20/20 -  Stranger in the House

Episode Date: March 28, 2026

A devout husband goes from victim to murder suspect; how a wife’s secret recording changes everything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

911, where is the emergency? It's the middle of the night in a small town on the Jersey shore. Someone reports an abandoned car on a bridge. A search gets underway for the missing driver, 19-year-old Sarah Stern. Is it a missing person? Is it a suicide? At this point, nobody knows. Old friendships, buried cash, and a sinister plot that was once pitched as a movie, plays out in real life.

I'm Jiu Chang. from 2020 and ABC Audio. Listen now to Bridge of Lies, wherever you get your podcasts. This could be a 2020 someday because there were just so many unanswered questions. Come with me. Who shot you? I didn't have broken night hug.

Heidi's not responsive. Nick's been injured. You're like, what? What do you hear from neighbors? Were they able to see anything, hear anything? They were like a picture perfect couple. Who left this couple? Who would do this to this young couple?

His story of an intruder coming into the house was the only story that made sense. You and her never mentioned this to either set of parents. None of our parents or none of our friends. No one knows about this except you and just said, that I. What did he tell you about this intruder? But he was really big.

My twin brother's 6162. So he's that big? That's when we were given the sketch of this alleged intruder. She said, I know who's in that sketch. We had maybe found our guy. Were you ever concerned that you're sleeping with a killer? This is a story about a young married couple just starting out. They'd recently bought their first home, and they had a lot of promise ahead of them.

Nick and Heidi Furcus were in their 20s, very active in their church, very family-oriented. The kind of couple that you hope all couples would be in their early 20s. 20s. Heidi and Nick lived in the Midway neighborhood of St. Paul. It was a very quiet, very family-friendly part of our city. This is just a fantastic tight-knit community. Heidi and Nick were a part of that. In Minnesota, it takes a number of summers to get to know your neighbors because we're

pulled up for most of the winter. Good, quiet neighbors would occasionally speak to Nick, you know, when they're running in and out of their homes. It was a Sunday morning that should have been like any other with Heidi and Nick getting ready to join their friends and family at church. But this Sunday would change the couple's lives forever. April 25th, 2010 starts off as a quiet Sunday morning in the Hamlin Midway neighborhood. Sun is shining.

I was patrol supervisor for the St. Paul Police Department. It was like 6.30 in the morning, but it had been a... fairly quiet night. We were all just getting ready to go home for the day. 911. 911 call is from Heidi Furkus. She's calm, but you can tell that she's scared. What city are you in St. Paul? I'm in St. Paul. What address are you at? Mini ha ha, everybody. Mini ha, someone's trying. The call ends very abruptly with a loud noise and what that noise is exactly we didn't know on the front end. Several of us softsters took the call and began our response.

I activated my emergency lights. It certainly gets your blood going. Shortly after the first 911 call is abruptly ended, another 911 call comes in. State Patrol 911. This time it's from Nick Furcus and Nick is screaming into the phone. phone. You can hear the panic in his voice. He's hysterical.

He's crying. He's screaming. I'm not you. Myself and three other officers arrived on scene within five, ten seconds of each other. We know that we have potential gunshot victims. They find the outside screen door open and the front door propped open just a little bit. We don't know if the suspect. Their suspects are still at the address, so we do have our firearms out.

There's an officer just to my left that kicks the door. They enter the house tactically because they don't know if they're still an intruder in the house. Nick is on the 911 call and you can hear the police arriving to render aid. There was a very distinct smell of recently a fired gunshot. We observe a female. female down in the kitchen area and then we see a male. The officers at that point quickly walked through the house to make sure that there isn't another potential suspect inside. They see Nick and Heidi in the kitchen and Heidi's not

responsive. Nick's been injured. Nick tells the police that the intruder broke in and the two of them wrestled over Nick's shotgun. It was absolutely terrifying, and then the shotgun went off, and Heidi got shot in the back. During this struggle with the intruder, Nick had been shot one time from a double-barrel shotgun. He was screaming, and he was upset, and he needed an ambulance immediately. Heidi had been shot in her upper back.

She had lost a significant amount of blood. She had no signs of that. They pronounced Heidi Fergus deceased at the scene. Nick was transported by St. Paul Fire Paramedics fairly quickly down the Regents Hospital, which is one of the level one trauma centers in St. Paul. What was the crime scene like? What did you discover in the house? There was a pair of jeans laying in the foyer area, and then the shotgun was laying there

in the ground as well, right inside the doorway. The shotgun belongs to Nick. It's his hunting gun. It's a double barrel. And he kept it in the closet of his bedroom for safety. We also saw the pellets that were in the door frame, as well as the door itself, from when Nick was shot by the intruder. Officers also photographed what looked like tool marks on the front door along the frame as if someone were trying to jimmy it open. When a call comes in of somebody that's been shot at six in the morning in April, spring morning,

have a massive police response. A canine officer had responded to see if, you know, could track the suspect from the front door. Officers and investigators begin canvassing the whole area to talk to anybody we can. We begin looking for cameras on houses or people out walking their dogs. We're looking for any sign of anything of someone running away.

Who would do this to this young couple? Maybe they had an interaction with the intruder, maybe met them the day before. The one person that police need to talk to is the lone survivor. The one witness, Nick Furcus. But then I started hearing, feeling with our doorknought. There was an intruder trying to burglarize the home. That's when the struggle took place between Nick and the intruder.

I try to shut the door shut, but it gets forced open. Nick told us that he began having a fight for his life. We got one off. We were all looking for that intruder. Nick and Heidi Furcus were a young. devout couple members of the Calvary Church everybody who knew them knew that their faith was at the center of their lives everyone looked up to Nick and Heidi they both love Jesus and had their priorities you know in the right place

the Fergus has lived in the Hamlin Midway neighborhood it's a safe community with a lot of single-family homes small businesses and some local colleges I remember when Nick and Heidi bought the house. They were very excited. I wouldn't necessarily call it a fixer-upper, but it also wasn't a beautiful, pristine, no-work-needed house. Nick and Heidi had everything going for him. They were like a picture perfect couple. They had a very sweet relationship. They were very loving. The way that he loved Heidi was how I hoped to be loved, very outwardly. And, um, that nothing else really mattered because he had Heidi.

She was always smiling, always joyful, cheerful, and kind of had this mischievous edge to her. But that's what made her fun. She was always joking around with people, and yet she had this depth to her. Nick O's Furkus worked at his family business, a kind of subcontracting business that does carpet and various installations, and is quite successful.

