensel.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: And the front desk pulls the records and says, we
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: have no one staying here by that name. But they
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: do have the specific room she claimed to be in
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: registered under a different name.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: A man named Earl Howard. This is the moment the
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: curtain gets pulled back entirely. The police immediately start pulling
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: surveillance video from the hotel and the surrounding areas.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: And this perfectly illustrates what sociologists call the panopticon effect
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: in modern society. Bismarck might feel like a quiet small town, Mayberry,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: but geographically and digitally, it is wired exactly like a
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: major metropolitan city.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: You literally cannot move your vehicle or walk down a
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: commercial street without being recorded by something.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: And criminals frequently suffer from a massive psychological blind spot
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: regarding this. They obsessively, meticulously plan the physical act of
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: the crime, the weapon, the accelerant, the spoken alibi.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: But they completely ignore their passive digital and visual footprint
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: leading up to the event. They forget about the neighbor's
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: ring doorbell camera under the eave.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: They forget about the high-definition cameras at the local bowling alley.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: They forget the hotel lobby cameras and the automated license
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: plate readers at intersections.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: Here's where it gets really interesting. The police start stitching
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: these disparate videos together. And they construct an irrefutable minute-by-minute
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: timeline for the night of December 30th.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Remember, Chad's body was found on January 2nd, but the
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: timeline of the actual conspiracy really centers on December 30th.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Let's break that timeline down. At around 5.15 to 5.30 p.m.,
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Chad gets off work. He drives to Midway Lanes for
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: his regular Monday evening bowling league.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: The surveillance cameras at the bowling alley catch him walking in,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: greeting people, hanging out with his friends. It is a
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: completely normal, unremarkable night for him.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: But simultaneously, while Chad is inside throwing strikes, a neighbor's
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: security camera catches a white Chevy pickup truck pulling up
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: to Chad and Nikki's house. Nikki gets out.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: And an unknown male gets out of the driver's side.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: They start brazenly loading items from the house into the truck.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: The guy is just casually standing outside in the freezing cold,
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: smoking a cigarette while they empty the house. The level
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: of comfort they displayed is staggering.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Doing this in the early evening in a residential neighborhood
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: where houses are relatively close together and people are getting
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: home from work, it speaks to a deep sense of
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: entitlement and a complete underestimation of their environment.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: And it feels like they were treating Chad's life like
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: a tragic sitcom. They are literally trying to sneak around backstage,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: loading up a truck with their props, and moving out
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: while he is out front on the main stage, performing
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: his life at the bowling alley.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: It's surreal to watch the two timelines side by side.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: And investigators quickly identify this unknown man with the white
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: truck as Earl Howard, the same man registered at the
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Staybridge Suites.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Police widen their surveillance dragnet, and they find video of
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Earl picking Nikki up for lunch earlier that week. They
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: find high-definition footage of them kissing inside his truck.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: This isn't just a friendly favor. This is a full-blown
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: romantic affair, heavily documented on video, despite both of them
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: being married to other people at the time.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: And the timeline continues its march. At around 10.30 p.m.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: on December 30th, Chad finishes bowling. The cameras catch him
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: walking out the door of Midway Lanes into the winter night.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: And that brief clip of him walking to his car
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: is the absolute last known image of Chad Ensel alive.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: So consider the immense leverage law enforcement has at this
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: exact moment. They know definitively that Chad wasn't depressed and violent.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: They know Nikki was having an illicit affair with Earl Howard.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: They know Nikki and Earl were at the house clearing
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: things out while Chad was bowling, and they know Nikki
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: lied about staying alone at the hotel.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Armed with this undeniable, unblinking digital timeline, they decide it's
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: time to bring Nikki back in for a second interview.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: And this second interview, if you are a student of
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: true crime, it is an absolute masterclass in watching someone's
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: psyche unravel under the sheer weight of their own collapsing lies.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: It is a grueling six-hour marathon. You have two highly
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: skilled investigators in the room, Special Agent Joe Ahrens, who
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: strategically steps into the aggressive, confrontational bad cop role to
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: apply intense pressure.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: And Sergeant Silbergal, who balances the dynamic. They sit her
