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Wisconsin man claims his wife was killed by pipe coming through car windshield
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This story previously aired on Sept. 3, 2022. It was updated on Dec. 27, 2025.
Todd Kendhammer said his wife Barbara was killed in a freak accident when a pipe smashed into the windshield of their car in 2016. A Wisconsin jury didn’t believe him, and he was sentenced to life in prison. Their children believe he’s innocent. Now, his new legal team says there is evidence the jury never heard. Will a judge grant a new trial?
Every year, where the Mississippi widens out on its steady journey south alongside the river town of La Crosse, Wisconsin, bald eagles gather.
Lofty symbols of freedom, they soar close to the remote country road where 46-year-old Barbara Kendhammer was fatally injured. The circumstances, so unusual, made headlines and sent her husband Todd to prison for life.
Kathleen Stilling: I just became fascinated by the story that I saw unfolding here.
Now, Todd Kendhammer’s appeals team says his murder conviction is the true injustice that occurred in this controversial case.
Erin Moriarty: Do you believe that Todd Kendhammer had anything to do with the death of his wife?
Kathleen Stilling: No.
Jerry Buting: This was an accident.
Erin Moriarty: You don’t believe there was a murder at all?
Jerry Buting: Not at all. This is not a murder case.
Lawyer Jerry Buting is best known for defending Steven Avery, on Netflix’s “Making a Murderer.” And now, along with attorney Kathleen Stilling, who also happens to be his wife, they’ve taken on Todd’s case, which they say should be measured by his marriage to Barbara.
Kathleen Stilling: Their relationship was really special. … that was one of the things that really drew me to this case. … The idea that out of the blue he would snap and kill his wife and then stage the accident, it just seems so implausible to me.
Kendhammer family
They insist this isn’t a murder mystery. It’s an old-fashioned love story that ended in a tragic accident. During his trial, Todd told the court that he fell for Barbara, at first sight.
TODD KENDHAMMER [on the stand]: …just one of those things where you know immediately that’s the girl you want.
Both were just 16. Friends at first, they began dating in 1989. And in August 1991, they sealed the deal.
Soon Jessica and then Jordan came along. Witnesses, they say, to a romance.
Erin Moriarty: How would you describe your dad?
Jessica Servais: Well, mom always called him a wild hare (laughs).
Jordan Kendhammer: He was always, always, always on the go and always has some new crazy idea.
Jessica Servais: And she just was all about going with him for anything.
To the kids it was clear. Todd adored Barbara.
Jessica Servais: He’s just always like doting on her with stuff.
Erin Moriarty: Did your parents argue more than any other couple?
Jessica Servais: Definitely not.
Jordan Kendhammer: I would say not.
Jessica Servais: Whatever my mom wanted my dad gave it to her (laughs).
Barbara worked in the cafeteria at the West Salem Middle School. Todd worked at a factory making aluminum soda cans. On the side, he flipped houses with Barb.
Jessica Servais: That was like the biggest out-on-a-limb thing, he’s like “Let’s buy a house and flip it,” and we’re just like, “OK” (laughs).
For extra income Todd also worked with glass, replacing people’s smashed and broken windshields. They paid their bills and lived comfortably.
Jessica Servais: They were just in a really good time in their lives ’cause they had their first grandchild, and they were well off.
In 2016 Jessica and Jordan threw their parents a surprise 25th anniversary party.
Jessica Servais: And everything was perfect. It was good.
Erin Moriarty: Until it wasn’t.
Jessica Servais: Yeah.
It was a month later, September 16, 2016. The Kendhammer family was preparing for their annual camping trip. The plan was to leave later that day after Barb finished work.
Jordan Kendhammer: I woke up in the morning. … Ma and dad were still home. I heard mom in the kitchen.
It was early that morning. Jordan, home from college, says he heard the garage door open, and his parents’ car leave. No arguing. Nothing unusual, he says, just his dad, likely driving his mom to work at school.
Jordan Kendhammer: If he had off, he’d take her to work and he’d go about doing his errand things. And then when he got done, he’d pick her up.
A little after 7:45 a.m., the couple stopped at the home of a neighbor. They were looking after her house while she was away and stayed just a few minutes. And then, surprisingly, instead of heading to Barbara’s school, Todd headed north — away from it. Why he did would become a critical question.
La Crosse County Sheriff’s Office
At 8:05 a.m., a distraught Todd made that call to 911. He said there had been a horrible accident. And Barbara was badly hurt.
911 OPERATOR: 911 what is the address of the emergency?
TODD KENDHAMMER: … She’s hit in the head and in the throat. I think in the throat or something.
At the scene, Todd began to tell his version of what happened:
OFFICER: There was a pipe in the ground?
TODD KENDHAMMER: No, it came out of that tree, off a truck.
OFFICER: Off a truck?
TODD KENDHAMMER: A truck, or a trailer or something.
Barbara was rushed to the hospital.
TODD KENDHAMMER: Is she OK?
OFFICER: I can’t tell you that. I don’t know.
Placed by police into a squad car, Todd continued with his account:
TODD KENDHAMMER: [in police car] I thought it was a bird at first … And then at the last minute I seen it was a pipe.
Soon Jessica and Jordan met their father. He seemed devastated. His T-shirt soaked in blood.
Jessica Servais: He was pale and shaky and panicky and wanted to know how she was doing, like, all the time.
Erin Moriarty: Tell me what he told you about the accident.
Jordan Kendhammer: They were driving and … something came, and it hit mom.
Jessica Servais: I was like, how did a pipe hit her? … he said it came through the windshield, and I pulled it out of the windshield.
Erin Moriarty: How did you find out how seriously your mom was really injured?
Jessica Servais: The neurosurgeons kept coming in and giving us updates, but the way that they were talking her prognosis was pretty poor.
The start of a family holiday fast turned into an all-night bedside vigil. It wouldn’t last long.
Jessica Servais: I think it was like 4 or 5 or something … and they actually pronounced her, like, brain dead.
Erin Moriarty: How did your father deal with that news?
Jessica Servais: He was just very upset.
Kendhammer family
As dawn broke over the Mississippi, Barbara Kendhammer — wife, mother, grandmother — took her last breath.
Jessica Servais: She was gone.
The family mourned. They had already made the tough decision to donate Barbara’s organs. But things would soon get even tougher. Police were already suspicious of Todd.
OFFICER (at the scene): Take pictures of Todd. His front, all the blood, his knuckles, everything.
At the scene of the incident, officers had noticed Todd’s bloodied knuckles. And he had what appeared to be scratch marks on his neck.
Prosecutor Tim Gruenke: The police kept finding one more step and one more step that would disprove his story.
THE CASE AGAINST TODD
Erin Moriarty: So how big is this pipe, Tim?
Tim Gruenke: 53 inches long. And it weighs about 10 pounds.
Erin Moriarty (lifts pipe): This thing is heavy.
CBS News
Todd Kendhammer says the pipe flew off a truck, smashed into the windshield of the car he was driving and caused his wife Barbara’s death — a story that Prosecutor Tim Gruenke says is simply preposterous.
Tim Gruenke: Our theory is that he used that himself to put the hole in the windshield. It didn’t fly off of a truck going by.
Tim Gruenke: Todd said he was traveling north on Highway M.
Gruenke says that police became suspicious of Todd when pieces of his story just didn’t seem to add up, starting with that mysterious truck.
Tim Gruenke: He turned right onto Bergum Coulee Road.
This is the description Todd Kendhammer gave police on the way to the hospital:
TODD KENDHAMMER: It was a older, like a bigger flatbed-looking truck … Like a pickup truck with a flatbed on it.
INVESTIGATOR: What color was the cab?
TODD KENDHAMMER: I don’t even remember. It was darker, I don’t — that’s all I know. Dark green or dark blue.
Erin Moriarty (at the scene, pointing at road): So, he’s going this way and he claims that the — that a truck carrying a pipe was going this way?
Tim Gruenke: Correct.
Erin Moriarty: Were you ever able to find a truck?
Tim Gruenke: No. Police spent some time looking for the truck and putting out word to the community to ask if anybody saw a truck that day.
Surveillance video from a horse ranch down the road does show what appears to be the Kendhammer car pass by at approximately 7:57 a.m. on the day of the incident. But at around the same time, no truck that matched the description Todd gave police was ever seen heading in the opposite direction.
And then four days after the incident, Medical Examiner Dr. Kathleen McCubbin conducted an autopsy on Barbara.
Tim Gruenke: She didn’t understand when she first heard a pipe had done it. She had called law enforcement to look at the pipe ’cause she didn’t understand how that could be.
Barbara had three lacerations on the back of her head.
Tim Gruenke: She said that the injuries to Barb were very inconsistent with a pipe of that size and that weight coming through the windshield.
She concluded that Barbara died of “blunt trauma injuries of the head and neck, with skull fractures … cricoid cartilage fractures … and ultimate brain death.” The cricoid is the ring-shaped bony cartilage structure located in the lower neck.
La Crosse County Court
Erin Moriarty: What do you believe caused the broken cricoid cartilage?
Tim Gruenke: It’s consistent with strangulation.
The medical examiner also noted that there were countless other injuries on Barbara that suggested there could have been an earlier struggle. She had scratches on her neck, a broken nose, a laceration on her forehead and bruising all over her body.
Tim Gruenke: She had some injuries to her fingers.
La Crosse County Sheriff’s Office
Todd also had injuries to his hands.
Tim Gruenke: He said that came from striking the windshield when he saw something flying at him.
And he had what appeared to be scratches on his neck and chest as well.
Tim Gruenke: He said he got that ’cause he worked with glass. It turns out he doesn’t work with glass. He puts in windshields. But he doesn’t normally work with glass or broken glass. So those injuries seemed odd. … It seems consistent like someone who was in a fight. A really bad fight.
Police had also interviewed a construction worker who said he drove by the Kendhammer car around 8 a.m. but didn’t see any damage to the windshield or any people around.
Tim Gruenke: He saw the car in the ditch. … And thought maybe somebody had just driven off the road or tried to make a turn and got stuck.
Erin Moriarty: So, he didn’t see anybody. He didn’t see either Todd or Barbara?
Tim Gruenke: Correct.
Erin Moriarty: Could they have been hidden in the high grass?
Tim Gruenke: Well, that’s the only thought is that … he was maybe trying to hold her down and keep her from calling for help.
There were other red flags. On the day of the incident Barbara was scheduled to work at 8 a.m., but she never called to say that she’d be late. She also did not make her daily call her to her mom.
Tim Gruenke: As a woman who has never been later for work, who always calls her mom … when you look at, that’s an obvious change of the pattern.
And where were Todd and Barbara driving to that morning, going in the opposite direction from Barbara’s work?
This is what Todd Kendhammer told investigators on the drive to the hospital:
TODD KENDHAMMER: I’m gonna put a windshield in a truck for a guy.
INVESTIGATOR: So, is the windshield you were going to replace in somebody’s driveway or?
TODD KENDHAMMER: In his truck. I was gonna take it to my house.
Todd told police that, on the way to drive Barbara to work, he decided to drive over to pick up a truck that needed a windshield replaced. He said the truck, with keys inside, was in the driveway of a person he knew from work named Justin Heim.
INVESTIGATOR: Did you call the guy?
TODD KENDHAMMER: No, I didn’t call him. … I was just gonna swing over and if it was there grab it.
But when the investigators spoke with Justin Heim, he told a very different story.
Tim Gruenke: When the police looked into that, they found Justin Heim never had ordered a windshield from Todd, didn’t need a windshield. Todd didn’t even know where he lived.
So just one week after Barbara’s death and just two days before her funeral, investigators asked Todd to come down to the police station under the ruse that they had some leads on trucks that may have dropped the pipe that day.
TODD KENDHAMMER [in interrogation room, opening pill container]: Is it OK if I take that? I didn’t take my medicine this morning.
INVESTIGATOR: Yeah, that’s fine.
La Crosse County Sheriff’s Office
As investigators began to question him, Todd told them he had not taken his anti-anxiety medication, and he appeared confused and forgetful of details.
TODD KENDHAMMER [distraught, holding his head in his hands]: And — I — I — I — just don’t — remember, I remember — and I don’t know how … I remember — I remember the worst part was when I looked — the pipe was — the pipe was there …”
Jessica Servais: He was trying to help. Like he thought they were trying to help him find the cause of the accident.
INVESTIGATOR: How did the pipe get through the windshield, let’s start there.
TODD KENDHAMMER: The pipe — I don’t — It came off a truck.
But they were closing in on what they believed were Todd’s lies.
INVESTIGATOR: There’s no explanations for it. You can’t — the injuries that were on Barb did not occur from that accident, from a pipe going through your windshield.
And then, when police pressed him about where he was actually going that day, Todd Kendhammer changed his story.
INVESTIGATOR: I talked to Justin.
Tim Gruenke: He … told a story that he wasn’t going to Justin Heim’s house. It was actually a friend of Justin’s.
Police would later find that friend who told them he also didn’t need a windshield and was not expecting Todd the day of the incident.
Erin Moriarty: Isn’t it possible he was in shock? Isn’t it possible that he just can’t remember anything from that time?
Tim Gruenke: Part of it. … I could see somebody not remembering a detail or two. Not remembering something traumatic. But the things that surround it you usually do remember. … So, things like remembering where you were going.
After 3-and-a-half hours of questioning Todd, investigators let him go home, but they kept building their case.
Tim Gruenke: Do I know exactly blow-by-blow how it happened? No, I don’t. But I know it didn’t happen from a pipe coming off a truck.
Three months after Barbara’s death, Todd Kendhammer was arrested.
Jessica Servais: We were basically just like, “Well how we get him back out?” Because he is not supposed to be in there …
Jessica hoped a jury would believe her father when Todd took the stand to tell his side of the story at his trial.
Tim Gruenke: I think he just looked like somebody who was trying to explain away his lies.
EXAMINING THE EVIDENCE
TIM GRUENKE (trial opening): What started out looking like a tragic car accident would soon become more complicated.
In December 2017 when Todd Kendhammer went to trial for his wife Barbara’s murder, almost everyone who attended was there to support him. Yet, his daughter Jessica feared the worst.
Jessica Servais: Every day I was in a constant state of anxiety and couldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep.
DR. KATHLEEN MCCUBBIN | Medical examiner: The cause of Barbara Kendhammer’s death was blunt impact injuries of her head and neck.
The state’s star witness was Medical Examiner Dr. Kathleen McCubbin.
DR. KATHLEEN MCCUBBIN: I did not believe that these injuries are consistent with the end of a pipe striking the back of the head.
Todd’s trial lawyer Stephen Hurley didn’t call a forensic pathologist of his own to dispute the state’s case but tried to create reasonable doubt during cross-examination.
STEPHEN HURLEY: If her head were moving at the time of the pipe coming through, the pipe had the potential, because it is some 5 feet long, to strike her head in more than one place, is that correct?
DR. KATHLEEN MCCUBBIN: That may be possible, yes.
La Crosse County Sheriff’s Office
Attorney Hurley asked McCubbin if Barbara’s large water mug could have slammed into her face if she ducked to avoid the pipe and caused some of the injuries.
DR. KATHLEEN MCCUBBIN: Yes, it could be. It’s a possibility.
But when Hurley questioned Dr. McCubbin, he didn’t focus on one of the critical injuries that Barbara suffered – the cricoid fracture – which the prosecution insisted could only have been caused by Todd.
Tim Gruenke: And it could have happened in a multitude of ways, but I believe during the fight, her cricoid fracture happens.
MARK MESHULAM (showing photo of the windshield): This is the view of the inside of the car looking out.
The windshield of the car was as hotly disputed as the medical evidence. The defense’s expert, Mark Meshulam, with over 30 years of experience working with glass, believes the evidence supports Todd’s story.
MARK MESHULAM: By observing the crack branching …
The fracture patterns on the windshield, he said, show three different events.
MARK MESHULAM: The first one was a hand impact, when Mr. Kendhammer’s fist went into the glass.
La Crosse County Sheriff’s Office
The second event was the puncture when the pipe broke through the windshield. And the third, harder to detect, was caused, he said, when Todd removed the pipe from the windshield.
NICK STAHLKE: The lines that are highlighted here would indicate those impact points.
But the state’s forensic expert Nick Stahlke said the impacts didn’t occur in the order that Meshalum said they did. District Attorney Gruenke argues this is more evidence showing that Todd Kendhammer intentionally damaged the windshield, and it was not from a pipe falling off a truck.
Tim Gruenke: It couldn’t have done what he said it did. … The crime lab found that the windshield had two strikes on the outside which is impossible. However the pipe comes, it’s not going to hit, back up again and hit again.