Nick was very much a business very much a mentor to me. I wanted to be like him to try to learn what it meant to be in a Christian man. On Sunday mornings, Nick and Heidi were found here with friends and family ready to worship every Sunday morning, that is, until April 25th, 2010. I went to church. It was a normal Sunday morning, and I don't even remember who came up in a panic and said, Heidi got shot. There was an intruder, and that was about all the information we had. And it was overwhelming, right? Like, you're like, what?

And the news would only get worse. Heidi doesn't make it, and they find out that Nick has been rushed to the hospital with a gunshot wound. The injury that he suffered was from a shotgun blast to the upper thigh. Nick's injuries did not appear to be life-threatening. Once Nick was treated at Regent's Hospital, The officers escorted him over to our police station. I was waiting there at our homicide office. This up here is our interview room where we talked to some of the victims and witnesses.

Okay. Tell me about Nick when he got here. What kind of shape was he in? What was his mind like? He was in some pain. He was on his crutches, so he was moving fairly slowly. I was low one or the high one or two of that one. Sorry.

I told him I wanted the backup at least 24. This is a very traumatic situation, okay, and I'm just going to try and ease into it, okay? Okay. So what I would like to do is just kind of backtrack a little bit, you know. Maybe they had an interaction with somebody and that the intruder might have maybe met them the day before. My wife was meeting a friend in our house because they were going to go to the hall of America for some spring shopping. I stayed at home. Nick sent her a message telling her that he wanted to spend time with her alone on Saturday night, and that they ended up on the end of the whole.

and that they ended up watching the movie Avatar. They ordered dinner, and they each had a glass of wine while watching the movie. Before you went to bed, did you lock up the house or anything? If I'm honest, I don't know if I remember to throw the pole. Nick tells the police the next day that he woke up around 6 in the morning. He was thirsty, went to the bathroom, got a drink of water, climbed back into bed and was starting to fall asleep again,

and then he heard something at the front door, which woke him up. I heard the screen door open, so kind of let it go for a little while, but then I started hearing, filling with our doorknob. He then goes to the closet to retrieve his shotgun. And then I wake up Heidi. Okay. And I said, Heidi, somebody's fiddling with her knot and trying to get into our house. Let's get your shoes on it. Let's go out to the garage.

Let's get out of here. They proceeded to go downstairs. Heidi's in front of him. He's got a shotgun in the left hand, and he's pushing Heidi along down the stairs. And as they made the turn to go by the front door towards their kitchen, somebody burst through that front door, and that's when he began having a fight for his life with an intruder. I don't remember exactly, but the gun went off.

So my finger slipped out of the trigger. So, yeah, I know it hit Heidi. I just, I know it did. Do you use the crutches to talk about how this played out? Yeah, actually, I tried to reenact part of the scene out there at the house, and I picked up the crutch to use as a shotgun as a point of reference for Nick to tell me how he and this intruder struggled over the weapon. I get it up and up and over.

So you pointed to that him? No, it would like straight up and over like that. So you're like, they're all down. Oh, so the barrels down? What did he tell you about this intruder? Did he have a good description? He thought he was a black male but was not entirely sure. What this guy looked like?

I think he was a black guy with a dark, hood, and sweatshirt. But I did not get a good look. look. He was giving me a little more detailed information than he gave the officers who initially arrived at the scene. But he was really big. My twin brother's 6-1-6-2. So he was that big? He was probably that big, yeah. He now has a little bit more of a description, which was good for us to go on. In the Hamlin Midway area specifically, there's not a lot of violent crime that goes on in those single-family home areas. Oh, there's minor crime, certainly. Our garage was broken into a couple of times. Once I left the door open and the guy just came in and stole stuff.

There was one time Heidi had all the girls over and then had a sleep over afterwards. Overnight one of the girls had her car had gotten broken into. What do you hear from neighbors? Were they able to see anything, hear anything? They weren't able to give us any information about seeing anybody running away from the house or anything like that. The only thing that was discussed by neighbors was sounds that they heard. The neighbor, the neighbors, The neighbor directly to the west of the property, he heard what he thought was two gunshots. And that neighbor remembered looking outside and not seeing anybody running away from the scene.

We had our canine officers immediately begin to try to scent track the area. And generally when somebody's running, they're going to emit a lot of sweat and odor. And our dogs were not able to pick up any sense that day. Police at the scene and in the neighborhood are coming up short. Meanwhile, downtown at the police station, the interview with Nick Furkus is about to take a surprising turn. We have to be out by Monday tomorrow. Was this couple keeping a secret? No one knows about this except you and I said, that I was quite shocked hearing that information.

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Chime card on time payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score. Results may vary. See chime.com for details on applicable terms. Ordinarily on a Sunday morning, Nick Furkus would be in church. Instead, he's at police headquarters explaining what happened at his house just hours earlier. Every question that I asked, he answered. There wasn't a time in our conversation where he said, Sergeant Gray, I don't want to answer that question. The whole thing you'd have you been married for?

For four and a half years. You guys just have any problems or anything like that? It's just the normal stuff. But I would say, great. We're still best friends. While this break in murder is a little strange for the neighborhood, police don't find any red flags in Nick or Heidi's past. Nick had no criminal history.

criminal history at all whatsoever. Oftentimes, you know, there'll be domestic disturbances. There was nothing like that. Guy to guy here. Mm-hmm. You know, every guy's got needs and urges, concerns, how you want to put it. Are you stepping out at all by chance? To other women?

Yeah. No, absolutely not. All right. I'm not here to judge you, okay, Nick. Absolutely not. We had a lot of trust in that part of our relationship, for sure. relationship for sure but as Detective Gray goes on with the interview Nick does eventually reveal a secret you guys aren't behind the bills in the way we have

behind in the bills which is a little stressful in questioning Nick divulges that they were in some financial trouble they are actually getting foreclosed on and have to be moving out the very next day the next day the next day April 26th at noon, the sheriffs were to show up and forcibly remove them. And this is a hard place for us. We're foreclosing on our house. We have to be out by Monday, tomorrow. When you step back and you look at the time we're talking about.

