48 Hours - Dark Side of the Mesa

Episode Date: May 13, 2018

Convicted of killing his wife in 2004, a bombshell twist gives an Arizona man a second shot at freedom. Will a jury set him free? "48 Hours" correspondent Susan Spencer has the latest in the case.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. I tried calling her several times throughout the day and always got through to the answering machine. Hey, where are you? I was just calling to see how you're doing and I guess I'll just keep trying to get a

hold of you. I come home, go inside, pick up the normal packages on the way in, and open the door. And I can see down the hallway into my master bedroom and there's stuff on the floor. Papers and her purse is on the floor and I can't really see everything that's in there but I know that that's not right and the bed's not made. On top of that, my daughter's not running out to me, daddy, daddy. And by the time I get most of the way down the hallway, I can see there's a large blood spot

where Jennifer should be. 911, where's your emergency? I just got home from work and there's blood all over the bed and there's stuff all over the floor. My family's gone, my daughter and my wife are here. Okay, calm down. Anyone who knows anything about my wife and my daughter, I pray that you'll come forward. I hung up the phone and I knew Jennifer was dead and I knew that probably Abby was too.

It doesn't matter whether it's 2001 or 2018, we are going to continue to work forward for justice for these two people because that is the right thing to do. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. The scary cult classic was set in the Chicago housing project. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. Candyman. Candyman? Now we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was,

but also how outrageous it was. We're gonna talk to the people who were there, and we're also going to uncover the larger story. My architect was shocked when he saw how this was created, literally shocked. And we'll look at what the story tells us about injustice in America. If you really believed in tough on crime, then you wouldn't make it easy to crawl into medicine cabinets and kill our women.

Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of 10 that was still a virgin. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story

that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

In the high desert on the Rockies' western slope, the mesas tower over the town of Grand Junction, Colorado, almost as if to protect it from the outside world. But late on the afternoon of June 4, 2002, Grand Junction saw the unearthing of its own shocking secret, here at the local landfill. It was surreal. I mean, you couldn't script it in a movie like that. The movie plays over and over in the mind of Sheriff's investigator, Steve King. The scoop is, this bucket is coming out of the ground. This tent rips and this leg drops out of this tent, as everyone is standing there watching.

The decomposed body of 34-year-old Jennifer Blagg, wrapped in a red and black plastic tent. There was a gunshot wound as a cause of death, a manner of death homicide. Jennifer and her six-year-old daughter Abby had been missing for seven months. Abby has not been found to this day, not in the landfill nor in the desolate mesas nearby. Until one day in November 2001, the Black family lived here in this comfortable house in a quiet cul-de-sac. The mystery of what really happened inside those four walls still haunts this town. The Blacks, after all, seemed so happy, so normal, so very nice. I had everything. I was on top of the world. I had a great job, wonderful family, incredible wife and daughter.

Everything was going perfect for me. They're kind of a poster child sort of a family. A photographic studio would probably have their picture up on the wall somewhere. The Reverend Art and Rhonda Blankenship got to know the Blags in 2000 through their small evangelical church. They just looked like an ideal couple. You know, friendly and open, talked. Everybody seemed to like them a lot.

Both Michael and Jennifer were enthusiastic born-again Christians. Extremely spiritual, they organized personal prayer groups for the congregation. It was definitely an integral part of their lives. So if you had had to pick a couple to whom this would be the most unlikely thing to happen? This would probably be it. The most unlikely would be us. How did you meet Jennifer? It was a wonderful love story. I was in the Navy.

The Blags had met 10 years before in California. She was in college. I recognized that there was something special about her. He was a decorated Persian Gulf War veteran, a helicopter pilot. I liked Mike from the beginning. He was a very personal young man. Jennifer stayed close to her mother, Marilyn, even after she married Michael in 1993. They seemed happy. I thought they were happy. In every letter, she would tell me how much she loved Michael.

