48 Hours - The Secret Life of Paige Birgfeld

Episode Date: September 6, 2015

The Secret Life of Paige BirgfeldSee 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. Grand Junction is situated on the western slope of Colorado, and it's very mountainous and beautiful. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder, But one thing is apparent. It is very tough terrain to search in. There are hundreds of thousands of places

where you could hide a body and we might never find it. I'm Frank Bergfeld. I'm the father of Paige Meredith Bergfeld. She's the mother of three children. My sister did not return from a meeting she had with a previous husband of hers. Paige was within five miles of the house here in Grand Junction and disappeared. My sister was missing. You start asking, missing? What do you mean missing? My name is Pete

Houdzinger. I'm the district attorney for Mesa County, Colorado. We're looking at somebody who has disappeared. We don't know why. I said you're in the midst of a crime. This is not someone who had run off. Paige would have never, never abandoned her children. Loves her kids. Appears to be a typical divorced mom, lives in a nice house in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Grand Junction. They found her car abandoned in a parking lot and lit on fire a couple days after she went missing. This led investigators to believe that there was foul play involved. We search fields, national parks, mountains,

and I am committed to search for her until we find her and bring her home. Then we started finding out some things that really pretty much changed everything. First you find out Paige is missing, and then within a couple of days, we started finding out about this other life that we didn't know about. You start hearing things about your own daughter that you didn't know about. We got more details about the extent of Paige's business and the type of person she was and the type of lifestyle she led. After Jess was born, she told me that she wasn't doing it anymore. She kept all these secrets from her friends and family.

She said she had been making $400,000 a year doing it, and she didn't need to do it anymore. She had a couple things on her computer. I said, okay, well, that certainly puts a different twist on this investigation. Where is my girl? She may be a 34-year-old woman, a mother of three children, but to me, she's just my little girl. I'm Erin Moriarty. Tonight on 48 Hours,

the secret life of Paige Bergfeld. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing the best idea yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bolder risk-takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye?

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there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. 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.

Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. We first brought you the story of Paige Bergfeld in 2008. Shortly after the young Colorado mother of three disappeared, police discovered that she was leading a secret life, a life that may have led to her disappearance. We've tracked her story ever since. And tonight, at long last,

the mystery of what happened to Paige Bergfeld may finally be solved. And Paige was always the one that was family first. And she was always the one that was keeping us together. How many would like a cookout out by the pool? No one loved a family gathering more than the one person missing from this one, 34-year-old Paige Bergfeld. I mean, she would literally beam. She would radiate. Those were the absolute cherished times that she enjoys most. So when their daughter Paige vanished, Frank and Susie Bergfeld feared the worst.

This is a crime. There's a crime here. Instantly I knew this was a problem. She didn't want to even go out to dinner without her children. For them, we need to find her and we need to bring her home. Josh, she's in our room! Paige's older brother, Dr. Craig Bergfeld, is a long way from his home in Seattle.

By day, he specializes in the facial reconstruction of children, and by night, he's dad to his own young family. Is that the T-Rex board? Yes. And a devoted husband to his wife, Callie. But now, living in his sister's home, Dr. Bergfeld has a new full-time job, Uncle Craig, to Paige's three young children. Callie and I decided at that time that our role was to be there for the kids and try to, you know, take care of them, be family there for them, just help them.

And I just remembered, you know, a little girl just going, so do you know what happened to my mom? Do you know where she is? And I was like, what do I say? So I said, wherever she is, she wants to be with you right now. Paige had a circle of close friends. Her kids love her. They glow when she's around. And Paige was the type of parent that always was around, according to her friends.

As a single mother, she had to be. Her ex-husband, Rob Dixon, was living in Philadelphia. After their divorce in 2006, Paige was the primary caregiver for their three children. It wasn't an easy job. Paige is the most patient and loving mother I've ever seen. But it was the only job Paige had ever wanted. I think as long as I can remember what she wanted to be was a mom and she just couldn't wait to be that mom. So when Paige Bergfeld disappeared, Sheriff Stan Hilke was pretty convinced this mother of three would not leave on her own.