We begin tonight with the housing crisis. The nation's foreclosure crisis shows no end. insight. Nick and Heidi were like a lot of families who were upside down on their mortgage and on the verge of losing their home. President Obama is expected to unveil his plan for dealing with a surge in foreclosures. Even though Nick and Heidi's financial troubles weren't exactly unusual at the time, he says they were ashamed. This has been kind of a private struggle for us. Well that's kind of, I mean, kind of close notice. It is. We're both kind of dealing with the shame of the whole

thing because we're embarrassed that we haven't been able to be honest with our friends about our struggles. Nick then explains that they also have a lot of credit card debt as well. Just out of curiosity was told for the credit card set, right? Just about it's a little over 15. The furkices were in dire financial distress. They had a substantial credit card debt. Overdrafts in their checking account, they just were living paycheck to paycheck. Did he give you any indication of whether people knew about it? No. It was their secret. It was Heidi and Nick's secret that they were getting evicted the very next day,

that they didn't disclose that any information to either family or friends. We're going to talk to everybody about it tomorrow and crash up their place. So you and her never mentioned us to either set of parents. None of our parents or none of our friends. No one knows about this except you and I just said, There were no signs the couple was packing up and preparing for a move. The refrigerator was still stocked with food. There were few, if any, boxes packed with belongings.

It did not look like anybody was planning to go on a long vacation, let alone moving out of the house. It just seems like you're kind of putting yourself against the clock. If you knew this train was coming, you know, you know, you're, you know, coming. You know, you kind of get ready for it. Yeah, the significant part of it is the shame of the whole thing. We're pretty crippled by it. Nick told us that Heidi was very aware of that situation and that she and him kept it a secret.

But when we talked to the family, they just, they could not believe that their house was being foreclosed on, and Heidi hadn't told a soul. The issue becomes, why didn't Heidi tell her family? Beyond the embarrassment, is it possible that there was another reason that Nick and Heidi kept this secret? Nick and Heidi had a very traditional marriage from the standpoint of the church. Nick being the male took care of the finances. Heidi took care of some of the plans and vacations and those types of things. She deferred to Nick for all the financial issues. At some point, you asked Nick a pretty critical question.

Yeah. Would you ask him? I asked him if he killed her. I came out and asked him straight out. Nick, you know, part of you want to say to ask you this question, did you have anything to do with this? No, absolutely not. Okay. Absolutely not. All right.

Why is there a party that wants to ask that? Well, Nick, I'm a police officer, okay? Yeah, I got a ask, I got a ask. Asked tough questions, all right? After this three-plus hour interview with police, Nick finally gets to see his family. What happened when he finally was reunited with his family? OK.

Mom. He gave his mother a hug. Nick finally broke down and started crying, weeping openly. He can't believe it's good. Police camped out in front and back of the Furcus home throughout the day, collecting fienders. and doing ballistic work. We are investigating this as an, as in some type of burglary and intrusion.

Police have increased patrol in the neighborhood that say there's no evidence that anyone's trying to target this neighborhood. After Nick's interview, I think that there was some red flags. Based on some of the questions that police asked Nick, Nick realizes that police are looking at him and he's going to need to protect himself. I said, Nick, you can't go back and talk to him again. They wanted to do a sketch with a police sketch artist. They had produced a very detailed sketch. We received a call. She said, Sergeant Peterson, I know who's in that sketch. I stopped everything. I couldn't believe it. The resemblance between that individual and the sketch, it's undeniable.

We had maybe found our guy. Heidi's funeral took place. at our church about a week after her death. The entire sanctuary, all the seats were filled with people that were there because they loved Heidi. I remember hugging Nick and just like saying, I'm just so sorry, I can't imagine what it's like to be you right now. It was overwhelming. There's a lot of very vivid memories about it.

When Nick spoke, she talked about her being an artist and thanking her parents for entrusting her to him. Nick was seen as a victim and a hero. He had done everything he could to protect Heidi. In the aftermath of Heidi's death, Nick does finally share with his family and with hers, the financial secret he says they'd been hiding. The day after Heidi's death, Nick Furkus and his parents met with Heidi Furcus parents and laid out the financial struggles, the credit card debt, the four-close.

closure. John Erickson, Heidi's dad was trying to project strengths and say, they'll find this person, Nick, don't worry. And Nick's response was just, they'll never find him. And that really caught Heidi's parents off guard, as did the details about the home foreclosure, which were now making headline news and had people questioning, how much did Heidi really know about their financial problems? The newspaper ran the story about financial disaster that Nick and Heidi were in, and that was the first that I was hearing about it.

I was like, this doesn't make any sense. Nick was very quick to say, don't read the media, don't listen to the news, they're lying. I didn't view him as somebody who would lie to me. The friends were worried about Nick. Perhaps he was being unfairly targeted. But those close to Nick aren't just concerned about the media. concerned about the media. The police were also zeroing in on him.

Nick, here's, this is like you said, there's a lot of things we're going to try. My name's Joe Friedberg. I got a call from Nick's dad who said that we have a problem. Can we come see you? I was retained very early on as his defense lawyer. Nick Verkus seemed to be the victim of a horrible crime. His wife is dead.

Why would he need a defense lawyer? Well, the in. interview that day with the police, which he gave voluntarily, the questions took a turn. Did you have anything to do with this? No, absolutely not. Okay. Absolutely not. He was bright enough to know that he had gone from victim to a suspect. Nick and his attorney decided that they weren't going to give any more statements to St. Paul police. I told him that if he was going to have me represent him, he wasn't going to be to be. to talk to the police, be a fool to.

It kind of seemed like Nick was being a little bit of an obstacle. They claimed they wanted to bring him in and have them do a sketch with a police sketch artist. That's a good idea. But I knew they'd use that as a lever to try interrogating more. So I said, no, we won't do that, but we'll hire an artist and do it. I received a phone call from Nick Furcus's defense team. I agreed to have Nick come to my house.

He had jotted down some notes. The skull and the ears were covered by black hoodie. The eyes were bulging and he said it should be a little bit more age to them. So I made them deeper looking and asked him, does that represent what you saw? And he said it was. They were going to come down to our headquarters because we'd still needed to get a sample of Nick's DNA. And then when Nick showed up,

Nick showed up, that's when we were given the sketch of this alleged intruder. It was a picture of an African-American male, perhaps late 30s, 40s, wearing a hooded sweatshirt with a very, very round face and a larger nose. They'd never had that experience where a defendant hired his own sketch artist. And they were stuck without any context of how this sketch was made. An intruder was our best possible theory. We all wanted to find that hooded sweatshirture. wearing individual who did this to Heidi.

The police released that sketch through the media to see if any tips would come in. The composite sketch got a couple of leads, but nothing concrete. And then as the years passed on the anniversary of Heidi's murder, the police and the news media would re-release that sketch.

If you know anything about this incident... I did a lot of media pushes with some of our local reporters and others. At least one person, knows exactly what happened and we are hoping that that person or someone else will come forward. It revived the case, it revived the sketch, it revived the information, and it brought some more hope to Heidi's family. Just the loss of our daughter alone is something that's going to be with us forever. We received a call. The woman had left a voicemail and she said, I know who's in that sketch. His name is Michael Pye.