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: down and the entire atmosphere of the room has shifted.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: They don't play the sympathetic, grieving widow game anymore.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Agent Ahrens looks her dead in the eye and essentially says,
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: we know you're lying, Nikki. We have the video. We
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: have the timeline.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: They confront her with footage from the State Bridge suites,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: clearly showing her and Earl leaving the hotel together at
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: 1 a.m. on the night they suspect Chad was murdered.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: So Nikki's brain goes into absolute overdrive. And this is
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: where we see the first major pivot in her story.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Lie number one.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: She realizes she can't deny being with Earl, so she admits, OK, fine,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: we went to the house. But her excuse, she says
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: they drove all the way over there in the middle
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: of the night just so she could find her medication,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: her patches.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: And she looks the detectives in the eye and claims
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: she was wandering around the house looking for her medicine
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: for an hour and 40 minutes while Chad just sat
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: there aggressively drinking.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Which Agent Ahrens immediately and forcefully shuts down. He doesn't
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: let her breathe on that lie. He tells her point blank,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: you did not look for patches for an hour and
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: 40 minutes while your husband sat there. That makes zero sense.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: And this brings up a crucial neurological concept in interrogation
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: psychology known as cognitive load.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go deep on this. What does cognitive load
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: actually mean for a suspect in that room?
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Well, lying requires an immense amount of metabolic and mental
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: energy from the prefrontal cortex. Telling the truth is cognitively
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: easy because you are simply accessing an existing memory.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: But when you lie... You have to invent a scenario
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: out of whole cloth. Remember the granular details of that
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: invention so you don't contradict yourself.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You have to continuously monitor the interrogator's facial expressions
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: and reactions, actively suppress your true memories from surfacing, and
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: constantly adjust your fabricated story in real time to fit
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: every new piece of evidence they slide across the table.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: It is exhausting. So when Ahrens confronts her with irrefutable
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: video evidence, Nikia's cognitive load maxes out. Her working memory
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: is overloaded and her brain essentially short circuits.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: And that neurological short circuit leads to what has to
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: be the most bizarre, almost comical moment of this entire case.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Lie number two.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Because her medication excuse failed, she invents a completely new person.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: She tells the detectives that when she and Earl got
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: to the house, there was a strange man who suddenly
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: emerged from the basement.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: And she says this man was affectionately calling Chad Hunn.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: She is... heavily implying out of nowhere that Chad had
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: a secret homosexual lover living in their basement who must
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: have committed the murder.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: It is a desperate, flailing attempt to introduce the concept
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: of reasonable doubt. But because her cognitive load is so
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: phenomenally high, she simply doesn't have the mental bandwidth or
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: the creative capacity left to invent a truly original character.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: When the detectives calling her bluff ask her to meticulously
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: describe this mysterious basement lover, she draws on the only
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: visual cues her ever overloaded brain can immediately process in
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: that high-stress environment.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: The two men sitting directly across the table from her.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Yes. She says the guy had spiked hair, really nice teeth,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: and smelled heavily like Crown whiskey.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: And the detectives realize, in real time, she is literally
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: taking the physical features and grooming habits from Special Agent
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Ahrens and Sergeant Silberkle, mixing them with the Crown Royal
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: she left at the crime scene, and combining them into
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: one phantom suspect.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: It's a record to witness. She is describing a composite
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: sketch of of her interrogators to their faces.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you're a detective and the suspect essentially
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: draws a picture of you and says, this is the killer,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: how do you maintain your professional bearing? It is so
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: transparently absurd.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: You don't keep a straight face. And they didn't. They
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: didn't let her think she was getting away with it.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: They called her out on the absurdity immediately.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Oren says to her, Nikki, this is how bad your
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: lie is. This is how silly this is getting. You
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: are describing us.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: But from an investigative and psychological standpoint, this ridiculous lie
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: is actually the major turning point of the entire interrogation.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Why? Just because it confirms she's untrustworthy?