This, agrees Michael's mother, Betsy, was a fairytale couple. And he was absolutely in love with her. What was she like? If she walked in this room now, what kind of person would I meet? You would meet someone that would light this room up better than these lights do in here right now. And she could talk to a fence and make it smile. You'd like her right away. That's how people reacted?

Oh, yeah. And that little girl meant everything to the two of them. It's a girl. Abby arrived three years after they married. There she said hi. Did you see it? You'd have to see Abby to really understand how precious she was. She just was so full of life.

Hi Dee! Hi Dee! A miniature Jennifer. She was just wonderful in all aspects. Wake up singing in the morning and go to bed singing at night. And her parents seemed to dote on her. You better go Abby, run! Mother and daughter still were asleep, Michael says, when he headed out the door at 6 o'clock that November morning. The normal routine for me is to kind of slide out of bed carefully

because Jennifer's still asleep. Off to his job as operations manager at a local manufacturing plant, the Ametek Dixon Company. Around 7, he called home. No answer. It rang through to the answering machine. Good morning, gorgeous. It's me.

Just calling to see how you and Abby are doing. Which isn't terribly unusual sometimes. You know, they're in the bathroom or doing other things. He says he called again mid-morning. Hey, where are you? Just calling to see how you're doing. Again then at noon. Hello, my beautiful bride.

Hope you're having fun. You're out and about doing all kinds of cool and wifty things. And now I'm starting to get a little worried. Again then at noon. Around four, he left for home. Later, he told police he had sensed something was wrong the second he walked in. There in front of me is an open back door. She wouldn't just leave a door or window open. But he says nothing prepared him for the horror of what he saw in the bedroom. I can see there's a large dark spot on the bed. I think that maybe she's rolled off the bed and is on the ground on the other side.

And so I go around the side of the bed and there's more blood. And so at this point, I know I have to call for help. 911, where's your emergency? Oh, my God, it's at my house. The 911 dispatcher told him to check the garage. The couple's minivan was still there. Did your daughter go to school?

It was not until the dispatcher asked about his daughter that Michael finally thought to check Abby's room. I'm going to go up and look at my daughter's room. Her school clothes are still laid out waiting for her. Her bed is messed up. Abby was gone. Where can they be? The story of a bloody bed, of a missing mother and child, rocked the town of Grand Junction.

It was very frightening, very frightening. Particularly at first, everybody was just fearful. You know, they thought, is there some escaped prisoner on the loose? But the more the police looked at that crime scene, the more questions they had for Michael Blagg. I'm not sure anybody knows Michael Blagg. I mean, not who he really is. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge?

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most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. You just don't do it to a baby. You just don't do it. You just don't do it. You just don't do it. Jennifer Blagg's older brother, David Lohman, has no idea how many hours he's spent combing the mesas around Grand Junction.

You always want to hope. Searching for his missing six-year-old niece, Abby. He says it's the least he can do for his little sister. We were best friends. We had an agreement that we never ended any conversation or goodbye even for a few minutes without saying I love you. Really? Yeah. So the last time you talked to her? I love you. Not long after that last I love you, Jennifer and Abby Blagg were reported missing. Oh my God, it's in my house. And Sheriff's Investigator Steve King was trying to make sense of a bloody and bewildering crime scene.

At the time walking out of there, you're sort of scratching your head saying, well, this doesn't look right, and this doesn't look right, and this doesn't look right. No Jennifer, no Abby, no bodies, and no sign of a struggle. How did this quantity of blood get here, and yet you don't have any sign of a normal attack situation? On the dresser was Jennifer's purse. The contents spilled out, including her keys to the van. Also in the purse, an email from Michael, an apparent apology. I would love to take some time to talk through the problems we're having, it reads. Do not give the devil a foothold.