I stopped everything. I went into our... database computer and and I typed in Michael Pye and I couldn't believe it. The resemblance between that individual and the sketch, it's undeniable. We started researching him immediately and we started to learn that he was engaged in a pattern of breaking into homes in St. Paul around six in the morning. We had maybe found our guy. My name is Michael Pye. I'm lay here for about 35 years.

years. In 2010, I was a different person. My mind was gone and I basically was homeless, so I basically was doing what I knew to survive. It was a home invasion and that's what I was doing was home invasions. I went to talk to Michael Pye to the Bureau of Corrections where he was being housed and we met with him. I showed him the sketch. He said, that's me. And they said that it was a guy who said that I shot his wife in the back. And I said, I ain't doing anything like that. I hit a giant snag.

The problem is that that individual was incarcerated when Heidi was killed. Michael Pye was in jail on the day that Heidi was killed. I got locked up on January the 1st. The murder happened in April, so it was like three months apart. There was no way that he could have possibly been involved in this case whatsoever. Investigators thought they were finally making progress, but now they're back to square one. For his part, Nick Furcus is moving on with life, even meeting somebody new. Somebody who's about to become his second wife.

I am Rachel Furcus. And what she has to say will breathe new life into this investigation. into this investigation. I want people to hear the full story and to know the truth of what really happened. In 2010 when Heidi was murdered, I was a patrol officer and I worked in the district that she was killed in. And so I was aware of the crime from day one. I heard about it from other responding officers who talked about how the scene did not make sense. The case always bothered me because the circumstances didn't seem to fit what happened.

A burglar broke in to an occupied house and there was a struggle when the wife dies. Oh wait, they're being evicted the next day. Heidi was killed in the place she should have been safest. And with a person who should have kept her safe. As the details piled on, I wanted to know what I didn't know. What am I missing here? I think there was always a frustration within the department that this case couldn't be solved. And I came into the homicide unit in 2019.

The case was then assigned to me. Our investigators held this case so closely to their hearts. It was never considered a close case. It was very clear to the investigators that his family and all the friends rallied and supported him. There was kind of two sides to this through the years. You have a group in the community and Heidi's family that were just extremely suspicious of him. And you had a group of his friends and his family that were very much supportive of him as a hero in this. Nick goes on with his life.

and he's able to move on. A few months after Heidi's murder, Nick meets the sister of a really good friend of his and Heidi's. Rachel Watson. For the very first time, Nick Furcus's second wife, Rachel, is sitting down to tell her story. What'd you think of Nick Fergus? I felt bad.

I knew about his story. He had lost his wife. I had a ton of empathy. What did you know about his story? There was a burglar that entered their home. He fought with them. He was trying to fend them off. And Heidi was shot.

And he also got shot. Rachel shares that she left a very difficult marriage. And she moves back to Minnesota to be with her sister. And that's where she connects with Nick. I definitely felt sorry for him that He had gone through such a trauma. I related to trauma. My first husband and I met when we were young.

It was a rough marriage. I was very quiet. I was scared, abused, and vulnerable. Was the idea that you two could kind of help heal each other? That's what it felt like. He listened and he empathized with me. Within a year, Rachel and Nick are now talking about getting married. You invest in somebody emotionally when you process something so hard.

People question how fast you two moved. Yeah, how fast we moved and friends were still grieving Heidi and Nick's moving on. All of a sudden it was like he's got this girlfriend. It seems like he hasn't fully grieved his wife and at the same time we want him to be happy. So we made ourselves okay with the situation. As Nick and Rachel are getting closer, Nick's family, who have always been very very very, who have always been very protective of him, especially after Heidi's murder,

is now concerned. Will people be critical that it's just too soon? They were so private and would mention that we have to be careful of how we talk about it and what we say, what we don't say. When you say talk about it, the family was careful to talk about... Any of it to tell the story.

About the shooting? Yep, about the shooting, about what happened that day. I knew that if I was going to be in their family, that I wasn't allowed to share with anybody, anything that I knew. Rachel says she and Nick decide to focus on making new memories as a couple, starting with their wedding. So as time went on and you two were planning this wedding,

your sister Sarah wrote on a family blog, I got to watch him be married once to one of my best friends who passed away. He was incredible with Heidi. I don't have to wonder what he's going to be like with Rachel. I trust him with all my heart. heart. That was pretty strong endorsement of this man you're about to marry. Is that how you felt? Everyone that I was around at the time felt that way. Before the wedding, you had a special request. You wanted to visit Heidi's Gray. Why? Out of respect. I didn't want it to seem like I was

replacing her because I wasn't. I knew I would never replace her. I I wanted to be able to go there and say that. Tell me about that visit. What was that like? It was strange. Nick didn't have much to say or have emotions about it. I envisioned it to be that he was protecting himself. I imagined it was tough having to relive a trauma

that you had in your life. And I didn't want to cause more hurt. In August of 2012, Rachel and Nick get married. They start planning a family, and Rachel begins to grow close. with some of Nick and Heidi's friends. My friendship took off with Rachel, like right away. She just became someone that I love talking with. They had kids pretty quick,

so we fell in love with their kids and would watch their kids for them when they were doing things. What kind of a dad was Nick? He was a good dad. It didn't necessarily come natural, but he tried. Nick continues to be the main provider for his family, still working for his family's business.

And Rachel says he tells her that he's no longer longer in debt. He went through a program that helped him with finances, and he was able to pay off all of the debt that he had. So I respected that. They moved into a house that Nick's parents paid for. Neither of us were able, credit-wise, to buy a house. We had an agreement.

We were paying our mortgage to them. And when it was time to pay the property taxes, he was just supposed to pay it with the money that we had, and it seemed to be fine. I was happy. But then one day, Rachel finds something in Nick's sock drawer that literally took her breath away. What did you think? Terrified? I didn't know that this was happening. And I'm living with this person.

It was a very shocking realization. Could history be repeating itself? 2020 is partnering with Vives, open-ear wireless headphones. That's VyBZ. If you listen to a lot of true crime, you probably like to listen with a good pair of headphones. But it can be tricky to find a pair that provides great sound quality. that's not too immersive. Because when you're out with a podcast

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People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. What could possibly be more terrifying and traumatic than having someone break into your house early in the morning and shoot your wife dead and shoot you.

Oh wait, they're being evicted the next day. What am I missing here? He's talking about the gun being chest high and he says that that they're fighting over the gun up here. Nick Furcus is under suspicion for his wife's murder. It's just like really traumatic to watch that all play out and to see people say things about your friend that aren't true. The last time he had problems with finances.

a lot of things went wrong. His wife was killed. Right. This has been kind of a private struggle for us because we're embarrassed. How do you go from having financial troubles to killing your wife? I didn't know what was going to happen in that conversation.