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Because it signals that her psychological defenses are completely crumbling.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: When a suspect abandons a somewhat plausible lie, like spending
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: too much time looking for medication and resorts to an impossible,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: structurally absurd lie, Like a phantom basement lover who looks
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: like the cops.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: It means they are out of strategic options. The truth,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: or at least a version of the truth that heavily
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: implicates them, is imminent. They have nowhere else to retreat.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: And she really didn't. Because the detectives then confront her
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: with the most damning piece of her own digital footprint.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: They point out that on the morning of January 2nd,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: at exactly 10.00 a.m., she used her smartphone to Google
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: search for funeral homes.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Which is indefensible. She wants the police to believe she
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: had absolutely no idea Chad was dead. until she tragically
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: discovered the smoke in the fire at 5.30 p.m. that evening.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Why on earth are you researching funeral logistics seven and
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: a half hours before you supposedly discover your husband's body?
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: It's the ultimate unforced error. And faced with all of this,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: the surveillance video, the time-stamped Google searches, the sheer embarrassment
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: of the Chad Hun lie. She finally breaks and pivots
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: to lie number three.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: She admits she was at the house when it happened,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: but she shifts 100 percent of the criminal culpability onto
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: her lover, Earl Howard.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: She tells the detectives a new narrative. She claims that
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: when they arrived, Earl told her to wait in the car.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: She says she sat out in the freezing cold for
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: about 15 minutes.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: And then Earl came out of the house, got in
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: the truck and coldly told her that Chad might not
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: be alive. She portrays herself as a completely passive, terrified participant.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: who is just swept up in Earl's sudden unpredictable violence.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Which the detectives push back on instantly because it defies logic.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: They say, wait, let's get this straight. Earl comes out
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: and says your husband is dead or shot. And it
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: never occurred to you to go inside and check on him?
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: To call 911 right then and there to try and
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: save his life. And of course, she has no rational
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: answer for that. But legally, she has officially pointed the
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: finger at Earl. She has put him at the scene
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: of the murder.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: So now law enforcement have a new urgent primary target.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: They have to find Earl Howard. And this becomes highly
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: time sensitive because they run his background and discover Earl
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Howard is a Canadian citizen.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: He is now officially a murder suspect and a fugitive.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: And the biggest fear for North Dakota law enforcement is
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: that he is making a run for the international border.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: If he crosses into Canada, the extradition process could delay
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: justice for years, require federal intervention or complicate the prosecution entirely.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: But they catch a massive break. On the night of
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: January 7th at approximately 11.45 p.m., Earl Howard is apprehended,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: but he's nowhere near North Dakota.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: He is caught at the Port Huron border crossing in Michigan.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: He was literally at the bridge trying to cross over
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: into Canada when Border Patrol agents flagged his identity and
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: took him down.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: So Earl is transported back and brought into an interview room.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: And unlike Nikki, who spent six hours spinning a web
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: of increasingly absurd and easily disprovable lies, Earl sits down
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: with his defense attorney and the state investigators, and he
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: makes a strategic decision to talk.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: But his story is fascinating. Because it's basically a mirror
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: image of Nikki's, just with the character roles reversed. Earl
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: claims that he and Nikki went to the house so
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: she could get her medication.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: He says Chad and Nikki started having words getting into
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: a heated argument. He claims Chad aggressively told him to
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: leave the house so he complied. Earl says he went
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: out to the truck and waited.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Notice the structural parallel. Nikki said Earl told her to
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: wait in the car. Earl says Chad told him to
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: leave so he went and waited in the car.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Right. And Earl says that eventually Nikki came out to
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the truck, got in, and told him bluntly that she