CBS News
Jordan Kendhammer: If he wanted to kill ma, why the hell would he go through all the work and trouble to find a pipe, drive all the way out to the middle of a busy road —
Jessica Servais: He has like 28 guns in the basement …
Jordan Kendhammer: More than that.
Jessica and Jordan don’t believe prosecutors ever answered critical questions about what happened.
Jessica Servais: They never really said how he killed her or what he did to stage everything. If what they’re saying is he staged it and killed her at the same time, the time frame doesn’t fit up either. You don’t have enough time to do all that stuff.
Because that construction worker drove by at 8 a.m. that morning, Todd had just 5 minutes to stage the crime before he called 911 at 8:05 a.m.
Erin Moriarty: So, in that short period of time he had the presence of mind to go get the pipe out of the trunk, go around, break it twice … and call 911 and administer CPR.
Tim Gruenke: Yes. … He can do a lot of damage in 2 or 3 minutes. So, it’s more time than people think.
JUDGE TODD BJERKE: Mr. Hurley, you’ll be calling your next witness?
STEPHEN HURLEY: Yes, I call Todd Kendhammer.
With so much at stake, the defense decided to gamble by putting Todd Kendhammer himself on the stand.
STEPHEN HURLEY: Did you ever strike Barbara Kendhammer?
TODD KENDHAMMER: No.
Todd tried to explain to the jurors why, during the police interrogation, he told investigators conflicting stories about where he was going that morning.
WKBT
TODD KENDHAMMER: When I watch that video it’s me in the picture, but it’s not me talking. I’m not in the right state of mind talking in that. I wasn’t thinking of where I was going or what I was doing. I was thinking of Barb.
Todd seemed to be doing well …
JUDGE TODD BJERKE: Mr. Gruenke, you may begin your cross-examination.
… until he had trouble remembering details about that day:
TODD KENDHAMMER: I don’t recall if I said that or not.
TODD KENDHAMMER: I don’t remember that.
TODD KENDHAMMER: I can’t recall for sure.
But his most damaging testimony may have been when he changed his story yet again. He told the jury about a third person he was supposedly going to see on the day of the incident: Jared Loging.
TIM GRUENKE: And today you say you were trying to find the house of Mr. Loging?
TODD KENDHAMMER: Correct.
Tim Gruenke: So that’s another kinda odd statement to make — that that’s why you were going that way. And why you couldn’t have told police that the first time or the second time or in the year before trial.
And just like the others Todd said he was going to visit that morning, Loging said he had never arranged for Todd to replace a windshield.
TIM GRUENKE: Did you change your story for trial because you knew police had figured out your lies?
TODD KENDHAMMER: No.
© LaCrosse Tribune
JUDGE TODD BJERKE: We the jury find the defendant Todd A. Kendhammer guilty …
The jury was out just 9 hours before they reached their verdict. Three months later, everyone was back in the courtroom. The conviction had an automatic life sentence, but it was up to the judge to decide if Todd Kendhammer would be eligible for parole.
GERIANNE BUCHNER WETTSTEIN [on the stand]: I am here today. I do not stand alone.
Jessica and Jordan were stunned when Gerianne Buchner Wettstein, their mom’s cousin, spoke out against Todd and read a letter signed by several other cousins.
Jessica Servais: I just remember thinking, like, “wow!”
GERIANNE BUCHNER WETTSTEIN: Barbara found the courage that day to fight back. Therefore, we stand here today, united with that same courage asking you to sentence her killer to the maximum penalty possible.
But Jessica says Gerianne had been estranged from their mother.
Jessica Servais: She basically painted this scene that … she just feels so bad about my mom and her big blue eyes, even though her eyes are green. … My mom hates her.
“48 Hours” reached out to Gerianne and she denies Jessica’s claims that she was estranged from Barbara. But her testimony wasn’t the only surprise that day. Gruenke had some harsh words for the Kendhammer family, who had to sell Todd and Barbara’s home and Jessica’s house to pay Todd’s legal bills.
TIM GRUENKE [at sentencing]: Pardon my language, but to be perfectly frank they need to get their head out of their ass. They need to start looking at this in reality …
Jessica Servais: I don’t think you should be able to talk that way in a courtroom. If you can think that to yourself, that’s fine because I also think you’re an ass, but I’m not going to say it out loud.
Jordan Kendhammer: At least word it different.
Erin Moriarty: Don’t you think you may have added to their pain at that sentencing by saying that?
Tim Gruenke: I think I have to open their eyes in some way. … I think they are giving him false hope. And I think he’s dragging them down with him by using all their money to continue in his lies.
The judge ruled Todd Kendhammer would be eligible for parole after 30 years. But Todd’s case is far from over.
NEW EVIDENCE PRESENTED
Todd Kendhammer’s verdict was guilty. But Jessica and Jordan are determined to clear his name.
Jessica Servais: Because he didn’t do it. … And he doesn’t lie. So, when he says he didn’t do it, we believe him.
That belief is why Barbara and Todd’s children brought on Jerry Buting and Kathleen Stilling, who understand that undoing a murder conviction is an immense challenge.
Jerry Buting: It’s very difficult to reverse a judgement that’s become final.
Kathleen Stilling: it’s kind of like trying to turn an aircraft carrier. It’s slow … and difficult to do.
Still, they overcame a big first hurdle: getting back in court.
Todd Kendhammer was granted an evidentiary hearing. It was a chance to argue that his original defense team had been ineffective, and that there was critical, new evidence.
Jessica Servais: We were grateful that the judge was taking the time to see what we had come up with.
Zoom recording of evidentiary hearing
And four years after his conviction for the intentional homicide of his wife Barbara, inmate Kendhammer was back in front of Judge Todd Bjerke.
It opened the courthouse doors a crack, to the possibility of a new trial.
Erin Moriarty: Is this the most hopeful you have felt … that your dad may have a chance to walk out of prison?
Jessica Servais: Yeah.
The burden is now on the defense. Jerry Buting starts by calling a forensic pathologist, something Todd’s first defense team had elected not to do.
Jerry Butting: They chose to go a different route. And I think that was serious mistake that really damaged Todd’s ability to defend himself.
But now Dr. Shaku Teas, who has performed some 6,000 autopsies, would examine Barbara Kendhammer’s medical records and autopsy photos.
JERRY BUTING: Did you observe anything on her body that was consistent with Barbara Kendhammer having been beaten with fists?
DR. SHAKU TEAS: No.
JERRY BUTING: Or that she was a woman who had been in a fight?
DR. SHAKU TEAS: No.
Doctor Teas contradicted the findings of the medical examiner who had performed the autopsy and testified at trial, Dr. McCubbin.
DR. KATHLEEN MCCUBBIN: Yes, some of her injuries certainly could be consistent with an assault or beating as well, yes.
PROSECUTOR SUSAN DONSKEY: Consistent with strangulation?
DR. KATHLEEN MCCUBBIN: It could be, yes.
But for Dr. Teas, the stark photos and silent sketches tell a different story.
DR. SHAKU TEAS: I don’t see any injuries on Barbara that I would say are suggestive or consistent with strangulation.
And Dr. Teas suggests that the injury to Barbara’s cricoid could be due to that large travel mug.
JERRY BUTING: So, if she had that in her lap when she’s moving forward, could that have caused the cricoid fracture
DR. SHAKU TEAS: It could be the mug.
As for the injuries to the back of her head …
Erin Moriarty: If the pipe is coming in … how would she get severe injuries in the back of her head?
Jerry Buting: Because she ducked, and the pipe came through like that (ducks his head and upper body) and grazed the back of her head.
DR. SHAKU TEAS: Barbara Kendhammer died as a result of … an automobile accident.
And Teas believes some injuries seen in the autopsy came from the final act of Barbara Kendhammer’s generosity: the harvesting of her donated organs.
But DA Gruenke doesn’t buy the theories of Dr. Teas.
Tim Gruenke: I don’t put a lot of faith in her testimony.
But when it comes to Todd Kendhammer’s guilt or innocence, Buting and Stilling say there is more than just physical evidence to consider.
DR. GEOFFREY LOFTUS [testifying via Zoom]: Something very traumatic and attention-grabbing had occurred, which would likely obliterate any short-term memory that Mr. Kendhammer would have had.
The defense hired another expert, this time in human memory. Dr. Geoffrey Loftus testified that Todd Kendhammer’s various stories could be a result of stress from a terrible accident.
KATHLEEN STILLING: Would you say that this was a situation that was ripe for an inaccurate memory?
DR. GEOFFREY LOFTUS: Yes.
La Crosse County Sheriff’s Office
Still the most controversial aspect of this story is about that pipe that Todd claims crashed through his windshield and killed Barbara.
As part of their initial investigation, local authorities had attempted to reconstruct Todd’s story of the deadly incident on County Road M.
They tested, and taped, dropping a similar pipe off the back of a truck to see if it could, in fact, bounce. The idea: to determine if a pipe might have bounced high enough to hit the windshield of Todd’s oncoming car.
But Kendhammer’s lawyers thought the pipe test was inconclusive. They never shared the investigators’ video with judge or jury. And neither did the state.
Tim Gruenke: I didn’t think we needed it. The defense didn’t want it. We just agreed not to use it.
It was only at the new evidentiary hearing that the pipe test was finally presented in court.
Jerry Buting: The first time the judge ever even heard about those experiments was in our motion.
Butting and Stilling shared the pipe test video with “48 Hours.”
Erin Moriarty: What you’re showing me is that the state’s own experts did an experiment that if in fact the pipe bounced like this it could’ve done exactly what Todd said it did.
Jerry Buting: That’s right.
La Crosse County Sheriff’s Office
Jerry Buting: Now that one hits on its end and look how it bounces.
Erin Moriarty: And come up really high.
Jerry Buting: It comes up high.
Erin Moriarty: In your mind these videos show that it could have happened.
Jerry Buting: That’s the point. Yes.
Which contradicts state investigators who, from the beginning, had suggested that a pipe slamming through Todd’s windshield was next to impossible.
INVESTIGATOR [during interrogation]: What are the odds that that would happen to a guy that changes out windshields? I mean, what do you suppose those odds are? One in a trillion if at all?
Buting and Stilling introduced evidence from across America to prove it’s more common than you think.
Jerry Buting (referencing video evidence): This one is in — near Bakersfield, California, a pipe that looks remarkably similar that went right through this person’s vehicle. Here’s another one. … This one’s Houston, OK.
Erin Moriarty: And it goes right through and hits —
Jerry Buting: Would’ve killed —
Erin Moriarty: A passenger.
And it turns out you don’t have to be an expert to find a piece of pipe along a country road.
Jessica Servais: There was another pipe on the road up the ways … that someone found.
Erin Moriarty: There was a pipe, and when was that pipe found?
Jordan Kendhammer: Shortly after.
Erin Moriarty: And it was very similar to the one that went through the windshield?
Jordan Kendhammer: Same diameter, same material.
Erin Moriarty: What do you think happened?
Jordan Kendhammer: I believe the pipe came through and hit mom.
That belief in their father would not waver. Still how could the experts at trial see a case so differently? We decided to ask another forensic pathologist to take a fresh look at the evidence.
Lindsay Thomas: The more I looked at it, the more I understood why it’s so complicated.
A COMPLICATED CASE
Dr. Lindsey Thomas is a forensic pathologist who has performed about 5,000 autopsies.
Dr. Lindsey Thomas: If it didn’t happen the way Todd says it happened, then how did it happen?
Dr. Lindsey Thomas: This is the kind of case where it isn’t that clear cut.
“48 Hours” asked her to review the medical evidence in this case – including Dr. McCubbin’s autopsy report.
Dr. Lindsey Thomas: The original autopsy was very well done and the conclusions that they reached were very reasonable.
Still, Dr. Thomas says she wouldn’t have reached some of the same conclusions.
Dr. Lindsey Thomas: And that’s what makes this case so challenging.
The most troubling injury for her is that cricoid fracture on Barbara’s neck. She agrees with Dr. Teas, the forensic pathologist who testified for the defense in the evidentiary hearing and does not believe that Barbara was strangled.
Dr. Lindsey Thomas: I’ve never seen a fractured cricoid in strangulation. … I wouldn’t say it absolutely can’t happen, but certainly I haven’t seen it, I haven’t read about it, I haven’t heard about it … it seems more consistent with the kind of thing that would happen — in a weird car crash.
And she believes the injuries to the back of Barbara’s head were too severe to have been caused by Todd’s fists. But she says Barbara could have been hit with a heavy object like her mug.
Dr. Lindsey Thomas: Yeah, it would have to be a substantial coffee cup. But I understand there was a pretty substantial coffee cup in the car.
Ultimately, Dr. Thomas can’t say for sure how Barbara sustained her injuries.
Dr. Lindsey Thomas: Based on just the medical evidence alone, it wouldn’t be one where … you could definitely say, “Oh, this is clearly a homicide or clearly an accident.”
Erin Moriarty: The idea that a man is sitting in prison, does that concern you?
Dr. Lindsey Thomas: Well, it always does when you have a case like this that isn’t clear cut. … You just worry a little that the evidence was given too much weight one way or the other, or the jury wasn’t given all of the relevant materials.
Erin Moriarty: Had you ever served on a murder trial before as a jury member?
Tim Brennan: No. Not ever.
Tim Brennan, the jury foreman, says he found Dr. McCubbin’s testimony very convincing. We shared with him some of the new information from the evidentiary hearing, including Dr. Teas’ conclusions.
Erin Moriarty: If you had heard a medical examiner disagree with Dr. McCubbin … would that have made a difference?
Tim Brennan: Without hearing the full extent … of that — it’s hard to say.
Still, he stands by the jury verdict.
Tim Brennan: When Todd Kendhammer … gave his testimony … He just came across as a person with a lot of falsehoods.
Erin Moriarty: When you say falsehoods, did you feel he was lying?
Tim Brennan: Definitely.
Tim Brennan: I’m very confident that we got it right.
As the Kendhammer family awaits the judge’s ruling, Todd is serving his life sentence more than two hours away from his kids.
Erin Moriarty: What do you miss the most about your mom and having your dad around?
Jessica Servais: I used to be annoyed … that he would call me all the time, and like always come over, but I kind of miss it now (crying). … I just miss having them around all the time.
And Jessica’s daughter Carlin is growing up without her grandparents.
Jessica Servais: Their dream was always to do stuff with their grandkids … so it’s just hard not to have him with her.
Now, Jessica and Jordan and all those who believe in Todd Kendhammer continue to wait, hoping he gets another shot at what they believe is justice.
Erin Moriarty: Do you think your dad will be coming home?
Jessica Servais: Yes. … We aren’t going to stop until he can be home.
Barbara Kendhammer/Facebook
Prosecutor Gruenke believes justice has already been served for Barbara Kendhammer.
Erin Moriarty: Do you have any concerns at all that you might have convicted an innocent man?
Tim Gruenke: Not in this case, no.
Todd Kendhammer’s requests for a new trial have been denied.
Produced by Chris Young Ritzen, James Stolz, and Dena Goldstein. The development producers are Charlotte Fuller and Julie Kramer. The editors are Gary Winter, Doreen Schechter, Joan Adelman and Marcus Balsam. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
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Sneak peek: Mystery on County Road M
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ENCORE: Todd Kendhammer says his wife was killed in an accident — a pipe flew off a truck and crashed into their car. Authorities say the scene was staged. “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty reports Saturday, Dec. 27 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
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The Texas yogurt shop murders: Families, investigators remain haunted by unsolved case
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CASE UPDATE: In September 2025, the Austin Police Department identified Robert Eugene Brashers, a serial killer and rapist, as the suspect in the Yogurt Shop murders. Brashers, who is deceased, was tied to the murders through DNA testing. In December 2025, the Travis County D.A.’s office filed a motion to begin the process of exonerating the four men who were wrongfully accused of the murders.
This story previously aired on Aug. 27, 2022.
More than three decades ago, four teenage girls were brutally murdered in an I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt! shop in Austin, Texas. The horrific crime has haunted their families, the city, and the investigators who chased every lead in the case to a dead end. Could new information finally help solve the case?
“I can see them, I can still see the inside of that place,” John Jones, the first investigator on the case, tells “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty. “That stuff’s … indelibly burned in my mind.”
The story starts on Dec. 6, 1991, when Eliza Thomas, Sarah and Jennifer Harbison and Amy Ayers were tied up and shot. The yogurt shop was then set on fire. For decades, investigators worked to find suspects. There were eventually arrests and even convictions. But those convictions were overturned, leaving the case unsolved today.
“There is a kind of torture that continues by the fact that it’s unsolved and it’s ongoing,” says Sonora Thomas, who was 13 when her sister Eliza was killed.