The fact that you're lying over and over and over makes me think that I could murder my wife. Maybe somebody really did break in. Maybe it happened as he said. Little did I know that it was not even close to being over. Police search one! Rachel, you need to get out of the house. Time is not your friend in homicide cases.

And as time went on, people start to move on and people don't want to talk about it anymore and people don't want to come forward anymore. This is one of those cases that would wake you up at night to think about how we're going to think about how are we going to bring justice to Heidi's family. They would call in April around the anniversary of her murder. They would call around Heidi's birthday. And I know that it was absolutely traumatic for them. Initially, it was only Nicholas Furcus' narrative that was out there.

Friends rallied around him. They supported him. They all stuck with him. The family, the church community. Every single piece of the story that he told us then has been consistent and remains consistent with the evidence. Any hard thing that he's gone through, we've walked alongside each other. There was absolutely no way that he had been involved. No. Not a thought at all.

How would that even cross people's minds? We were like, nobody thinks that. They know Nick. Still, there were details that stuck with investigators. One of them was the sketched. release that was based on Nick's description of the intruder. It's clear that Michael Pye didn't kill Heidi because he was in prison at the time of the murder. What has police thinking is, where did Nick come up with that thought for the composite? In the winter months of 2009 into 2010, that man's face was all over the news as a known burglar. as a known burglar in the area. I used to always turn on the news in the morning time,

and I would be the first picture on the news on all stations. It appears like that sketch could have been made deliberately to throw people off. It kind of seemed like Nick was trying to set someone else up. To try to frame another human being, that was disgusting. And that isn't the sign of an innocent man's actions. I was the lead investigator on over 85 some homicide cases, and I still have moms and family members that call me. And they still say, what's going on with this case?

And Nick never called one time. He never reached out one time. Why wasn't he working harder over the years to try to find his wife's killer? Maybe pressing the police, coming back to the police to find out what they know? Blame that on me. I didn't want any more contact with the police for Nick because all they're going to try to do is get inconsistent statements on details from him. No criminal lawyer worth his salt would ever have let Nick cooperate with the police because the police were treating him as a suspect, not a victim. But your wife has been killed by some unknown assailant and over the years, I would think that that would just at the very least trouble him.

He was always concerned about it, always afraid that walking down the street someday he'd run into him. Nick has moved on with his life. He's married, has three kids, is working. And, you know, it's as if he's been able to get past that really traumatic part of his life. So you've been married now a few years. Was there any talk about the fact that there was never a resolution to this tragedy that it had? happened and nobody arrested for killing his wife? Nope. I asked him about it and I said, why don't you ever talk about it? And he didn't really have anything to say. Rachel

shares that she and Nick start to grow apart. We were living in the same house under the same roof, using, you know, the same money, but there was no relationship anymore. There was, you know, times where I felt like he was lying, but I could never prove it. What did you suspect that he was lying about? At first it was little things. I would see rappers and, you know, things in his car, and I'm like, hey, can you bring stuff from home so that we're not spending money every day on, you know, going out to eat? But there was always an excuse or, oh, somebody was in my car with me today and they left

it in there. You're lying to me and it's dumb. Like it's not even things that are a big thing. Were you worried at all about how the finances were being handled? Yeah. When you get collections calls, you know something's wrong. One day, Rachel finds something in Nick's sock drawer that literally took her breath away. It was a notice that they were delinquent on the property taxes.

He failed to pay those property taxes. If these taxes aren't paid, you know, the county will look at foreclosure on the house. the house. What did you think? Terrified. I didn't know that this was happening and I'm living with this person. I have children with this person. And the last time he had problems with finances, a lot of things went wrong. His wife was killed. Right. And so, you know, naturally that's where I went. Is that what this is? So you're beginning to think that you could be married to a killer. At this point, it was very possible. This piece of paper Rachel finding hidden from her proved to us enough that Heidi did not know about the financial struggle because Rachel did not know.

That is when we were like, did he kill his wife? She gets so scared that she grabs the kids in the middle of the night and she leaves the house. At around the same time, there's a new detective determined to crack this case. I think she hit the ground running. And she finds more suspicious evidence that seems to point back to Nick Fergus, including something found in his car on the day of the murder. It's actually in my car. Why would it be there?

This case had sat quiet for almost a decade. And then in 2019, there is a sergeant at the St. Paul Police Department who wants to take another look at this case. I was transferred to the homicide unit, and I had an opportunity to take this case over from the previous investigator. There have been no arrest, no progress, and almost 10 years have passed,

and most people have forgotten about it. Where do you begin? At the beginning, I reviewed all of the reports. I reviewed all of the evidence. One of the first things that Sergeant Sypes does is to sit down and re-watch that. that interview that Nick Furkus did with police. That was the single most important piece of evidence

that I thought we had in this case. Sipes now brings fresh perspective to a number of red flags that original investigators had noticed. Heidi's only dead a few hours. And for the most part of this interview, Nick isn't crying, isn't emotional. I know she was hit in the back. I just, it was high in the back probably.

Like up towards the shoulder, I think so. How worried was he about his wife during that interview? He wasn't. It took him about an hour and twenty-some minutes to say, can I get an update on Heidi? Nobody gave me any answers on what was going on with her. And then Sergeant Gray was able to deflect the question for quite a while. And then Sergeant Gray asked him, do you have any questions?

Well, I just want to know the final answer on Heidi. Well, this is a couple parts of my job that I really hate. And this is one of them. She didn't make it. I figured that. I figured that. That was his response to the news that his wife was dead. At that point, Nick does appear upset.

Still, Nikki Seipp says there's something important she never sees. You would think that if your wife had just been killed in front of you by a real person who was on the loose, you would have some questions of that investigator. What are you doing to find this person? Where did you look? Nothing. Sergeant Sipes then turns to the FBI to help her with Heidi's Unsolved Murder. We were initially contacted by Detective Sipes from the St. Paul Police Department to help with some audio from the 911 calls.

that they had. We really wanted to hear, if you could hear this fictitious intruder. The FBI took the audio recording to our laboratory in Quantico. State Patrol 911. Someone's trying to break into my house. There was no noise that we could detect in the background. What city are you in St. Paul? I'm in St. Paul.

What address are you at? You can hear the shotgun and then the line goes dead. How, average. Many ha-ha, someone's trying west. And in that last terrible moment of Heidi's life, investigators analyzing the call say they hear nobody else there, but Heidi and Nick. Next, the FBI is using new technology to reconstruct Heidi's final moments. But even before they begin, there are plenty of red flags in Nick's version of the story. He has a loaded shotgun, and he is ushering Heidi down the stairs in front of him.