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: shot Chad.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: And Earl's response, at least according to his version of events,
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: was just a nonchalant, OK, I'll deal with it.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: And he readily admits that the next morning he was
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: the one who went back to the house, rigged the
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: propane heater, and set the fire.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: His logic for the fire is wild. The investigator asked
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: him what his master plan was. And Earl literally says,
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: I didn't have a solution. My only solution was set
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: a fire and hope everything went away.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: It is the absolute definition of a bumbling co-conspirator. He
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: operated under the delusion that a small structural fire would
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: just magically erase all the forensic evidence linking them to
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: a violent homicide.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Completely ignorant of modern forensic science like blood spatter analysis, ballistics,
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: and carboxyhemoglobin tests.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: But what we see playing out here between Nicky and
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Earl in these separate interview rooms is a classic real-world
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: execution of the prisoner's dilemma.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: I know we hear that term tossed around a lot
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: in pop culture, but let's really break down the mechanics
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: of the prisoner's dilemma for the listener in this specific context.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Oh, let's get into it.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: The prisoner's dilemma is a fundamental concept in game theory.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Imagine two co-conspirators are arrested and placed in separate rooms,
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: completely unable to communicate with each other.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: The prosecutors offer them each a deal right.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If both stay silent, the state's case is weak,
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: and they might both get a very light sentence. If
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: one betrays the other and testifies against them, the betrayer
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: goes free and the betrayed gets maximum time.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: But if both betray each other, they both serve significant time,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: though perhaps slightly less than the maximum.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: The Nash equilibrium of this game dictates that rational self-interest
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: will almost always drive both prisoners to betray each other
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: to avoid the worst case scenario. And here, Nicky and
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Earl instantly defected.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Nicky says Earl pulled the trigger and Earl says Nicky
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: pulled the trigger.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: And this creates a massive tangible problem for the prosecution.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Because while they know they are both involved, they didn't
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: have any DNA on the shotgun itself.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: They couldn't physically scientifically prove whose finger was on the
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: trigger when the weapon was charged.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Exactly. In a court of law to convict someone of
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: first-degree murder as the principal actor, you have to prove
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: beyond a reasonable doubt that they committed the specific act.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Because they both blamed each other, and because there was
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: no forensic biological evidence tying either specific person to the weapon,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: The prosecutor, Thomas Glass, faced a significant legal hurdle.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: He couldn't risk putting them both on trial for murder
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: and having a jury acquit them both because they couldn't
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: decide who pulled the trigger.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: So the prosecutor makes a highly calculated move. He makes
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: a deal with Earl. Earl agrees to take a plea deal.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: He pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: commit arson, and conspiracy to tamper with physical evidence. He
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: is sentenced to 25 years in state prison.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: But the actual charge of murder against Earl is completely dropped.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: This is where we have to understand the legal theory
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: of conspiracy. The prosecutor recognized that proving the murder charge
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: against Earl would be incredibly difficult without DNA or an eyewitness.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: But proving the conspiracy charge was an absolute slam dunk
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: based on Earl's own recorded admissions, the timeline, and the
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: surveillance video. Conspiracy simply requires an agreement to commit a
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: crime and one overt act toward its completion. But wait,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: I have to challenge this from the perspective of the
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: victim's family. As a listener hearing this, you're telling me
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: they just let the guy who... very well might have
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: pulled the trigger.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: The guy who fully admits to returning to the scene
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: and setting the house on fire?
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let him take a lesser charge and entirely avoid
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: a murder conviction. How does a prosecutor ethically justify that
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: to a jury or, more importantly, to Chad's grieving family?
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: It is incredibly difficult. And to a layperson, it often feels...