There's nothing in our investigation at all that leads us to believe that she has abandoned her life or abandoned her children and gone off in that regard. My daughter, if she had two broken legs, she'd crawl on her elbows to get to her children. Authorities started by looking at those closest to Paige. It's kind of police investigations 101 that you usually will look at the emotionally involved people, ex-husbands or current husbands, etc. And they quickly learned that Paige Bergfeld had not one, but two ex-husbands. Her first husband was her high school sweetheart, Ron Beigler. He was the first big heartthrob, the first big to love.

In fact, for the past few months, the two had been dating again. She was very excited about rekindling her relationship with Ron. Ten years after divorcing her first husband, Paige said she was in love with him again, and ex-husband number one became the focus of the investigation in June 2007. When it's learned, he was with Paige the day she disappeared. We believe that, yes, that she was with her first ex-husband that day of the 28th. Paige and Beigler had their last date at this rest stop, a halfway point between her home in Grand Junction and his home more than four hours away. I understand that Paige and Ron Beigler had planned to meet, had a picnic

spent part of the afternoon together. When she was driving home later that night around 9 p.m., Paige called Beigler from her cell phone. They spoke briefly, and Paige told him she'd call him later. It has helped us identify persons of interest. Cell phone records show that Paige was just a few miles from her home when she made that call to Beigler, and that phone call was one of her last. Paige never did call Begler back that night, so the next day he tried calling her. And her phone rolled over to the voice message right away,

so to indicate the phone was turned off or the battery was down. indicate the phone was turned off or the battery was down. On Saturday morning, two days after seeing Paige, Beigler finally tried calling her at home. Paige's live-in nanny was taking care of her three children. He actually called the house and got her granddaughter, and she was the one that told him that Paige hadn't been home since Thursday night. At that point, the alarms start going off. And he touched base with us, touched base with the sheriff's office, and things started getting in gear then. And ironically, after Bigler called authorities to report Page missing, he became one of the first they wanted to question. And I'm sure he was open and willing to have them look at him.

Although Beigler was one of the last to see and speak with Paige, those who know him believe he's also one of the last who'd want to harm her. We met with him recently, and I think he is very devoted to Paige and very emotional that she's not here. I've spoken to him on the phone since she went missing, and it's obvious he's pretty distraught and upset that she's not around. I know he's broken up by this whole thing. Paige's friends were far more suspicious about her second ex-husband, Rob Dixon, the father of her three children.

A lot of her friends would say, where was Rob? I'm afraid Rob was involved. Paige had an explosive, troubled history with Dixon. 911, where's your emergency? He said that I would come home and find him all murdered. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island.

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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. They might not have known exactly where to begin. It's going to be a good morning. But Paige's family knew they'd have to start somewhere if they were ever going to find her. You want to get out and start looking and try and figure out where she is. So Craig and Callie Bergfeld set off in one direction. Thank you. Hopefully we'll find her today. And Frank Bergfeld headed off in another. My daughter's the one who's missing. So when you're out there, keep your eyes

open. While the Bergfeld family searched for Paige, the sheriff's department continued its own investigation. Deputies brought in specialty divers to search the river. And they got one of their first big leads in the case when someone called 911 after seeing a car in flames parked in an empty lot. It turned out to be Paige's car, the car she was driving when she disappeared the next morning authorities discovered that the fire was started from inside the car on the passenger side d.a pete howitzinger it at least suggests to me that that person is fairly savvy and intelligent enough to think that there's a real possibility law enforcement could find evidence in that car that would implicate him or her. It looks like whoever is involved here is not afraid of committing a crime.

And the realization of what that might mean for his daughter was too much to bear. You know, it occurred to me I hadn't cried in a long time. I've learned how to do that. That's it. While Paige's family clung to hope that she was still alive... The reality is creeping in that something bad has certainly happened here. Investigators turned their attention to Paige's second ex-husband, Rob Dixon. The most recent ex-husband is a logical person to take a close look at.