She's in front because I'm kind of trying to move her along quickly. Yeah. And then I'm right behind her. Did that strike you as odd? Yes, he's the one that has the gun. Why does he let his wife go ahead of him? She's maybe a foot ahead of him. They're together, and he's trying to hurry her along.

They wanted to get out of there. Still, it's just not making sense to investigators. So the FBI now brings in its forensic firepower to help. One of the things we came up with was to recreate the scene, so we decided that we were going to get access to the house. The FBI came out and did a full kind of digital scan that didn't really exist in 2010, so they could make an accurate to-scale digital model. Nick tells in the interview about how the gun is sort of pressed up against his chest when it goes off and Heidi gets hit by it. He's talking about the gun being chest high, and he says that, that they're fighting over the gun on. up here.

So how likely was that? The FBI combines their ballistics testing with the virtual model of the space to find out. We put her in a natural position, which is her standing straight up. We were able to take somebody that's of the height of Nick Furcus and put that shotgun in space where it would be when it went off. They believe that shows that the gun wasn't at Nick's chest, as he describes. Instead, it was higher at his shoulder level as a shotgun would normally be if you're going to aim and fire.

Which makes them think this was a deliberate shot and not a shot that was taken in the middle of a struggle. Though Nick's attorneys insist that doesn't necessarily disprove his version of events. Another thing that catches the attention of Sergeant Sipes is that Nick, in this interview, talks about this vacuum for cleaning carpet that specializes in removing blood. And she found it really interesting that Nick just happened to have that in his personal car on the day of Heidi's murder. It's actually in my car back at the office.

Yeah. In your car? Mm-hmm. Okay. Why would it be there? Because I, it's, that piece of equipment is not just for cleaning up blood. I need to be going to take care of my customers, so I just threw it in the back of my car. And what did that say to you potentially?

Well, you know, it was always an idea to us that had he planned to kill her and clean up the scene. Even as Sergeant Seibs is closing in on Nick Fergus, what she doesn't know is that his current wife, Rachel, is having her own suspicions that will lead her to begin secretly recording him. And the fact that you're lying was so... easy for you to do makes me think that I could murder my wife yes when Rachel found the papers that said that their house was in danger of foreclosure was shocking that was the first moment that we were like oh my gosh did he kill Heidi that paper changed the course of the rest of the story what did you think terrified I didn't know this I didn't know that this was happening

and here I am sitting in a position that happened before to him. The last time his wife ended up dead by his shotgun, and so Rachel, you need to get out of the house to keep yourself safe. Did you fear for your life? There were times that I did for sure. With knowing that he could do it once, what makes you think he can't do it again? Once Rachel knows that her children are safe in a way,

from Nick. She decides she's going to confront him. Rachel's feeling nervous about her safety, so she brings her friend Emily along. You decided you wanted to record the conversation. Yeah. Why? Because I didn't know what was going to happen in that conversation and possibly maybe there'd be a confession of some sort. But how did you secretly record the conversation? I just had my phone next to me on my lap and the conversation started. I could get through this if it was just the lying. I really could. The problem is the Heidi stuff. That's my problem.

The problem is I don't 100% believe you. I said, I found out about a possible foreclosure, I found out that you haven't been paying bills, that you've been lying about paying these bills. And then, you know, I said, how am I supposed to know this information and not think that you may have had something to do with Heidi's death? I know it's shocking for you to hear that from me and it's shocking. Trust me, it's shocking for me to think it. I don't know what I say right. Nick sits there silently about saying a word.

This goes on for minutes. So I intellectually understand what you're saying. The fact that you're saying it is so indescribably jarring to my soul that I can hardly breathe. I don't have words, Rach. It is too traumatic. And I don't know what else to tell you. We're like, why are you not getting help? Clearly there's a problem. There's a history of a problem. The fact that you're lying was so easy for you to do in front of me over and over and over makes me think that you could lie about something. That I could murder my wife. That I could murder my wife. Yes. And then when you ask him, like, to talk about Heidi's death, he just puts his head down and like, kind of cries. But he will not touch it.

There are a hundred things going through my mind right now. Are you wanting to say more? I don't know. I probably need to know. I think I'll be open to this conversation. I just can't do it today. Now Rachel insists that Nick tell his parents what's going on. So they get together again and he brings them along. You were putting him sort of on the hot seat at the time with the parents. You wanted him to come clean. Yeah. And did he? No.

He sat there and let his dad talk for him. That I don't believe him. That's what's scary to me. What don't you believe? I feel like I don't know the full truth. You're talking about the full truth of when Heidi died? Mm-hmm. These are the questions that I have.

If Heidi did know all this was happening, Why was there nothing packed in their house? Like, that's just illogical. There was the beginnings of packings. I mean, there was stuff in the basement that was packed up. There was things that were crated up and easily ready to go.

Yeah, but granted, at first blush, it didn't look like a house packed and ready to move. If you look at the videotape taken by police on the day of the murder, that does not look like a house that was prepared for a big move out. You hear Rachel Chishabell, challenging Nick's parents asking, how is it possible that you had no idea that Nick was losing the house?

Like, nobody knew that's just so bizarre to me. So we weren't super entwined in their life. There weren't grandchildren involved that naturally gives them more of a connection. But that was different for their family, right? That they said that they were shocked that they didn't know because Heidi told them everything. They never pushed into our personal business. Heidi and I decided together that we would figure this out together. Nick's dad tells Rachel that their lawyer had advised the family not to speak publicly about Heidi's death.

The rule we needed to play this to not say anything, duck. And let people that know how to play the game, play the game. When Rachel challenges Nick about his memory, he says that a lot of stuff is fuzzy. They don't have vivid memories from back then. You did, that when you talked about it, it was like detailed of what happened. And so you keep saying that, but that's not true. She didn't trust him anymore, so she decided to divorce, and they did divorce in 2018. I knew immediately as soon as I saw that her divorce, I wanted to talk to her.

One day, I get a knock on my door. I think it's somebody that's selling me something. And she was like, I'm Nikki Sipes. I'm from St. Paul Police Department. I want to talk about Heidi Furcus. And I never, never in a million years, thought that that would happen. The idea that Rachel, who was married to Nick Fergus, he's the father of her children, that she cooperated with you.