And near the blood-soaked bed on the carpet, Jennifer's empty jewelry box. You're struck by the fact that there was all sorts of other things there that someone that is in there purely for monetary gain would have taken with them. So I'm saying, you know, this crime scene doesn't look right. It looks like it's staged. What in the world did you think had happened? I had no idea what had happened. I just knew that it was bad. Whatever it was, was bad. Which was exactly what Michael Blagg repeatedly told Steve King and other officers that night in an intense five-hour interview with no lawyer present. But I saw a lot of blood. A lot of blood.

That first interview, we very much looked at Michael Blagg as the victim of a violent crime. In measured tones, he conceded the couple had had some rocky times, but he said his marriage was solid. You won't find anyone that loves each other more than we do. It's a wonderful marriage. King found Blagg's manner, composed and collected, strangely unsettling. In fact, I said to him, if my wife and my child were missing, I would probably be at St. Mary's Hospital being medicated at this point

because of the fact that it's so stressful. Over the next few days, the community reached out to Michael Blagg. At the beginning, everybody was very supportive. The church really rallied around, and they made little tags with ribbons that said, Hope, you know, Jennifer and Abby. And Jennifer's mother was right by Michael's side. If you know how to pray to the heaven and Father,

pray to him, ask him to bring these precious people home. Just allow them to come home. That's all I can ask. Please, allow them to come home. Thank you. The appeals were heartbreaking, but investigators were beginning to have their doubts about Michael Blagg. For one thing, the blood evidence was puzzling. DNA tests confirmed that the blood in the bed was Jennifer's, but strangely, there was no trace of her blood anywhere else in the house. Even more striking was the one other place where her blood was found.

It was in the family van, parked in the garage. Small traces of Jennifer's blood on the door and inside. As more questions arose... You talked to him in this car, right? Yes. You talked to him in restaurants? Right. King began meeting with Blagg informally. He needed information about the case and I needed information about him and his life and his family. Slowly zeroing in on the Blagg's fairyale marriage. I was pushing him on that. It's like, boy, you paint a really nice picture. That just sounds too good, was when he started saying, well, let me tell you about, you know, the darker side.

Let me tell you about the embarrassing side. In late November, Michael Blag, publicly so devout, privately admitted to King that he was addicted to hardcore pornography and that when Jennifer found out, she had been very upset. I mean, I would imagine that would have been a fairly heated conversation. It was, you know, we did it. Like, what are you doing? Yeah, we talked very much like that.

But then, Michael says, his equally devout wife decided to join him online. She told me, I don't want you to be doing this, but if you are going to be doing this, then we should be together with this. They used hardcore porn sites, he says, purely as an educational tool. This was during a time after Jennifer's hysterectomy, and she knew we were going to have to find other ways of satisfying each other and we were looking at it more as experimenting looking for alternate things that we could do in the back of my mind I'm thinking okay that just doesn't play right for King the explanation hardly

fit the profile of a once hard-partying Navy pilot. You're missing out on the party, dude. Why would you think that I wouldn't realize that based on your life experience, you probably didn't need to go to the Internet as an educational tool on oral sex? At what point did it begin to dawn on you that they were thinking of you as a suspect? February 5th. Three months after Jennifer and Abby disappeared, the investigators brought Michael Blagg back in for questioning, again with no lawyer present. They proceeded at that point to interrogate me for over 10 hours. By now

the FBI was involved, which meant that this interview, unlike the first, was not taped. They were telling me that, you know, we know you did it. You're the one. Why don't you just tell us where they are? These are the people, by the way,

that I was trusting to find my wife and daughter and to bring them home to me, you know, putting their finger in my chest, and you're the one, you're the one, I know you killed him, just tell us. I lost hope that day. Police found him the next morning. I saw Michael Blagg lying in the tub with blood. I tried to slip my wrist.

He had a picture of Jennifer and Abby. He had a Bible, and it was open. The next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital. Investigators also found a suicide note in which Michael Blagg insisted he was not a murderer. You had nothing to do with any of this? Absolutely nothing to do. you know nothing about anything at all having to do with their disappearance or jennifer's death all i know is what i saw when i came back to the house that horrible afternoon but for some michael blagg's suicide attempt was a clear sign of a guilty conscience and people did for some reason take that as a, you know, oh, well, that's what I thought. A community-defining moment or something. Now, even Michael's mother-in-law, Marilyn Conway, was beginning to have questions.