“It’s always there,” says Jones.
There may be some positive news, however. A small sample of male DNA was found on one of the victims. With DNA research advancing, investigators hope there will be a match that solves the case.
“Do you believe that there is right now, some evidence that could lead to the killers?” Moriarty asks Texas defense attorney Joe James Sawyer.
“Yes,” Sawyer says.
“Is this the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end?” Jones asks.
THE SEARCH FOR ANSWERS
It’s been more than 30 years since John Jones began the painstaking search for the killers of four teenage girls in an Austin, Texas, yogurt shop.
He has long since retired from the Austin Police Department and moved out of Texas. But copies of some of the case files moved with him.
CBS News
Erin Moriarty [with Jones in his home office]: What is all of this here?
John Jones: These are my notes. … Oh, that’s the big book … this one is really from day 1 … hypnosis, polygraph, confessions.
Erin Moriarty: (picks up coffee mug) You know, I notice this sitting here.
John Jones: Yeah.
Erin Moriarty (reads coffee mug): “We will not forget.” You haven’t.
John Jones: Nope. I can’t.
The images of Dec. 6, 1991, remain all too vivid.
John Jones: I can definitely still see it.
It started with that call from dispatch to go to a scene of a fire, that would turn into something far worse:
JOHN JONES: What do you’ll got out there? I’m en route … airport 35.
DISPATCH: We’ve got a fire …
JOHN JONES (1991 on radio): OK. I’m copying the fire part, but you cut out on the first part of that though.
DISPATCH: … apparently a robbery and homicide. There’s, uh, three fatalities.
JOHN JONES: That’s 10-4, we’re en route (turns on siren).
John Jones: And then about halfway out there, they call again on the radio and said we found a fourth body.
A local TV news crew happened to be filming Jones on a ride along that night.
JOHN JONES (on radio): What place of business is this at?
DISPATCH: It’s the I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt.
JOHN JONES: OK.
John Jones: The fire department had just knocked down the fire. … there was still a lot of water in there … a lot of smoke still. … it was all muted grays, blacks there was no color in there with the exception of the girls.
The girls were quickly identified. Two had been working at the shop, closing up that night: Eliza Thomas and Jennifer Harbison were both 17 years old. Jennifer’s 15-year-old sister, Sarah, and their friend, 13-year-old Amy Ayers, had met them there to head home.
AP Images
The four girls had been gagged, tied up with their own clothing, and shot in the head. Investigators would learn at least one of the victims had been sexually assaulted. The yogurt shop had also been set on fire, destroying potential evidence.
John Jones: There was smoke and soot on every surface, kind of made fingerprinting kind of difficult.
This was a crime like none Austin had seen before. Jones knew he needed help, and from the scene, contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, The FBI, and Texas Department of Public Safety.
John Jones: As soon as we knew what type of guns we were looking for, that information went out nationwide.
Gunshot wounds showed that two different types of guns were used, leading investigators to believe there were at least two killers on the loose.
Erin Moriarty: What were the two guns?
John Jones: .380 and a .22. … And we recovered all of the rounds.
The weapons, though, were not found, and a task force worked to come up with potential suspects.
John Jones: They were from all spectrums. I mean, we looked at everybody from family members to drifters.
And while police tracked down leads, the families and the City of Austin grieved.
The Harbison family lost their only children: daughters Jennifer, a hard-working high school senior, and Sarah, who was enjoying sports and clubs as a high school freshman. Their mother, Barbara, spoke with “48 Hours” in 1992.
Barbara Harbison: My life was focused around them from here to eternity. Someone took eternity away from me.
Bob Ayers is the father of the youngest victim, Amy, a country girl with a love for animals.
Bob Ayers: I lost my daughter. I lost my first dance. … I won’t see her graduate. I won’t see her become a veterinarian. … She was a Daddy’s girl.
Sonora Thomas, 13 years old when her only sibling, Eliza, was murdered, had a hard time dealing with the loss of the sister she looked up to.
Sonora Thomas: I remember the shock … I remember fantasizing for days that my sister had somehow escaped and run away and … she was going to come back … And so that’s what I was kind of holding onto.
Her parents struggled as well.
Sonora Thomas: My family never talked about my sister after she died.
Erin Moriarty: Never?
Sonora Thomas: No. It’s too, it’s too painful.
Sonora Thomas
Sonora did as best she could, picking up some pieces of her sister’s life. Eliza, an animal lover, had a pig she planned to enter in livestock show. Just a few months after the murders, Sonora took over those duties.
While Sonora may have seemed to be coping, the reality, she says, was far different.
Erin Moriarty: You had to grow up quickly.
Sonora Thomas: Very quickly … I would say I fell apart under that pressure.
John Jones: We knew they were hurting because, you know, we were hurting too.
Jones, a parent himself, felt the families’ grief. He promised to do all he could to help them.
John Jones: We told them what we could. And … I assured them that we would keep them apprised as to everything that was happening, and we did.
Jones also made a pledge to the families involving the shirt he wore on the night of the murders.
John Jones: I kind of made a promise to them … that the next time they saw me with that green and white shirt on that that was a signal to them that, you know, we knew who did it.
And Jones seemed assured they would find the killers.
John Jones: We stayed in constant contact with the behavioral science unit at the FBI in Quantico … they said that I should, as the face of the investigation, I should project an air of confidence … that would cause the bad guy to shiver in his boots. … So look in the camera and be confident.
And, when we followed him working the case in 1992, he did just that.
JOHN JONES: Let me just say this, whoever you are out there, you are going to be mine one of these days….
But trying to figure that out was daunting.
CBS News
John Jones (at police station in 1992): 342 people that have been listed as suspects, but we’re looking at pages and pages of suspects here.
One of those early suspects was a teenager named Maurice Pierce. He was arrested eight days after the murders at a mall near the yogurt shop, carrying a .22 caliber gun, the type used in the murders.
John Jones: The .22s were unmatchable.
Erin Moriarty: So, you can’t say it wasn’t his gun? But there was no way to match it.
John Jones: No.
Erin Moriarty: But there was no way to match it.
John Jones: — to prove that it was his gun. He gave a statement, matter of fact, I took his statement. And he implicated three other boys.
AP Photo
Jones says Maurice Pierce claimed he was driving a getaway car and that three acquaintances, Forrest Welborn, Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen, were involved in the murders. But Pierce’s story began to fall apart.
John Jones: It started to crater when we wired him up to go talk to Forest. And we were listening in on the wire, and it was pretty obvious Forest didn’t know what Maurice was talking about.
And when Welborn, Scott and Springsteen were brought in for questioning, they too denied any involvement. It was decided there was not enough evidence to charge them and the search for other suspects continued.
CHASING LEADS
Two months after the yogurt shop murders, with no viable suspects, police were chasing leads — no matter where it took them.
The task force became aware of a counter-culture type group of local residents known to be into the supernatural.
DET. MIKE HUCKABAY [at roundtable, 1992]: They’re into vampires, the occult, graveyard rites. … They go out and dance and take pictures on tombstones.
And investigators began to hear that this group might be connected to something far more serious.
John Jones (2021): The — the tips were that they were talking about the murders.
Erin Moriarty: Talking about the yogurt shop murders.
John Jones: The yogurt shop murders, yes.
There was one woman in particular whose name kept coming up in connection with these tips. The task force planned a raid on her home, hoping to see if any evidence might be found there.
John Jones: It was creepy in there.
John Jones: But as it turns out, a lot of that stuff was rat bones and theatrical parts. But … it was a good lead. … Till we finally figured out that, uh, they’re just living a make-believe life (shaking his head).
The raid may have been a bust, but it wasn’t long before the task force had its eyes on another person of interest. A police sketch shows a man that multiple eyewitnesses told police they saw sitting in a car outside the yogurt shop on the night of the murders.
John Jones: And it was somebody we really wanted to talk to. … So, we put it out there.
And the response they got came from an unexpected source.
John Jones: A couple of other investigators from the Sex Crimes Unit came up and go … “We have a sketch that looks just like that.”
Austin Police Department
Three weeks before the yogurt shop murders, a young woman in Austin had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted. Police had released a sketch of three men wanted in connection with that crime. One of those suspects bore a striking resemblance to that man witnesses reported sitting in a car outside the yogurt shop.
John Jones: You know, I just kind of went zip when I saw the — the composite.
A tip came in that the men wanted in the kidnapping and sexual assault case had fled to Mexico. Two were caught and arrested; one who resembled the person of interest in the yogurt shop sketch. The development made national news.
Austin Police Department
John Jones: When they got caught in Mexico, we went down there … to interview them. Jones’ team questioned the men. And so, too, did the Mexican authorities.
John Jones: But the Mexican government … announced to the whole world that … they confessed, and they were going to try them for the murders down there.
Erin Moriarty: They confessed to the yogurt shop murders?
John Jones: Yes, they did.
But Jones learned those confessions had details that didn’t match the crime scene. Even the caliber of guns they claimed to use was wrong.
John Jones: There were too many inconsistencies in the … confession.
So, Jones’ team reinterviewed the men, and he says this time they recanted just about everything. It made Jones and the other investigators wonder if those confessions were coerced by the Mexican authorities. The once promising lead fell apart .
John Jones: (exhales) It was depressing.
Over the following years, there would be other confessions, ones that were willingly given.
John Jones: You know, we faced six confessions.
Erin Moriarty: Six people who confessed?
John Jones: Yeah. Written.
Erin Moriarty: That confessed to this crime?
John Jones: Yes, they did.
Erin Moriarty: And they didn’t do it?
John Jones: Nope.
In 1994, after nearly three years of leading the investigation, John Jones was moved out of the homicide division. He says it was a mutual decision. Austin Police wanted fresh eyes working the case, and Jones felt it was time to move on. Other detectives took over and, as time passed, the victims’ families were left wondering why no one had been arrested. Amy Ayers’ mother Pam spoke to “48 Hours” in 1996.
Pam Ayers [fighting back tears]: They’re probably out there leading a life as normal as they’ve ever had. And ours is never going to be the same.
That same year, Eliza Thomas’ mom moved away from Austin … and the painful reminders.
Maria Thomas (1996): Running into people who were constantly asking how the case was going was very hard on me, and especially my daughter Sonora.
Sonora’s life had taken a downward spiral.
Sonora Thomas: In my high school years, things really deteriorated. … Drugs, using alcohol, being hospitalized, going to a boarding school for, you know, disturbed teenagers, things like that.
The case seemed stalled, until October 1999.
RADIO NEWS REPORT: Some breaking news — Austin police have arrested four men in connection with the yogurt shop murders of 1991.
CBS News
There were finally arrests, but would it answer the question on the billboard that had been haunting Austin for nearly a decade?
SUSPECTS ARRESTED
NEWS REPORT: After nearly eight years, Austinites are getting some answers in the case of the yogurt shop murders…
MAYOR KIRK WATSON (at 1999 press conference): I want to start off by thanking y’all for joining us here today. … For almost eight years, we’ve all waited to hear the words that our police department is close to a point of solving a crime that has haunted our very souls. … Today, we finally get to hear those words.
When four men were arrested in the fall of 1999 for the yogurt shop murders, relief was felt citywide.
MAYOR KIRK WATSON (at press conference): Sarah, Jennifer, Amy, Eliza, we did not forget.
The girls’ families struggled to take it all in.
Sonora Thomas: There had been so many false leads for such a long time. It was hard to know how to think about it and how to feel about it.
CBS News/AP
But there were finally names and faces to blame: Maurice Pierce, Forrest Welborn, Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen. To the task force, they were familiar names and faces. They were the same young men that John Jones and his investigators questioned just eight days after the murders and ultimately released for lack of evidence.
John Jones: I was confident and remain confident to this day that we got as far with them as we could then. But that doesn’t mean that … there wasn’t something developed later that would cause them to actually go out and arrest them. So, I was going, “yes, good job.” … I was ready to dig out the hideous green and white shirt.
But before that shirt could come out of the closet—the one he promised the girls’ families he would wear when the case was solved — Jones wanted to know more about what led to the arrests.
Joe James Sawyer: There was no physical evidence. Nothing.
Joe James Sawyer was appointed as Robert Springsteen’s attorney.
Erin Moriarty: What made them go back and charge these guys?
Joe James Sawyer: Because the new officers, when they reopened the cold case, convinced themselves that “we let them slip through our fingers. We had to have had the murderers in the beginning.” In part, they decided that because they had nothing else.
There was no new physical evidence suddenly tying any of the four men to the crime, but what police did have were two newly obtained confessions— one from Michael Scott and another from Sawyer’s own client, Robert Springsteen. Michael Scott’s confession came first. He was questioned over four days:
Austin Police Department
OFFICER (1999 interrogation): Come on Michael, you’re doing good. Tell us. Let’s do this today. Let’s do it.
MICHAEL SCOTT: I remember seeing girls. … I remember one girl screaming, terrified.
Scott told investigators that he and the others only intended a simple robbery. He said they cased the yogurt shop earlier that day. And then, after dark, he said, they came back armed with two guns.
MICHAEL SCOTT (interrogation): I hear the gun go off. I only pulled the trigger once…. I hear another gun go off.
Investigators claimed that Springsteen later corroborated much of what Scott said. But after intense questioning, he went further.
OFFICER (interrogation): You f——g know if you f——g raped her, just say it.
ROBERT SPRINGSTEEN: I stuck my d— in her p—- and I raped her.
Springsteen told them he shot one girl and raped her.
Joe James Sawyer: He was so tired of this. He’d already been questioned. He’d already been through that mill. He thought, you know what? I’ll tell you any damn thing you want.
Sawyer maintains his client is innocent and says the confession was coerced. In 2009, Robert Springsteen explained to “48 Hours” why he would admit to doing something so horrible—something he says he didn’t do.
Austin Police Department
Robert Springsteen: I was berated and berated and berated by the police officers. Until they obtained what it was they wanted to hear, they were not going to allow me to leave. And I basically— they broke me down.
Erin Moriarty: Let me just ask you, did you have anything to do—
Robert Springsteen: No. I did not.
Erin Moriarty: — with the murders at the yogurt shop?
Robert Springsteen: No. Never.
Even though Joe James Sawyer didn’t have Michael Scott as his client, he says he has serious concerns about his confession, too.
OFFICER (INTERROGATION): Is that the gun you shot somebody with, Mike? Is that the gun you walked up behind somebody with and shot in the head?
Joe James Sawyer: I frankly couldn’t believe it. … They terrorized him. And he was afraid to say no.
Forrest Welborn denied having anything to do with the murders, but police were convinced he was the lookout that night and Michael Scott placed him at the scene. Erin Moriarty spoke to Welborn in 1999 in jail shortly after his arrest.
Erin Moriarty: Were you there that night?
Forrest Welborn: No.
Erin Moriarty: Were you there as a lookout?
Forrest Welborn: No. I’m innocent.
Erin Moriarty: You had nothing to do with this?
Forrest Welborn: Nothing at all.
CBS News
Welborn had been questioned multiple times by investigators over the years, and he never wavered. He, like the others, first came on police radar when, in 1991, just days after the murders, Maurice Pierce had been caught with that .22 caliber gun at the mall near the yogurt shop. Pierce told the detectives back then that he had given the handgun to Welborn and that it had been used in the yogurt shop murders.
Erin Moriarty: Why would he say that?
Forrest Welborn: I don’t know.
Welborn has always maintained his innocence despite pressure from the police.
Forrest Welborn: They would get right in my face and, you know, tell me everything I said was a lie.
Remember, false confessions in this case were nothing new. Jones said that six written false confessions were obtained when he was in charge. So, when he learned that the two confessions were all the new investigators seemed to have, it gave him pause.
John Jones: I go, well, maybe I shouldn’t get that shirt out just yet.
It wasn’t long before the case against the men began crumbling. Charges against Forrest Welborn were dismissed after two grand juries failed to indict him. And later on, charges were dropped against Maurice Pierce for lack of evidence. Everything fell apart except the cases against Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen. And with Scott and Springsteen’s confessions, the victims’ families felt prosecutors had a strong case.
Barbara Ayres-Wilson (outside courthouse, 2010): These young men have been implicated and they have confessed. And they can withdraw it, but the truth is, they actually were there, and they actually did the murders.
A DNA BREAKTHROUGH?
In 2001, nearly 10 years after the murders of Eliza Thomas, Amy Ayers and Sarah and Jennifer Harbison, the yogurt shop murder trials began. Both defendants — Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott — faced the death penalty.
Joe James Sawyer: The only thing that ever tied Robert or Mike Scott to that crime scene were their confessions.