That's pretty amazing. She's a very brave woman. How much danger was she potentially in? That's a great question. But if I were her, I would have been very afraid when I found this out. You're potentially helping them arrest your children's father. for murder. Were you at all reluctant? No matter how hard this is going to be, this is someone's daughter. And if I can fight for her, even if it causes pain for me, I will. If Nick really did kill Heidi,

then what's the motive? Let me know when you're in position. Police finally believe that they have enough evidence to make their move. Police, we got a search warrant? Sergeant Nikki Sipes is still investigating the murder of Heidi Furcus. And more than ever before, she is focused like a laser beam on her former husband, Nick. She's beginning to believe that the motive for Heidi's murder all stems from the couple's financial troubles. At the time of Heidi's death, they haven't made a mortgage payment in 22 months. They're $18,000 in debt with credit card bills. What struck me the most was the amount of money

that they had in overdraft fees through their bank. In one year, it was over $8,000 in overdrafts. In overdraft alone? In overdrafts. I mean, their water was going to be disconnected at times. It appears that they were living way above their means. Rather than cook at home, they were out at restaurants, It's not lavish places, but they were spending more than they were making.

But it was their $200,000 home that was really causing Nick and Heidi to fall behind. They bought a home they could not afford. And so things kind of spiraled a little bit because of that. And the day after Heidi's murder is the day they were supposed to be evicted by the sheriff. Sergeant Sipes and the FBI poured through the financial documents. and come up with a theory. What's your gut telling you after sifting through all of this? That Heidi had no idea their house had been foreclosed on.

She had no idea they were being evicted 30 hours later. Nick says that it was their secret. But the police wonder if maybe it was a secret that only Nick was keeping. How is it possible that they could be living together? And she has no idea that they're in financial trouble. He handled the finances. They were young. that just seemed to be the role that he took on.

But Nick's defense lawyers see it differently. They were being hounded by the bank, by mail, by UPS, by Federal Express. There were postings on the door, and all of those mailings were found in the house. Heidi could not have been oblivious to what was going on. In the mortgage and eviction paperwork, there was never any money. Never anything signed by Heidi Furcus. You didn't see her signature on any of these documents. Nowhere.

No one ever served Heidi Furcus with a piece of mail. She never appeared at the hearing for the eviction. She didn't communicate with anyone, not even her closest friends, not even her parents, about this situation. Whenever we spoke to any one of her friends or family, would Heidi have told you? Every single person said absolutely she would have. And not only was Heidi not talking about this looming move with her friends and family, according to the police, when they dug through her text messages and her emails,

it didn't appear that she had discussed it with Nick either. What we couldn't find anywhere in any of the emails was any mention whatsoever of foreclosure or eviction. I mean, that's a life-changing event when you have to move out of your house. And for them not to have one correspondence about the coordination of this move, is very suspicious. You know, the closer it got to the day of her death, you could tell she knew something was going on with a few of the bills.

She started getting calls and emails from creditors asking about bills that need to be paid. Every time she would get a call, she would immediately call, text or email Nick and ask him to take care of. She was definitely asking more and more about bills. Like, I got a call, this, she would ask him, is there any update? And he would give her these kind of elongated

responses, like, oh, I called so-and-so. And so it became very clear that she believed what her husband told her. Police thinking is, Nick is not telling Heidi the truth. So why is he lying to Heidi? And I think he knew that as soon as Heidi knew what happened, she would tell everyone around them. He thought she might leave him. So rather than reveal his financial problems, He killed his wife. He has destroyed their lives, essentially, without her knowing. Prosecutors say Nick was two different men. He was one man at church for his wife and his family and community.

And then there was the secret Nick. The Nick that couldn't pay his bills, the Nick who was losing his house. It wasn't just going to be the loss of this house. It was going to be the realization that he had lied to his wife, and he had lied to his friends. He had lied to the community for many years. Through the murder of Heidi, he came away as a victim and a martyr. It just made no sense that he would kill his wife

in order to spare him some momentary embarrassment. But then he becomes the victim of a crime. Nobody's thinking about his financial troubles at that time. He's lost his wife. If he were trying to keep this secret, The last thing that you would do is bring in the police because your wife has just been murdered. After 11 years, police finally believe that they have enough evidence to make their move against Nick Furkis. We went to his house very early in the morning.

Our SWAT team went, knocked on the door. Police department, search one. There he comes coming. Nothing on his hands. Hello. Police! We got a search warrant? Okay. Nick, come on on? Yes. Go put your hands by and your back for me. Okay? Very cooperative. So what you is, Sheriff?

You have a warrant for your arrestor? For what? Homicide. Nicholas Furcus is in custody on suspicion of murdering his wife, Heidi. Today, we're one step closer to getting justice for Heidi and the truth. Do you think that he thought that he would ever be arrested? No, I believe he thought he got away with it. Nick is charged with both first degree and second degree murder.

I thought that was it. I thought, okay, he's going to go to jail. Little did I know that it was not even close to being over. The trial for a St. Paul man accused of killing his wife back in 2010 is now underway. His attorneys are arguing that Nicholas's wife, Heidi, was killed during a break-in. But Ramsey County prosecutors say there's no... sign of anyone else in the home other than the couple. It's been nearly 13 years since Heidi Furcus's murder and the trial for her husband, Nick,

is finally underway in this courthouse. And both sides are arguing completely different versions of what happened that morning. The courtroom was packed every single day. There were people who were sitting on the floor even. The tension between the two parties was very noticeable. One family against another family, essentially. Correct, and families that used to be somewhat united. It was just like really traumatic. And to see people say things about your friend that aren't true. At the heart of this case is, was there an intruder or not?

It wasn't a fictitious stranger who was breaking into her home, who she needed to be afraid of. It was the stranger she married. married. To prove their argument, prosecutors put Nick's intruder story to the test. They showed the jury video of police trying to reenact the break-in and the jiggling of the door Nick says he heard from the upstairs bedroom. How about the front door, so let me know when you guys are ready. Sergeant Grace stood at the front door and jiggled the doorknob. Well, they took a video upstairs in the bedroom. We are ready. And you could not hear that doorknob being jiggled.

Which was Nick's story on how he first was alerted to the burglar. Nick's attorneys introduced evidence to contradict that by showing the tool marks on the door frame that suggests someone was trying to break in. There were marks on the door that were consistent with someone using a screwdriver to pry open the door. Maybe somebody really did break in. Maybe it happened as he said. He said. And the police recognized that, which is why they seized three screwdrivers from the house and from Heidi and Nick's cars and compared them to the tool marks, and none of the three

screwdrivers could be matched to those tool marks. You brought in a locksmith. We did. What did you discover? He's been to thousands of burglary scenes. He said his experience has been that with a burglar, they're going to be a burglar. going to attack the deadbolt because once you defeat the deadbolt, you've got the door. But there was no evidence that anybody had tried to pry open the dead bolts.

