20/20 - The After Show: He's Right Behind You

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

The "20/20" team shares how they incorporated police videos into the show that give a rare glimpse inside a crime victim’s fight to protect herself and her family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hi there, everybody. Deborah Roberts here and welcome to 2020 The After Show. Today we are going to be taking you to the suburbs of Denver, Colorado, to the scene of just a chilling crime, a mom of three found dead in her garage, fatally stabbed. And at first it seemed like the killer was somebody that they knew, an old flame of hers from decades ago, but he turned out actually to. be much closer to home. This is a story that I reported on and I still think about it. It was featured on our most recent episode called He's Right Behind You. It was a case that actually spanned a few years and one of our producers, Jonathan Balthasor, was all over this story. Hey John. Hi, Debra. And our editor, Rob Ferrari, who I never see outside the editor. No, always sitting in a dark room. But Rob, you're here and thank you for coming to talk about the program because what's so fun about this podcast or interesting about this podcast is we get a chance to kind of loosen up a little bit and bring the listeners and our viewers of 2020 into our stories and how

we report them, how you help edit them and tell these stories. But you and I have known each other and you reminded me much longer than I remember that we've known in each other. A long time ago. Yeah, we worked together. That was at Lecktime Live, Captain of Story Studios, a long time with Dana Reeves, my first job at ABC. Yeah, Will Reeves' mom, by the way, who, you know, who works here at ABC. And, you know, you're an editor that, you know, I've worked with for years here in 2020, and I have to say, you're so talented. Thank you.

And you bring such vision and creativity to these stories, which is so important. And you have to find what viewers don't necessarily always know, and our listeners don't, is you kind of bring it all to life when we, when John goes out in the field and we shoot these stories. You have to find the appropriate music. You've got to sort of help convey the mood and the feeling of what we're doing. We come back with hours and hours of footage. And you actually get a chance to see much more about the lives of these folks that we cover than I do,

which I think must be intriguing because it really helps you understand the story, right? You get into it, I guess more emotionally, you know, you're sifting through the material. We got a lot of photos from the family of Christine as an infant, you know, child, young adult, adult, you know, and you go through those and you see it. And she always with the smile on, even when she was studying, this photos of her studying, and she's got this smile on. She's with her dad, her brother. And you do kind of get this sense of like who she is. And then as you're putting it, like you said, into the cut itself, adding the music and listening to what your questions you're asking. trying to put the right photo in the right spot, the question that always goes through my mind

doing a lot of these is why? Why would someone do that to this woman? Yeah, whom you've had a chance to see as a child. Yeah, and that's the thing, you know, when you see them as, you know, little babies, you know, if we get home video sometimes on shows, and you really get a sense of who they are, you know, in a little swimming pool, you know, the baby in a swimming pool on a chair. I mean, and everyone I think can relate to that. Of course. And then like I said, you start to think, Why would someone do this? And you just get, yeah, you do, there are times I was telling Jonathan, you get very emotional on shows, just watching this and learning who they are.

And it comes through in your editing. And in this story in particular, Jonathan, we call you J.B. So I'll just go by J.B. And that'll make it a little easier here. But you and I've worked on numerous stories together. You've done the podcast before. But this particular story, Christiel Krug, out in Colorado, I remember when you came to me about the story. Tell the listeners a little bit about her and what it was that sort of struck you

when you first learned about the story. One of the unique things about this story is the Broomefield PD actually provided hours and hours of footage, including footage of Christel. So you got to know her as she was, right, leading right up to her death. So you really start to, I feel like, get to know her very well as she was. And then, of course, you interviewed Christel's parents, Lars, and Linda extensively. And the more time I spent with both of them, the more I was impressed with what a dynamic person, Christiel was. She was a scientist. She had a scientific brain. But she was also a fabulous dancer. We spoke to a friend who described her dancing, like she moved like water. And then her father would just tell us about she was into model,

sailing, art. She worked with her father repairing cards and just she was a true Renaissance woman. So many hobbies, but then a mother at heart, I mean, she, her children, her world really revolved around her children. You could tell. And, you know, that engineering brain, we talked a little bit about that in the story about how that factored into, you know, leading up to this crime. But Rob, how do you start? Because sometimes when we are starting these pieces, they literally start off with a lot of picture and music just to draw you in. So how do you kind of decide what to do? You kind of, you know, you start out with the script, you know, Jonathan give your script, and then you start to, you watch it down, just raw, and then you start to get your beats and your

feels of emotion through it and how you want to start. And me personally, I usually will, you know, pick my first track of music to set the tone. And then you start, you know, just going through footage and footage and footage, you know, listening to the interviews, you know, replacing bites, moving bites, talking with the producer. Bites being like interviews, the interviews that you do. Can we add this? Can we add that? This is too much. And then you just start weaving it together

and trying to bring out that emotion in the entire piece of, you know, of drama, of tension, of happiness, of sadness. You know, when she's a child, you try and keep the music a little upbeat and stuff. And then there could be a dark turn. You bring that down and you go into, you know, what photos, what footage,