Confessions that both defendants said were coerced. The two were tried separately. Springsteen’s trial was first. Neither of the men would testify against one another. So instead, prosecutors used their confessions against one another, reading parts of the confessions to the juries. Springsteen’s lawyer, Joe James Sawyer, was frustrated that he couldn’t cross-examine Scott.
Joe James Sawyer: I thought the trial was massively unfair to my client and that it was being done systematically and with deliberation.
The trial lasted three weeks. The jury deliberated for 13 hours and then, reached a verdict.
JURY FOREPERSON: We the jury find the defendant Robert Springsteen IV guilty of the offense of capital murder …
Guilty. Springsteen was condemned to death row.
In 2002, Michael Scott went on trial. He was convicted as well. He was sentenced to life in prison. But the case didn’t end there. Fifteen years after the murders, came a shocking turn of events.
NEWS REPORT: In a 5-4 decision, the court behind me said that Michael Scott’s constitutional rights were violated during his trial and therefore should get a new one.
Both Scott and Springsteen’s convictions were overturned on constitutional grounds. The Sixth Amendment gives defendants the right to confront accusers — and remember, in Scott and Springsteen’s trials, their confessions were used against one another, but they weren’t allowed to question each other in court.
Joe James Sawyer: And the relief … the relief was incredible.
But that relief for the defendants came as a devastating blow to the victims’ families. We later spoke to Eliza Thomas’ mother, Maria, about that moment.
Maria Thomas: Every time I hear those words, “that their rights were violated,” I just feel like I’m going to go insane. … Their rights are violated. Our girls were murdered.
Sonora Thomas: It ruins your sense of fairness. It ruins your sense of — that we live in a just world.
Even though their convictions were overturned, Scott and Springsteen were not released. A new district attorney, Rosemary Lehmberg, was determined to retry them. In an effort to find more evidence, her office had ordered DNA tests on vaginal swabs taken from the victims at the time of the murders. It’s called Y-STR testing — and was fairly new in 2009 when “48 Hours” spoke with D.A. Lehmberg.
Rosemary Lehmberg: This technology searches for male DNA only
A partial male DNA profile was obtained from one of the victims believed to have been sexually assaulted. And no one expected what it would reveal.
Erin Moriarty: Does that DNA match any of the four young men who were originally accused and two of them who’ve been convicted?
Rosemary Lehmberg: It does not.
The DNA did not match any of the original four suspects, including Scott and Springsteen. And that’s significant because Springsteen, in that confession he said was coerced, told investigators he raped one the girls.
CeCe Moore is a DNA expert and genetic genealogist whom we asked about the case and the role of Y-STR DNA in criminal cases.
CeCe Moore: It is a tool that can eliminate almost everyone … It should eliminate everybody but the suspect.
Erin Moriarty: If their Y-STR does not match, they did not contribute that DNA?
CeCe Moore: Because of … where that DNA was found, yes, in this case, it’s very important.
The district attorney was focused on finding the source of that DNA — she wondered if Springsteen and Scott had another partner.
Rosemary Lehmberg: I remain really confident that … both Springsteen and Scott were responsible for killing those four girls.
AP Photos
But in 2009, with no matches on that DNA, Lehmberg dropped charges against Springsteen and Scott. After nearly 10 years behind bars, they were released — but not exonerated, leaving open the possibility they could be retried at a later time.
ROSEMARY LEHMBERG (at press conference): This was a difficult decision and one I’d rather not have to make.
The question remained though: whose DNA was it?
Amber Farrelly: I know who it is.
Joe James Sawyer: The killer’s.
Erin Moriarty: You’re convinced that that —
Amber Farrelly: That is a certain truth.
Amber Farrelly was part of both Scott and Springsteen’s defense teams. She came up with a theory that the mystery DNA might belong instead to two never-identified men who witnesses reported seeing sitting in the yogurt shop just before it closed.
Amber Farrelly: Those two men were described wearing fatigued-colored jackets. …They were very slouched over, whispering, like they were — it was a very close conversation in a booth.
Officials tried to track down those two men as well as the source of the DNA. And then, in 2017, an Austin police investigator searched a public online DNA database to see if he could get a hit. And, unbelievably, he did.
Michael McCaul: I thought, my God, we actually have a chance, a shot to solve this crime after so many years.
WHO KILLED THESE GIRLS?
Congressman Michael McCaul: I really thought this was it – I really thought we had a chance to solve it.
United States Congressman Michael McCaul, like so many others from Austin, hoped that the recently uncovered DNA in the Yogurt Shop murder case might finally bring answers to the victims’ families.
Congressman Michael McCaul: We’ll never forget that tragic day. It’s stained in my memory.
Twenty-five years after the murders, the Austin Police Department went searching for a match to the Y-STR DNA that had been found on the yogurt shop victim believed to have been sexually assaulted. And, in 2017, they got a break. On a public DNA database used for population studies, investigators thought they had found a match.
Congressman Michael McCaul: I’ve seen DNA … prove homicide cases. … the DNA evidence is really the key here.
But that sample from the crime scene was not a complete DNA profile, it was just Y-STR — the male portion of DNA. And, it was not a very detailed sample, having just 16 markers.
CeCe Moore: Sixteen STR’s is not a very powerful match … there could be millions of people with that same profile … So, in genetic genealogy … We usually use 67 or 111 markers, or maybe even more.
Erin Moriarty: But isn’t it a place to start?
CeCe Moore: It is … It’s not absolute, but if there’s nothing else to work with, it is certainly something to look into.
Still, it seemed to be the most promising lead in years. But there was a problem: the seemingly matching sample on the public database had been submitted anonymously by the FBI. It belonged to a federally convicted offender, arrestee, or detainee, but had no name attached to it. When Austin authorities tried to get a name, the FBI would not provide it, citing privacy laws.
Congressman Michael McCaul: There are some restrictions on privacy … And so, it gets into some very sort of, dicey issues.
Frustrated, officials reached out to Congressman McCaul for help.
Congressman Michael McCaul: And so, I pressed the FBI very hard.
Finally, in early 2020, the FBI agreed to work with the Austin Police Department to see if further testing could be done on that Y-STR DNA from the crime scene.
Congressman Michael McCaul: I was very excited about it. The idea that we could bring this case to closure for the families and bring those responsible to justice.
More advanced testing came up with additional markers: 25 instead of the original 16. But as so often happened in this case, what seemed so promising, turned into disappointment.
Some of the additional markers did not match the FBI sample. In other words, what seemed to be a match, was not. In a letter to Congressman McCaul, the FBI explained the new results “conclusively exclude the male donor of the FBI’s sample … as such, the FBI Y-STR profile is not an investigative lead.”
Congressman Michael McCaul: And that was the greatest disappointment because we really thought we had it.
Erin Moriarty: If it didn’t match that individual, doesn’t it still mean there’s somebody out there — this DNA belongs to somebody, right?
Congressman Michael McCaul: It does. It does. And that’s why we’re not going to rest till we find the match.
Erin Moriarty: How important then, is this DNA profile that exists … to solving this case?
Congressman Michael McCaul: I mean, it’s everything.
With DNA research advancing so quickly, there is real hope that one day, that sample of DNA obtained 31 years ago, may finally solve this case. Still, it will not erase the pain or loss of lives.
Sonora Thomas: Every year that goes by, I get farther and farther away from my sister, yeah. And I worry about losing memories.
CBS News
Sonora Thomas struggled for years with panic attacks and physical pain, until, with the help of therapy, she realized it was connected to the murder of her sister Eliza. With a unique understanding of what trauma victims experience, Sonora wanted to help others like her, and became a therapist.
Sonora Thomas: There’s so many moments, you know, when your heart is open, you know, you’re joyful. But there’s also this loss that’s always accompanying your life.
Sonora found it helpful to look for ways to remember Eliza.
Sonora Thomas: When we got married, we had a flower and an empty chair at our ceremony, and my sister was mentioned.
Compounding Sonora’s pain, her mother died in 2015. Maria Thomas passed away with so many unresolved questions about the murder of her daughter.
Sonora Thomas: There is a kind of torture that continues by the fact that it’s unsolved and it’s ongoing.
John Jones (shaking his head): It’s always there.
CBS News
John Jones is still haunted by the fact that the case is unsolved, and by what he saw that gruesome night. He has suffered from PTSD through the years.
John Jones: I had completely shut down to where all my energy was directed at the case.
Erin Moriarty: It took a toll on you, didn’t it John, even 30 years afterwards?
John Jones: Well, yeah. It would on anybody, I think — not as much as the families, you understand.
Erin Moriarty: I know.
John Jones: Whatever pain I’m having pales in comparison to what they’re going through.
These days, Jones finds solace singing in his church choir.
John Jones: I can relax when I’m in church.
Erin Moriarty: Leave the world behind? Leave outside?
John Jones: No, I know it’s just past the door.
And when he’s in that outside world, the families of Amy Ayers, Jennifer and Sarah Harbison and Eliza Thomas, are never far from his thoughts.
John Jones: I feel bad for them. That it’s still not solved.
But Jones has hope. He has kept that shirt he wore the night of the murders — the shirt he promised to never wear until the case was solved. More than 30 years later, it’s still sitting in there.
And sometime soon, John Jones looks forward to wearing it again.
John Jones: I just hope one of these days we can put this thing to bed, for the families’ sake.
If you have information about the Yogurt Shop Murders, call 512-472-TIPS.
The Homicide Victims’ Families’ Rights Act was signed in to law on Aug. 3, 2022. Motivated by the yogurt shop murders, the law provides family members of cold case murder victims a way to officially request federal investigators review their case with the latest available technology.
Produced by Ruth Chenetz, Stephanie Slifer and Anthony Venditti. Michael McHugh is the producer-editor. Marlon Disla and Michelle Harris are the editors. Patti Aronofsky is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
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Utah man eyed in Colorado murder believes victim’s spirit urged him to buy sweatshirt that helped clear him
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On the afternoon of Dec. 14, 2023, Anthony Holland was watching TV when law enforcement showed up to his home near Salt Lake City, Utah.
“I honestly thought I was going to jail for something,” Holland recalled during an interview with “48 Hours.” But he says he had no idea what crime he committed.
“Have you ever heard of the name Kristil Krug?” one of the investigators asked him. Holland said he once dated a woman named Kristil Krug. In fact, she was his first love. They broke up in the fall of 2000 and had not spoken in years.
Unbeknownst to Holland, 43-year-old Kristil Krug — a mother of three young children — had been murdered in the garage of her Broomfield, Colorado, home at around 8 a.m. that day.
Kristil Krug’s death and the investigation into who killed her is the subject of “The Setup Murder of Kristil Krug” an all-new “48 Hours” reported by correspondent Peter Van Sant airing Saturday, Nov. 29 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
In the weeks before her death, Kristil Krug had told police she and her husband Dan Krug had received threatening texts and emails from a stalker, who she believed was Holland.
So within hours after Kristil Krug’s murder, investigators in Colorado asked police in Utah to pay Holland a visit at his home about 500 miles away from the crime scene.
But Holland had an airtight alibi. At 12:16 p.m. the day of the murder he was at a local department store buying a sweatshirt, making it impossible for him to have made the journey to Colorado and back. He showed police a time-dated stamped receipt. He was immediately cleared by police.
CBS News
Holland told “48 Hours” he believes Kristil’s “spirit” played an important role in establishing his sweatshirt alibi and exonerating him that day.
“What was it about that morning that you had to have this new sweatshirt?” Van Sant asked Holland. “I just got an urge. I need another one. I don’t have enough,” Holland replied.
Holland added his late mother also played a part in clearing his name.
“I do believe, like, either my mom or Kristil, because she was murdered before I went to the store, a little bit before … her spirit could have traveled, and I believe that they had some part of it because I just had an urge,” he said.
“It was just like go to the store. Go to the store. So, I went,” Holland explained. “And then I got home and I was hanging out, just laying on my bed, watching TV, and I heard a pounding at the door.”
Two days after Kristil Krug’s death, police arrested her husband Dan Krug and charged him with stalking and murder.
Holland still owns that sweatshirt. Its value to him extends beyond a piece of clothing, but as a symbol of justice for a woman he once loved.
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Caught on tape: Female crime scene investigator targeted for execution
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Who wanted Nicki Lenway dead? That was the question police were asking on the evening of April 20, 2022. Around 7:30 p.m., Lenway had pulled into the parking lot of FamilyWise parenting center to pick up her 5-year-old son, Callahan. She was halfway between her car and the door when she was ambushed from behind and shot multiple times at point-blank range.
Miraculously, Lenway survived, telling “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty, “I fell to the ground. … And the shooter stands over me and continues to try to shoot.” The mystery of who tried to kill Lenway is unraveled in “Who Wanted Nicki Lenway Dead?” A 30-minute encore airs Saturday, Nov. 22, at a special time — 10:30/9:30c — following the NWSL Championship on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
After firing at Lenway — hitting her in the arm and neck — the shooter fled. Left bleeding and struggling to breathe, Lenway called 911, but when the operator answered Nicki realized she was unable to speak.
Nicki Lenway was no stranger to violence. The 33-year-old worked crime scenes for the Minneapolis Police. But she never imagined she’d find herself on the other side of an investigation. “I knew that this could happen … but I didn’t want to believe it would,” she tells Moriarty.
Across the street from where Lenway was gunned down, Emilie Clancy was in her car at a red light and had witnessed the whole thing. “There was, um, a person who ran up to another person. … I heard two bangs and that other person collapsed,” she said. When the light turned green, Clancy pulled up next to Lenway. Clancy took over the 911 call and had Lenway get into the front seat of her car. She took off her jacket and placed it over Lenway’s neck to try and help stop the bleeding.
As the two women waited for help to arrive, they shared a powerful moment Clancy will never forget. “I just looked her in the eyes. … And I said, ‘Nikki, we’ve got this. We’ve got this. Just stay with me…’ I just wanted her to know that she wasn’t alone in this … And if that was the only thing I can give to this poor girl, like that — that would mean something to me.” Within minutes, first responders arrived, and Lenway was rushed to a local hospital in critical condition.
Police began their investigation into who committed the brazen attack by scouring the area for clues. They learned Lenway had been at FamilyWise to pick up her son who had a scheduled visit with his father, her ex-boyfriend, Tim Amacher. Officers spoke to Amacher in the lobby of FamilyWise and found out he had been inside the building with his son when the shooting took place.
Hennepin County District Court
The first big break in the case came when officers discovered there was security footage from FamilyWise and two surrounding buildings. The first images showed Nicki arriving to pick up her son and someone dressed in all black with a mask over their face running her down from behind. Another camera, from a bank across the street, captured the dramatic moment the shots were fired. The shooter could then be seen fleeing on foot and driving off in a black Dodge Ram truck. But the truck had no license plates, and police couldn’t tell who was behind the wheel.
The next day, police were able to interview Lenway in the hospital. They asked if she had any idea who would want to kill her. Without a second thought, she told them she was convinced Amacher was involved. Amacher was a well-liked local taekwondo instructor. For police, it didn’t make sense that Amacher could have been the shooter. They knew Amacher was inside Family Wise at the time of the shooting and couldn’t have pulled the trigger.
Still, Lenway told police she and Amacher had a long and rocky history that included allegations of abuse — “One night he threw me against the wall holding my neck” — and a bitter custody battle over their son that eventually went to trial in the fall of 2020. When it was over, the judge awarded Lenway sole legal and physical custody. Tim was allowed just one supervised visit a week. For police, it was a clear motive.
But what about Amacher’s alibi? Could police connect him with the shooting? One of the detectives at the crime scene had asked Amacher what cars he owned. Amacher told him he owned the Jeep he was driving and a Dodge Challenger sedan. But the detective didn’t just take his word for it, and when he checked with Driver and Vehicle Services, he made a shocking discovery. Tim Amacher owned another vehicle: a Black Dodge Ram truck, just like the one the shooter was seen driving off in.
If it was Amacher’s truck, who was driving it? Police looked to the FBI for help, and agent Richard Fennern, a technology specialist, was assigned to the case. Amacher’s truck was a newer model and Fennern learned it had Wi-Fi, which, just like a cellphone, creates a digital trail. “We could track it much like we could a cellphone,” said Fennern.
Using data from Tim’s truck and his cellphone records from earlier in the day before the shooting, Fennern concluded the black Dodge Ram truck the shooter drove off in was in fact the same truck Tim Amacher had been driving earlier. It was a huge break. But it still left police with the same question — who was the masked person driving it away from the scene after shooting Nicki?
Police would question Amacher, and he told them the only other person who had access to his truck was Colleen Larson. Larson was younger than Amacher — she had been his taekwondo student since she was an adolescent. When she was 18 years old, she moved in with the taekwondo master and their relationship would eventually become romantic. Neighbor Charlie Dettloff told Moriarty, “She would call him Master … and ultimately kinda became, you know, like a maid or a servant to him.”