Mike, it's Mama. I would like it if you would pick up the telephone. She agreed to help investigators by leaving Blagg a series of phone messages. Mike, will you help me out with Jennifer and Abby? Demanding he come clean. I would appreciate it, Mike, if you would give me any information that you feel in your heart that you can possibly give me as to where my girls are. Blagg never responded. But Investigator King is sure that he could have.

Michael Blagg murdered his wife and his daughter. The problem may be improving it. Five months after Jennifer and Abby disappeared, volunteer searchers fanned out over the highlands and rivers around Grand Junction. 200 volunteers working for 11 days, searching 45 miles around the Blagg residence. This is Abby. Everybody needs to know who Abby is. It was incredible to see the turnout. This whole community got involved. There was employers paying wages of people to come out and search.

But Michael Blagg was not among them. The Moose, 100.7. Good morning. A fact duly noted in town. I don't remember him ever putting out pictures of his daughter or sending a big search party like a lot of parents would completely do. Black protests that it wasn't his choice. They said that as a potential suspect in this, they just thought that it would be bad for me to be out there. And so I was barred from being able to search for my daughter, my wife. They told you specifically you cannot go on the search?

That's correct. And you wanted to go on the search? Absolutely, I wanted to go on that search. By spring of 2002, no bodies had been found. But Blagg certainly was a suspect. Complex crime unit. And Investigator King had a working theory he shoots his wife my belief is that he went upstairs and suffocated his daughter

put them both in the van and went to amatek dixon and put both of them in the trash receptacle there and put both of them in the trash receptacle there. One person could do that and not leave any blood through the house, no drag marks, you know, no nothing like that. One committed, motivated person could do that. One that has thought about this in a cold, calculated, lean manufacturing type of way. Yeah.

But if Blagg had put Jennifer's body in his company's dumpster, then her remains should have ended up here, somewhere in the sprawling county landfill. But where? Where was she found? Up there. Did you honestly expect to find her when you came out here at first? I think that you hope to find her.

Using global positioning technology and landfill logs, they set up a grid system, much like an archaeological site, zeroing in on quadrants where they believe they'd find trash from Blagg's company. Trash dumped the previous November. There are people that I know that were out there when it was 104 degrees, when every bag it seemed like you were opening up was a dead deer or elk carcass, and that sight, that smell, would cause you to retch and just want to drop you to your knees. Finally, on day 16, they found Jennifer Blagg.

The odds of that happening like that have to be astronomical. If you're a person of faith, you start saying it was meant to be that way. Authorities wasted no time. Two days later, they arrested Blagg at his mother's home in Georgia. Has there ever, honestly, been a moment when you said to yourself, could this possibly be, could any of these things that they're saying about him possibly be so? Well, if we're talking about, have I thought for a second he might have murdered his wife? Not one second. Still, Betsy Blagg is worried.

I just don't think Michael can get a fair trial here. I say he's guilty. I think he's guilty. To me, he's guilty. Definitely guilty. I thought he was guilty before he was even accused. It just seems that way. What do you think happened? At some point while we were out as a family, someone saw us and decided they liked Abby and wanted to take her. After I had left,

they broke in through the back, shot Jennifer, grabbed Abby. And why they took Jennifer at that point, I don't know, unless it was somehow to control Abby. Why would someone who wanted to kidnap your child take your wife's body, you know, and have it end up in the landfill? I can't explain why they took Jennifer. It's just, I know that it happened. When did you get here, Claire? I came in last night.