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: profoundly unfair and transactional. But prosecutors are bound by the
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: realities of the courtroom.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: They operate in the realm of what they can definitively
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: prove to 12 jurors, not just what they know in
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: their gut to be true.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: By securing Earl's plea to the conspiracy charges, they guarantee
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: he is removed from society and spends decades in prison,
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: rather than risking a trial where a jury might entirely
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: acquit him of murder because of the lack of DNA.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: And crucially, by taking Earl off the board, it allows
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: the state to focus its entire undivided prosecutorial resources on
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: the person they perceive as the mastermind and the primary beneficiary.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Nikki Ensel. And Earl, for his part, heavily distances himself
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: from Nikki in his final interviews. He tells the police
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: that he was already planning to end the romantic relationship
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: with Nikki after Chad was dead anyway.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: His exact quote to the detectives is, You can sniff
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: out crazy. Eventually, she doesn't seem like she's all there
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: all the time.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Which is quite a bold statement coming from a guy
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: who just helped plot and cover up a murder and
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: try to flee the country.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: There is truly no honor among thieves. But with Earl
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: securely put away for 25 years, the state turns its full,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: unblinking attention to Nikki's trial.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: And this is where the ultimate motive, the reason why
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: they didn't just get a simple divorce, why they felt
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: they had to execute Chad. comes into crystal clear focus.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: If you listen to True Crime, you already know where
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: this is going. We have to follow the money.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: It's the oldest motive in the human playbook. It is
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: the Occamare's razor of true crime.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: You can have all the phantom basement lovers, the broken furnaces,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: and the complex staging you want, but at the end
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: of the day, it almost always comes down to a
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: financial payout.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Life insurance. Chad had a life insurance policy purchased relatively recently.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: And the specific insurance agent who sold the policy was
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: actually a personal friend.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: This agent noted to investigators that Nikki made a claim
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: on that policy almost immediately after Chad's death with an
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: unsettling urgency.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: But what makes this case unique isn't the life insurance
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: policy itself. It's the sheer audacity of Nikki's timeline.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: While the police are still actively processing the smoky crime scene,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: while Chad's family is still reeling in the initial hours
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: of shock and grief. The investigators find surveillance video of
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Nikki and Earl at Riddles Jewelry inside the Kirkwood Mall.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: What exactly were they doing at a jewelry store in
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: the immediate aftermath of a murder?
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: She is standing at the jewelry counter, calmly getting receipts
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: and invoices for all her jewelry printed out so she
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: can immediately add them to her renter's property insurance claim
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: for the fire.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: The victim's body is barely cold, the ashes in the
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: house are still smoldering, and she is casually at the
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: mall doing insurance paperwork with the man who helped kill him.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: It perfectly crystallizes the motive and strips away any facade
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: of a crime of passion. The plan, as the prosecution
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: methodically laid it out, was entirely transactional.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: Kill Chad, collect a life insurance payout, collect the property
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: insurance from the staged fire, and use the combined funds
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: to move to Texas together and live happily ever after.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: So with the motive established, we move to the trial.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: The state of North Dakota versus Nikki Sue Melissa Ensel.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: And criminal trials are usually these massive theatrical battles with
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: dueling narratives.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: But this specific trial had a very strange, almost eerie dynamic.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: The state calls over 40 witnesses to meticulously build their timeline.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: But the defense, Nikki's highly paid legal team, decides to
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: offer absolutely no opening statement to the jury. And later,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: when it's their turn, they call zero witnesses to the stand.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Nikki does not testify in her own defense.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: This is a fascinating, albeit incredibly risky, legal strategy. By
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: not making an opening statement, the defense is keeping their
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: theoretical cards entirely hidden.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: They are essentially saying to the jury, we don't have
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: to prove she is innocent. The burden of proof rests
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: entirely on the state. We are just going to sit
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: back and watch them fail to prove she is guilty.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: But psychologically, doesn't that leave the jury waiting for a
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: shoe to drop that never actually comes? They sit through
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: days of state evidence, expecting a rebuttal that just doesn't exist.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: It absolutely does, which is why it's a massive gamble.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: When a defense calls no witnesses, they rely entirely on
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: the hope that their attorney can tear apart the state's
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: case through aggressive cross-examination.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: Poking enough holes in the timeline or the forensics to
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: create reasonable doubt.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: So knowing the defense is playing this passive game, prosecutor
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Thomas Glass takes a very different approach. In his opening statement,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: he does something really smart with the jury.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: He looks at them and he says, you are going
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: to hear a lot of information. It's going to come
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: at you in pieces just like it did for the police.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: You get to be the investigators.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: That is a brilliant psychological tactic by the prosecutor. Why
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: do juries respond so well to being treated as investigators?