And like Jonathan said, there was a ton of footage from Broomfield Police. And to go through all of that is just, it's amazing because you're picking out the little nuggets. Yeah. You know, you get the script, but you just kind of fill in, oh, this will work with that. And then you build out these scenes and stuff. That will help tell the story. That will help tell it. Well, let's talk about the story, J.B., because this woman is living her life out in the suburbs of Colorado, as we said,

and she suddenly found dead in her garage. And the first question is, who would want to kill her? but there had been some talk about a former boyfriend that she dated when she was a teenager, Anthony Holland, and, you know, she had every reason to believe that he was stalking her. She was sending threatening messages. Yeah, so talk about that because she got, we, in the story, we talk about she got another one, and then she got another one. And it was sort of out of the blue.

He had reached out to her years ago, and then, you know, he sort of, like, regretted that they broke up. But then she was, you know, very clear, like, I've got a family now, I'm moving on. And then suddenly he appears again in her life. It started as innocuous, and she kind of ignored it, and they got more and more threatening. And then eventually a photo was sent to her of her husband, Dan, going into work. And she really freaked out. And but she was very proactive about it. She contacted the police, and they brought her in.

And this is some of this video that I was talking about. You see her coming into the Broomfield police, and they are going through. she brings in this stalker log and it is a spreadsheet that she's created herself every every message at every time from texting from emails from whatever kind of source and the detectives are amazing you're doing our job for us and she says okay well help me I don't know what to do I mean I it's this guy says he's my my ex-boyfriend and but I can't I'm terrified yeah and we have to talk about the whole notion and we hear so much about stalking in our society today. And it's a very hard thing to prove. It's a hard thing for police to be

able to track down. So they suggested that she tried to protect herself. She and her husband set up cameras in the home. He seemed to be very much involved too in terms of like making sure they were okay. She even got a firearm. She's proactive. Yeah. She she she trained herself in firearms. She she read these books. These detectives gave her. She set up, you know, a buddy system so when she was she was alone as infrequently as possible so she was ready she was prepared so it was all the more shocking to everyone when she was discovered dead in her in her basement yeah after she had done all this stuff after she'd done all these things to protect herself and one of the things we showed in the piece was that she even got an attractive purse that you know could conceal a gun that

one of her relatives had sold and we talked about that and how that tells you the extent to which she was really very nervous about her life. But she thought there was a danger outside her home. And of course, in our piece, you find out the danger was really lurking inside her home. Anthony was not stalking her. It was her husband, Dan Krug, who had actually turned the tables to try to make it look like that. So when he gets to the scene after she is found, you know, Initially, police just see him as a distraught husband before anything else goes awry. Let's take a listen to a clip from that. Tell them to park on the side.

We see a man running down the street. It ducks into the first level of cramping tape and runs towards the house. And he's yelling, that's my house, that's my house. Hey, stay back, stay back, stay back, stay back. This is my house. I understand. Just walk out. And just runs into the arms.

of one of Christiel's family, and we realized that that was Dan, that that was her husband. That's the husband. They kind of embraced him in a hug. Dan is almost hurtled over, with his hands on his stomach, bent over. So I placed my hand on his back and his shoulder just so he knew I was there, that somebody was there. this man right now has just lost his everything he's lost his wife he's lost the mother to his children and now he has to do everything and that was that was heavy what was your reaction to his reaction when i was going through that footage and cutting it in um i just felt horrible for

this guy i was like you know he called the police he did all the right things he called the police they were being stalked, and he goes home and finds that. And I found him very realistic, like I didn't, you know, to think that he was acting then. Yeah, but then, J.B., he goes in for a police interview, and they begin to have some questions, don't they? Yeah, I do like to nerd out on an interview interrogation police reviews because it's such a fascinating way to see how people are reacting in these high-pressure situations and the way it unravels.

when Dan first comes in he's he's a victim and police are treating him as such and it's fascinating watching his reaction then he at the beginning he can barely speak he's giving one word answers in fact and there's one part that we didn't include in the show but they're asking what he what he does for living and he just goes money money like and he does finance stuff but yeah and some of the police reading the impression that he's maybe so distraught he's so traumatized he seems like he's in shock like genuine shock yeah yeah Yeah, as the interview progresses, there's active investigations going on. The police are looking and find Jack Anthony Holland. The guy that they think is responsible. The prime suspect, and they discover that he is in Utah. There is absolutely no way he could have done this. So at some point, the police come back, and then they read him as Miranda rights. Now, they don't kind of go after him.