Black sister Claire Rochester arrives in Grand Junction just as the jury is seated. And she too wonders if a fair trial is possible. The people in this town need to understand that all of this time and this money that the police and the DA have devoted towards accusing my brother has been wasted. I think it should frighten this public that there is somebody out there who committed this crime. But public defender David Eisner, Blagg's lead attorney, says the cops never even considered

that. From the get-go, they chose Michael Blagg as their number one suspect and they latched on to him and never let go. I've been working on this case for over two years. District Attorney Frank Daniels will prosecute the case. It's a question of putting together all the pieces of evidence and being able to form a picture at the end. Michael Blagg is free on bail until trial, now just days away. He starts each morning with church, then goes to his lawyer's office to help prepare his own case. What image number is that?

Um, 66. Otherwise, the Blagg family rarely goes out. Too many stairs. None of them is from Grand Junction, and in this town, they have few friends. I think they'll find justice, and I think that 99% of Mesa County agrees on what that is. So they hole up in a hotel and wait. He did not kill his wife. He did not do anything to harm or take his daughter. It just didn't happen.

I know I'm only 11, but my mom and I have been wondering about where Abby is. The district court in and for the 21st Judicial District of Mesa County, Colorado is now in session. I think we have sufficient evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. As the murder trial of Michael Blagg begins... I'm trying to figure out why it says 29. We've waited for this for a long time, and I'm ready. This is going to be several weeks. Jennifer's mother, Marilyn Conway, is no longer defending her son-in-law.

What is your belief in regards to Michael Blagg's innocence or guilt? Well, I won't go there right now. Both families are suffering. Both families are mourning and are feeling an enormous loss. I can't help but empathize with Marilyn for what she's going through. I've lost my only daughter and her only child. And I can't tell you how bad we miss them. The pain of not being able to talk to them is horrendous.

We're reconvened in 02CR623. I did want to hug her, and I did want to support her. And what I said to her was, we're all praying for the same thing, that the truth will come out during this trial. But the families of Michael and Jennifer, once very close, now find themselves on opposite sides of the courtroom. I don't understand why Marilyn is not openly sitting on our side with her arm around Michael. All rise. Opening statements, Mr. Daniels. The prosecution lays out its case. It was an

ordinary day in the neighborhood. The evil was done in the dark of night. Arguing that that fatal weekend began with a fight on Friday, a fight Jennifer noted in one of her religious books. Loving God with all your mind. There's a little note that says, fought with Mike on Friday. The weekend ended, says Daniels, with Jennifer's murder sometime late Monday night. That night, as Jennifer lay in bed, Michael got his gun. He loaded a round into the chamber, and he shot Jennifer in the face. As to why Michael Blagg would murder his wife, Daniel suggests his addiction to Internet pornography had split this once-solid marriage. Right here, there's a note, typewritten with a signature line at the bottom.

He shows the jury the apology email from Michael. I am sorry if I have given the devil a foothold. The devil, says the prosecution, was lurking in Blagg's computer. And you remember how many pornographic photos you found? 668 of the same theme or fetish. Details of which were too much even for the judge. Excuse me, I don't think this is necessary. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury have the idea what these exhibits show. Pornography is going to play a big part in this from the prosecution's standpoint. How do you see that?

A cyber sex addict is not a murderer make, you know. But this sex addict is a murderer. The prosecution insists... There was a bullet in her skull. And the jury is spared no details of this crime. Would that wound be consistent with having been fired more or less straight down into her head if she had been lying on the bed with her head on a pillow? With her head on a pillow, that would be consistent, yes.

After killing Jennifer, the DA continues, Blagg transported her body in the family van, which explains the blood traces found inside. The defense has more trouble explaining it. Well, how did it get there? You asking me? I don't know. They don't know how it got there. If I'm the juror, I'm wondering. Who knows? The one on the steering wheel, the one on the brake pedal are minute.