Paige met Dixon in 1997, and back then, he seemed like a real catch. Rob had had a business success with his father, had a significant amount of wealth. It was a whirlwind courtship, and the following year the two had a wedding and started a family together. And they moved to Grand Junction together, you know, moved into that house together,

built onto that house together. But Dixon had extravagant taste, and he was reckless with his money, investing millions of dollars in risky business ventures. When the bills started piling up, Paige did what she could to pitch in. She started a little preschool dance business she called Brain Dance. school dance business she called brain dance she would have recitals twice a year and make costumes for all those students page also sold high-end kitchen supplies out of her home for a company called the pampered chef and as one of the top sales agents she earned a free trip to the Caribbean.

But Dixon was losing money a lot faster than Page was making it. In a few short years, his business investments fell through and he'd lost almost everything. And I think as financial strain came on the relationship, it got worse and worse.

By 2004, the problems in the marriage took a turn for the worse. We think of Rob as good Rob and bad Rob. There are times where Rob is just really a good, good, funny guy, bright. But at other times, Rob is a difficult person to be around. He can be violently angry, condescending, derisive. You walk on eggshells, a feeling of tension. She stuck by him through a lot, but when he started getting more angry and then finally violent, she had to draw the line there. Finally, in October, Paige had to call the police for help

nine one one where's your emergency my husband and I were in a fight he wanted the children to stay with him and he said that I would come home and find about murdered Janine am age Dixon by the time police and local media arrived, the crisis was diffused. Dixon was allowed to leave after authorities decided he wasn't a threat to himself or anyone else. No charges were filed. But one year later, the police were called again. Paige said Dixon had pushed her to the ground. Then later, he punched her while she was holding their baby.

This time, in October 2005, Dixon was arrested. But the case was later settled after he completed a course in anger management. When everything went rocky and she finally decided enough was enough, when the kids and her were put in jeopardy she finally decided enough was enough, when the kids and her were put in jeopardy, she decided it was over. By the time the couple divorced in September 2006, Rob Dixon had declared bankruptcy and he was living in Philadelphia. When Paige disappeared, that's exactly where Dixon said he was, in Philadelphia, 2,000 miles away. But when Paige's family found disturbing entries about Dixon written on a website message board by Paige herself, they were hard to ignore.

I've read the things that have been written on her website, on the Pampered Chef website, and, you know, they're pretty scary. Just three months before she disappeared, Page wrote, my children would ask me if dad was going to kill me. I can't imagine what they were thinking life would be like after he killed me. Investigators questioned Dixon about his whereabouts the day his ex-wife vanished, but they didn't release details to the public. We can say that we have had contact with Rob Dixon and that's all that we'll say about him. But Paige's family got word that his alibi held up. I understand that

a person's biography might make them a suspect at the same time if you're 2,000 miles away I think it takes you off the roster. miles away, I think it takes you off the roster. Both of Paige's ex-husbands seemed to have had solid alibis. So who in Paige's life had any motive to harm her? And that led investigators to an even bigger mystery. This one about Paige herself. Please read your message and I'll get back to you within the next few days.

Who knows why people make those sort of choices. Certainly not for us to judge. Mesa County is a big county. It's 3,300 square miles of a lot of open space, a lot of canyons. Two weeks had passed since Paige had vanished. You realize, unless you know where to look, you could spend the rest of your life looking around out there. It's just so remote. This is big country out here. It is vast. And the question remained, where to look when the vista stretches out as far as the eye can see?

There are hundreds of thousands of miles around us which could be used to hide a body. But the investigation was about to get a lucky break. Her name, Connie Fluky. We'll never quit. I will never ever give up. Connie's can-do spirit inspired the dozens of other volunteers here to help find Paige Bergfeld. I got here about 6.15 to start getting things set up, and people started showing up at 6.30. We had people almost, I mean, jumping all over me, waiting for me to get teams out. Connie's strategy? Divide and conquer. Each day, she broke hundreds of miles

into manageable search areas that could be covered on foot. These two areas right here are the most, I mean, rugged, rugged, rugged, rugged. It's really amazing what they did. This is our search area? Uh-huh. She just gave hope. We were starting to become

so dejected. And she just walked in and took charge. Everybody, I'm getting ready to send a team out, okay? Craig and Callie got ready to search in the punishing desert heat. I'm Craig. Paige is my sister. I wanted to thank you guys for coming to look for her. He briefed the volunteers on what to do if they found anything that could be linked to his sister. If you find any evidence, the number one thing is don't touch it. If you want to tag it, grab something heavy like a rock nearby, tie it around the rock,

set the rock either right next to or right on top of the evidence. Well, good luck, everyone. Stay hydrated. to are right on top of the evidence. Well, good luck everyone. Stay hydrated. Today's gonna be the day. I know today's gonna be the day. Today's the day we're gonna find her. We'll go up this road, loop back down that one.