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Because it empowers them.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: It shifts them from being passive listeners who are being
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: lectured at to active participants solving a puzzle. Human beings
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: are deeply susceptible to self-persuasion.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: When a juror pieces the timeline together themselves, When they
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: mentally connect the video of Chad at the bowling alley
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: to the video of Nikki and Earl clearing out the house,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: the conclusion feels like their own brilliant discovery.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: And people rarely doubt their own discoveries.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: The only real angle the defense had left was what
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: is known in legal circles as the empty chair defense.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: During closing arguments, the defense attorney dramatically points out that
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: despite over 40 witnesses being called by the state, forensic.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Experts, neighbors, police, the most important witness of all wasn't
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: in the room.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Earl Howard.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: The defense gestures to the empty witness stand and says,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: where's Earl Howard? He took a plea deal with the state.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: If he knows exactly what happened in that bedroom, why
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: didn't the state make him testify? What are they hiding?
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: They try to use Earl's physical absence to create a
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: massive shadow of reasonable doubt.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: But the legal reality of why Earl wasn't there is
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: much more practical and complex than a cover up. Even
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: though Earl pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charges, he did
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: not plead guilty to murder.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: Therefore, if the state put him on the witness stand
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: and asked him the ultimate question under oath, did you
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: pull the trigger and kill Chad Ensel? Earl still retains
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination regarding the murder itself.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: He could just sit on the stand and plead the
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Fifth to every substantial question.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: And a key witness pleading the Fifth over and over
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: in front of a jury is incredibly prejudicial. It makes
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: the entire trial look like a sham where everyone is
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: hiding something.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The prosecution correctly decided they didn't even need Earl's testimony.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: The digital evidence, the unblinking cameras, the timestamped receipts, the
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: absurd lies Nikki told on tape, it was more than
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: enough to prove the conspiracy charge.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: As the prosecutor argued to the jury under the law,
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: it fundamentally didn't matter whose finger was on the trigger.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: They proved that Nikki and Earl made an agreement to
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: kill Chad. They took overt physical steps to do it,
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: and one of them executed it.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Under North Dakota conspiracy law that makes them both equally
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: culpable for the outcome. And the jury agreed emphatically. Despite
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: the trial spanning several days and involving a massive amount
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: of technical and timeline evidence, the jury went into deliberations
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: and came back with a verdict on the exact same day.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: A same-day verdict in a complex murder conspiracy trial is
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: incredibly swift. Juries will often agonize for days over timelines
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: and intent.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: A same-day turnaround shows that the digital timeline left virtually
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: no room for reasonable doubt in their minds. The evidence
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: was overwhelming.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: They found Nikki Ensel guilty on all counts. Conspiracy to
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: commit murder, conspiracy to commit arson and tampering with physical evidence.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Which was the specific charge for removing the spent shotgun
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: shell hull from the scene to try and make it
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: look like a suicide.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: But the swiftness of the verdict doesn't erase the emotional fallout.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: The trial answers the legal question, but the sentencing hearing
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: is where the true human cost of this crime is
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: finally voiced and entered into the public record.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: And that brings us to the sentencing. Chad's sister, Lori Krause,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: stood up in the courtroom and delivered an incredibly powerful
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: victim impact statement.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Reading the transcript, you can feel the visceral anger, the
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: deep betrayal. She looks directly at Nikki and says, you
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: chose money over human life.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: She reminds everyone in the room how Nikki sat with
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: their family in the immediate aftermath, crying fake tears and
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: playing the victim while they were mourning.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: And Lori ends her statement by telling Nikki she hopes
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: she rots in eternity. It is raw, it is devastating,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: and it is entirely justified.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: It is the agonizing voice of a family that was
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: not only violently robbed of a loved one, but was
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: actively manipulated and lied to in their moment of deepest,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: most vulnerable grief.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: But what is truly stunning from a psychological perspective is
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: how Nikki responded to this moment of reckoning.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, her response is infuriating. Nikki submits a final written