Immediately, the interview continues for a long time. But it's really just fascinating to watch how he goes from this sort of crumpled traumatic mess to then as he starts to understand that he's they're starting to look at him a little more he becomes much more withdrawn and kind of he starts rolling his eyes and gets a little bit more dramatic and just withdrawn. Defensive posture. Exactly. And then begins to suggest that all wasn't great than in the marriage and that Christel might have been having an affair. Yep. He starts throwing out sort of insinuations that, oh, Christel's been going, she leaves early,

she comes on late, she won't tell me where she's going, kind of just trying to throw out alternate theories as to, well, if it wasn't Jack Anthony Holland, maybe she's having a fair and maybe that affair has killed her. And the cop, one of the detectives, really challenges them on that. It says, why would her affair partner kill her? Wouldn't you be the?

and he kind of it shot hit that's when he starts to get more resolved when you realize he doesn't have as many yeah he didn't have much to add to that

well when we come back we're going to hear more about how police were able to figure out that the stalker and the killer was not Christel's long ago boyfriend

but actually her husband Dan and how they use Dan's own actions against himself I'm John Quignores. Vanessa Guillen, a 20-year-old soldier, vanishes while on duty at an army base in Texas. Her family demands answers.

How can she go missing on a military base? That's too ridiculous. The search goes on for months. And a dark story starts to unfold. She told her family that she was being sexually harassed and wasn't reporting it out of fear of retribution and retaliation. What investigators finally uncover is horrifying. Find out how one soldier, a beloved sister and daughter, ignited a movement and sparked a reckoning in the U.S. military. Listen to Vanished. What happened to Vanessa? A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Listen

now wherever you get your podcasts. For the first time ever, you can get all of ESPN in the new ESPN app, along with Disney Plus and Hulu, with one incredible offer. The most live sports, biggest blockbusters, and most talked about shows. Get it all in one bundle for 2999 a month for 12 months. Visit Disney Plus Hulu ESPN Bundle.com for details. Add supported plan auto renews at regular price. Currently 3599 a month subject to change. Unless canceled, ends 1526 terms apply. We are back now with Rob Ferrari, our editor here at 2020,

and Jonathan Balthaiser, a producer who covered the Kristiel Krug case, a case that I think people will be talking about for a long time of Mom of Thur. just outside of Denver, Colorado, who was killed. J.B., let's talk about what I think intrigues viewers. Good old-fashioned police work. I mean, yes, you talk about the interrogation video. They see things. It gives them a sort of a sense that something may not be right.

But the Broomfield police did a quick investigation that started to reveal things. Yeah, they were on top of this. You know, the entire house looked orderly. There was no robbery. and that's when they start to really get into the digital forensics, almost immediately. They immediately, police investigators become suspicious when they realize that the cameras or the door ring camera. The cameras have been shut off, three of the four cameras were shut off. About the same time, Dan would have gone to work.

And so they start to look at him suspiciously. And then they realized that he stopped at a construction area, five minutes from their house. And so they went to- That's where they think he may have discovered. the murder weapons, which they never found, but it was an active construction site in this big area. But that was a very suspicious thing that they keyed in on quickly as well. But Detective Randy Pylak was really fascinating because he's a digital forensics guy. And it was a very interesting character, too, just to talk to. He's the kind of guy who's behind the scenes.

I mean, I think he might be mild manner. Maybe thought it was a little strange to be talking on television because that's not what he does, but he really jumped in right away and was able to help figure out the computer and put Dan basically in the middle of all of this. Tell us about that. This is one of the pieces of evidence that they found while Dan was still in his interview with police. He was able to trace back the IP address where these messages had been sent to Kristiel back to Dan's office. Well, he told me all about this. So let's just take a listen to a clip of that. And it's just digital work on the computer.

A lot of digital work, a lot of specialized software and programs. Detective Randy Pylak is a digital forensics expert at the Broomfield Police Department. We were able to find inconsistencies with events that happened the morning of December 14th. Christiel comes home, there's a period of inactivity on the phone, and then suddenly her phone then logs into Google Home, takes several security cameras offline, except for the driveway. And then there's a scheduled send message that goes to Dan later. A scheduled message? Yeah.