And the only ones in the back of the car where the body would have been are right around the trim. There's nothing on the interior part of the car. And there's no evidence of clean-up. This is the challenge to explain why there's any blood there at all. If it weren't a challenge, we wouldn't be here. In court, the defense maintains that finding Jennifer's blood in her own van proves nothing. In fact, Eisner insists the prosecution's whole circumstantial case fails the test of reasonable doubt. He points out that no

murder weapon ever has been found, and he says there simply is no believable motive, no reason why this caring husband suddenly should morph into a ruthless killer. Cross-examination, Mr. Eisner. Thank you, Judge. Defense would call Wendy Holgate. Family friends take the stand to praise Michael's marriage and his character. He was always very cordial, very pleasant, just a happy, pleasant person to be around. How did Michael Blagg treat Jennifer Blagg? Like she was a gift that God had given him. The guy was just an immaculate representation of what a husband should be.

And, says Sister Claire, Michael was devastated after the disappearances. We all hugged each other. We cried. Mike cried. My mom and I cried. Marilyn was there. She hugged us. It was just a very emotional time. But the defense has a problem making that portrait of Blagg convincing. It's that first taped interview. He seems rather detached. There is no emotion. There is no passion. There is no,

where is my wife and daughter? It's not there. It doesn't exist. It is not true that he is cold or that he lacks expression. We're the kind of people who like to help other people. We're nice people. We're good guys. And it's pretty hard being one of the good guys and being seen as an absolute horror. But more damaging for Blagg's case than his demeanor is some surprise testimony from his

mother-in-law. Hey, the people call Marilyn Conway. It shocks the defense. Michael hurt her in Corpus. People call her Marilyn Conway. It shocks the defense. Michael hurt her in Corpus. He hurt her in Corpus? He hurt her in Corpus. Yes, he did. It even shocks the DA. Mrs. Conway, you said that Michael hurt Jennifer in Corpus, Christie, Texas?

Yes, sir. What do you remember about that? She called home one night and said that Mike had cornered her in the bedroom, and obviously he was drunk. I understood that he was trying to choke her. She says it happened 10 years ago, an incident apparently forgotten until now. It shocked me as much as it did anybody else in the courtroom. It was new information to you as well?

Sure. I wasn't even aware it was going to come out of my mouth. It just came out. She got on the stand and lied. I think she saw the district attorney's case faltering, and I think she felt she would do whatever she could to help that case out. You reported that to an officer in this case sometime before today? I'm sure that I did. But I may not have.

You think she lied outright? Yes. This assault never happened? I don't believe it ever did. But she just made it up? She made it up. As the defense deals with this setback, it also has a big decision to make. Is this an appropriate time, Mr. Eisner, to talk with your

client about whether he'll testify? Yes, it is, Judge. What is your decision? Will Michael Blagg try to save himself on the witness stand? Do you expect that you would take the stand? We'll have to see. I believe the jury will make the right decision, and public opinion isn't necessarily always right. Is this an appropriate time, Mr. Eisner, to talk with your client about whether he'll testify? Yes, it is, Judge.

What is your decision? I will not be testifying. Michael Blagg has decided against telling the jury his own story. Instead, his lawyer uses Jennifer's words. My dear husband, the love of my life, there's no words to tell you how I feel about you. I adore you. To show the couple's devotion, or at least her devotion. I love you. I enjoy getting to spend my life with you. We've had a good almost 10 years of marriage together. I'm your beloved wife who adores you.

How could anybody read that letter and not think Jennifer was desperately in love with her husband? You look at these pictures, you look at these documents, and you decide, is the Michael Blagg that's in this case, is he really the cold-blooded killer they want you to believe, or is this what he really is? You've got to decide. The jury does decide in just over 24 hours. As to count one, we, the jury, find the defendant, Michael Blagg, guilty of first degree murder.

Mr. Blagg, anything you'd like to say before your sentence? I can tell you, your honor, that I am innocent of these charges, and I have nothing further to say. Thank you. For the offense of first degree murder, which is a Class 1 felony, the defendant is sentenced to the Colorado Department of Corrections for the remainder of his natural life.