Police questioned Larson twice. The first time she denied any involvement, but during the second interview, which was recorded, she broke down and confessed: “I took the truck and I drove over there … and then I shot her.” Even though Larson admitted to pulling the trigger, she said the whole thing was Amacher’s idea.
INVESTIGATOR: So, he asked you, if you felt comfortable would you shoot Nicole for me?
COLLEEN LARSON: Yeah.
INVESTIGATOR: Yes.
Larson told police that after the shooting she got rid of the black clothes she wore to disguise her identity, but Amacher had disposed of the gun.
COLLEEN LARSON: He just said he would take care of it.
INVESTIGATOR: He just said he would take care of it. … So, you have no idea what he did with the gun?
COLLEEN LARSON : Not exactly, no.
Despite what Larson told police, Amacher denied any involvement before or after the shooting. Tim Amacher went on trial on Nov. 3, 2022. He was found guilty of premeditated attempted murder and aiding his accomplice, Colleen Larson, and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. A few days later, Larson pleaded guilty to first-degree premeditated attempted murder. She was sentenced to 16-and-a-half years.
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Real-life tracker says cruelty of Oklahoma woman’s murder will “stay with me forever”
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The guys at the sheriff’s office call her a cool dude with long hair because, they say, she’s meaner than any of them — on the gun range and in the field. Her name is Lt. Dakota Black. She’s a trained tracker and detective with the Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
Lt. Dakota Black: I go out to scenes when there’s manhunts or trying to locate individuals.
Her specialty is finding the missing — whether alive or dead.
Lt. Dakota Black: I have found them underneath piles of leaves. … In trees and abandoned homes, sheds … I’ve found them pretty much in any area you can think of.
Often by her side, her partner, Deputy Haven, a trained therapy dog. For kids and other family members caught in the crossfire of tragedy, Haven provides comfort and consolation — a consoling presence she herself would rely on in the coming months as she embarked on one of the most heart-wrenching cases of her career.
Lt. Dakota Black: This case will stay with me forever. And it will be one that I always remember through my whole life … Because of how cruel it was.
The Search for Makayla Meave
Andria Meave: The last thing we said to each other, was “I love you.”
Friday, Sept. 15, 2023, began like most days for Andria Meave: with a 7 a.m. phone call from her best friend and younger sister, Makayla.
Andria Meave: I wish I would’ve known I would’ve said so much more. … I’m grateful for that. At least I said, “I love you.”
The next morning, Saturday the 16th, the phone rang as usual around 7 a.m. —only this time, it wasn’t Makayla. It was Makayla’s husband, Frank Byers.
Andria Meave: He’s hysterical, crying, screaming, can barely understand what he’s saying. And he says, Makayla didn’t come home last night. … He ended up telling me that Makayla went on a date the Friday night before with a bald man in a white truck … They left and she never came home last night.
Frank Byers Facebook
At the time, Makayla and Frank Byers were headed for divorce, says Andria Meave. They were still living on the same 10-acre property in Macomb, Oklahoma — but in separate homes. So, at first, Meave wasn’t worried.
Andria Meave: My first thought is she’s single. … I hope she had fun.
But Meave’s mood began to shift when her many calls to Makayla went to voicemail.
Andria Meave: By noon, I was worried. One o’clock, I was really worried.
Their mother, Barbara Harper, was also anxious. Makayla was supposed to help out at the family restaurant that afternoon. But she didn’t show and hadn’t called — unheard of for Makayla.
Barbara Harper: And the more I prayed about it, the more I realized that something serious had happened.
Frank Byers also reported Makayla missing to the Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office that afternoon.
FRANK BYERS (to 911): … my wife’s been missing since late last night … she left … at 5:30ish, roughly 5:40, and the last time that anyone has heard from her has been at 8:00 p.m.
911 OPERATOR: … And your name?
FRANK BYERS: My name is Frank Byers, B-Y-E-R-S.
911 OPERATOR: … What’s her name?
FRANK BYERS: Her name is Makayla, uh, Byers …
The deputy on duty, Dustin Richardson, felt he needed to put eyes on the ground. He got to Macomb around 4 p.m. with his bodycam rolling.
Deputy Dustin Richardson: … he’d given me the information over the phone, but I just wanted to see where she was coming from and — and see more of the details.
Frank Byers made a point of showing the deputy the last Facebook message he said Makayla sent him after she left assuring him she was “fine…” and to “back off…”
Then he told him the story about Makayla driving off with a bald man in a white truck.
DEPUTY RICHARDSON (bodycam): Did you see the guy at all?
FRANK BYERS: … I would probably say, 6, 6’1″.
DEPUTY RICHARDSON: OK.
FRANK BYERS: He was completely bald and he had a beard. If I — If I had to guess a weight, I don’t know, maybe 200.
Richardson then asked if he could see the house where Makayla was temporarily living.
DEPUTY RICHARDSON (bodycam): Can I go take a look around?
FRANK BYERS: Yeah.
DEPUTY RICHARDSON: … So she’s been staying in this little old thing?
FRANK BYERS: Yeah … Yeah, so —
DEPUTY RICHARDSON: All locked up.
Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office
But the shed-like home was locked and Byers said he didn’t have a key. But he did have something to say about their relationship.
FRANK BYERS (bodycam video): … we have an open marriage where — well, that’s — that’s a brand-new thing I don’t like it, but um, I agreed upon it cause I’m trying to fix our marriage …
At that point, the deputy decided to take a quick drive to the school where Makayla worked as a teacher’s aide. Maybe she had gone there.
ANOTHER DEPUTY (on phone): What’s up?
DEPUTY RICHARDSON: Man. This uh Frank Byers called in saying his uh wife was missing …
He called his son, also a deputy, from the car.
DEPUTY RICHARDSON (bodycam): … this guy is squirrelly man, this Frank guy is squirrelly …
Deputy Dustin Richardson: The sensation was that there is nothing about the story that is really true.
While the deputy was at the school, friends and family started showing up at the property, including Makayla’s mom, Barbara Harper.
Barbara Harper: When I first got there … I didn’t even speak to anyone.
Barbara Harper: I was on my hands and knees crawling through brush out in the pasture. … we’ve got to find where she’s at.
With his body camera rolling, Richardson returned to the property late that afternoon. Byers had smashed open the lock to Makayla’s place with a hammer.
Deputy Dustin Richardson: I looked and I … I immediately saw empty, uh, shell casings from what appeared to be 22 caliber …
Deputy Dustin Richardson: … he told me that she sits in there and shoots out at animals … the coyotes and stuff.
FRANK BYERS (bodycam): There’s a few times I’ve heard her shoot …
By then, more deputies had arrived.
Deputy Dustin Richardson: I had asked him where she … kept that gun. And he said it was in his house.
DEPUTY RICHARDSON (bodycam): Is it in there now?
Deputy Dustin Richardson: I had him walk me to his house and he walked inside … and he pointed at it … I had, uh, pulled it from where it was in there … and put it in my vehicle.
FRANK BYERS (bodycam): … treat it like always.
The gun, according to the deputy, appeared to have been recently fired.
Deputy Dustin Richardson: I, uh, made phone calls to, uh, get our criminal investigation team out there because I just — it was off that there was something that needed to be looked into more.
DEPUTY RICHARDSON (bodycam): Hey, I’m on that – I’m on that missing person thing still… This is suspicious as f***.
Investigators ushered family and friends off the property and blocked the driveway.
Barbara Harper (crying): I remember walking back to my car and just screaming at God, asking him, “why, why did you do this, let this happen? Just take me, take me, and let us find her and just take me.”
The missing person’s investigation was now a possible criminal investigation, and that’s when the call went out to lead detective Lieutenant Dakota Black.
Lt. Dakota Black: We definitely needed … to figure out what was going on.
A Mother’s Intuition
As soon as Lt. Dakota Black got the call that Makayla Meave was missing, she jumped in her vehicle and sped to Macomb.
Peter Van Sant: What was your immediate mission?
Lt. Dakota Black: To locate Makayla. We — we needed to locate her. We didn’t know where she was.
Detective Black and her partner on the case – Detective Marcus May—now the undersheriff—put out a BOLO alert: be on the lookout.
Det. Marcus May: It was “be on the lookout for a … white male with a beard, bald head, driving a white truck” … we wanted … all of the local law enforcement and surrounding agencies aware that, that we do have a situation developing over here.
The tips from this rural area, where everyone seems to know everybody, came pouring in.
Lt. Dakota Black: Every white pickup truck with tinted windows was getting called in to the sheriff’s office.
None of the sightings panned out but the search took on a life of its own.
Lt. Dakota Black: Flyers were posted everywhere. Social media ads were everywhere.
Det. Marcus May: Makayla Meave was beloved by everybody. … they were demanding every resource possible … to go find Makayla.
Peter Van Sant: Dakota, this was a, uh, a woman with enormous heart. Right?
Lt. Dakota Black: Absolutely. … She loved her family. She loved her friends. … she loved children.
Andria Meave
Makayla fell in love with children when she herself was still a child. Her mom ran a daycare.
Barbara Harper: We weren’t just a daycare. We were the family, and she loved those kids, especially the babies (laughs).
Sadly, Makayla was unable to have children of her own. But that didn’t stop her. In her 20s, Makayla fostered and would eventually adopt two kids — a brother and sister.
Andria Meave: She dropped what she was doing, went took — and took classes, got certified to make sure that she could give those kids a home. … She did.
Around that time, an old high school classmate named Frank Byers contacted her out of the blue through Facebook. Byers, who was divorced, had primary custody of four young daughters.
Frank Byers Facebook
Andria Meave: Frank was telling her a story that the current girlfriend he was living with was abusing his four daughters … so my sister took him and all four girls in and just started basically taking care of them.
Barbara Harper: She felt like the kids needed her and she sure needed them. … probably the happiest I’d seen her in a long time with those girls.
Frank and Makayla got married in 2022. They built their lives together in Macomb – population 24.
Barbara Harper: It’s just country. It’s 100 percent country. The kids are 100 percent country.
Makayla was going to college to get her teaching degree while working at the local elementary school.
Barbara Harper: And she would stand up for the kids. And — and if she saw a child that was dirty or wasn’t taken care of, she would take it to the principal and, you know, bring awareness to it.
Andria Meave: I think that was her biggest thing in life was to help little innocent kids that needed adult help. She always felt responsible to do that.
Countywide, dozens of people turned out in the cold and pouring rain to slog through mud and tick-infested woods in search of their beloved teacher. But one person at the heart of this mystery conspicuously appeared not to search: Makayla’s husband, Frank Byers.
Lt. Dakota Black: He never participated in a single search. He never volunteered to go out with any of the search parties, to go out and try to find Makayla.
Andria Meave: It wasn’t like, oh, my God, my wife is missing. He never seemed like concerned about that. He seemed more concerned about himself.
Peter Van Sant: What were you noticing about Frank Byers?
Det. Marcus May: The — the lack of any … human emotion … I mean he — he did not seem scared. … He just wanted to know what we knew. He – he just didn’t seem human at all.
Investigators were already zeroing in on Frank Byers.
Det. Marcus May: We strongly suspected Frank.
Three days after Makayla was reported missing, Frank Byers agreed to be questioned by Black at the sheriff’s office. The interview was audio only.
FRANK BYERS (interview with detectives): At this time I just want her found …
The detective tried to win his trust by playing the good cop.
DET. BLACK: Again, I couldn’t imagine. I mean it’s hard not knowing, you know. And when everybody’s pointing a finger at you I’m sure it doesn’t make it any better.
FRANK BYERS: Yeah.
FRANK BYERS: … I feel like I got to defend myself and tell everyone that no, this is what happened, this is the truth.
She pressed him but not enough to make him stop talking.
DET. BLACK: Did you ask her about the date before she left?
FRANK BYERS: Yes, I did. And uh, she told me it was none of my business. Same thing as if I went on a date, it’s none of her business.
DET. BLACK: OK, so she never said a name or anything?
FRANK BYERS: No. She —
DET. BLACK: How she met him, how she knew him?
FRANK BYERS: No…
After answering questions for two-and-a-half hours, Black let him go home. The search for Makayla continued. Harper remembers crawling through brush wearing snake protectors when she says she had a premonition.
Barbara Harper: I heard Makayla tell me, mama I’m in a tin horn. … I said, oh my God, she just told me she’s in a tinhorn.
Harper frantically started looking for tinhorns — pipes or culverts used to divert water under roads — but there was no sign of Makayla. Then came the call to 911 on day five that would prove her mother’s intuition was right.
911 CALLER: … ma’am I don’t know exactly where I’m at, but I’m on Hamilton Road. I was searching with my friend for my cousin that’s missing, Makayla Meave.
DISPATCHER: Mm-hmm.
911 CALLER: And I think that we just found her.
A Devastating Discovery
The chatter of locusts permeated the air, an eerie sense of foreboding. Makayla Meave had been missing for five days.
Andria Meave: I got a phone call from my friend, and she said, I need you to sit down … And she said they found someone and it’s a female … And I’m like, is she dead or alive?
Earlier that day, a cousin and her friend had been out searching about half a mile from Makayla’s house when they were stopped in their tracks by a strong, sickening odor. The friend followed the intense smell down a ditch to a tinhorn. He saw something sticking out. It was a hand.
911 CALLER: … I was searching with my friend for my cousin that’s missing, Makayla Meave.
DISPATCHER: Mm-hmm.
911 CALLER: And I think that we just found her.
It was the call Detective Dakota Black had been dreading.
Lt. Dakota Black: It was devastating to everybody I mean it was absolutely terrible.
CBS News
Just as Barbara Harper had imagined, Makayla was in a large drainage pipe beneath the road.
Lt. Dakota Black: She had been drug into the middle area and she was wrapped in a carpet. … Uh, she had one sock on her foot that had teddy bears on it and her shirt was actually pulled up over her face to cover it. .. I mean it was hard. It was really hard.
Detective Black wouldn’t leave Makayla’s side. The two women had been born one day apart in the same year. But that wasn’t their only bond.
Lt. Dakota Black: I did feel a connection with Makayla… I have a history also. … you know I’ve been in bad relationships … It could have been me. (emotional) … On more than one occasion. … I just got lucky …
While the detectives were working the scene, Makayla’s family gathered just up the road.
Lt. Dakota Black: You could hear, hear them crying up there and they were trying to come down here where she was.
But the crime scene was blocked off.
BARBARA HARPER (bodycam): Can we see her? I can verify. Please?
Barbara Harper: I never once doubted that it was her.
Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office
OFFICER (bodycam): … if anyone goes through the tape without permission, they immediately go to jail, I – I don’t know what to tell you I’m sorry.
BARBARA HARPER: Can you tell them we’re here?
OFFICER: Of course. Of course.
Barbara Harper: I felt like I needed to see her because she had been out there for five days without me. And I just needed to be with her and they wouldn’t let me.” (crying) … she needed me and I wasn’t there.
Makayla’s remains were placed in the coroner’s van for the journey to the Medical Examiner’s Office.
Andria Meave: My mom and I both realized that it was probably her in there and that we would never be able to, like, hold her and hug her again, my mom started to chase the van. (crying)
Barbara Harper: I just followed it down the road, just as fast as I could … And somebody hollered at me and asked me what I was doing and I said, “my — my baby is in that van.” (crying)
Detective Black was so angry, she had to hold herself back.
Lt. Dakota Black: I wanted to leave that night and go and arrest Frank. But I knew … um … it’s better to move thoroughly than to act quick.
The two investigators had already begun building a strong circumstantial case against Frank Byers — the bullet casings in her home, his unlikely story that Makayla agreed to an open marriage and left with a bald man in a white truck.
FRANK BYERS (bodycam): Uh, she embraced the guy in a hug, and then they got in the truck and left …
Peter Van Sant: When you ask Makayla’s family about this open relationship … what’d they say?
Lt. Dakota Black: Absolutely not. They said there was absolutely no possible way that Makayla would’ve ever done that …
Investigators learned from interviews and from Frank Byers’ own social media accounts that he was the one who was cheating.
Andria Meave: Frank Byers is the biggest cheater. … He was cheating on her as soon as he moved in … Every time he would go out of town, he was creating dating profiles.
Frank Byers worked for an environmental cleanup company cleaning up hazardous materials. He spent a lot of time on the road.
Lt. Dakota Black: He would meet women at gas stations, he would meet up with them at hotel rooms … He would text them while he was home with Makayla and hide it from her.
Det. Marcus May: He was communicating … with females … the day Maykala was murdered … and immediately afterwards.