How does that work? There was the ability to schedule a text message in the future. So all you have to do is hold the button down and it gives you a prompt for when you want this text message to go out. What is that saying to you? Dan was building his alibi. That he's going to get this text message saying, hey, I got a text from her. Well, she had to been alive. I got this text from her. He also programmed her phone to send false messages.

and false confession messages to her brother and to a detective about committing an affair, an affair that she never had. That was important for me to receive, to kind of put the pieces in place for Dan's alibi. So Dan was pretty clever, right? Dan was savvy, but Detective Pylak was more savvy. Savvier. Yeah, I mean, his big alibi, Dan's alibi, was that he received a message from Christiel's phone after he's seen leaving

work while he's on his way to work her at the office. And so it's the question, so how would Christiel have texted him? You know, he's already, how would he have killed her once he's already left? And Detective Pylak discovered that there were no inputs on the phone when the message went out, meaning it was a scheduled sentence. So Dan had scheduled a message on Christel's own phone to himself to make it seem like he was it was giving him it was happening at the time it was the burner phone too which was interesting yeah with the locations yeah he was with the burner phone sending messages

and his phone was there and then the burner phone from what I understand also if he had to register his email address six months prior and that's the other thing you realized six months ago yeah this guy was doing it was in the planning stages so Dan thought he was savvy he bought the burner phone with a with a with gift card. But as they researched back, they found Dan's own email address registered to that gift card. So, but there's always something. Seems like he had his tees crossed and dotted the eyes. But they were able to sort of unravel this and sort of connect the dots. And that's what was so fascinating about this. I think that the police investigation really sort of zeroed in on this tech part of it. But then there is the family. And we talk about this all the time on this podcast

that at the core of these stories, there are victims. People who are hurting, and the family here really, really are still reeling from this. So we're going to come back and talk more about that. So stay with us. John Aries has arrived. Hostiles. Repeat, we have hostiles. Mayday. Oh, my God, there's hundreds of them.

On October 10th, we came here from the digital world. The war for our world. world begins. What in God's name is that? You and I Max. This is the end for this world. No, it's not. I can help you. Tron Aries. We did P.G. 13. Maybe inappropriate for children under 13. Only in theaters October 10th. Get tickets now. I am back now with J.B. and Robb talking about the Christiel Krugue case, one that I think people not only in the Colorado area, but really all over the country who may have followed this case, are still talking about. And for me, what was really, I guess something that will stick with me and just sort of an emotional part of the story was

talking to the family, because this is a young woman who was loved dearly by, you know, her mother and her father, and she has three children now who are motherless. J.B., what I thought was remarkable, you know, not only their loss, but the betrayal. I mean, you know, they have the son-in-law, Christiel Krug's father and mom. They wanted to be careful how they carry to rise their feelings about him because they, you know, Christel left behind three children and they don't want these three children to feel so horrible about their family life and their father. Yeah, I mean, this was obviously devastating to Christel's parents, Lars and Linda.

And they've wanted, I think they wanted to tell their story, but also be protective of the kids. I mean, and it's like, as you said, it's such a tragedy for them to lose their mother and now their father is a convicted murderer. but they were able to share some some interesting details about the kids they they gave a statement to us saying that they're they're living with christiel's brother and his wife that they're very loved by by the family and i spent some some time with lars he he told me this really touching story that didn't make into the piece but um christiel did models like i talked about and she and she would do models with her father and she built a sailboat she built sailboat models and there was one that Lars had purchased for her that they didn't get to complete and one of Kristiel's daughters found it and she said, I'd like to, and now Lars and his granddaughter are working on this model

boat together and he says their granddaughter has kind of the same engineering skills and she has the skills with tools that her mother had. So it's a really sweet story. Yeah, I think for us the the goal is always not only to just tell these stories and sometimes they're very chilling stories, but maybe if there is some kind of a redeeming moment there for the family or something that they have been able to find to help them go on. And Dan was convicted, as you said. He maintains his innocence. He has. Yeah. And, you know, the family now is trying to go on. Rob, what were you left with? I mean, what stood out for you in this story? Because you edit so many of these stories, and many times they have similar themes. What stood out for you in this one?

What stood out with me was thinking you could get away with this in this day and age, with the digital forensics and everything. You really wonder, and like I said before, like first, why would you do it? That always sticks. And then with all the shows, as an editor, you want to hope that you honored the deceased to show her in a light of like, this is what's gone from the world now. You know, her kids are going to miss and people that just knew her are going to miss. And you try and bring that through with the editing, too, to honor the deceased. Well, you did a terrific job doing that this time, and you always do. Thank you.

Rob, this was fascinating to hear from you. It was great to see you outside of the dark edit room. Our legendary editor, Rob. Exactly. Well, you did a fabulous job on the story, helping us bring it to life and to help shine a light on this woman, Rob. And, J.B., as always, you just do a fabulous job producing. Great working with you, Deborah. You too.

Well, that does it for us today on the after show. You can stream this 2020 episode. It's called He's Right Behind You, and it is on Disney Plus and Hulu. The 2020 After Show is produced by Susie Lou, Nora Ritchie, Emily Shutz, Sasha Oslian, and Trevor Hastings of ABC Audio, with Joseph Diaz, Brian Miserski, and Alex Berenfeld of 2020. Theme music by Evan Viola. Janice Johnston is the executive producer of 2020. Josh Cohen, the director of podcasting at ABC Audio, Lar Mayer, is the executive.

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