As the volunteers pressed on, the Bergfelds had to navigate through a darker, more difficult terrain. The mysterious double life that Paige had apparently been leading. She had a couple things on her computer. We were saying, wait a minute, what's this computer doing here? Yeah, why don't the police have this computer?

So they called police because they were convinced that her computer held clues that could have put her in danger. It doesn't change what I think of her. I would give anything to see her again right now and give her a big hug. As Craig's concern grew, the search paid off with a discovery that could lead them closer to Paige. They did find some pretty critical pieces of information for us down on Highway 50. Various personal items, such as Paige's checkbook

and a membership card to a local video store, were found scattered along this highway, 15 miles from where her burned-out car was discovered. Obviously, our focus is still on Paige, not just her things, but her things do hopefully lead us to her. For all its beauty, there is clearly a darker side of the mesa.

It's beautiful, but scary for me now. Every search I pray that we find my sister. We're halfway through this canyon. We haven't found her yet. Still hoping we do, but part of me is still praying that we don't. I haven't found her not alive. As long as that condition exists, I presume she is. I choose to hold out hope.

We're coming, Paige. We're coming. We are coming to get you. First you find out Paige is missing. Then within a couple of days, we started finding out about this other life that we didn't know about. It was a life kept secret from her family. Well, at first blush, she looked to us to be a really good mom, very active with her kids. District Attorney Pete Houtsinger.

Then some things came out that really pretty much changed everything. Pete Houtsinger. Then some things came out that really pretty much changed everything. And that's when Grand Junction began asking not just where Paige Bergfeld was, but also who she was. Who she really was. She had a side industry, and it wasn't just any side business. It turns out Paige wasn't just teaching dance classes and selling kitchen products. In provocative ads on the internet, Paige was also known as Carrie, a high-priced escort. I, for one, was shocked.

I've been a prosecutor for 20 years. This is the first time I've encountered somebody from that kind of socioeconomic level and that kind of family involvement to be involved in this business. Sessions with Kerry could include stripping, dancing, and role-playing. On one website, she suggests that clients can pay for extras, such as topless and nude massage. Those were things that we didn't know anything about before she went missing, but have unfortunately learned about since. I think for Frank and Susie, that the thought of their daughter even doing that,

it didn't even cross their minds because it's their daughter. You don't think your daughter's going to do that. So I think for them, it was a really, really big shock. As upsetting as it was for Paige's family to learn about her secret life, they were convinced she turned to the escort world for one reason, and one reason only, her children. She found herself in a position of being the breadwinner and trying to make ends meet.

Paige was overwhelmed with debt. She had three children, and her ex-husband was bankrupt, paying only $500 a month in child support. Plus, Paige's mortgage was huge, almost $6,000 a month. It never really made sense to me that she would be able to come up with a mortgage for that place for more than a couple of months. Her friends say Paige did what she had to do and turned to the one job she knew would pay well. She always saw a situation and got it under control. If something needed to be done, she made sure it happened. I would say that whatever she was doing was for her children. And it has no bearing on the kind of mother friend that she is.

And her sister-in-law, Callie, now thinks she knows where Paige got the idea to become an escort in the first place. Many years earlier, Callie had asked Paige how she was able to afford her first home on a dance teacher's salary. I flat out asked her if she was doing something other than teaching dance. And she had told me that she had been stripping. Before becoming a mother, Paige had worked as a stripper

at a place called the Mile High Saloon. In Denver, when she was 21 years old, she said she had been making $400,000 a year doing it and that, you know, she didn't need to do it anymore. But apparently, she later did. And so then we're like, okay, you can kind of see where Paige made the next step to escort. I wish I had been given the opportunity to be involved and perhaps been able to sort it out.