Andria Meave: He was sending pictures to women the day of her funeral asking, how do I look in my tux?
Byers’ cheating got so bad, Makayla moved out about three months before her murder.
Andria Meave: She packed a bag and she came and stayed with me for a week. … I held her where she cried every night. … She felt like a failure.
But Makayla’s love for the little girls kept drawing her back, says Andria Meave.
Makayla went back to the 10-acre property, but not to Byers. She temporarily moved into that little structure behind his to stay close to the girls. Byers tried to win her back, promising to change. But the cheating continued. Detective Black would later discover this conversation in which Makayla told Byers she was done:
MAKAYLA MEAVE: I’ve never once been dead set for divorce until today.
FRANK BYERS: You …
MAKAYLA MEAVE: … I’m just saying you have officially lost me …
Makayla recorded it two days before her murder.
Black believes she recorded it to expose Byers’ infidelity.
MAKAYLA MEAVE: … I’m stating to you right now that you have officially broke the last string that was holding me to you.
FRANK BYERS: OK.
MAKAYLA MEAVE: And you have nobody to blame but yourself for doing it.
That Friday, September 15, Makayla returned from work to pick up her things and leave for good. But Frank Byers, it seemed, had other plans. Detectives would later recover these images captured on a home security camera on his phone.
Detective Black believes he thought he had deleted them.
Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office
Peter Van Sant: Where is Makayla in this picture?
Lt. Dakota Black: This is Frank’s home and she’s coming through the front door.
Makayla stayed for 14 minutes. The detective believes they were arguing.
Lt. Dakota Black: Here’s Makayla again. She’s leaving.
The last picture of the series is Frank Byers standing at the door of his home.
Peter Van Sant: What do you believe happened after this last photograph was taken?
Lt. Dakota Black: I think this is when he exited his home and went to her home and killed her. I think this is when he killed Makayla, within minutes.
Makayla was shot in the head.
Lt. Dakota Black: Makayla had a gunshot wound right here in the front. She had one on the left side and then she had a graze wound on the same side.
Peter Van Sant: The last image she may have seen on this earth was her own husband holding a rifle, and then the shot fired.
Lt. Dakota Black: Yes.
Profile of a Murderer
It started as a simmering anger and grew into a raging fury. People wanted to know why Frank Byers was still walking free.
Det. Marcus May: The most difficult part was knowing that we were accumulating evidence to Frank’s guilt and Makayla’s murder, but we were unable to release that or share that with the public …
Lt. Dakota Black: We knew Frank was guilty. We knew Frank was not a good husband. We knew Frank was lying. … We knew lots of things, but we couldn’t prove everything, and I wanted to prove everything to make sure he stayed in jail.
CBS News
Detective Black spent 18-hour days at the office with her sidekick Haven – the therapy dog now there for her.
Peter Van Sant: Give me a sense, emotionally, how tough this was for you?
Lt. Dakota Black: It was tough mentally. I was drained. I was mentally exhausted. … I had lost weight. I was tired, but I was not gonna to go home … until this case was solved.
Byers used the time to defend himself on social media. “… I am innocent, And everything will come out.”
He also appeared on local news.
FRANK BYERS (local news report): Even today, I called her. I mean, I know she’s not here, but it’s just the fact that I have her number still and her phone’s still on somewheres. And, uh, it just, it would’ve been nice to hear her voice …
Many in the community tuned in to watch Byers’ interview, including Lt. Dakota Black.
Peter Van Sant: Did it make you angry?
Lt. Dakota Black: It did make me angry. It was sickening to see that a beautiful woman was gone from the world, and that while he’s on TV, professing his innocence, he’s … still in communication with other women, trying to have intimate relationships with them.
Black tracked down scores of these women. Crystal Cantrell was Byers’ girlfriend before he met Makayla.
Crystal Cantrell: He is very good at making you believe him … And then he’s kind of like a snake. Once he gets you in there, he bites you.
Black learned Byers wooed Cantrell the same way he wooed Makayla — with a false story that his daughters were being mistreated by his current girlfriend. And like Makayla, Cantrell had a soft heart.
Crystal Cantrell: I love kids. You know, I have kids of my own. So, I just felt really bad for them.
Shortly after they moved in together, Cantrell says Byers started to show his true colors. He isolated her from friends and family and controlled her every move. They fought. One night, she woke up to see him looming over her clutching a pair of handcuffs.
Crystal Cantrell: I closed them so he couldn’t use them on me. And then … after that he just got on my back and was choking me. He had wrapped his arms around me and had his hand on my throat and he just didn’t let go.
Cantrell was able to get away but was too afraid to report the incident to the police. She left Byers for good but says it could have been her in that ditch.
Crystal Cantrell: He would’ve killed me.
If Byers ever harmed Makayla, she never told her mom and sister. Sometimes they saw bruises, but Makayla always said they were just from rough housing with the kids.
Andria Meave: I think if I think about it too much is where I will go down a dark hole and not come out because I did see the bruises and I just chose to believe and not question. And then maybe if I would’ve questioned, it would come out differently.
Bit by bit, Black and her team built a profile of a murderer.
Lt. Dakota Black: So, this photo was taken at Walmart …
Using the date on a Walmart receipt found on Frank’s property, the detective was able to track down a security camera photo.
Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office
Peter Van Sant: What’s in the cart?
Lt. Dakota Black: There is bleach, ammonia, and a mop.
Peter Van Sant: And mop, ammonia, and bleach equals what in your mind as an investigator?
Lt. Dakota Black: Crime scene cleanup.
They were also able to match the carpet in the ditch to one a neighbor had given Byers and Makayla for their dogs.
DET MARCUS MAY (bodycam): … you, you gave them that carpet about eight or nine months ago? Was that…
NEIGHBOR: Yes…
Lt. Dakota Black: Frank took the carpet that was given to him by the neighbor and used that to roll Makayla’s body in.
They believe Byers killed Makayla around 4 p.m. and left her body in her home. He then picked up his girls after school and drove them around, returning home about 8 p.m. That’s when, the detectives believe, he started to move her body.
Det. Marcus May: The kids reported in interviews that once they returned home, that, that Frank … was outside most of the night. He — he wasn’t in his bed.
Black says there were fresh tire tracks leading to Makayla’s little house.
Lt. Dakota Black: We believe that the tire tracks actually came from a vehicle backing up to load her body, to take it to where she was located.
The detectives believe Byers drove Makayla’s body to the edge of the ditch, pulled her out, and then let her body topple the 12 to 15 feet to the creek bed. They believe Byers then climbed down and dragged her into that pipe underneath the roadway.
Once Byers got rid of the body, he concocted a plan to cover up his crime.
MAN (bodycam): So she took her phone with her?
FRANK BYERS: Yeah as far as I know she took her phone with her…
Remember, he told the deputy that Makayla had messaged him from her phone that evening, telling him “back off …” But investigators would later find Makayla’s phone in Frank’s bedroom.
Detective May confronted Frank in a second interview.
DETECTIVE MAY (interview): … So, I’m just trying to understand how, if she left with her phone and was communicating with you through her phone on Facebook, how that phone was in your bedroom? …
FRANK BYERS: I understand. Um, I mean, I — I don’t — I mean, I — I don’t have an explanation, honestly …
But investigators did have an explanation. Makayla had two phones – an iPhone and a Moto G phone. Byers had both of them.
Lt. Dakota Black: The Moto G phone was an old phone of Makayla’s that she hadn’t been using for quite some time.
Byers knew how to get into that old phone. so he switched the SIM card from her iPhone.
Peter Van Sant: Why does he do that?
Det. Marcus May: To gain full access to … all of her accounts.
Det. Marcus May: That’s how he was texting himself … pretending to be Makayla …And in fact, it was him the entire time.
The evidence was mounting but they were still waiting on two key pieces of evidence they had sent to the forensic lab for testing.
Lt. Dakota Black: I needed a smoking gun that I knew was not gonna let him out. I knew it was going to keep him there.
Peter Van Sant: What have you just unwrapped here?
Det. Marcus May: … what do we have here is the projectile recovered from the two-by-four inside Makayla’s bedroom.
In addition to the shell casings found on the floor in Makayla’s home, they later found a bullet – wrapped in what they believed was Makayla’s hair – embedded in the wall. They hoped it would test positive for Makayla’s DNA.
And then there were the boots.
Lt. Dakota Black: So these are Frank’s work boots. They were recovered … on the night of the missing person’s report, uh, from his bedroom.
Peter Van Sant: And what did you spot on these boots that was of interest?
Lt. Dakota Black: So we had found a substance that we believed could be blood, but he also works with lots of chemicals. So we were unsure if that would be something that got on there while he was at work.
Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office
Thirty-eight days after Makayla went missing, they finally got the results. They weren’t able to get a genetic confirmation on the hair, but the boots were a different story. The substance on Byers’ boots was blood — Makayla’s blood.
Lt. Dakota Black: As soon as we got that … we were like, we’re going right now.
Peter Van Sant: You had your man.
Det. Marcus May: We had our guy, yes.
Plea Deal was Cop Out, Says Victim’s Mother
Lt. Dakota Black: We were waiting for that arrest. … So it moved fast after that.
It was close to midnight, flashing police lights lit up the darkness. 38 days after Makayla Meave was reported missing, Lt. Black, Deputy Richardson and a special operations team moved in to arrest Frank Byers.
Lt. Dakota Black: Got with the SWAT team, organized the takedown and went in and got him.
Peter Van Sant: He thought he was smarter than everyone, but he was outsmarted, right?
Lt. Dakota Black: Yes. I think he was surprised.
Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office
FRANK BYERS (bodycam): I swear I didn’t do it.
Black finally had Byers in her grasp and right where she wanted him — in handcuffs headed to jail. Detective May called Makayla’s family with the news.
Barbara Harper: That was a hallelujah moment, that was about time moment. … We couldn’t get her back, but we knew he wasn’t walking free anymore.
May says they were done with Byers’ lies and they confronted him with the hard evidence they’d taken weeks to gather.
DETECTIVE MAY (interrogation): Now is the opportunity to let us know what happened.
FRANK BYERS: I — I didn’t do it. I mean –
DETECTIVE MAY: Why was her blood on your boots?
FRANK BYERS: I mean, I can’t answer I mean, I — I — I don’t — I don’t know I mean, honestly.
Frank Byers was charged with first-degree murder. The D.A. was seeking the death penalty, but the defense requested a deal to save his life. 15 months after Byers’ arrest, he agreed to plead guilty and serve life without parole.
Makayla’s mom was bitterly disappointed.
Barbara Harper: I feel that the plea deal was a cop out. … The moment, the second that she took her last breath, he chose that and he got to choose what he got for punishment too, and that’s not OK. It’s not OK.”
The plea deal isn’t the only thing upsetting Harper. She doesn’t think Byers acted alone.
Peter Van Sant: You’re absolutely convinced that Frank had somebody help him.
Barbara Harper: I’ll go to my grave believing that.
Andria Meave: I think he had to have had an accomplice. … I don’t think that he could have moved her body on his own at all.
Peter Van Sant: Physically he could not have done it.
Andria Meave: No, I don’t believe so.
Lt. Dakota Black: I think we all agree that it would absolutely be difficult to move her, but people are scared, they can do amazing things.
Det. Marcus May: What they’re saying is not unreasonable. … If the evidence is presented to us one day that, that — uh — that suggests that … we will take it and we’ll run with it to its fullest extent.
Barbara Harper: I come and I sit and I look at that place down there … I went down and hung all kinds of crosses and different things.
Barbara Harper: He didn’t just take from us, he took from his own children someone that loved them, that put them first.
Lt. Dakota Black: It didn’t have to end this way. He could have let her leave. But he didn’t.
There’s cold justice for Makayla. For Detective Dakota Black, tracker, her painful work continues.
Barbara Harper: Makayla would want her life to mean something.
Harper is starting “Makayla’s Purple Butterfly” foundation to fight against domestic violence.
Andria Meave: … that was her goal, her mission in life, was when you see someone in need help them.
CBS News
Andria Meave (at Makayla’s grave with her mother): When I think of Makayla, I think of sunflowers. I think of joy.
Barbara Harper: She would love that though, you know, she would with all those sunflowers. I sure miss her smile, her laugh, oh that laugh was something else.
Andria Meave: She was my best friend. … I strived for her to be proud of me because I looked up to her, even though she was the little sister.
Andria Meave: I still lay in bed and talk to her like she’s still right there. … I feel like she’s watching over us every day.
If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233
Produced by Liza Finley and Hannah Vair. David Dow is the development producer. Marlon Disla, Marcus Balsam, George Baluzy and Michael Baluzy are the editors. Megan Brown is the associate producer. Peter Schweitzer is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
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Champion boxer Christy Martin fights back after being shot, stabbed by husband:
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It’s hard for most people to believe that a boxer known for knocking out 32 of 49 opponents could be the victim of domestic violence, but that is what Christy Salters-Martin lived to tell a jury and CBS News contributor David Begnaud. Her husband tried to kill her, she says, but she refused to die. “I told him, ‘You cannot kill me,’ and I meant it. Just like the sun came up this morning, I meant it.”
“Christy Martin – The Fight of Her Life,” reported by Begnaud for “48 Hours,” is streaming on Paramount +.
Getty Images
Christy Salters-Martin says she is an advocate for women in abusive relationships because of what she survived. On Nov. 23, 2010, after 19 years of marriage, Christy says she was sitting on her bed putting on her running shoes when her husband, Jim Martin, entered the bedroom armed with a knife and gun.
About an hour later, Christy managed to flag down a stranger on her street in Apopka, Florida, who rushed her to a nearby emergency room. Christy had been stabbed four times in the chest, her left lung was punctured, her left leg was cut to the bone, and there was a bullet lodged three inches from her heart.
She says she was able to get up off the floor and escape when Jim decided to take a shower. “I would love to see the look on his face when he got out of the shower, came back to the room and I was gone.”
While doctors worked to save Christy’s life, Jim Martin disappeared. Police found him seven days later not far from the crime scene. Martin, who still had the knife used to stab Christy, declared himself innocent. He said he was the victim of a vicious attack by his wife and ran in fear to a neighbor’s shed, where he says he slipped in and out of consciousness until just before police dogs found him.
Martin’s defense attorney Bill Hancock tells Begnaud that his client was a loving and devoted husband who would never have attacked his wife. “There is not convincing evidence in this case, beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Martin intended to kill Christy,” he says.
Orange County prosecutors Ryan Vescio and Deborah Barra disagree. They believe Jim was the heavyweight in the marriage and that he turned a champion boxer into an abused wife. Vescio describes Martin as manipulative, cruel and controlling: “Jim’s control and abuse led to psychological abuse, physical abuse. … He started to provide her with controlled substances and … put Christy in a very compromised position to where she had to rely on Jim or else her career would be over.”
Christy Salters met Jim Martin when she was just 22 and he was 47. She was a rarity — a promising female boxer. He was a well-regarded coach and, while Martin didn’t believe that women belonged in the boxing ring, he agreed to train the young phenom. Christy says Jim saw dollar signs. “He thought … ‘It’ll be a sideshow, but I think I can get her in a position where we can make some money,'” she tells Begnaud.
As the two grew closer, the relationship turned romantic. A year later, they were married, but according to Christy, it was more business partnership than love story. She also says it was a way to finally please her parents, who had spent years trying to turn her into someone she is not.
Christy was in the fifth or sixth grade when she says she realized she was a lesbian. “Did you confide in anyone?” asks Begnaud. “No,” says Christy, not until she met high school sweetheart Sherry Lusk. Christy tried to keep her dating life a secret, but her parents eventually found out and their disapproval pushed her from the family home. Jim Martin knew all of that and more, and Christy says he used it to control her. “He would always say, ‘I’m gonna tell the world you’re a lesbian.’ And for whatever reason, you know, I just wasn’t strong enough in me to say, ‘Go ahead.’ I know that people think that I should be strong and tough and all those things. But … I didn’t have that same type of mental strength to overtake him.” Christy says she lived in fear of her husband’s threats to expose or kill her if she ever left him, so she stayed. Just days before the attack, knowing it would cause a life-or-death battle, Christy says she finally told Jim Martin she was leaving him for her high school sweetheart, Sherry.
“I think it’s a remarkable story because you have a world-famous champion boxer and she could still be in a domestic violence relationship,” says prosecutor Deborah Barra. “Because that isn’t about physical strength. It’s about mental abuse.”
Barra and Vescio say they fully expected Jim Martin to plead not guilty by reason of self-defense. At the time of the attack, Jim Martin was 66 years old and had recently had heart surgery. Christy was 42 and training for a big comeback fight. Pleading self-defense against a professional boxer was Martin’s best shot at winning, says Vescio. A jury might believe that Christy was the bigger threat — one that had required excessive force.