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: letter to the judge before sentencing, and instead of showing
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: even a thorough ounce of remorse, or at least maintaining
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: a dignified silence, she doubles down.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: She maintains every single disproven lie. She claims against all
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: evidence that she was the victim of severe domestic abuse.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: She repeats the baseless, horrific claim that her two boys
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: were abused by Chad.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: And she even complains to the judge about the legal
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: process itself, mining, that she was told she would sit
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: and rot if she exercised her right to go to trial.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: It is a remarkable display of a psychological fortress. She
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: exhibits traits of profound narcissistic injury. She has completely immutably
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: internalized her own victimhood.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: She writes to a judge as a convicted murderer facing
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: a life sentence to complain about her own minors. hardships
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: and bruised ego, entirely callously ignoring the innocent man she
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: conspired to execute.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: The judge, to his immense credit, shut the abuse narrative
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: down completely in his final remarks. He stated clearly on
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: the public record that there was absolutely zero evidence presented
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: at trial.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Not a police report, not a medical record, not a
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: credible witness that Chad ever abused her or the children.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: He called her narrative out for what it was, a
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: constantly changing, self-serving story designed solely to fit her circumstances
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: and excuse her crimes.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: But the judge's final ruling is where the justice system's underlying,
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: often contradictory philosophies clash. He sentences Nikki Ansel to life
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: in prison. But he sentences her to life with the
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: possibility of parole.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: I have to admit, hearing that she gets a shot
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: at parole after framing an innocent guy, assassinating his character post-mortem,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: faking tears with his family, and showing absolutely zero remorse
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: at the 11th hour, that is a really tough pill
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: for the listener to swallow.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: It is deeply difficult to reconcile with our innate desire
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: for retributive justice. But judges often have to weigh the
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: severity of premeditated murder against the justice system's foundational philosophical
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: belief in rehabilitative justice.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: The judge noted that while the crime was horrific and
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: the lack of remorse was glaring, there is a systemic
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: belief that through decades of forced counseling, aging, and institutional intervention,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: a person might eventually be rehabilitated enough to be safely
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: released and become a productive member of society.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: It doesn't mean she will get parole. It just means
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: the state refuses to permanently weld the door shut on
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: the possibility of change.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: It is a heavy, complex note to end the legal
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: proceedings on. But let's pull back and look at the
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: incredible trajectory of this entire case.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: We started this deep dive talking about the wholesome, trusting
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: facade of a town like Bismarck. We started with a quiet,
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: snowy home and what looked like a textbook tragic suicide.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: And through diligent, skeptical police work and fundamentally through the
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: unyielding power of modern technology that staged facade unraveled into
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: a web of easily disproven lies.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: It feels like a movie. But it is a stark,
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: real-world reminder of how fragile the truth can be when
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: it's being manipulated by someone you trust.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: But conversely, it shows how resilient the truth is when
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: physical evidence is properly preserved and digital data is scrutinized.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: The camera doesn't lie, even when the grieving widow does.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Which leaves us with a final concept to mull over.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: Think about this. We live in an era where our
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: digital footprint, our hotel receipts, our security cameras, our internet
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: search histories... remembers our actions perfectly objectively and without bias.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: But our human memory is biologically wired to deceive, to justify,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: and to protect our own fragile egos.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: In the end, Nikki Ansel wasn't undone just by the
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: police interrogators. She was undone because she arrogantly trusted her
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: own flawed, ego-driven human lies over the permanent, unblinking memory
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: of the technology surrounding her.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: So the next time you walk down your own quiet,
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: Mayberry-like street, ask yourself this. If someone had to reconstruct
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: your day just from the cameras, the data, and the
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: digital exhaust you left behind, what story would it tell
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: about you?
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Would it match the story you tell yourself? That is
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: a haunting thought to leave on. Thank you so much
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: for joining us on this deep dive into the Chad
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Ensel case. Keep asking questions, keep looking closer at the
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: details around you, and we will see you next time.