I would have counseled her that that strikes me as dangerous. It doesn't sound totally moral. Paige's family knew this new information could help investigators figure out who was responsible for Paige's disappearance. It opens up a whole nother list of people, a whole nother group of people. But will it also bring them closer to learning

what happened to Paige? News that is difficult to hear. She was probably murdered by one of her clients. Police never found a diary or a black book with names. But she did have that cell phone and that helped investigators track down everyone who had had contact with Paige. We have looked very carefully at all of her clients and have made every effort to investigate everybody who may have been on that list of people she was going to be contacting later that night. That included George Coraluzzo, a 30-year-old house painter who called Paige 20 times on the day she disappeared. He also left town hurriedly two days after her disappearance.

And there was also this man, a 56-year-old father of two, named Lester Ralph Jones. Actually, I was out searching, and that's the first time I ever heard of him. At that time, the rumor was that he had known Paige through the escort service. Mr. Jones was a client of Ms. Birkfeld's. My understanding is there had been at least more than one encounter. client of Ms. Birkfeld's. My understanding is there had been at least more than one encounter. Authorities got warrants to conduct searches of his home, where he lived with his third wife. They spent hours searching through his belongings, but wouldn't talk about what they found,

not even with Paige's family. I can't comment specifically as to what was or was not found in Mr. Jones' home. And remember her burned-out car discovered a few miles from her home? Search dogs led investigators from that parking lot to an RV shop across the street. It turns out that's where Ralph Jones worked as a mechanic. The fact that her car was burning so close to his place of employment It turns out that's where Ralph Jones worked as a mechanic. The fact that her car was burning so close to his place of employment is at least one significant fact. Common sense certainly would indicate that it's something more than a coincidence. There is something else that links Ralph Jones to the disappearance of Paige Bergfeld. One of the last conversations she had that night was with someone using a throwaway phone like this.

According to investigators, there's surveillance video from a local Walmart showing a man they say is Jones buying such a phone. Jones declined our request for an interview and denied having anything to do with Paige's disappearance. But Ralph Jones does have a criminal record, a record that shows he was more than capable of violence. And then we're also able to find out some newspaper articles about that whole previous case. It's pretty scary stuff. Jones was arrested for two incidents involving his estranged wife, Lisa, back in 1999. In one of them, he threatened to take her someplace remote and kill her.

Jones served three years in prison after pleading guilty to kidnapping and assault charges, both felonies. Those are, by definition, kind of violent offenses. None of that bodes well if Paige had any kind of involvement with him at all. It's not the kind of person you want to be out alone with your sister. And so, more than three months after Paige Bergfeld disappeared, authorities publicly cleared her two ex-husbands. Although George Coraluzzo remained a person of

interest, they named the main target of their investigation. We have narrowed it down to one primary suspect, that being Lester Ralph Jones. Lester Jones has been our primary suspect from the very beginning of the case. Chief Deputy District Attorney Dan Rubenstein was now heading up the Paige Bergfeld murder investigation. He was convinced that Lester Ralph Jones, a convicted felon and a client of Paige's escort service, was the man who killed her. But without Paige's body, he didn't feel he could prove it.

Paige went missing in June of 2007. We always knew that the case wasn't something we were ever going to be able to prosecute until we found her. Let's go. Come on, let's go find Paige. Frank Bertfeld never stopped searching for his daughter. There's so many acres. His determination to find her fueled by his concern that the investigation was stalled. Many of these cases are never

solved. You know how many times do we see one of these in the paper and you never hear anything more about it? There's no doubt that the family was frustrated and I do not blame them at all. But then, five years after Paige went missing, a break. A hiker came across partial human remains in a gully, right where a team of volunteers had been searching. There were people that were in that area time after time over that five-year period from 2007 to 2012,

so her body must have been buried at least deep enough to have hidden it from people going by. Investigators had little trouble identifying the remains. Paige's remains were found in 2000. It was Paige. We had her jaw and her skull were found intact with the teeth, and we were able to get her dental records and verify that the dental records matched up with the teeth. Although investigators couldn't determine how she died, Page's bones gave clues.