In his interview with Ryan Vescio, Begnaud set the stage for the trial that the prosecutor calls the most memorable of his career: “Christy was the boxer. Jim was the opponent. The jury was the audience. And the judge was the referee.” Vescio responded: “And what was the most interesting thing was, Christy had always talked about she wanted to win 50 fights in her life. Well, Christy won 49 professional boxing matches in her career. That courtroom was the 50th fight.”
Christy sees it differently, “Finally, I have been able to come to terms with, I got the 50th win, when I got up off the floor November 23, 2010, and got out of my house. That was my 50th win.”
In 2012, Jim Martin was found guilty of attempted murder, but not pre-meditated, and sentenced to 25 years.
On Nov. 26, 2024, Jim Martin died in custody. He was 80 years old.
If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 [SAFE].
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Suspect in murder of California family asked online psychic:
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Mark and Marla Palumbo were concerned when their friend and business partner Dr. Henry Han failed to show up for a meeting on March 23, 2016. They would learn the horrific reason why the following day from a news report.
Marla Palumbo: I was in the kitchen on my computer and I kept checking … And I just remember screaming, “they’re all dead.”
Dr. Han, his wife Jennie, and their 5-year-old daughter Emily were found dead in the garage of their Santa Barbara home. Mark Palumbo had just seen them on his way back from a business trip.
Mark Palumbo: We went out for dinner … played Connect Four with Emily.
Mark and Maria Palumbo
Marla Palumbo: He brought his phone to me and I’m just looking at all these pictures of Emily … and they were … taken the Friday before …
Natalie Morales: Just horrific.
Marla Palumbo: Yeah. … and she’s just goofing around with a book … making all these funny faces and … you could tell … she was loving life.
Business Agreement Signed the Last Day of Victim’s Life Led to a Person of Interest
The Palumbos had recently embarked on a new business venture with Dr. Han.
Mark Palumbo: I really loved the guy. I mean he really was smart and curious and open-minded …
Marla Palumbo: He had to come with food … and in shorts and flip-flops you know … just no … air about him.
Natalie Morales: But what made you trust him?
Marla Palumbo: His passion.
Mark Palumbo: Yeah. The way he cared about people.
Don Goldberg had known Dr. Han for more than 25 years and thought of him as a brother. To Goldberg, he was just “Henry.”
Don Goldberg: I was … approximately 10 years older than Henry, but he still called me his younger brother. … you just don’t come across a friend like Henry … It’s once in a lifetime friendship.
Santa Barbara Herb Clinic
When they met, Henry Han was making a name for himself after emigrating from China, where he came from a family of physicians. He would soon take over the Santa Barbara Herb Clinic.
Dr. Glenn Miller: I had several patients … who had had medication side effects … They would say … I went to see Doctor Han … and it went away. … And it was like, I gotta meet this guy.
Dr. Glenn Miller, a psychiatrist, says he and Henry Han developed a mutual respect and even partnered on a book about how Eastern and Western medicine could work together to improve patients’ quality of life.
Dr. Glenn Miller: Henry’s practice was flourishing … as far as active patients, he would see like in a month, it was hundreds … but he also tried to balance it.
In 2009, that balance he was seeking became a reality, when Henry met and married Jennie Yu.
Dr. Glenn Miller: He seemed incredibly happy … It was good to see Henry that happy.
Marla Palumbo: Jennie … was absolutely warm and lovely.
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office
When they had Emily, the dream was complete.
Don Goldberg: Henry was just … on cloud nine. He was very proud father.
They were often together at the clinic, where Jennie had quickly become Henry’s right hand, says her friend Isaiah Oregon.
Isaiah Oregon: He really trusted her and let her kind of take the reins …
In the spring of 2016, they were getting ready to celebrate Emily’s 6th birthday.
Isaiah Oregon: We were making plans for her birthday party and … you know, had all her presents wrapped.
But just three days shy of her birthday, her loved ones were stricken with grief.
Don Goldberg: I don’t really have adequate words to describe h — how I felt … The sadness … is too deep.
As night fell on the Han estate on Wednesday, March 23, Goldberg tried to process what he had just witnessed. He had called 911 when he couldn’t find the Hans anywhere, and he was with sheriff’s deputies when they discovered the bodies in the garage wrapped in plastic.
Don Goldberg: None of it made any sense at all.
Prosecutor Ben Ladinig says it was shortly before midnight when Santa Barbara sheriff’s investigators obtained a search warrant and began to piece together what had happened inside the house. It appeared the family had been shot while they slept upstairs on the second floor — Henry in the couple’s bedroom, and Jennie and Emily across the hall in Emily’s room.
Ben Ladinig: Emily’s room was tough to see … Mom … probably read her stories to have Emily go to sleep that night and was sleeping with her.
Natalie Morales: What did that tell you about the depravity of the kind of person who could do something like that? … What were they after?
Ben Ladinig: We didn’t know what he was after. But … the depravity I’ve never seen anything like it.
Detectives picked up on the distinct smell of the murderer’s attempts to cover his tracks.
Ben Ladinig: The smell of bleach … was there. …We had bleach bottles found … There were bleach … stains on the carpet and throughout other items upstairs … and then you see bloody things in … a washing machine.
All the bedding, which had been stripped from the beds was found piled in the laundry room and in the machine.
Ben Ladinig: The washing machine, the alarm had gone off because it — the load was unbalanced. And within there are a huge group of bloody sheets …
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office
Wedged in pillows in the laundry, crime scene investigators found a .22 caliber bullet and bullet fragments. Three matching shell casings were found within the wrapping of Jennie’s body, and one was later found lodged between the baseboard and box spring of Emily’s bed.
Ben Ladinig: We had one bullet that was a through and through … it was perfect for comparison … for … the murder weapon.
Ben Ladinig: As things are going, we start to find clues as to … who potentially could be involved.
Inside a paper bag next to Henry’s bed, detectives found a document signed the last day Henry was seen alive. It provided a name.
Ben Ladinig: It’s basically a four-page business contract between two partners. Partner one, Pierre Haobsh, and partner two, Dr. Han.
Don Goldberg knew a Pierre that Dr. Han was associated with, but Goldberg thought he was harmless.
Don Goldberg: I did not think that … Pierre was capable of … murder … I never really saw Pierre become angry or agitated.
But the Palumbos had a bad feeling.
Natalie Morales: You didn’t trust him?
Mark Palumbo: I did not.
A Suspect is Sought as a Community Mourns
The indelible scar left by the murders was the kind that not even Dr. Han could’ve healed.
Paul Wellman/Santa Barbara Independent
Kymberlee Ruff: It was like a bomb exploded … Nobody could move for weeks. … There is something … very, very, very dark going on.
Kymberlee Ruff says Dr. Han treated her family for two decades — ever since she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer shortly after giving birth to her son. Ruff says Dr. Han’s holistic approach allowed her to nurse her newborn while still treating her tumors.
Kymberlee Ruff: He could do anything. … No matter how scared you might be, or- or frightened, you just left feeling like it’s gonna be OK. Yeah, he was something.
Instilling hope may have been one of the secrets to why his patients say Dr. Han could heal just about anything.
Sheri Buron: Dr. Han, like, saved my life.
Sheri Buron was also a young mother with cancer when she went to Dr. Han.
Sheri Buron: My daughter, Abbey, was 15 months old … I felt a lump under my armpit.
Even though she had the prescribed surgery and chemotherapy, she credits Dr. Han with her survival.
Sheri Buron: There were so many people that passed away around me. … He got me through it.
Natalie Morales: What was the impact for you of his loss?
Sheri Buron: It’s the fear of … if something comes back. … And I’m … trying every day to be positive and … try to stay with his level of calm and how much confidence he had that like everything’s taken care of.
That conviction is what had drawn the Palumbos — who worked in the skincare industry — into their partnership with Dr. Han, hoping to treat various skin maladies.
Marla Palumbo: Henry was very interested in CBD.
Having used CBD in his practice to treat pain and inflammation, Henry Han wanted to harness its full potential. It was groundbreaking science at the time, and he wanted 25-year-old Pierre Haobsh to help develop it.
Don Goldberg: Pierre … from what we gathered had a lot of experience, uh, in laboratories … in this case relating to CBD.
Henry Han had taken a liking to Haobsh after meeting him through another associate, but the Palumbos were uncomfortable with Pierre from the start.
Facebook
Marla Palumbo: You know how when you meet somebody … you can’t put your finger on it … but something’s not right. That was Pierre.
Mark Palumbo: It was always this kind of little boiling simmer.
When it came time to do the lab work, the Palumbos say the results were disturbing.
Marla Palumbo: What we came to find out was he was using toxic materials … when … we called him on it … he said, you know, “I’m just learning more about the molecules” … it was just weird.
As it turned out, Haobsh wasn’t a formally trained scientist. He didn’t even have a college degree.
Mark Palumbo: The more you got under that surface, the more you realize that he could, uh, talk a game and stay over the folks’ heads a bit scientifically …
Natalie Morales: Sounds like he was sort of … a snake oil salesman-type, right?
Marla Palumbo: He was —
Mark Palumbo: — sophisticated one, but yes —
Marla Palumbo: Yeah, very sophisticated one.
There was more eyebrow-raising behavior — Haobsh had also made odd charges on Henry Han’s account.
Marla Palumbo: I was doing all the finances … And I’m like, this doesn’t look right.
Natalie Morales: Not a business expense —
Marla Palumbo: Not at all.
After Marla Palumbo flagged the charges to Henry Han, he discovered they were for escort services.
Marla Palumbo: Henry was, “You won’t believe this! Pierre’s out.”
Natalie Morales: That was the final straw.
Marla Palumbo: That was Henry’s final straw.
Mark Palumbo: For Henry, yeah.
But then, a few weeks before the murders, the Palumbos say Henry Han brought up Pierre Haobsh out of the blue.
Marla Palumbo: Henry mentioned that he had learned a lot more about Pierre’s upbringing … how much Pierre had to overcome from his childhood. … Mark nor I really responded. We didn’t want to have Pierre back in our fold at all.
The Palumbos were not alone in being wary of Pierre Haobsh. Jennie Han’s friend, Isaiah Oregon, says Jennie also had concerns and confided in him about them four days before the murders.
Isaiah Oregon: It was weighing on her heavily. … “Do we trust him? … Do we give him another chance?” … I was like, “Absolutely not.” … If he stole from you before, he’s gonna steal from you again.”
But Pierre Haobsh had already ingratiated himself back into Henry’s good will.
Don Goldberg: Henry had a very trusting nature … Henry had shared with me that Pierre told him that he was … ill … that it was late-stage cancer and that, uh, he was going to do what he could to help Pierre.
Isaiah Oregon: Using Henry’s good nature … by lying to him, by manipulating him.
Authorities learned that Haobsh had been an overnight guest at the Han’s home before the murders and had formed a new partnership with the healer. There was that contract found in the master bedroom they had signed the last day of Henry’s life. But Prosecutor Ben Ladinig says it didn’t seem legitimate.
Ben Ladinig: It … was like a college sophomore drafted it. … It was not notarized, not witnessed.
Detectives had found something else of interest.
Ben Ladinig: A brilliant detective … found … packaging to … the plastic … wrapping … that all three of the Han family were wrapped in … In a trash can, in the kitchen area next to packaging … of 3M duct tape, similar to the duct tape that was used to wrap all three of the bodies.
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office
He recognized the plastic wrap was a Home Depot brand and reached out to the company’s security department.
Ben Ladinig: And Home Depot was, within hours of us … gaining an entry into the house, able to run those two items together, to see if they had been purchased in the Southern California region within the last several days or weeks.
A Home Depot in Oceanside, California, had security footage of a man who matched the DMV photo of Pierre Haobsh, who also happened to have an Oceanside address.
Ben Ladinig: And that was “Bam!” We knew. … He’s walking out with three huge plastic rolls … and sure enough, duct tape.
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office
Natalie Morales: So within hours of … the crime scene being discovered, Pierre Haobsh became … a person of interest.
Ben Ladinig: Yes.
But where was Haobsh now? Detectives had a hunch. Data from the Hans’ cellphones — which were missing — showed they were traveling south, further, and further from Santa Barbara.
Ben Ladinig: Then inexplicably, Henry’s phone goes dark … but Jennie’s is still on and it keeps going south. …We’re getting basically digital footprints leading down to the Oceanside area from a dead woman’s phone.
A Key Witness Tells Detectives Pierre Haobsh Confessed to Him
Sgt. Anthony Flores (driving): Anytime you’re trying to stop somebody that is wanted for homicide, the stakes are gonna be high.
The day after the Han family was found murdered, a manhunt was underway in Oceanside, California — nearly 200 miles from the crime scene. Sgt. Anthony Flores and his partner were part of the local Oceanside Police team assisting the Santa Barbara investigation.
Sgt. Anthony Flores: We had come in to work with our Special Enforcement section … And we were gonna be the stop car for that day. … If … given a window of opportunity … to take him into custody or potentially stop him.
Meanwhile, undercover detectives were conducting surveillance at the residence Pierre Haobsh shared with his father and updating all units — including the homicide team that had driven down from Santa Barbara with Prosecutor Ben Ladinig.
Ben Ladinig: All of a sudden, we get chatter … on our intercoms … “dad’s on the move.”
The surveillance team followed Pierre Haobsh’s father as he drove to a Walmart parking lot, where security cameras captured him meeting up with none other than Pierre.
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office
Ben Ladinig: That’s dad driving in … sedan and then you see the Lexus following shortly behind … They appear to be communicating briefly together … you can just see that trunk pop — on dad’s car.
After transferring two large duffel bags to Pierre Haobsh’s car, they both drove off.
Ben Ladinig: We gotta move quickly.
Sgt. Anthony Flores (driving): It was … a little after midnight and … we had just got the update that the suspect was on the move … As we’re traveling, we’re hearing that he’s pulling into the ARCO station.
Sgt. Anthony Flores: He had a few miles of a head start.
The other units and Ladinig had pulled over by the ARCO station waiting for the arrest team to arrive.
Ben Ladinig: Then all of a sudden, you see … an unmarked car … drive right through the middle of that intersection … sparks fly and … it just basically comes in, pulls in and lays on the brakes … Two huge dudes get outta the car and pull gun on him and prone him out. And our eyes are like saucers. We’re like, whoa.
Natalie Morales: Wow.
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office
Natalie Morales (at ARCO station): It’s 200 miles away that this investigation started and it culminated here.
Sergeant Flores had handcuffed Pierre Haobsh.
Natalie Morales (at ARCO station): What do you remember about that arrest?
Sgt. Anthony Flores: I remember it going down really fast … all of our senses were heightened …
Within 48 hours of the murders, investigators had the Han family’s alleged killer in custody. Pierre Haobsh waived his Miranda rights and started talking to detectives. What he told them was something out of a spy thriller. He claimed that his life was in danger.
PIERRE HAOBSH (to detective): Over the past couple of days, I—I kid you not I’ve been shot at. … probably about five individuals so far that I shot in self-defense.
He claimed he was being targeted because of a scientific marvel he had invented.
DET. HENDERSON: What does it do?
PIERRE HAOBSH: It’s, um, it’s a very, very advanced energy source. … it’s — it’s a quantum kinda energy source. … I think probably at least 15 individuals who have been connected to this project are — are dead.
Santa Barbara Superior Court
Pierre Haobsh said he had gone to Dr. Han’s house earlier in the week to install one of his perpetual energy devices and that the plastic wrap and duct tape he was seen purchasing were for that purpose.
PIERRE HAOBSH (to detective): Dr. Henry, we, um, we signed a contract together … he was going to facilitate taking the technology out to China. … love— love the guy to death. … he really, um, really liked this project …
Pierre Haobsh said he had left Santa Barbara around 2 p.m. on March 22 — the day before the murders — after signing the contract. But detectives pushed back.
DET. HENDERSON: There’s more to this story that you’re not telling me. … Dr. Han is dead.
PIERRE HAOBSH: What!? … I had —no clue that — oh my gosh. Everything was perfectly fine when I left.
Pierre Haobsh was adamant he would never hurt the family and insisted the shadowy figures who had been after him had killed the Hans and were trying to frame him for murder.
PIERRE HAOBSH (to detective): … I invented a technology that changes the world… oil companies and people don’t want this technology out there.
Ben Ladinig: It was this massive conspiracy to keep this … next-level energy system from getting out to market. … “James Bond,” “Mission Impossible” … this fantastical life.