Unless he wins an appeal, Michael Blagg will serve life without the possibility of parole. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. He's a narcissistic pig as far as I'm concerned and he deserves the sentence he got. We outtried them every step of this trial and I guess the jury just didn't have the courage they needed. Michael Blagg is innocent of all the crimes of which he has been convicted. He is not guilty. I'm glad it's over. Michael Blagg went to prison. Appeals were filed.

Appeals were denied. A decade passed. And then, in 2014, came a development not even Blagg himself probably expected. Michael Blagg's conviction is overturned. Trish Mayer, the chief deputy district attorney for Mesa County, says the ruling had to do not with the defendant, but with a juror. The defense filed another motion for new trial based on juror misconduct. That juror was Marilyn Charlesworth, who in 2013 testified at a Grand Junction City Council meeting that she had been a victim of

domestic violence for 10 years. The problem? Nine years earlier, during jury selection, Charlesworth said just the opposite. The judge determined she had not been truthful in answering her questionnaire. In 2014, Judge David Botker, the same judge who'd sentenced Blagg to life, threw out the murder conviction, granting Blagg a new trial. He would remain in prison. Charlesworth, meanwhile, was prosecuted for contempt of court. The judge in that case sentenced her to 10 days jail and $10,000 fine. A new trial meant new attorneys on both sides of the aisle. Mayer led the prosecution.

I was thinking I'm drowning. I don't know if it's the greatest volume on a case we've ever had, but it was enormous and it was hard to even figure out how to go about reading 30,000 pages. I just came in and reacquainted myself because I wasn't the lead before, so I didn't know all the pieces of information like he did. Lisa Norcross is a complex crimes investigator with the Mesa County Sheriff's Office, one of the few people at the second trial who also worked on the first. It's difficult because you've already done this once. Nobody wants to have to redo it twice.

The trial is moved to the Jefferson County Courthouse in Golden, Colorado. Obviously, Michael Blagg had something to gain because he's not going to be tried in a community that probably has some negative sentiment toward him and toward the retrial. So yeah, that's the scary part of a change of venue. In February 2018, Michael Blagg, now 55 years old, stands trial again for the murder of his wife, Jennifer. No cameras in the court, but there is a new star witness, one who didn't take the stand 14 years earlier, Michael Blagg himself. We believed he probably would testify in this trial because what's he got to lose? The worst that's going to happen is life in prison without parole again.

Blagg testifies for two hours. Mayor says he kept his cool, expressing his frustration that he was never cleared as a suspect and emphasizing his devotion to his family. He needed this jury to hear that he loved his wife and daughter. Whether he did or not, he needed to say those words in front of a jury. Eighty witnesses appeared over five weeks. Cameras were allowed in court for the verdict. Please rise for the jury.

Reached after 17 hours of deliberation. We, the jury, find the defendant, Michael Black, guilty of first-degree murder after deliberation. History repeats itself as Jennifer's mother, Marilyn Conway, listens to her son-in-law again protest his innocence. Those in this room know the devastation that occurred in November 2001. From that time to this, the loss of two children at one time, nothing compares. And I hope no one else in this room ever experiences it. The loss of two children.

Marilyn's granddaughter, six-year-old Abby, has never been found. Jennifer's brother, David Lohman, addresses the court and his brother-in-law. The devastation that one's decisions have on someone else are incredible. And most of us don't think about that. And that's something that many of us need to start thinking about. But nothing shakes his family's belief in Michael Blagg's innocence. We've been here before with the wrong verdict. Mr. Blagg, you have been found guilty of count one, first degree murder after deliberation.

I will sentence you to life in the Department of Corrections without parole. Fourteen years after the first verdict, Michael Blag has ended up exactly where he started. It's justice that Jennifer was found and buried properly with her family. And it didn't happen for Abby, but it's justice for Abby that she's probably buried in the landfill is what I expect. And so it's justice for her that the man who did this is put away for life again. The Mesa County Sheriff's Office continues to follow up on tips about Abby Blagg. If you have any information please call 970-244-3500. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.