Among other injuries, her cheekbone was badly fractured, a sign she may have been beaten. That fracture occurred at or near the time of her death. Other findings helped the investigators piece together the circumstances of the last hours of her life. There was also some duct tape that appeared to be right around the area of where the skull was found. Suggesting she may have been tied and gagged. And there was more. Knowing where she had been found now helped explain the objects that had been discovered when she was initially reported missing. Checks, business cards, driver's license, other documents that had pages or her kids' names on them that were strewn about the highway about five miles before the area where her remains were found.

That, I think, is indicative of somebody who is kidnapped throwing those items out. Investigators believe that Paige, desperately reaching out for help, was leaving a trail to wherever she was being taken. For Bergfeld's family, all these discoveries were hard to bear. My feelings were a heavy dose of sadness. Even when we were searching, you wanted to find her, but you didn't want to find her. Adding to their pain, they would have to wait for a proper burial for their daughter. When she was found, I went ahead and made arrangements with the local funeral home to go ahead and retrieve her,

and we would then decide what to do with the remains. We were told that they weren't going to give her to us. In fact, I assume that she is in a cardboard box in the coroner's office. They were told that they must keep her for the purpose of evidence, and that's just flat-out baloney. If it was any consolation, with Paige's remains discovered, the case could finally move forward. Once you find the body, you've taken away one of the

important, reasonable doubts that are going to be in a criminal trial the evidence is still circumstantial but rubenstein believes he now has enough to make his case against lester ralph jones he's confirmed that the only other potential suspect george coraluzzo had a solid alibi for the time page disappeared and was in new Jersey the night her car was set on fire. The car was in the parking lot across from where Jones worked. The seat pushed back to accommodate someone much taller than Paige. And there is the track phone. It actually only made five phone calls in its entire history,

and all five of those phone calls were either to Paige's work phone. The last phone call was from her phone. Despite Jones' denials that he owned such a phone, Rubenstein says he can prove that Jones lied. We have video evidence of Mr. Jones buying that track phone. We have the computer records showing the exact date, time, store, and register that that track phone was purchased at, and we pulled the video, and it was Mr. Jones purchasing it. And then there is this. Mr. Jones?

Yes sir. This is Art Smith with the sheriff's office. Just calling to let you know that we have both your cars ready for you and your wife. A bizarre phone call between Jones and a local sheriff who had seized two cars belonging to Jones so that they could be thoroughly searched. Sergeant Smith contacted Mr. Jones just simply to let him know that the vehicles were ready to be released and to figure out how they wanted to go about doing that. It was a simple routine phone call, and he didn't get the response he was expecting.

Mr. Jones, I'm not following you. You asked me for an Ivor Durant body. I'm sorry? was expecting. Lester Jones, are you there? That was, to me, a very, very interesting thing for him to say. And certainly would be the sort of thing that would go towards being satisfied that Lester Ralph Jones killed my daughter. The call, along with all the other evidence, did the trick. In November 2014, just before Thanksgiving, more than seven years since Paige Bergfeld disappeared, Lester Ralph Jones was arrested and charged with her murder and kidnapping. He appeared notably unsurprised. Lester did not react at all. When he was told that there was an arrest warrant for him, he didn't ask what it was for.

He just turned around and put his hands behind his back. Jones is now behind bars. His bail is set at $2 million. But for the prosecutor and Page's family, the case is far from over. We certainly believe we had enough to bring it to a jury. But remember, at this stage in the process, these are just allegations. And they must be proven in court. Did Jones kill Page Birkfeld? If so, how did he do it? It's certainly our intention to have a front row seat. And like his commitment to search for his daughter,

Frank Bergfeld is committed to attend the trial every single day. I'd like to say goodbye to her. I think I owe it to her. With all that the family has endured, the years of uncertainty, the discovery of their daughter's secret life, and the painful proof of her death, they prefer to remember Paige as she was, and for them, will always be.

Motherhood was central to her life. The kids meant everything. As far as a legacy, remember Paige's smile. I guess I would call it radiant. In her obituary, it was said that she was so radiant, it made the son jealous. And I would think that would be, at least for me, what sticks with me the most. Page's three children are living with their father on the East Coast. Lester Ralph Jones' trial is expected to begin in early 2016.