And he also said they don't care about damage. All they care about is getting in and getting in fast. The locksman had never seen a burglary with so little damage to a door. At 6.30 in the morning on a Sunday when you expect people to be sleeping in the house, you do not break in by kicking in the door, you break in covertly. Another inconsistency in Nick's story, prosecutors say that undisturbed table in the foyer. It's just inches from the door. And so when Nick describes this dynamic encounter with this man larger than him, you would look and think that that scene would just be destroyed. And yet nothing was out of place.

Why isn't the table knocked over? Why are the content still neatly on that table? Because that isn't where the struggle was. The struggle was as you come into the door to the right of there, as is shown by the spread of the bullets into the door. Look, four cops came bursting through that door into the house because of the emergency and the stuff was still there. But they weren't fighting with him over a gun.

The scene was not trashed. trashed, but there were things that were askew. The front door was open an inch when the police arrived. The front mat was pushed up against the wall. Heidi's shoes were sort of knocked askew. Another reason prosecutors believed that there was never an intruder is because they never found anyone else's DNA. No foreign DNA in the house or on the gun.

So what did that tell you? That there was one person that touched the gun. Nick Furkus. The guy came in fully dressed with a hood over his head and wearing gloves. He was in the house for seconds. Seconds. Probably wouldn't be any DNA.

The defense argues that Nick wouldn't have had enough time after Heidi's 911 call to stage the crime scene and shoot himself before making his own 911 call only 65 seconds later. Prosecutors know they've got to convince the jury There was plenty of time. And in their closing argument, they put on a dramatic demonstration. Show me how you did the reenactment.

I demonstrated with my hands being in a shooting stance to represent Nick Furcus holding the shotgun. So that would have been Nick shooting his wife? That's correct. I put down my imaginary gun. I walked over to where Heidi's body would have been. Nick Furcus would have turned her over. With a timer running in front of the jury, prosecutor Rachel Crocker walks through every step she says Nick had to take.

Picked up the gun that he had left by the door, braced himself against the door, and then pulled the trigger to get that tangential wound that he got in his left leg. Shooting himself. Shooting himself. Drop the gun. Drop the gun. And then use the phone to call 911 1. And you still had time on the clock? That's right. There's no evidence that he was able to walk. He had just been shot in the thigh. You take a look at the pictures of that wound.

He would have had to crawl. Jurors have heard the case for just over two weeks. And now Nick Furkus' future is in their hands. There was a likelihood that the jury would believe Nick's story. So was it possible that Nick would walk away a free man? This podcast is supported by the original organic betting and betting. Math brand, Koyuchi. Koyuchi has spent 35 years pioneering quality organic textiles, long before the word

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It was the perfect storm. Somebody got shot. His mom got shot. Right here, right here! There is terror. Children have seen their mother get shot. Take a step back because they're going to try to take her up. My daughter was killed for children who don't have their mom.

I screamed. She wants to have a conversation. Correct. And instead she gets a bullet. I think there was so much shock. what had just happened. Body cams, they show what happened. There is still someone with a gun.

You see for certain exactly how it happened. She's inside. I have one down, I have one elderly female barricaded in the house. Show me your hands! Why would a woman kill an unarmed neighbor who knocked on her door? Did you know her? Yes. He's put up to me several times because of her children.

He has a bothering me and bothering because they won't be up. Could have been any of us that would have went knocked on that door that night. The All New 2020 next Friday on ABC and stream on Disney Plus and Hulu. The case of a St. Paul man accused of killing his wife back in 2010 could go to the jury as soon as today. Nick Furcus is under suspicion for his wife's murder. His trial has just ended, but the jury comes back in four hours with their verdict. A St. Paul man has been found guilty of killing his wife. A jury convicted Nicholas Furcus of first and second degree murder. When you heard guilty, what'd you think?

Devastated. I had to hold Nick. He started to sob. Nick Furcus's family declined our request for an interview, but sent us a statement saying they support their son and believe in his innocence. Nicholas Furcus was finally held accountable. We wanted to do justice to Heidi, and we thought we had done that. On April 13th, the emotion in the courthouse is palpable. Yeah, there's justice, but that doesn't make things better. There are people still affected by this mass. Nick Furcus is back in the courtroom for sentencing.

You may be seated. The way I'd like to proceed is allow the victim's statements. I really miss my sister. The load is lighter knowing the fight for the truth of her story has been won. I know that Heidi was put in my life to bring me closer to God. It isn't fair that she's gone. Nick Fergus has had 13 years to live the life that Heidi deserved. And finally, this is an opportunity for you, Mr. Fergus, to make a statement.

I do maintain and will maintain to my dying breath, my innocence of this crime. Heidi was a bright light in this world. These past 13 years have not diminished my love for her nor the love that I felt from her. This was a tragic event and there are no winners here, but the jury has spoken. It is the sentence of law and judgment of this court that you be committed to the commission of corrections for the remainder of your life without the possibility of release. Just knowing what the world was robbed of, that someone is bereaved. and just special was lost.

It's tragic to think about. And remember the man who looked just like the guy in the composite sketch, Michael Pie? Well, he has turned his life around after serving time and he wonders how differently things could have gone for him. If I wouldn't have been locked up, I would have found guilty for it because when nobody bleed it,

if I told him that it wasn't me. I most definitely forgive him for him for him for what he tried to do. I also know in forgiveness, it's a price you gonna have to pay too. And so he gonna have to go to prison and pay that price now, you know? I often get shocked by my own story.

Not many people can say, yeah, I married a murderer, didn't know, had kids with him. There are moments when I'm like, why did I choose to be with somebody like this, when there were red flags to everyone but me. But I also know that I wouldn't have those three kids without it. And I know that I wouldn't be the person that I am today without the story that I have. Heidi and Rachel are linked in a way that goes beyond their

marriages to Nick Furcus. On the anniversary of Heidi's death, it also happened to be your birthday. It's a crazy coincidence. Will you always think about Heidi on your birthday? Always. She's important to remember. And that's our program for tonight. Thanks for watching. I'm David Muir. And I'm Deborah Roberts. From all of us here at 2020 and ABC News. Good night. Welcome back, Grace. You and your sister are here for a very exciting reason. Now in theaters. Hunters, you haven't told Dom to kill them both. Experience the most unhinged.

I'm not playing. Diabolically twisted. Movie of the year. Samara weaving. Catherine Newton. Would and Sarah Michelle Geller. Back for round two. Yeah. Ready enough to. Here I come. R. Under 17, I'm a middle without parent.

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