Pierre Haobsh’s outlandish story continued, but then detectives received an unexpected call from someone who claimed to have information about the murders.
TJ Direda: I’m a pretty rough around the edges guy … I have rough around the edges friends.
TJ Direda was a marijuana grower who said Dr. Han had approached him about supplying CBD-rich strains. Direda had also met Pierre Haobsh.
TJ Direda: Dr. Henry had told me … that he was … like a prodigy street chemist … he had done some stuff that was ahead of his time.
Natalie Morales: So, a little bit of a mad scientist?
TJ Direda: Yeah, I would say.
Natalie Morales: Perhaps, yeah.
According to Direda, Pierre Haobsh had a penchant for making up grandiose stories to seek attention. But he befriended him, nonetheless.
TJ Direda: He was … that … awkward … kid that wanted to fit in. … And … I was the guy in high school that stuck up for kids like that … So … I, uh, took an interest in him … in that regard. …
Natalie Morales: You think he trusted you then?
TJ Direda: Oh, he absolutely trusted me.
As Direda revealed to detectives, Pierre Haobsh had reached out to him via text the morning of the murders. The message sent at 09:39 a.m. said: “I need your help with something urgently… Like its urgent!!!!!”
Natalie Morales: What was he asking for?
TJ Direda: Uh, he needed my help. … moving something.
He says Pierre Haobsh told him he was in Santa Barbara and needed to talk face to face. So Direda had him come to his house in Thousand Oaks, about an hour away.
TJ Direda: The first thing out of his mouth … “just so you know, I’m a monster.” … He had told me right then and there that he had killed Dr. Henry … his wife and his child … and needed help …
Natalie Morales: Did he give you details … of what he did?
TJ Direda: He did.
Direda told detectives Pierre Haobsh said he had tried to put the bodies in his car, but they wouldn’t all fit and Henry was too heavy — details Ladinig says only the killer would know.
Ben Ladinig: How the killings were done, how the bodies were wrapped up … how he had the doctor’s phone …
Direda told detectives Pierre Haobsh had also revealed his motive: $20 million that he planned to drain from Henry’s accounts after killing the family. Direda says he didn’t know if what he was hearing was another one of Haobsh’s far-fetched stories. And until he knew for sure, he decided to play along.
TJ Direda: I just wanted to get him out of the house and confirm whether what he had just said was true or not. … I said let me work on it and I’ll call you later …
Once Pierre Haobsh was gone, Direda tried to reach Dr. Han and anyone who might have information, to no avail.
TJ Direda: I didn’t want to call the police because I didn’t — I wasn’t sure yet … it was chaotic. It was … it was scary and also … confusing.
Pierre Haobsh kept messaging him. Around 5 p.m., when Direda still hadn’t provided any assistance, Haobsh texted him with a proposition.
Natalie Morales: “Want to come to Vegas tonight? I’ll pay.” What did you think the reason for that all-of-a-sudden trip to Vegas?
TJ Direda: At that point, I wasn’t sure. It didn’t sound right … He was probably gonna kill me and somehow make it look like I had something to do with it.
Natalie Morales: You were gonna be the fall guy.
TJ Direda: Right.
Direda made up an excuse why he couldn’t go. And Haobsh would send him one final text at 7:35 p.m. that night: “Yep. Am screwed. They just found everything. My lives over. Only if I got to it all sooner.”
Ladinig says Pierre Haobsh had just returned to the crime scene with a big truck to transport the bodies, but law enforcement had beaten him to the scene.
Ben Ladinig: He knew his goose was cooked.
More Disturbing Details About the Han Family Murders Emerge
Pierre Haobsh’s arrest near Oceanside, California, had come at a critical juncture. He was armed with a 9-millimeter handgun that was in plain view on the driver’s side floorboard. He also had his passport and those duffel bags, which he had received from his father minutes earlier.
Ben Ladinig: Two “go bags.” … Basically, whatever you need, clothes … everything for the person to live for months.
Haobsh’s father was also detained and questioned, but he was released later that morning.
Ben Ladinig: We could’ve charged him … as an accessory, but we didn’t have any indication. … that dad … was involved in any way, shape, or form in the killing …
The next day, during a closer examination of Haobsh’s car at the crime lab, “You name it we found it in that car,” said Ladinig.
There was Henry’s wallet, credit card and Social Security number, along with an expended shell casing. There were also the victims’ phones and tablet, all wrapped in aluminum foil, in an attempt to evade tracking.
Ben Ladinig: And in the trunk … you lift up where the spare tire would be … the murder weapon … suppressor silencer, ammunition.
The Santa Barbara Independent
A week after the murders, the autopsies revealed the victims had been shot 14 times — three each into Henry and Jennie, and most disturbing, eight in Emily.
Ben Ladinig: That ammunition … is the same stuff that we found at the crime scene, in the decedent’s bodies … Match, match, match, match, match. Everything.
Pierre Haobsh was charged with three counts of first-degree murder, making him eligible for the death penalty.
Defense attorney Christine Voss, who was with the Public Defender’s Office at the time, represented Haobsh.
Christine Voss: It was one of the most challenging cases, if not the most challenging case I ever came upon. … He really wanted to be vindicated. … To me, the goal was for him to not get death.
At the eleventh hour, the D.A.’s office agreed to waive the death penalty in exchange for a more expedient bench trial, which meant a judge, not a jury, would render a verdict.
On Oct. 25, 2021 more than five-and-a-half years after the murders, the prosecution delivered its opening statement and laid out its theory of the case — that Pierre Haobsh had plotted the murder of the Han family for financial gain. They painted him as a career con man who up until the murders flaunted his intelligence and supposed wealth.
Marla Palumbo: His entire life’s drive was being rich.
Ben Ladinig: He … sent … screenshots of his Chase account from anywhere from about $3 million up to $940 million dollars to various people attempting to dupe them that he’s this jet setting, billionaire.
Pierre Haobsh claimed he had received big offers for his energy technology.
Christine Voss: I’m not a scientist, but I don’t know that there’s a such thing as a perpetual energy machine.
But several years before the murders, Haobsh was actually being paid to build one.
Samantha Spidell: It was gonna be a new source of energy as if he was, you know, an Elon Musk …
Samantha Spidell met Pierre Haobsh circa 2012 when he moved into a penthouse apartment in a luxury high-rise she managed in Tempe, Arizona.
Samantha Spidell: He … pulled up … and had this … bright red Ferrari … it was very flashy.
Ladinig says Haobsh had duped a group of high-rolling investors into financing his invention, until they realized it didn’t actually work.
Ben Ladinig: He had basically defrauded all these people and the money dried up … When the murders were committed I think he had less than $500 to his name.
Prosecutors presented a detailed timeline retracing Haobsh’s movements, including his digital footprint, in the days before and after the murders. They say as early as March 17 — six days before the murders — he had looked into impersonating the doctor at his bank.
Ben Ladinig: He’s searching for Asian disguises and real flesh masks.
Natalie Morales: Like a “Mission Impossible” face mask.
Ben Ladinig: Right. Hundred percent. … this is his fantastical world that he lived in.
There’s no evidence he ever purchased a mask. But a time-stamped receipt and security video placed him at an Arizona gun store four days before the murders — purchasing ammunition and two firearms, including the alleged murder weapon.
Ben Ladinig: — a .22 pistol with a threaded barrel … for what is a silencer or suppressor …
On March 20, he was back in Oceanside, California, buying supplies before driving up to the Han’s house under the guise of installing the energy machine. Instead, Ladinig says Pierre Haobsh bugged Henry Han’s computer with a spyware app called a keylogger.
Ben Ladinig: What keyloggers do is every stroke, every click of the mouse, every navigation page you go, it documents all of it.
To their surprise, investigators also found the keylogger on Pierre Haobsh’s laptop. On March 21, while Haobsh was still at the Han’s home, the keylogger had recorded chilling search terms on his laptop.
Ben Ladinig: What part of the skull is more penetrable? … What ammunition would be better …
Natalie Morales: As a guest in Dr. Han’s house –
Ben Ladinig: A guest— he’d been staying there –
Natalie Morales: — for the two nights before … Planning, this execution-style murder.
Ben Ladinig: Yes.
Pierre Haobsh left the Han residence on March 22, but prosecutors allege he went back around 4 a.m. the next morning to carry out the murders. They say later that day he began frantically trying to siphon money from Henry Han’s accounts.
Ben Ladinig: He’s using phones. … He’s using fake email accounts. He’s doing all these things from … personal identifying information of Dr. Han’s that he stole earlier that week.
A Chase fraud alert had flagged an attempted payment for $72,000. Meanwhile, Pierre Haobsh also rented that big truck he allegedly drove to the crime scene hoping to move the bodies.
Ben Ladinig: There are black and whites all over that house. … The crime scene’s being processed.
The Palumbos say the meeting they were supposed to have with Henry Han just hours after he was murdered had foiled Pierre Haobsh’s plans.
Marla Palumbo: He thought … that he had that whole day to clean up his mess before Henry would be missed.
Mark Palumbo: He wasn’t fast enough.
Marla Palumbo: I think we screwed it up for him, happily.
That’s when prosecutors say he fled, driving south toward Oceanside. Ladinig argues Pierre Haobsh’s subsequent searches betray his guilty conscience: “is car searched entering tijuana”; “How Crime Scene Investigation Works“; and “how long do fingerprints take to process”. Incredibly, he even consulted an online psychic named Count Marco and asked him “will I get causght for what I did?”
Ben Ladinig: And Count Marco replies, well, what did you do, Pierre?
Pierre Haobsh never gave Count Marco an explanation, but on the stand, he couldn’t stop talking.
Pierre Haobsh Tells an Outlandish Story on the Stand
Christine Voss: This was a tough case … but that didn’t change the fact that Pierre was entitled to a vigorous defense.
Defense Attorney Christine Voss was in an unusual position.
Christine Voss: This was a really well investigated case. … Because my client wanted to have a trial and wanted me to turn every stone, I did.
Turn every stone and raise any possible reasonable doubt.
Natalie Morales: You argued that there were elements presented that were implausible … unprovable and simply impossible, those were your words.
Christine Voss: Yeah.
Voss expressed concerns that the alleged murder weapon and silencer found in Haobsh’s car didn’t match up.
Christine Voss: It absolutely did not connect to the firearm that they believed was the murder weapon.
She seized on discrepancies in the location data from Haobsh’s car and phone that the prosecution had used in its timeline.
Christine Voss: He could not possibly have been in San Diego and Santa Barbara simultaneously, or Thousand Oaks and Santa Barbara simultaneously. But that’s what the GPS data showed.
And she attacked the credibility of the prosecution’s star witness, TJ Direda. Voss questioned why Direda waited nearly two days to contact authorities, and argued in that time, he could have gotten details about the crime scene that the prosecution claimed only the killer knew.
Christine Voss: It was not the best kept crime scene … he was making various phone calls after he heard about the death of Dr. Han …
But Voss concedes much of Direda’s testimony was corroborated by the evidence.
Ben Ladinig: This case was over within the first 72 hours.
Santa Barbara Independent/Ryan P. Cruz
In fact, the only witness who provided testimony that someone other than Pierre Haobsh was the killer was Pierre Haobsh. During three days on the stand, he repeated the action-packed account he’d given detectives about having shootouts with shadowy figures. Now he said he was sure they were sent by the Department of Energy.
Natalie Morales: It sounds like there’d be a trail of bodies … But yet, is there proof of this trail of bodies anywhere to your knowledge?
Christine Voss: No. … which further made him believe it was the Department of Energy …
And what about all that evidence investigators found?
Ben Ladinig: The DOE … planted them … it’s all a frame, all that stuff is framed. The banking stuff, frame job. … What’s in my car, frame job.
Christine Voss: It was difficult for me to embrace Pierre’s testimony.
Natalie Morales: Do you think he himself believed some of the things … he was saying were true?
Christine Voss: Oh yeah, definitely.
Samantha Spidell: He was obsessed with the government.
Samantha Spidell attests there were some kernels of truth in his stories.
Samantha Spidell: Pierre mentions that his dad had ties to the CIA … And I could tell that he … wanted his dad’s … approval.
When his father died in 2023, his obituary stated he was, “a key player in clandestine Central Intelligence Agency operations during the 1980s.” Pierre Haobsh also told Spidell that his sister was going to star in a reality TV show.
Samantha Spidell: She got cast on a newlyweds reality show … and Pierre was gonna be in it … come to find out that was true.
In fact, both Haobsh and his father made appearances on the second season of the Bravo TV series “Newlyweds, The First Year.” Pierre was even shown giving his brother-in-law a cooking lesson.
But Prosecutor Ben Ladinig argued any grains of authenticity in Haobsh’s life were far outweighed by deceit.
Natalie Morales: You called him “a lying liar who lies about lying.”
Ben Ladinig: Right … Lie, lie, lie, lie hundreds of lies we found on him. … His life was a con.
On Nov. 24, 2021, Judge Brian Hill would get the case. None of Pierre Haobsh’s family members attended his trial. The judge made his ruling: guilty on all counts.
Natalie Morales: The judge, when he issued his ruling, said … his decision was beyond a shadow of a doubt, absolutely no doubt of Pierre Haobsh’s guilt.
Ben Ladinig: Yeah … very satisfactory to hear that.
Christine Voss: I wasn’t surprised.
Natalie Morales: And what was Pierre’s reaction upon hearing that ruling?
Christine Voss: Well, he was visibly disappointed.
Isaac Hernandez, Mercury Press Inc./Isaiah Oregon
On April 15, 2022, Pierre Haobsh was sentenced to three life terms without the possibility of parole. It was little comfort to those still mourning Henry, Jennie and Emily.
Don Goldberg: I don’t understand how there really could be justice.
Isaiah Oregon: He’s still alive … and — and they’re not. … He took precious moments that … we’ll never get. (wipe tears from his eyes)
Marla Palumbo: I want him to feel every pain possible for what he did.
Mark Palumbo: Not enough bad things can happen for him.
Nearly a decade after the murders, the wounds are still raw.
Isaiah Oregon: It’s hard to think of them.
Dr. Glenn Miller: He was a really good man. … you don’t replace a Henry Han. No.
Don Goldberg: Pretty much every day I think of Henry and Jennie and Emily. … There’s an old … phrase that … a good man and a good family lives for limited time, but a good name shall live forever … They lived too short … but … their name lives on forever.
Haobsh’s conviction was upheld by the California Court of Appeal in January 2025.
He also petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to release him. The Court denied his petition.
On Monday, Oct. 27, 2025, TJ Direda died.
Produced by Gayane Keshishyan Mendez. Greg Fisher is the development producer. Iris Carreras and Hannah Vair are the field producers. Ken Blum and Diana Modica are the editors. Cameron Rubner is the associate producer. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
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How
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People often discuss which Hollywood star might play them in a movie about their life. For legendary boxer Christy Martin, the actor turned out to be Sydney Sweeney. Sweeney transformed into “Christy,” which hits theaters on Nov. 7.
Before Martin’s story was told on the big screen, she sat down with “48 Hours” in 2020 to share her story. An encore of “Christy Martin – the Fight of her Life” airs Saturday, Nov. 8, at 9/8c on CBS and streams on Paramount+.
Raised as a coal miner’s daughter in a small town in West Virginia, to becoming a world championship boxer, Martin made headlines as a pioneer in women’s boxing. But few knew of the personal battles she was facing outside the ring.
Getty Images
In the episode, “48 Hours” details the story of Martin’s struggles with identity, acceptance, drug addiction, and domestic violence at the hands of her former husband and trainer, Jim Martin. “The same story that you guys got, Sydney puts out there for the people to see and to gain inspiration from,” Martin recently told “48 Hours.”
Sweeney spent months preparing for the role, including intense boxing training to recreate Martin’s actual fights. In addition to physical preparations, Sweeney told “48 Hours” about the research she did to play Christy. “I mean, I had a lot to be able to pull from and go off of. She had her book, there was the ’48 Hours’ special … There were interviews and fight footage. So there was a lot I could prepare with before I met Christy, and then I had Christy in my corner, so I was able to ask her questions and have her by my side and be able to watch her.”
Martin requested the writers not to “Hollywoodize” her life as they scripted her story. Martin said writer Mirrah Foulkes responded, “There’s enough crazy s*** that’s happened in your life, we don’t have to.”
As her survival story continues to reach more people, Martin hopes it can help inspire others. “We’re showing a pathway to get out of a domestic violence situation. We’re showing how important it is for parents, relatives, friends to be accepting of someone who’s a little different … But I’m the ultimate underdog … If you can believe it, you can achieve it. Dream big. My Dad used to tell me to dream big, and I think I did.”
If you or someone you know needs help, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 [SAFE].
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